_With the Marquess, who resembles an irritable baboon, I have little to do. The marchioness--a strong woman is also, mercifully, too much engaged upon works of supererogation, which, in a rich bass, she styles "her manifold duties," to observe my existence. Lord Pomfret Fresne, however, a gilded youth with three thousand a year, finds me extremely useful. I bet for him, I make appointments for him to have his hair trimmed, I retain stalls for him, and occasionally I admit him to the house at an unlawful hour. In fact, he is a confounded nuisance. He is impertinent, grossly ignorant, and a niggard. Moreover, Toby, he hath an eye whose like I have seen before--once. Then it was set in the head of a remount which, after it had broken a shoeing-smith's leg, was cast for vice at Kantara in 1917._ _"Lyveden," says he one day, "you're a gentleman, aren't you?"_ _It seemed easiest to say "Yes."_ _"Why?" says his lordship._ _"It's a family failing," said I._ _"How beastly! You mean, like drink?"_ _"Exactly, my lord. We never mention it."_ _"No, don't," says he. "My mother's very hot on that sort of thing. Hullo!" He peers into a gold cigarette-case. "I had four pounds in here. I'll swear I had."_ _Considering that I had found the case in the library, and had restored it to him five minutes before, his ejaculation was not in the best of taste. His lordship, however, must whet his point upon the grindstone of insult._ _"You're not hard up, are you?" says he._ _"I can pay my way, my lord."_ _"Well, I know there was four pounds there, because---- No. Wait a minute. It's all right. I remember I put it in my coat. Which reminds me--I want a couple of stalls at Daly's. You might ring up and get them. How much is the pit?"_ _"I'm not quite sure, my lord. It used to be half-a-crown."_ _"Half-a-crown!" cries he. "I thought it was a shilling."_ _"That's the gallery, my lord."_ _"Oh, yes. Well, I can't afford the pit, Lyveden, but you can go to the gallery if you like," and he produces a shilling._ _I shake my head._ _"I'm much obliged to your lordship, but I seldom go out."_ _"Right-o," he says, with ill-concealed relief. "Don't forget those stalls."_ _It is pathetic, Toby, but it is true. And when I was at Harrow, his eldest brother, who is one of the best, was my fag._ _When I say that, compared with the butler, Respectability itself seems raffish, you will understand. He is a monument, massive, meaningless, and about as useful as a fan in a cyclone. Yet the household revolves about him. He came in, I fancy, with the spittoon...._ _And now I will show you that the cassock of the confessor has indeed fallen upon you._