"I dare say not."
"Many people think that if he would only allow himself to be put in nomination, he might be the next president."
"The choice, I am sure, would do your country honour."
"And yet his father was a poor labourer who earned his bread among the shipping at New York. That kind of thing would be impossible here."
"My dear young lady, there you wrong us."
"Do I?"
"Certainly! A Prime Minister with us might as easily come from the same class."
"Here you think so much of rank. You are—a Duke."
"But a Prime Minister can make a Duke; and if a man can raise himself by his own intellect to that position, no one will think of his father or his grandfather. The sons of merchants have with us been Prime Ministers more than once, and no Englishmen ever were more honoured among their countrymen. Our peerage is being continually recruited from the ranks of the people, and hence it gets its strength."
"Is it so?"