"What horrible creatures tradesmen must be," said Lady Loveland, whose opinions had come down to her crusted and spider-webbed from the cellars of the Stone Age. "To think that we'd have had power of life and death over them if we'd lived a few hundred years ago. I wish those times could come back."
"The world at large doesn't agree with you."
"It oughtn't to be at large," replied Lady Loveland, without the smallest idea of a joke. "It's reached a pretty pass when Worms who make boots and uniforms and——"
"And sell wine——"
"Oh, if you like——"
"And jewellery——"
"Very well. Admit the jewellery——"
"And motors. I've wasted a good deal of substance in riotous motor-cars, Mater."
"Oh, I suppose men of your position have some right to enjoy their lives? As I was saying, it's come to a pretty pass when Worms who make or sell what every gentleman must have—things that ought simply to come, like the air you breathe—can turn and rend an officer of the Guards, a peer of the realm, without fear of being crushed."
"If I'd chosen to be a kind of secret advertising agent for tradespeople, I might have been dressed and wined for nothing, motor-carred too, perhaps," said Loveland. "I know some fellows who do go in for that sort of thing. But I'm hanged if I could. I'd rather blow out my brains decently."