"Well, sir, that was the first the family ever knowed of it, and
then they seen what it was he'd meant when he throwed out them
hints about bein' a heap better than he seemed. He said perhaps
he wouldn't never have told, only he couldn't bear to be
misjudged like he'd always been.

"He never done a lick of work after that. He said he couldn't
bring himself down to it; that it was demeanin' fo' a person of
title fo' to labor with his hands like a nigger or a common white
man. He said he'd leave it to his family to see he didn't come
to want, it didn't so much matter about them; and he lived true
to his principles to the day of his death, and never riz his hand
except to feed himself."

Cavendish paused. Yancy was feeling that in his own person he
had experienced some of the best symptoms of a title.

"Then what?" he asked.

"Well, sir, he lived along like that, never complainin', my
grandfather said, but mighty sweet and gentlelike as long as
there was plenty to eat in the house. He lived to be nigh
eighty, and when he seen he was goin' to die he called my
grandfather to him and says, 'She's yours, Dick,'--meanin' the
title--and then he says, 'There's one thing I've kep' from you.
You've been a viscount ever since I come into the title, and then
he went on and explained what he wanted cut on his tombstone, and
had my grandfather write it out, so there couldn't be any
mistake. When he'd passed away, my grandfather took the title.