IN WHICH SOCRATES ATTACKS THE HELMET AND THE BATTLE-AX

“Marie came to see us at our home next morning and began to cry as soon as she had sat down in the library.  The thing I had looked for had come to pass.  Her grandfather had dropped Harry from his list, and warned him to keep off the rag-carpet.  There was to be no more prancing around in the ‘toot-coach’ and the ‘Harry-cart,’ as he called them, for Marie.  In his view it was the surest means of getting to perdition.  Harry was an idler, and he had always found that an idle brain was the devil’s workshop.  Marie might be polite to the young man, but she must keep her side of the road and see that there was always plenty of room between them.

“‘He’s so hateful,’ Marie said of her grandfather.  ’He made such a fuss about our getting a crest that we’ve a perfect right to!  Mama had to give it up.’

“‘What!  Do you mean to tell me that you have no crest!’ I inquired, anxiously.

“‘We have one, but we cannot use it; our hands are tied,’ was her sorrowful answer.

“’I’m astonished.  Why, everybody is going to have a crest in Pointview.

“’The other day I suggested to Bridget Maloney, our pretty chambermaid, that she ought to have the Maloney crest on her letter-heads.

“’"What’s that?” says Bridget.

“’"What’s that!” I said, with a look of pity.

“’Then I showed her a letter from Mrs. Van Alstyne, with a lion and a griffin cuffing each other black and blue at the top of the sheet.

“’"It’s grand!” said she.

“’"It’s the Van Alstyne crest,” I said.  “It’s a proof of respectability.  Aren’t you as good as they are?”

“’"Every bit!” said she.

“’"That’s what I thought.  Don’t you often feel as if you were better than a good many people you know?”

“’"Sure I do.”

“’"Well, that’s a sign that you’re blue-blooded,” said I.  “Probably you’ve got a king in your family somewhere.  A crest shows that you suspect your ancestors ­nothing more than that.  It isn’t proof, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it.  You ought not to be going around without a crest, as if you were a common servant-girl.  Why, every kitchen-maid will be thinking she’s as good as you are.  You want to be in style.  You have money in the bank, and not half the people who have crests are as well able to afford ’em.”

“’"How much do they cost?”

“’"Nothing ­at least, yours’ll cost nothing, Bridget.  I shall be glad to buy one for you.”

“’The simple girl thanked me, and I found the Maloney crest for her, and had the plate made and neatly engraved on a hundred sheets of paper.

“’Next week the Pointview Advocate will print this item:  “Miss Bridget Maloney, the genial chambermaid of Mrs. Socrates Potter, uses the Maloney crest on her letter-heads.  She is said to be a lineal descendant of his Grace Bryan Maloney, one of the early dukes of Ireland.”

“’Bridget is haughty, well-mannered, and a neat dresser.  She’s a pace-maker in her set.  Even the high-headed servants of Warburton House imitate her hats and gowns.

“’Yesterday Katie O’Neil, one of Mrs. Warburton’s maids, came to me for information as to the heraldry of her house.  I found a crest for Katie; and then came Mary Maginness; and Bertha Schimpfelheim, the daughter of a real German count; and one August Bernheimer, a young barber of baronial blood; and Pietro Cantaveri, our prosperous bootblack, who was the grandson of an Italian countess; and so it goes, and soon all the high-born servers of Pointview will be supplied with armorial bearings.

“’These claims to distinction shall be soberly chronicled in the Advocate.  Not one is to be overlooked or treated with any lack of respect.  On the contrary, the whole thing will be exploited with a proper sense of awe.’

“Marie laughed.

“‘Wait till I tell mama,’ she said.  ’It’s lucky you told me.  It’s saved us.  I guess grandfather was right about that.’

“‘And he’s right about Harry, too,’ I said.  ’But don’t despair; I’m trying to put a new mainspring in the boy.  If I succeed, your grandfather may have to change his mind.’

“She went away comforted, but not happy.

“Well, I went on with the crest campaign.  Bertha, Pietro, and the others got their crests and saw their names in the paper.

“The supply of crests was soon perfectly adequate, and among our best people the demand for them began to diminish, and suddenly ceased.  The beast rampant and couchant, the helmet and the battle-ax, associated only with mixed tenses and misplaced capitals according to their ancient habit.  This chambermaid grammar was referred to by my friend, Dr. Guph, as the ’battle-ax brand’ ­a designation of some merit.  Expensive stationery fell into the fireplaces of Pointview, and armorial plates were found in the garbage.  The family trees of the village were deserted.  Not a bird twittered in their branches.  The subject of genealogy was buried in deep silence, save when the irreverent referred to some late addition to our new aristocracy.

“Now I want to make it clear that we have no disrespect for the customs of any foreign land.  If I were living in a foreign land and needed evidence of my respectability, I’d have a crest, if it was likely to prove my case.  But America was founded by the sons of the yeomen, and the yeomen established their respectability with other evidence.  Their brains were so often touched by the battle-ax that some of us have an hereditary shyness about the head, and we dodge at every baronial relic.”