Still he has an air with him, and when he entered a room, his melancholy eyes burning in that sallow, set face, just think how the ostrich plumes swept the dust, and how the lovely naughtiness of his day curtseyed in gold brocade.... Lost Heirs I wonder how many people who live in London lodgings look in the mirror during their occasional shaves and think: "There goes the rightful Duke of Brixton!" O the wild dreams of London! The old man who starves himself that he may search year after year for a document which conceals a coronet is only less tenacious than the elderly virgin whose sole passion is the belief that somebody way back in history "did her down" over a will. There are humble, ragged people who must be positively shocked when they cut a finger and discover that their blood is just ordinary red. There are others who believe themselves to be the ground-landlords of New York or Philadelphia, who go on living in the splendid hope that some day--some day--that missing document will turn up to smooth out the injustices of time. The Record Office in Chancery Lane is the magnet which draws all these queer people year after year. These unofficial dukes and earls go off each morning with their luncheon in paper bags to hunt up their ancestors. They are all so certain. So convincing. You can put your head quite close to theirs and never hear the bee. Their finger nails may be in mourning for their lost departed, their collars may be greyish, and their cuffs frayed, but they have butlers and scarlet carpets in their hearts, and in their eyes a hunger most awful to see. There is a legend that one searcher who insisted on being called "my lord," became tired of trying to justify his claim and in a moment of enthusiasm hired a peer's robes and actually succeeded in entering the House of Lords during a State ceremony! What a moment! There he stood for a moment among his peers. It must have been the greatest moment of his life. It was during the State opening of Parliament, and the House of Lords was waiting with lowered lights for that moment when the King and the Queen, with white-satined pages holding the royal trains, would enter at the precise moment, the lights leap up and send a green and fiery glitter rippling along the throats of the peeresses in the gallery. In this scene stood the peer from Bloomsbury or Brixton or Balham, watching with who knows what delicious thrills the Gentlemen-at-Arms standing at the doors holding their halberds in white gauntleted hands while the lights glanced off their golden helms. What a moment! And what, I wonder, betrayed him? Why did they ask him to go? Did he show too much confidence in his rightful surroundings, or did he say, "Granted, I'm sure," to the duke who trod on his foot? I wonder....