courted and fawned upon by those whose boots his abilities would
have fitted him to black, and his disposition prompted him to lick.
Noble sportsmen are proud to be seen in his company, aristocratic
guinea-pigs are constantly in his pocket in the congenial society
of the great man's purse, art willingly reproduces his features,
journalism enthusiastically commemorates his adventures, and even
Royalty does not thrust away a votary whose ministrations are as
acceptable as they are readily performed. Without much effort on his
own part he is raised to pinnacles which he imagined impossible of
access, and soon learns to look down with a contempt that might spring
of ancient lineage and assured merit, upon the hungry crowd whose cry
is that of the daughter of the horse-leech.

But the genuine Servant of Society is of a different stamp. Ordinarily
he is of a good family, and of a competence which both differs from
and resembles his general character in being possessed at once of the
attributes of modesty and assurance. From an early age he will have
been noted for the qualities which in after-life render him humbly
celebrated in subordinate positions. At school he will have had
the good fortune to be attached as fag to a big boy who occupied an
important place as an athlete, and whose condescending smiles were
naturally an object of greater ambition to the small fry than the
approval of the school authorities. For him he performed with much
assiduity the various duties of a fag, happy to shine amongst his
companions as the recipient of the great boy's favours. To play the
jackal without incurring universal dislike is (at school) no very
easy task, but he accomplishes it with discretion and with a natural
aptitude that many maturer jackals might envy.

[Illustration]