"He doesn't know what love means, and he'd take that fair creature, and drag her through the dirt, and subject her to the scorn of hardened aristocrats, and crush her spirits, and break her heart,--just because her father has scraped together a mass of gold. But I,--I wouldn't let the wind blow on her too harshly. I despise her father's money. I love her. Yes;--I'll be down upon him somehow. Good-night, Waddle. To come between me and the pride of my heart for a little dirt! Yes; I'll be down upon him." Waddle stood and admired. He had read of such things in books, but here it was brought home to him in absolute life. He had a young wife whom he loved, but there had been no poetry about his marriage. One didn't often come across real poetry in the world,--Waddle felt;--but when one did, the treat was great. Now Ontario Moggs was full of poetry. When he preached rebellion it was very grand,--though at such moments Waddle was apt to tell himself that he was precluded by his two kids from taking an active share in such poetry as that. But when Moggs was roused to speak of his love, poetry couldn't go beyond that. "He'll drop into that customer of ours," said Waddle to himself, "and he'll mean it when he's a doing of it. But Polly 'll never 'ave 'im." And then there came across Waddle's mind an idea which he could not express,--that of course no girl would put up with a bootmaker who could have a real gentleman. Real gentlemen think a good deal of themselves, but not half so much as is thought of them by men who know that they themselves are of a different order.