“Is it true that it takes nine tailors to make a man?” I said.
“It depends,” he answered. “I expect it would take nine men like you to make a tailor.”
Now, even to a tyro in repartee, it was of course apparent that I had got the worst of this. There ought to have been something further to add on my side; but my admiration at such a brilliant flash of badinage was such that I could only laugh with the greatest heartiness. I was, however, merely laughing at the humour, not at the beast of a tailor; and when I had recovered from my amusement, I told him so.
I said: “That’s jolly good; but, at the same time, you oughtn’t to talk to new customers in this withering way. You don’t know who I am. I may be the son of a duke, and worth very likely ten or fifteen pounds a year to you for the rest of your life.”
It then transpired that he had seen me in the office, when he went to pay his own fire insurance a few days before.
“You have a yarn with Mr. Bright and Mr. Walter,” he said. “They’ll tell you a thing or two well worth your knowing.”
I fell in with this suggestion and submitted the case to Mr. Bright, who spoke in the following manner:
“To put on side, because you think you are more important than that tailor, is absolute footle, my dear Corkey,” he declared. “That tailor, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, is worth forty thousand of you. He’s richer; he’s wiser; he’s smarter; he’s worked harder; he knows more; he’s traveled farther; he’s better-looking; in fact, he can give you yards and a beating in every possible direction; so why the deuce do you think yourself, in some mysterious way, the better man? Where do you reckon you’re better?”
“Well,” I said, “my father was a soldier and died for his country.”
“That’s all right,” said Mr. Bright. “Your father was a hero, no doubt, and any properly minded person would have treated him as such. But you’re not. You haven’t died for your country, by the look of you, and haven’t the smallest intention of doing so. My grandfather was a bishop; but I don’t expect people to ask for my blessing on the strength of it. There’s only one exception to the rule that one man’s as good as another, my dear Corkey—only one exception.”