The ordinary English duke is a stout, middle-aged gentleman with a beard, and he generally wears thick knickerbockers and shocking bad hats." "Do you know any ?" "Two or three," I admitted.
"And duchesses, too ?" I again pleaded guilty.

In these democratic days, if one is engaged in public and social affairs one can't help running up against them.

It is their fault, not mine.
"Do tell me about them," said Lola, with her elbows on the table.
I told her.
"And are earls and countesses just the same ?" she asked with a disappointed air.
"Just the same, only worse.

They're so ordinary you can't pick them out from common misters and missuses." Saying this I rose, for we had finished our dessert, and proposed coffee in the lounge.

There we found Colonel Bunnion at so wilful a loose end that I could not find it in my heart to refuse him an introduction to Lola.