that they would not have hit such prominent and picturesque objects.
They were chosen because they were prominent and picturesque
objects. They make a story to go the round of society. He keeps the
crooked weathercock in the summerhouse to perpetuate the story of a
legend. And then he lay in wait with his evil eye and wicked gun,
safely ambushed behind the legend of his own incompetence.

"But there is more than that. There is the summerhouse itself. I
mean there is the whole thing. There's all that Jenkins gets chaffed
about, the gilding and the gaudy colors and all the vulgarity that's
supposed to stamp him as an upstart. Now, as a matter of fact,
upstarts generally don't do this. God knows there's enough of 'em in
society; and one knows 'em well enough. And this is the very last
thing they do. They're generally only too keen to know the right
thing and do it; and they instantly put themselves body and soul
into the hands of art decorators and art experts, who do the whole
thing for them. There's hardly another millionaire alive who has the
moral courage to have a gilt monogram on a chair like that one in
the gun-room. For that matter, there's the name as well as the
monogram. Names like Tompkins and Jenkins and Jinks are funny
without being vulgar; I mean they are vulgar without being common.
If you prefer it, they are commonplace without being common. They
are just the names to be chosen to _look_ ordinary, but they're
really rather extraordinary. Do you know many people called
Tompkins? It's a good deal rarer than Talbot. It's pretty much the
same with the comic clothes of the parvenu. Jenkins dresses like a
character in Punch. But that's because he is a character in Punch. I
mean he's a fictitious character. He's a fabulous animal. He doesn't
exist.