Page:Barr--Stranleighs millions.djvu/67

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SARSFIELD-MITCHAM AFFAIR
55

palpable inventions. He assumed a position of such lofty pride that he regarded the society leaders of Newport as no better than the bricklayer's wife of Hoboken; was reported to have said so, and didn't deny it. The New York Evening Post, in a thoughtful editorial on this conceited young man, showed that human nature helplessly travelled in a circle, and that the very acme of the monarchical idea, carried by Lord Stranleigh to such an extreme as the United States had never witnessed before, became really the essence of true republicanism. In any genuine democracy the grand lady of Newport could be no better than the bricklayer's wife of Hoboken; in fact, the bricklayer's wife should, if possible, receive the greater honour, as being a useful person, which the Newport society woman was not; therefore, Lord Stranleigh was a veritable democrat, while the newspapers which were ridiculing and lampooning him, had gone round the circle into the monarchical delusion that all men (and especially all women), were not free and equal.

Stranleigh's friends in England were amazed at the reports cabled across of the young man's demeanour in New York, and they came to the conclusion that the pride of many possessions had gone to his head. They regretted that this exhibition of hauteur, so foreign to what they knew of him, should have taken place in the commercial capital of a friendly country.

It is rather strange that not even one of the alert