THROUGH A GLASS LIGHTLY
but education and environment are potent factors in lineal deterioration. Haply, if we are lucky, we fall in with cadets of the direct line, bearing about them inalienable traces of their sovran origin; and these we lure into our own service at a recognised pay of some fifteen to twenty shillings a head (or bottle). But the great clan itself is so many thousands strong that its value is scarce as many pence per cork. For these needy rapscallions the wine merchant’s office forms, as it were, a Labour Bureau, where they hang about till some one takes them on: or they flow over into the vaults of the Bodega, there to levy blackmail on the stomachs of public citizens, and tweak the noses of the dilettanti. Nevertheless, this Sherry is a force to be reckoned with; he is a monster
34
