Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/27

 the club—I never knew a man of leisure in my life until I came to Washington. I daresay you think me a fool." Crane paused, with a feeling rare to him that he could not express half what was in him, but Thorndyke's knowledge supplied the rest.

"No, I don't. It is quite as you say, but you are taking it all too seriously."

"Circleville," murmured Crane.

"Well, three-fourths of these people you so admire came from Circlevilles. Forty years ago, how many of them, do you think, had a servant to answer the door-bell? Just consider, my dear young friend, that, except at the South, servants were unknown to a large proportion of the American people until a short time ago. The parents of these people you see here, with eighteen-horse-power automobiles, and with crests upon their writing-paper, their carriages, their footmen's buttons, thought themselves in clover when they could afford a maid-of-all-work. So far, they are merely at the imitative stage. Their grandparents were pioneers and lived mostly in log cabins, and although the three generations are divided by only fifty years, it is as if æons of time existed between them! By Jove! It