Why had he sold that snuffbox that Marie Therese gave to his ancestor when--well, you know when?
Why had he converted those worm-eaten manuscripts, whereon were traced many valuable things in a variety of ancient tongues, into coin of the realm?
And why had he turned his Irish estates into pounds, into shillings, yea, and into pence.

Pence--just think of it! He had sold his ancestral lands for _pence_; that was what it came to.

These and many other things the scoffers scoffed, with a right good-will.

But none save the Duke could tell how many broad fields of ripening grain, and vine-clad hills, and clean glistening miles of bright rail, and fat ore lands sodden with wealth of gold and silver and luscious sulphurets--none save the Duke could tell how much of these good things the Duke possessed in that great land beyond the sea, upon which if England were bodily set down it would be as hard to find as a threepenny bit in a ten-acre field.

But the Duke never told.