‘Mr. Logan,’ said the Earl, ’I am not a man of to-day.  The cupidity of our age, the eagerness with which wealthy aliens are welcomed into our best houses and families, is to me, I may say, distasteful.  Better that our coronets were dimmed than that they should be gilded with the gold eagles of Chicago or blazing with the diamonds of Kimberley.  My feelings on this point are unusually—­I do not think that they are unduly—­acute.’

Logan murmured assent.

‘I am poor,’ said the Earl, with all the expansiveness of the shy; ’but I never held what is called a share in my life.’

‘It is long,’ said Logan, with perfect truth, ’since anything of that sort was in my own possession.  In that respect my ’scutcheon, so to speak, is without a stain.’

’How fortunate I am to have fallen in with one of sentiments akin to my own, unusual as they are!’ said the Earl.  ‘I am a widower,’ he went on, ‘and have but one son and one daughter.’

‘He is coming to business now,’ thought Logan.

’The former, I fear, is as good almost as affianced—­is certainly in peril of betrothal—­to a lady against whom I have not a word to say, except that she is inordinately wealthy, the sole heiress of—­’ Here the Earl gasped, and was visibly affected.  ‘You may have heard, sir,’ the patrician went on, ’of a commercial transaction of nature unfathomable to myself—­I have not sought for information,’ he waved his hand impatiently, ‘a transaction called a Straddle?’

Logan murmured that he was aware of the existence of the phrase, though unconscious of its precise meaning.

’The lady’s wealth is based on a successful Straddle, operated by her only known male ancestor, in—­Bristles—­Hogs’ Bristles and Lard,’ said the Earl.

‘Miss Bangs!’ exclaimed Logan, knowing the name, wealth, and the source of the wealth of the ruling Chicago heiress of the day.

’I am to be understood to speak of Miss Bangs—­as her name has been pronounced between us—­with all the respect due to youth, beauty, and an amiable disposition,’ said the peer; ‘but Bristles, Mr. Logan, Hogs’ Bristles and Lard.  And a Straddle!’

‘Lucky devil, Scremerston,’ thought Logan, for Scremerston was the only son of Lord Embleton, and he, as it seemed, had secured that coveted prize of the youth of England, the heart of the opulent Miss Bangs.  But Logan only sighed and stared at the wall as one who hears of an irremediable disaster.

‘If they really were betrothed,’ said Lord Embleton, ’I would have nothing to say or do in the way of terminating the connection, however unwelcome.  A man’s word is his word.  It is in these circumstances of doubt (when the fortunes of a house ancient, though titularly of mere Tudor noblesse, hang in the balance) that, despairing of other help, I have come to you.’

‘But,’ asked Logan, ’have things gone so very far?  Is the disaster irremediable?  I am acquainted with your son, Lord Scremerston; in fact, he was my fag at school.  May I speak quite freely?’