"to possess, simply by an accident of birth, the right to make
laws for a great nation."

"Ah, but one doesn't make laws. It's a great humbug."

"I don't believe that," the young girl declared.
"It must be a great privilege, and I should think that if one
thought of it in the right way--from a high point of view--
it would be very inspiring."

"The less one thinks of it, the better," Lord Lambeth affirmed.

"I think it's tremendous," said Bessie Alden; and on
another occasion she asked him if he had any tenantry.
Hereupon it was that, as I have said, he was a little bored.

"Do you want to buy up their leases?" he asked.

"Well, have you got any livings?" she demanded.

"Oh, I say!" he cried. "Have you got a clergyman that is looking out?"
But she made him tell her that he had a castle; he confessed to but one.
It was the place in which he had been born and brought up, and, as he had
an old-time liking for it, he was beguiled into describing it a little
and saying it was really very jolly. Bessie Alden listened with great
interest and declared that she would give the world to see such a place.
Whereupon--"It would be awfully kind of you to come and stay there,"
said Lord Lambeth. He took a vague satisfaction in the circumstance
that Percy Beaumont had not heard him make the remark I have just recorded.