“Marie laughed.
“‘Wait till I tell mama,’ she said. ‘It’s lucky you told me. It’s saved us. I guess grandfather was right about that.’
“‘And he’s right about Harry, too,’ I said. ‘But don’t despair; I’m trying to put a new mainspring in the boy. If I succeed, your 89 grandfather may have to change his mind.’
“She went away comforted, but not happy.
“Well, I went on with the crest campaign. Bertha, Pietro, and the others got their crests and saw their names in the paper.
“The supply of crests was soon perfectly adequate, and among our best people the demand for them began to diminish, and suddenly ceased. The beast rampant and couchant, the helmet and the battle-ax, associated only with mixed tenses and misplaced capitals according to their ancient habit. This chambermaid grammar was referred to by my friend, Dr. Guph, as the ‘battle-ax brand’––a designation of some merit. Expensive stationery fell into the fireplaces of Pointview, and armorial plates were found in the garbage. The family trees of the village were deserted. Not a bird twittered in their branches. The subject of genealogy was buried in deep silence, 90 save when the irreverent referred to some late addition to our new aristocracy.
“Now I want to make it clear that we have no disrespect for the customs of any foreign land. If I were living in a foreign land and needed evidence of my respectability, I’d have a crest, if it was likely to prove my case. But America was founded by the sons of the yeomen, and the yeomen established their respectability with other evidence. Their brains were so often touched by the battle-ax that some of us have an hereditary shyness about the head, and we dodge at every baronial relic.”