CONRAD NORMAN
"What's he been doing now?"
"That's the trouble. He's not doing anything. He's never done an honest day's work in his life, and I don't believe he ever will. Huh! I see we have the stuffed-heart aristocracy with us."
3
He was referring to the Furnesses as "the stuffed-heart aristocracy."
The entertainment was a charity affair, and therefore open to any one who had a dollar; but, for that very reason, we had not expected the Furnesses to come. We forgot that the Belgians might be regarded as under the special protection of the British flag. There was a copper-bronzed and curly-headed young Englishman with Flora. He looked like a naval officer. I heard later that he was Lieut. Cuthbert Williamson, of the Atlantic Squadron.
And my coal magnate referred to the Furnesses as "the stuffed-heart aristocracy" because they were known to be as poor as they were considered "snooty." They had no motor-car. They kept no servants. They were such notoriously "slow pay" that they could not get credit even at the news-stand on the railway platform when they were in a hurry to catch a train. They never entertained. The butcher reported that they bought chiefly beef hearts (hence the stuffed-heart aristocracy). The grocer added, "And bushels o' turnips." And,
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