“Well, sir, that was the first the family ever knowed of it, and then they seen what it was he’d meant when he throwed out them hints about bein’ a heap better than he seemed.  He said perhaps he wouldn’t never have told, only he couldn’t bear to be misjudged like he’d always been.

“He never done a lick of work after that.  He said he couldn’t bring himself down to it; that it was demeanin’ fo’ a person of title fo’ to labor with his hands like a nigger or a common white man.  He said he’d leave it to his family to see he didn’t come to want, it didn’t so much matter about them; and he lived true to his principles to the day of his death, and never riz his hand except to feed himself.”

Cavendish paused.  Yancy was feeling that in his own person he had experienced some of the best symptoms of a title.

“Then what?” he asked.

“Well, sir, he lived along like that, never complainin’, my grandfather said, but mighty sweet and gentlelike as long as there was plenty to eat in the house.  He lived to be nigh eighty, and when he seen he was goin’ to die he called my grandfather to him and says, ‘She’s yours, Dick,’—­meanin’ the title—­and then he says, ‘There’s one thing I’ve kep’ from you.  You’ve been a viscount ever since I come into the title, and then he went on and explained what he wanted cut on his tombstone, and had my grandfather write it out, so there couldn’t be any mistake.  When he’d passed away, my grandfather took the title.  He said it made him feel mighty solemn and grand-like, and it come over him all at once why it was his father hadn’t no heart fo’ work.”

“Does it always take ’em that way?” inquired Yancy.

“It takes the Earls of Lambeth that way.  I reckon you might say it was hereditary with ’em.  Where was I at?”

“Your grandpap, the second earl,” prompted Polly.

“Oh, yes—­well, he ’lowed he’d emigrate back to England, but while he was studying how he could do this, along come the war.  He said he couldn’t afford to fight agin his king, so he pulled out and crossed the mountings to avoid being drug into the army.  He said he couldn’t let it get around that the Earls of Lambeth was shootin’ English soldiers.”

“Of course he couldn’t,” agreed Yancy.

“It’s been my dream to take Polly and the children and go back to England and see the king about my title.  I ’low he’d be some surprised to see us.  I’d like to tell him, too, what the Earls of Lambeth done fo’ him—­that they was always loyal, and thought a heap better of him than their neighbors done, and mebby some better than he deserved.  Don’t you reckon that not hearin’ from us, he’s got the notion the Cavendishes has petered out?”

Mr. Yancy considered this likely, and said so.

“You might send him writin’ in a letter,” he suggested.

The furious shrieking of a steam-packet’s whistle broke in upon them.

“It’s another of them hawgs, wantin’ all the river!” said Mr. Cavendish, and fled in haste to the steering oar.