“No; it is a very great thing, to an Englishman born, and who need give up no higher birthright to avail himself of it,” answered Redclyffe. “You will laugh at me, my friend; but I cannot help feeling that I, a simple citizen of a republic, yet with none above me except those whom I help to place there,--and who are my servants, not my superiors,--must stoop to take these honors. I leave a set of institutions which are the noblest that the wit and civilization of man have yet conceived, to enlist myself in one that is based on a far lower conception of man, and which therefore lowers every one who shares in it. Besides,” said the young man, his eyes kindling with the ambition which had been so active a principle in his life, “what prospects--what rewards for spirited exertion--what a career, only open to an American, would I give up, to become merely a rich and idle Englishman, belonging (as I should) nowhere, without a possibility of struggle, such as a strong man loves, with only a mockery of a title, which in these days really means nothing,--hardly more than one of our own Honorables. What has any success in English life to offer (even were it within my reach, which, as a stranger, it would not be) to balance the proud career of an American statesman?” “True, you might be a President, I suppose,” said the Warden, rather contemptuously,--“a four years’ potentate. It seems to me an office about on a par with that of the Lord Mayor of London. For my part, I would rather be a baron of three or four hundred years’ antiquity.” “We talk in vain,” said Redclyffe, laughing. “We do not approach one another’s ideas on this subject. But, waiving all speculations as to my attempting to avail myself of this claim, do you think I can fairly accept this invitation to visit Lord Braithwaite? There is certainly a possibility that I may arraign myself against his dearest interests. Conscious of this, can I accept his hospitality?” The Warden paused. “You have not sought access to his house,” he observed. “You have no designs, it seems, no settled designs at all events, against his Lordship,--nor is there a probability that they would be forwarded by your accepting this invitation, even if you had any. I do not see but you may go. The only danger is, that his Lordship’s engaging qualities may seduce you into dropping your claims out of a chivalrous feeling, which I see is among your possibilities. To be sure, it would be more satisfactory if he knew your actual position, and should then renew his invitation.”