Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/74

 second cousin to Lord Shannon, or married to a distant relative of Mr. Ponsonby's. We live in a democratic age, and the old iniquities are swept away. The bluest blood is no use to a man now. To have an earl for a relative is nothing. The thing to be is the son of a provincial publican, or, if that is impossible, to marry his daughter or his niece.

One evening, a week before the auction of the Widow Flanagan's farm, Mr. Patrick Sweeny sat in the room behind his shop. It was not an attractive room. The carpet bore evidence of Mr. Sweeny's habit of spitting. The table, which looked at a distance something like mahogany, had no cloth, and was marked in circles by the wet bottoms of tumblers. The wall-paper hung down here and there in strips, and bulged elsewhere in huge bubbles on account of the dampness of the walls. A tarnished cruet-stand, a britannia-metal teapot, and several wine decanters, with labels hung round their necks, adorned the sideboard.

It is the function of an upper class to maintain a standard of beautiful living. Mr. Sweeny, a leading member of our new aristocracy, did his best according to his lights. He sat over his ledger with his coat off, the better to tackle the task of adding figures together. His grey shirt-sleeves were exceedingly dirty. His waistcoat, a garment of many stains and few buttons, lay open to give freedom to the heavings of a huge paunch. Four different