details about his personal habits which I am afraid would cause the ladies to walk out of the room. And I should wind up by saying, amid the derisive laughter of the audience, that one reason, at all events, why the real peasants go _into_ the towns is to escape from slavery to these pinchbeck fellows who come _out_ of the towns. I should want to quote--but I am afraid my courage would have already broken down--what Jeremy once said to me:--"The Dook--when did you ever hear of any man going into the town as worked on _his_ estate? But as for this 'ere Prendergast, I wonder the very pigs stop in his stye." Undoubtedly it was due to Jeremy's influence that I came to appreciate this side of the matter. He also taught me to regard the tenant farmer as superior to all other varieties of his class. I know it is wrong-headed, generalising from a particular case and all that--but I would rather be wrong-headed with Jeremy, who took a back-view of everything, than right-headed with some forward spirits who treat the land as a _corpus vile_ for political experiments. And what logical mind could resist arguments like the following, back-views though they be? "It takes _two_, sir," said Jeremy, "for to handle the land. A nobleman to own it, and a farmer to cultivate it. There's nothing that gives you _confidence_ like having a real gentleman behind you--and the Dook's a real gentleman if ever there was one. And you want confidence in farming--and that's what these 'ere Radicals don't see. I don't want none o' _their_ safeguards! Give me the Dook--he's safeguard enough for me! And what safeguard have you when fellers like Prendergast begin buying up the land? Look at _his_ tenants--not a real farmer among 'em, no, and not one as can make both ends meet. These little landlords are the men they ought to shoot at, not the big 'uns. Now isn't it a wonderful thing that my family and the Dook's has kept step with one another for a matter of two hundred years? Eight Dooks in that time and eight Jeremys--one Jeremy to each Dook! But who'll ever keep step with Prendergast? Who'll ever _want_ to? Why, I wouldn't be seen walking down the street with him, no, not if you was to give me a thousand pounds. And if he was to offer me his best farm rent-free to-morrow, I'd tell him to go and boil hisself.