RUDOLPH OF TRULYRURALANIA


When I state that I was own brother to Lord Burleydon, had an
income of two thousand a year, could speak all the polite languages
fluently, was a powerful swordsman, a good shot, and could ride
anything from an elephant to a clotheshorse, I really think I have
said enough to satisfy any feminine novel-reader of Bayswater or
South Kensington that I was a hero. My brother's wife, however,
did not seem to incline to this belief.

"A more conceited, self-satisfied little cad I never met than you,"
she said. "Why don't you try to do something instead of sneering
at others who do? You never take anything seriously--except
yourself, which isn't worth it. You are proud of your red hair and
peaked nose just because you fondly believe that you got them from
the Prince of Trulyruralania, and are willing to think evil of your
ancestress to satisfy your snobbish little soul. Let me tell you,
sir, that there was no more truth about that than there was in that
silly talk of her partiality for her husband's red-haired
gamekeeper in Scotland. Ah! that makes you start--don't it? But I
have always observed that a mule is apt to remember only the horse
side of his ancestry!"

Whenever my pretty sister-in-law talks in this way I always try to
forget that she came of a family far inferior to our own, the
Razorbills. Indeed, her people--of the Nonconformist stock--really
had nothing but wealth and rectitude, and I think my brother Bob,
in his genuine love for her, was willing to overlook the latter for