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“‘Now don’t you really believe,’ says he, ‘that you and the people of your class would be happier, an’ feel safer, politically speakin’, if they had among ’em a aristocracy to which they could look up to in times of trouble, as their nat’ral born gardeens? I ask yer this because I want to know for myself what are the reel sentiments of yer people.’

“‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘when your work is done, an’ your kitchen cleaned up, an’ your lamp lit, a lord or a duke is jus’ tip-top to read about, if the type aint too fine an’ the paper mean beside, which it often is in the ten-cent books; but, further than this, I must say, we aint got no use for ’em.’ At that he kind o’ steps back, and looks as if he was goin’ to say somethin’, but I puts in quick: ‘But you mustn’t think, my earl,’ says I, ‘that we undervallers you. When we remembers the field of Agincourt; and Chevy Chase; an’ the Tower of London, with the block on which three lords was beheaded, with the very cuts in it which the headsman made when he chopped ’em off, as well as two crooked ones a-showin’ his bad licks, which little did he think history would preserve forever; an’ the old Guildhall, where down in the ancient crypt is a-hangin’ our Declaration of Independence along with the Roman pots and kittles dug up in London streets; we can’t forgit that if it hadn’t ‘a’ been for your old ancestral lines as roots, we’d never been the flourishin’ tree we is.’

“‘Well,’ said his earlship, when I’d got through, an’ he kind o’ looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or not, ‘if you represent the feelin’s of your class in your country, I reckon they’re not just ready for a aristocracy yit.’

“An’ with that he give me a little nod, an’ walked off into another room. It was pretty plain from this that the interview was brought to a close, an’ so I come away. The flunk was all ready to show me out, an’ he did it so expeditious, though quite polite, that I didn’t git no chance to take a good look at the furniter and carpets, which I’d ‘a’ liked to have done. An’ so I’ve talked to a real earl, an’ if not in his ancestral pile, at any rate in the gorgeousest house I ever see. An’ the brilliantest dream of my youth has come true.”

When she had finished I rose and looked upon her.

“Pomona,” said I, “we may yet visit many foreign countries. We may see kings, queens, dukes, counts, sheikhs, beys, sultans, khedives, pashas, rajahs, and I don’t know what potentates besides, and I wish to say just this one thing to you. If you don’t want to get yourself and us into some dreadful scrape, and perhaps bring our journeys to a sudden close, you must put a curb on your longing for communing with beings of noble blood.”

“That’s true, sir,” said Pomona, thoughtfully, “an’ I made a pretty close shave of it this time, for when I was talkin’ to the earl, I was just on the p’int of tellin’ him that I had such a high opinion of his kind o’ folks that I once named a big black dog after one of ’em, but I jus’ remembered in time, an’ slipped on to somethin’ else. But I trembled worse than a peanut woman with a hackman goin’ round the corner to ketch a train an’ his hubs just grazin’ the legs of her stand. An’ so I promise you, sir, that I’ll put my heel on all hankerin’ after potentates.”

And so she made her promise. And, knowing Pomona, I felt sure that she would keep it–if she could.