"Gentlemen, when I was present at your dinner last year——"
"Last year!" cries a Cloverite; "how did you get invited again this year, pray?"
"Oh, you know you can't do without me. You must have a few respectable people at your table. I mix with the aristocracy, gentlemen; but, as you see, I am not at all proud: I come and sit at meat with you. It is not that I have the least esteem for you, but I will not have folks say that, because I move in the society of dukes, marquises, earls——"
"Shut up! what do we care for your dukes?"
"Bah! of course there is no blue blood in you; you can't appreciate the honour I am doing you."
The ironical laughter is deafening, but the speaker will not be baffled of his say.
"Before I came here, I made up my mind——"
"Your what?"
"My mind."
"Ha, ha!"