"What does money do for you?" went on Lucio, his eyes dilating with that strange and wistful expression which had often excited my curiosity--"The world is at your feet, perhaps; yes--but _what_ a world! What a trumpery clod of kickable matter! Wealth acts merely as a kind of mirror to show you human nature at its worst. Men skulk and fawn about you, and lie twenty times in as many hours in the hope to propitiate you and serve their own interests; princes of the blood willingly degrade themselves and their position to borrow cash of you,--your intrinsic merit (if you have any) is thought nothing of,--your full pockets are your credentials with kings, prime ministers and councillors! You may talk like a fool, laugh like a hyena and look like a baboon, but if the chink-chink of your gold be only sufficiently loud, you may soon find yourself dining with the Queen if such be your ambition. If, on the contrary you happen to be truly great, brave, patient, and enduring, with a spark in you of that genius which strengthens life and makes it better worth living,--if you have thoughts which take shape in work that shall endure when kingdoms are swept away like dust before the wind, and if, with all this you are yet poor in current coin, why then,--you shall be spurned by all the crowned dummies of the world,--you shall be snubbed by the affluent starch-maker and the Croesus who lives on a patent pill,--the tradesman from whom you buy bedsteads and kitchen ware, can look down upon you with lordly scorn, for does he not by virtue of his wealth alone, drive a four-in-hand, and chat on easy and almost patronizing terms with the Prince of Wales? The wealthy denizens of Snob-land delight in ignoring Nature's elected noblemen." "But supposing" said Miss Chesney quickly, "you happen to be a Nature's nobleman yourself, and have the advantage of wealth besides, surely you must fairly allow that to be rather a good thing, mustn't you?" Lucio laughed a little--