The grand essentials of family pride are ancestry and honour. The former cannot very well be taken away, but without the latter it is not worth much. One might as well take pride in belonging to a long line in which gallant highwaymen, footpads, costers, hooligans, and Marylebone boys have succeeded each other for generations with the accompaniments and distinctions of Tyburn Tree and the cart-tail. Therefore, I say, Leonard sat among the ruins of the essentials regardless of the accidentals. The man who had just left him had stripped off all that was left of his former pride; he could feel no further support or solace in the contemplation of his forefathers. Think what he had learned and endured in less than a month. It was line upon line, precept upon precept. It was like unto the patriarch to whom, while one messenger of evil was speaking, there came also another, saying, “Thus and thus has it been done. Where is now thy pride?” First, he learned that he had cousins living in one of the least desirable quarters of London; the man-cousin could not by any possible stretch be considered as possessing any of the attributes of a gentleman; the girl occupied a station and followed a calling which was respectable, but belonging to those generally adopted by the Poor Relation. He was thus provided with poor relations. Constance had said that he wanted poor relations in order to be like other people. And then they came as if in answer to her words. He had learned also that his grandfather almost at the outset of a promising career had committed suicide for no reason that could be discovered; that his father had died young, also at the outset of a promising career, was a misfortune, but not a blot. Two persons were left of his father’s generation. He had welcomed one as the prodigal, who had gone forth to the husks and returned bearing sheaves of golden grain. At least there was the pretence of the golden grain. The other he had regarded all his life with respect as one in successful practice in a most honourable profession. Where were they now? One was a bankrupt grocer or general store-keeper, the owner of a shanty in an Australian township, a miserable little general shop selling sardines and tea and oil and blacking, which he wanted to turn into a company as a great business; one who made no pretence at truth or honesty; the companion of tramps; devoid of honour or even the respect or care for honour. He had been driven out by his family as a spendthrift, a profligate, and a forger. He had come home unchanged and unrepentant and ready to swindle and to cheat if he could do so without the customary penalties.