"'I was,' I answered quiet like, because I thought young Master Impudence was getting on dangerous ground. "'One of the poor wretched slaves,' he sneers, 'of a bloated aristocrat. . . . We're going to alter all that,' he goes on, and then for a few minutes I let him talk. He and his precious friends were going to see that all that wretched oppression ceased, and then he finished up by calling me a slave again, and sneering at his Lordship." Old John spat reflectively. "Well, sir, I stopped him then. In my presence no man may sneer at his Lordship--certainly not a callow pup like him. His Lordship is a fine man and a good man, and I was his servant." The old man spoke with a simple dignity that impressed Vane. "I stopped him, sir," he continued, "and then I told him what I thought of him. I said to him, I said, 'Young man, I've listened to your damned nonsense for five minutes--now you listen to me. When you--with your face all covered with pimples, and your skin all muddy and sallow--start talking as you've been talking, there's only one thing should be done. Your mother should take your trousers down and smack you with a hair brush; though likely you'd cry with fright before she started. I was his Lordship's servant for forty-two years, and I'm prouder of that fact than anyone is likely to be over anything you do in your life. And if his Lordship came in at that door now, he'd meet me as a man meets a man. Whereas you--you'd run round him sniffing like the lickspittle you are--and if he didn't tread on you, you'd go and brag to all your other pimply friends that you'd been talking to an Earl. . . .'" "Bravo! old John . . . bravo!" said Vane quietly. "What did the whelp do?" "Tried to laugh sarcastic, sir, and then slunk out of the door." The old man lit his pipe with his gnarled, trembling fingers. "It's coming, sir--perhaps not in my time--but it's coming. Big trouble. . . . All those youngsters with their smattering of edication, and their airs and their conceits and their 'I'm as good as you.'" He fell silent and stared across the road with a troubled look in his eyes. "Yes, sir," he repeated, "there be bad days coming for England--terrible bad--unless folks pull themselves together. . . ." "Perhaps the Army may help 'em when it comes back," said Vane. "May be, sir, may be." Old John shook his head doubtfully. "Perhaps so. Anyways, let's hope so, sir."