If we knew this, we should
regard them from our conservative standpoint of provident decorum as
improvident lunatics, being ourselves unable to calculate with their odd
courage and their cheerful belief in themselves. What we do know is that
they spend, and we are far from disdaining their patronage, though most
of them have an odd little familiarity of address and are not stamped
with that distinction which causes us to realise the enormous difference
between the patron and the tradesman, and makes us feel the worm
we remotely like to feel ourselves, though we would not for worlds
acknowledge the fact. Mentally, and in our speech, both among our equals
and our superiors, we condescend to and patronise them a little, though
that, of course, is the fine old insular attitude it would be un-British
to discourage. But, if we are not in the least definite concerning the
position and resources of these spenders as a mass, we are quite sure of
a select number. There is mention of them in the newspapers, of the
town houses, the castles, moors, and salmon fishings they rent, of
their yachts, their presentations actually at our own courts, of their
presence at great balls, at Ascot and Goodwood, at the opera on gala
nights.
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