make very good sense and I decided, as he droned usefully on, that I would provisionally believe him to be genuine atleast until we landed. In fact we rather chummed up, to the point where he asked me to come and stay at his apartment. Well, of course, I didn’t believe in him
that
much, so I’m afraid I told him that I would be staying at the British Embassy. He looked at me thoughtfully, then told me about his dream of getting a duke to be chairman of his English company.
‘Capital idea!’ I said heartily, ‘Can’t have too many of them. Wonderful little workers, every one. Mind you, there’s pretty stiff competition for your actual dukes today; even the merchant banks can’t seem to hold them any more, they’re all going into the menagerie trade as fast as they can. They may creep out into the open again now that Wilson’s gone, of course, but if I were you I’d settle for a marquess or a brace of earls: far more of them about and they’re much less uppity.’
‘Earls?’ he said. ‘Say, do you by any chance know the Earl of Snowdon?’ His eyes shone with innocence but I started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons.
‘Certainly not,’ I twittered, ‘no no no. He’s something quite different again; anyway he’s got a job, at the Design Centre I think, terrible lot there, except him of course, designs elephant aviaries for the Zoo, jolly good ones I’m sure. Very capable. Capital fellow. Happily married; dear little wife. Yes.’ I subsided. He ground on implacably.
‘Parm me, but are you an aristocrat?’
‘No no no,’ I said again, wriggling with embarrassment, ‘nothing of the sort. Rotten shot. I’m only a nobleman and my brother bagged the only title: my father sort of dropped me a courtesy, ha ha.’ He looked puzzled and distressed so I tried to explain.
‘England isn’t like the Continent, you see, nor even like Scotland in this respect. The
seize quartiers
“noble in all his branches” thing is something we don’t like to talk about and there aren’t half a dozen families with straight descent from a knight of the Conquest, I should think – and they aren’t titled. Anyway,’ I rambled on, ‘no one in his senses would want to be descended from one of that lot: the Conquest was something between a joint-stock company and a Yukon gold-rush; William the Conk himself was a sort of primitive Cecil Roberts and his followers were bums, chancers, queers and comic singers.’
He was boggling beautifully now, so I couldn’t resist going on.
‘Broadly speaking, practically none of the aristocracy are peers today and very few of the peers are aristocrats by any standard which would be taken seriously on the Continent: most of them are lucky if they can trace their family back to some hard-faced oick who did well out of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.’
This really upset him; one end of his concertina of printouts escaped from his lap and cascaded on to the floor between our feet. We both stooped for it but I, being thinner than he by an inch or two, stooped lower, so that our heads did not actually ring together; but my nose (Norman, with Roman remains) found itself half inside his jacket and practically nuzzling the black butt of an automatic pistol in a shoulder clip.
‘Ooops!’ I squeaked, quite unnerved. He chuckled kindly, fatly.
‘Don’t you give that iron no never-mind, son; why, we Texans feel kind of undressed without one of them things.’
We chattered on in a desultory way but I found it hard to concentrate on the prettier points of fish-frying. Texas businessmen doubtless often carry pistols but I found it hard to believe that they would favour the inconvenient length of a Colt’s Woodsman, which is a small calibre, long-barrelled automatic used only for target shooting and, more rarely, by professional killers who know they can plant its small bullet in just the right place. As a handy weapon of self-defence for the ordinary citizen it simply
that
much, so I’m afraid I told him that I would be staying at the British Embassy. He looked at me thoughtfully, then told me about his dream of getting a duke to be chairman of his English company.
‘Capital idea!’ I said heartily, ‘Can’t have too many of them. Wonderful little workers, every one. Mind you, there’s pretty stiff competition for your actual dukes today; even the merchant banks can’t seem to hold them any more, they’re all going into the menagerie trade as fast as they can. They may creep out into the open again now that Wilson’s gone, of course, but if I were you I’d settle for a marquess or a brace of earls: far more of them about and they’re much less uppity.’
‘Earls?’ he said. ‘Say, do you by any chance know the Earl of Snowdon?’ His eyes shone with innocence but I started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons.
‘Certainly not,’ I twittered, ‘no no no. He’s something quite different again; anyway he’s got a job, at the Design Centre I think, terrible lot there, except him of course, designs elephant aviaries for the Zoo, jolly good ones I’m sure. Very capable. Capital fellow. Happily married; dear little wife. Yes.’ I subsided. He ground on implacably.
‘Parm me, but are you an aristocrat?’
‘No no no,’ I said again, wriggling with embarrassment, ‘nothing of the sort. Rotten shot. I’m only a nobleman and my brother bagged the only title: my father sort of dropped me a courtesy, ha ha.’ He looked puzzled and distressed so I tried to explain.
‘England isn’t like the Continent, you see, nor even like Scotland in this respect. The
seize quartiers
“noble in all his branches” thing is something we don’t like to talk about and there aren’t half a dozen families with straight descent from a knight of the Conquest, I should think – and they aren’t titled. Anyway,’ I rambled on, ‘no one in his senses would want to be descended from one of that lot: the Conquest was something between a joint-stock company and a Yukon gold-rush; William the Conk himself was a sort of primitive Cecil Roberts and his followers were bums, chancers, queers and comic singers.’
He was boggling beautifully now, so I couldn’t resist going on.
‘Broadly speaking, practically none of the aristocracy are peers today and very few of the peers are aristocrats by any standard which would be taken seriously on the Continent: most of them are lucky if they can trace their family back to some hard-faced oick who did well out of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.’
This really upset him; one end of his concertina of printouts escaped from his lap and cascaded on to the floor between our feet. We both stooped for it but I, being thinner than he by an inch or two, stooped lower, so that our heads did not actually ring together; but my nose (Norman, with Roman remains) found itself half inside his jacket and practically nuzzling the black butt of an automatic pistol in a shoulder clip.
‘Ooops!’ I squeaked, quite unnerved. He chuckled kindly, fatly.
‘Don’t you give that iron no never-mind, son; why, we Texans feel kind of undressed without one of them things.’
We chattered on in a desultory way but I found it hard to concentrate on the prettier points of fish-frying. Texas businessmen doubtless often carry pistols but I found it hard to believe that they would favour the inconvenient length of a Colt’s Woodsman, which is a small calibre, long-barrelled automatic used only for target shooting and, more rarely, by professional killers who know they can plant its small bullet in just the right place. As a handy weapon of self-defence for the ordinary citizen it simply
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