A REPROVING JEAMES 



to the show, it was the principals, his lordship 

 and the sheriffs, and they had made no claim. 

 Of course, this happened years and years ago, 

 and no doubt, with the modern reforming zeal 

 of the city, such attempted levies have long since 

 been swept away. 



I did not take this implied rebuke from the 

 liveried gentlemen particularly to heart, because 

 I did not consider I deserved it. But I was once 

 completely crushed by a superb specimen of the 

 genus flunkey, and it has dwelt in my mind 

 because I know I deserved it on account of the 

 faux pas I committed. Once when I was young 

 and comparatively innocent, being nothing better 

 than a struggling showman, I had occasion to 

 call upon a peer of the realm. In response to 

 my gentle ring, the hall-door flew open, and 

 there stood on the threshold, looking down upon 

 me, one of the very finest powdered and silk- 

 stockinged wearers of livery I ever beheld. Taken 

 off my guard by the dazzling vision, in the mildest 

 of accents I innocently inquired, " Is his lordship 

 in ? ' : Then Jeames-de-la-plush drew himself up, 

 and in the loftiest of tones replied, " 'Is lordship 

 is in, but he may not be at home" 



One of the best-remembered and most attrac- 

 tive of the stories which helped in one's young 

 days to enliven that catalogue of many crimes 

 described as Roman History was the one which 

 has conferred immortality, as a night-watcher, 

 upon the goose, inasmuch as it was a flock of 

 geese, which, by arousing the slumbering guard, 

 saved Rome when the enemy was at its gates. 

 One has sometimes thought that so captivating 



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