I saw that my great ancestor the printer suddenly rose up in that hem.

"Why, uncle, there are honorable men in all callings."

"Certainly, sir. But in all callings honor is not the first principle
of action."

"But it may be, sir, if a man of honor pursue it! There are some
soldiers who have been great rascals!"

My uncle looked posed, and his black brows met thoughtfully. "You are
right, boy, I dare say," he answered, somewhat mildly. "But do you
think that it ought to give me as much pleasure to look on my old ruined
tower if I knew it had been bought by some herring-dealer, like the
first ancestor of the Poles, as I do now, when I know it was given to a
knight and gentleman (who traced his descent from an Anglo-Dane in the
time of King Alfred) for services done in Aquitaine and Gascony, by
Henry the Plantagenet? And do you mean to tell me that I should have
been the same man if I had not from a boy associated that old tower with
all ideas of what its owners were, and should be, as knights and
gentlemen? Sir, you would have made a different being of me if at the
head of my pedigree you had clapped a herring-dealer,--though, I dare
say, the herring-dealer might have been as good a man as ever the Anglo-
Dane was, God rest him!"

"And for the same reason I suppose, sir, that you think my father never
would have been quite the same being he is if he had not made that
notable discovery touching our descent from the great William Caxton,
the printer."