initiative, LEADING them, insisting on their following, not standing
aloof and shrugging.

'We lead them in war,' said he; 'why not in peace? There's a front for
peace as well as war, and that's our place rightly. We're pushed aside;
why, it seems to me we're treated like old-fashioned ornaments! The
fault must be ours. Shrugging and sneering is about as honourable as
blazing fireworks over your own defeat. Back we have to go! that's the
point, sir. And as for jeering the cotton-spinners, I can't while
they've the lead of us. We let them have it! And we have thrice the
stake in the country. I don't mean properties and titles.'

'Deuce you don't,' said his uncle.

'I mean our names, our histories; I mean our duties. As for titles, the
way to defend them is to be worthy of them.'

'Damned fine speech,' remarked Everard. 'Now you get out of that trick
of prize-orationing. I call it snuffery, sir; it's all to your own nose!
You're talking to me, not to a gallery. "Worthy of them!" Caesar wraps
his head in his robe: he gets his dig in the ribs for all his
attitudinizing. It's very well for a man to talk like that who owns no
more than his barebodkin life, poor devil. Tall talk's his jewelry: he
must have his dandification in bunkum. You ought to know better.
Property and titles are worth having, whether you are "worthy of them" or
a disgrace to your class. The best way of defending them is to keep a
strong fist, and take care you don't draw your fore-foot back more than
enough.'

'Please propose something to be done,' said Nevil, depressed by the