"We have one, sir. And as to acting, have you seen our Clara Morris? I tell you, sir, there is nothing in creation like it! Why, when she weeps on the stage, it is enough to make an iron dog come down from a door-step and lick her hand! Don't talk to me of your Bernhardts and your Ristor-eyes—not but what we'll have them, too, just to show how superior the reel American article is!"
"And pictures? Are you going in for pictures?"
"I believe you, sir! Why, the pictures at the Paris Exhibition'll be like a pack of playing-cards compared with ours. I calculate we'll have the biggest picture on show that has ever been seen. It's forty-two feet long. I've concluded to bid half-price for it when our show is over, and to present it to the city."
Here Lady Clydesdale, who was on the other side of Sir Mordaunt, struck in her oar, and a powerful one it was. She was what Mr. Ruggs styled "a fine female, but fleshy," and her arrogant assumption of humility was irritating to others besides the young baronet; perhaps to none more than to Americans.
"I am sorry to hear you say," she observed, quickly, and in a voice like a trumpet, "that you are going to imitate the follies of Europe, in attaching any importance or giving any prominence to princes. It is degrading to distinguish one individual above another, except for personal merit."
"Yours and mine are beyond question, Lady Clydesdale," laughed Ballinger, parenthetically. It was impertinent; but he was nettled. She turned and rent him.
"My principles and practice are too well known at home for me to argue with you, Sir Mordaunt. I would resign my coronet to-morrow. I would abolish all class distinctions. I would herd with the humblest, I would dine with my servants, and give them all the luxuries I enjoy myself—the piano, horses, carriages—they should live as I do, did the prejudice of society permit it. I expected to find it more enlightened in America than in England. I thought there was one country, at least, where all men were equal! I am disappointed."
What Mr. Ruggs's rejoinder was, for he did rejoin, and how the battle was fought, Miss Ballinger never heard; for Gunning, who had been listening to her ladyship's onslaught in amazement, here said in an undertone:
"Is she mad? Fancied we were all equal! Why, we are just as exclusive as ever we can be in New York. The Four Hundred shut their doors against every one who hasn't money, I can tell you."
"Ah! Brains count for nothing, I suppose?"