CHAPTER VII.
THE NOBILITY.
An Italian has said with pungent irony, "Who knows but that one of these days a powerful microscope may detect globules of nobility in the blood ?" I am too national not to applaud a good joke, and yet I must confess these "globules of nobility" do not positively offend my reason.
There is no doubt that sons take after their fathers.

The Barons of the Middle Ages transmitted to their children a heritage of heroic qualities.

Frederick the Great obtained a race of gigantic grenadiers by marrying men of six feet to women of five feet six.

The children of a clever man are not fools, provided their mother has not failed in her duties; and when the Cretins of the Alps intermarry, they produce Cretins.

We know dogs are slow or fast, keen-scented or keen-sighted, according to their breed, and we buy a two-year-old colt upon the strength of his pedigree.