“Never mind them, Dick; there’s as good blood in your veins as there is in any of theirs; it may not come from a swell who plundered the Saxons at the time of the Norman Conquest, or mixed in the vices of licentious courts; there is no dishonour in it, and it has to be proved yet whether to spring from merchant princes of England is not the highest of all descent.” “Bravo,” said Mr. Richard Tallant; “why, father, you speak like an orator. That hit about the merchant princes would drive half-a-dozen hustings mad.” Mr. Tallant had warmed up, and was angry; he paid no attention to his son’s comment; he only saw before him some “stuck up” aristocrat sneering at his name and origin. “Look here, Dick,” he continued, producing a blank cheque, “fill that up in the presence of these aristocratic snobs, and show them what the Tallants can do.” This was surely putting too much of power and revenge into the hands of a young man naturally frivolous and overbearing, and it no doubt influenced, in a great measure, his future career. One would have given Mr. Christopher Tallant credit for more real worldly wisdom than this; he could, perhaps, have borne “the proud man’s contumely” himself; he might have shrugged his shoulders, and sneered at it, with a consoling thought about his wealth; he might have said to himself, “Ah, never mind, I could buy you up, stick and stone” (for he was weak, you see, on this point); but he would not have protested and been demonstrative: contempt would have been his answer, and, in the midst of his commercial cares, he would have speedily forgotten the inane taunt. To have his son treated with indifference, to see him taunted with his origin, by men who had nothing but their ancestors to boast about; this was a different thing altogether, and he chafed at it, and was angry indeed. His pride was shocked. The feeling that he could buy everything was shaken. He was not accustomed to crosses, except such as his wealth or his energy could overcome; and his sense of injured honour, too, was touched. “I would not have you do anything that is mean, Dick; there is nothing mean in being generous and open-handed; and there are two powers, it appears, at Oxford,--money and blood; don’t be afraid to hold your own; you have no reason to be ashamed of your birth, and you can make them ashamed of their poverty, the sneaks! Don’t spare them one jot, Dick; punish them, and show them what talents of silver invested in iron can do--the miserable sneaks!” Thus all the merchant’s practical wisdom and his just pride were thrown to the winds; but he is not the only man of his class who, chafing at the arrogance of “gentle blood,” has sought revenge on Society at the shrine of Mammon, and obtained nothing in return but “a crown of golden sorrow.” CHAPTER III.