United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There's Debrett, you see. What's more, you can't fool her in a pinch. She knows blood when she sees it. Father hasn't the same sense of proportion, however. He says you never can tell." Sara was startled. "What do you mean?" "Oh, it's nothing to speak of; only a way he has of grinding mother once in a while.
Perhaps, too, if some inner circle exists there is no need to study it; for a knowledge of the titled folk floating in the great three-quarter world that is taking the place of Society may suffice, and to have met a countess at a musical reception, of five hundred or so, given by some millionaire amateur, or to have been on the board of a catchpenny company with a baron, or to have suffered long at a charity ball and obtained introductions from a ducal steward, or to have bought a cup of bad tea at an Albert Hall bazaar from a marchioness whose manners would shock a cook, is a sufficient acquaintance with the customs, thoughts and ideals of all the inhabitants of Debrett, and entitles one to present or to criticize the shyest member of the august House that is now beginning to wonder what is going to happen next.
The explanation was that the entire male portion of the party, on being left to themselves, had immediately and in a body crept on tiptoe into Joey's study, which, fortunately, happened to be on the ground floor. Joey, unlocking the bookcase, had taken out his Debrett, but appeared incapable of understanding it.
Now, there's that woman we've just left, Mrs. Killenhall, who says that she's well up in her Debrett, and her Burke, and there, seen by her many a time, is that locket which Miss Wickham is wearing, and she's never noticed it! Never, I mean, noticed what's on it. Why, I saw it and its significance instantly, just now, which was the first time I'd seen it!" "What is it that's on it?" asked Viner.
Take your Debrett there are I don't know how many baronets and lords and marquises and earls, and all the rest of it. Do you realize that whatever public place I'm in, or even at a friend's dinner-party, the homely, stupid wives of those men have got to go in before me, and if they don't why I know all the time it's a matter of courtesy? That's what makes me mad! Don't you dare to smile at me now.
Then she found time for me. "Oh, father," she cried, "did you ever see anybody who could run as fast as Jimmie? Don't you just know he'll win that race?" "There's but one chance against it," said I. "And really, Mr. Debrett, that boy can run. He's a little bit heavy maybe, but he holds himself well together and keeps up a pretty good pace.
A big Bohemian, sporting "smart-set," Anglo-American, South African millionaire society exists which has in it a good many people acknowledged by Debrett, and this it is quite easy to enter.
Beaudesart possessed a vast store of Debrett information touching those early gentlemen-colonists whose enterprise is hymned by loftier harps than mine, but whose sordid greed and unspeakable arrogance has yet to be said or sung.
"How could she be our cousin? Don't be so foolish, Tom," Rose answered sharply. "A family connection, then," returned Tom. "But perhaps you had better not mention the possibility to Miss Smythe. It would shock her too much. All her relations are in Debrett, aren't they?" Rose looked doubtfully at him. "I never know whether you like Pauline or not, Tom," she said.
"Ach, it is ze ozzer Tollvoddle!" he exclaimed. "So! zat is it, of course." "You mean to say there is another peerage of Tulliwuddle?" "Oh, yes." "Fetch Debrett, Ri!" But Ri had already not only fetched Debrett, but found the place. "A darned lie. Thought so," he observed succinctly. The luckless diplomatist was now committed to perdition. "It is not in ze books," he exclaimed.
Word Of The Day