Page:Chesterton - The Wisdom of Father Brown.djvu/195

THE PURPLE WIG one sense) he wears another man's wig and claims another man's ear, he has not stolen another man's coronet. He really is the one and only Duke of Exmoor. What happened was this. The old Duke really had a slight malformation of the ear, which really was more or less hereditary. He really was morbid about it; and it is likely enough that he did invoke it as a kind of curse in the violent scene (which undoubtedly happened) in which he struck Green with the decanter. But the contest ended very differently. Green pressed his claim and got the estates; the dispossessed nobleman shot himself and died without issue. After a decent interval the beautiful English Government revived the 'extinct' peerage of Exmoor, and bestowed it, as is usual, on the most important person, the person who had got the property.

"This man used the old feudal fables—probably, in his snobbish soul, really envied and admired them. So that thousands of poor English people tremble before a mysterious chieftain with an ancient destiny and a diadem of evil stars—when they are really trembling before a gutter-snipe who was a pettifogger and a pawnbroker not twelve years ago. I think it very typical of the real case against our aristocracy as it is, and as it will be till God sends us braver men."

Mr. Nutt put down the manuscript and called 181