"Yes, it is all beautiful, but how long could you stand it? I do not mean what you now see, but what you do not see! How many people have taken off their caps to us this morning simply because they believe us to belong to the 'gentry'? In that last village through which we passed, did the children 'bob' to us because they recognized our superiority in character or education? You would not have been the vicar of that lovely Norman church we passed five miles back one month before there would have been trouble! The 'servility' of the 'lower classes' would so have gotten on your nerves that you would have insulted some laborer for the satisfaction of having him answer you like a man! You would find another thing, which is that 'kowtowing' is not confined to one class. If the laborer 'kowtows' to the vicar, the vicar must 'kowtow' to the lord of the manor." "Why, Ruth," I cried, "where is Bryan now? You talk like the ladies on the soap-boxes in Union Square!" "You forget," she said, "that I am not talking about myself. I should adore to have the school children 'bob' to me, and would be quite willing in turn to 'bob' to the Lady Emeline or to the Dowager Countess. But you! Really, John, I sometimes think you know yourself less than any one I ever met!" "It's lucky I have you to show me what I am like," I growled. "Indeed it is," she cheerfully replied. "I'll tell you whom you are like: you are exactly like Crugan!" To show you how absurd the comparison is, I must tell you something about Tom Crugan. He lived in our ward before he made his fortune, and was a good fellow--is still, so far as I know! More than once he had helped me when some poor wretch had got into trouble and needed a little "influence." When he got the contract for a section of the subway, he made a lot of money--I hope honestly! Then he made a lucky investment in real estate, which, curiously enough, the city found it must have--at an advance in price--and then Tom and his family made the grand tour. Mrs. Crugan kept herself in the background, but the girls, who were real Irish beauties, had a _succès fou_. One of them married an Italian prince, and the other a German count. Well, Tom stayed abroad about two years and then suddenly returned. He came down to our part of the town soon after, to look after some property he held there, and I saw him. "Hello, Crugan," I said. "I am glad to see you back. Did you like Europe?" "I did for a while," he replied, "but the best day of the trip was when I set foot in Hoboken. The carriage was there to meet us, and when I had put my wife in, she says to me: 'Ain't you comin' too, Tom?' "'Not in a carriage, I ain't,' says I. 'And what is more, if that coachman touches his hat to me again, I'm liable to do him an injury! You go on up, mother, and I'll be there most as soon as you, anyway.'