Sometimes we get a good man and worth the price, but we are ready to take him anyway, whether he be ripe or rotten, whether he be clean and decent, or merely a basket of noble and sacred and long-descended offal.

And when we get him the whole nation publicly chaffs and scoffs--and privately envies; and also is proud of the honor which has been conferred upon us.

We run over our list of titled purchases every now and then, in the newspapers, and discuss them and caress them, and are thankful and happy.
Like all the other nations, we worship money and the possessors of it--they being our aristocracy, and we have to have one.

We like to read about rich people in the papers; the papers know it, and they do their best to keep this appetite liberally fed.

They even leave out a football bull-fight now and then to get room for all the particulars of how--according to the display heading--"Rich Woman Fell Down Cellar--Not Hurt." The falling down the cellar is of no interest to us when the woman is not rich, but no rich woman can fall down cellar and we not yearn to know all about it and wish it was us.
In a monarchy the people willingly and rejoicingly revere and take pride in their nobilities, and are not humiliated by the reflection that this humble and hearty homage gets no return but contempt.