Page:Through a Glass Lightly (1897, Greg).djvu/124

 the scale of creation of a chief baker, a superintendent of concocted flours, a viceroy of crust and crumb. Bread, corn stuffs, farinaceous medleys, are but incidents of life; the pulse of it beats in ruby depths, or bubbles in amber fountains. How, then, shall a baker, be he chief or dependent, suffer other exaltation than a halter’s?

Yet must it be conceded that opportunity, the Parent of Crime, is more exclusively the Butlers prerogative than that of any other living man. By what process it is hard to say; but he has acquired a subterranean Headship, a cellared monarchy, from which it will need a bloody revolution to depose him. He is the despot of the servants’ hall, and the Plain Cook alone among women is held worthy to mate with him. His civil list