"I guess I should get a bit hot myself," he volunteered handsomely, "if
I was an earl, and owned a place like this, and a fool fellow came along
and took me for a tramp. That was a pretty bad break, wasn't it? But I
did say you didn't look like it. Anyway you needn't mind me. I shouldn't
get onto Pierpont Morgan or W. K. Vanderbilt, if I met 'em in the
street."
He spoke the two names as an Englishman of his class would have spoken
of the Dukes of Westminster or Marlborough. These were his nobles--the
heads of the great American houses, and entirely parallel, in his mind,
with the heads of any great house in England. They wielded the power of
the world, and could wield it for evil or good, as any prince or duke
might. Mount Dunstan saw the parallel.
"I apologise, all right," G. Selden ended genially.
"I am not offended," Mount Dunstan answered. "There was no reason why
you should know me from another man. I was taken for a gamekeeper a
few weeks since. I was savage a moment, because you refused to believe
me--and why should you believe me after all?"
G. Selden hesitated. He liked the fellow anyhow.
"You said you were up against it--that was it. And--and I've seen chaps
down on their luck often enough.
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