“The foundations of her greatness lie embedded in the past, and are inseparably allied with her institutions. The courage, honor and patriotism of her nobility” (the marquis with a gratified expression played with his watch-chain), “the devotion, purity, and self-sacrifice of her church” (the prelate patted the black silk band on his stomach and purred gently like a cat), “the examples of high virtue and wisdom which have adorned her throne” (the lord-lieutenant looked ecstatic and adoring, as a pilgrim of Lourdes before the shrine)--“all these, gentlemen, have made her what she is, the idol of her sons, the terror of her foes, the bulwark at once of religious faith and of religious freedom. The great glory of our country, sirs, is that poor and rich are equal before the law” (“Yah!” from a rude man below), “and that the roughest, most friendless lad may by probity and industry reach her highest honors. I myself left Queenstown, gentlemen, a young fellow with three pounds in my pocket and a change of clothes in a bundle, and that I have the honor of addressing you here to-day is due to the fact that I toiled honestly from morning till night for more than thirty years in exile. It was the hope of coming back, sirs, and settling on my native soil, which kept the heart up in me through hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, and such toil as here you know nothing about. I was a poor working lad, gentlemen, with three pounds in my pocket, and yet here I stand to-day the equal of prince and peer” (the marquis frowned, the bishop fidgetted, the lord-lieutenant coughed, but Mr. Massarene was _emballé_, and heeded not these hints of disapprobation). “What do you want with republican institutions, my friends, when under a monarchy the doors of wealth and honor open wide to the laboring man who has had sense and self-denial enough to work his way upward?” (“They open to a golden key, damn your jaw!” cried a vulgar being in the mob below.) “who by honesty and economy, and incessant toil, has come to put his legs under the same mahogany with the highest of the land. You talk of golden keys, sir--the only key to success is the key of character. Before I give my hand, sir, whether to prince or pauper, I ask--what is his character?” “Dear me, dear me, this is very irrelevant,” murmured the lord-lieutenant, much distressed. “Damned inconvenient,” murmured the marquis with a chuckle. The bishop folded his hands and looked rapt and pious. But the mayor of the borough, with desperation, plucked at the orator’s coat-tails.