I delivered them into the hands of the chairman of the Board with the comfortable consciousness that their cake was dough.

They were examined in the previous order of precedence.
"Name, so please you ?" "Pertipole, son of Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash." "Grandfather ?" "Also Sir Pertipole, Baron of Barley Mash." "Great-grandfather ?" "The same name and title." "Great-great-grandfather ?" "We had none, worshipful sir, the line failing before it had reached so far back." "It mattereth not.

It is a good four generations, and fulfilleth the requirements of the rule." "Fulfills what rule ?" I asked.
"The rule requiring four generations of nobility or else the candidate is not eligible." "A man not eligible for a lieutenancy in the army unless he can prove four generations of noble descent ?" "Even so; neither lieutenant nor any other officer may be commissioned without that qualification." "Oh, come, this is an astonishing thing.

What good is such a qualification as that ?" "What good?
It is a hardy question, fair sir and Boss, since it doth go far to impugn the wisdom of even our holy Mother Church herself." "As how ?" "For that she hath established the self-same rule regarding saints.

By her law none may be canonized until he hath lain dead four generations." "I see, I see--it is the same thing.