The evening went by, bringing no change in the situation; and by nine o’clock it was universally known, and partly accepted, that from the Lord Chancellor to the Carlton waiter, frock-coat or no coat, woolsack or three-legged crock, a man was to be a man for a’ that. One great calamity had befallen them all, and in one minute levelled the whole of London’s inhabitants to the state of nature. The question arose in my lord’s mind whether they were sufficiently fitted for that state? Could they face the God Pan with as much composure as they had faced all the other gods? He heard the heavy footsteps of the lamplighter methodically going through his work. It was strange that he had never once thought of stopping his nocturnal routine. Evidently whatever happened, the streets had to be lighted, and Lionel mused long and deeply on these questions of duty and force of habit, as he looked out of the window into the street and observed the long shadow descending over London. “Was it the sense of duty that prompted the actions of these menials?” He could not bring himself to think that, and he could not help believing that amongst his own superior class the sense of duty was always accompanied by a powerful sense of the fitness of things, so that if a virtue clashed with prejudices and the accepted standard of propriety, it was desirable that they should build up some new duty more in harmony with their worldly principles. There, no doubt, lay the difference between the upper classes and the lower, and which made the former shrink before breaking the laws of decorum, when the latter saw no objection to performing daily pursuits in their skins, unconcerned with higher motives of purity and exalted ideals. Whether Lord Somerville had touched the keynote of social ethics remained unknown, but he retired early to his pallet and slept soundly through the still night.