Perhaps he could invest, but he’s just not our type of people, dear. I oft find the nouveau riche almost more boorish than the rabble!
[…sigh…]
Why can’t we have a country of our own? The little people just don’t realise what a heavy burden we bear.
I say, can’t we just have the chap killed or something. We are allowed to do that, aren’t we? I mean, it’s not like they have feelings.
Smithers, bring me the guest schedule for the season and make a note. Drop the Libertarians from the A list to the B list. It’s just scandalous! They’ve allowed their daughter to become a bohemian! Tsk! Tsk! Can’t have them infecting the rest of the set.
I don’t read anything by people with ounly 9654 posts.
Mr. Legomancer, sirrah, might I advise you to let your secretary go? Just look at the spelling errors he’s made in your name. It reflects poorly on your ancestry and breeding. Why, if I had to make a guess, I would think you’d hired someone who was positively plebian.
<crosses Obsidian off the list of invitees to her debutante ball>
Mummy says I mustn’t socialize with those who don’t understand the importance of their station in life. Besides, she heard a rumor that the dentist is–gasp!–Jewish.
Mummy says it’s a scandal. Sorry, Siddy darling.
Signed, Buffy
Now now, mustn’t talk of offing the chap. Graceful endurance of the lower classes is part of the noblesse oblige of those born to our rank.
Eton, what utter piffle. Only the daughters of Eton Masters are allowed in this otherwise all male institution.
Now Cheltenham School for Girls may be suitable, as it won’t be for some years until that fine old place is sullied by Madonna’s offspring.
Until then you can always claim the Dentist upstart is a Doctor to friends. I know Doctors do on occasions work for a living, but some of my best golfing companions have Harley street practices.
Yours (hon) Keithy Thakory-Sprikett
You golf with doctors? Daddy says you must be some kind of Bolshevik, with those new-fangled ideas. In fact, he became quite red in the face when I told him.
Thank goodness I’m practically engaged to Heathcliff. Nobody in his family has worked for a living in generations.
Spot on old bean. Besides, I’m sure if I had this rabble done away with, somehow I would come across as uncaring to the great unwashed.
The burden we carry.
Ah, but you youngsters prattle on so of the unfortunate woes of the lower classes.
When you reach a more advanced age, or dare I say vintage, you shall come to appreciate the more simple pleasures to be enjoyed in the open and carefully cultivated wilds of your vast landholds and abscond such paltry details as the lineage of dentists.
Why, I find a relaxing afternoon of walking about my estate to find a prize peasant, pardon pheasant, vastly more satisfying belittleing misguided family members.
While I’ll admit the weather is not at its best at the moment, a chill breeze certainly helps one maintaining a stiff upper-lip.
[chuckles merrily and puffs on pipe]
I agree with Baron Heap.
I enjoy the simple things in life. A round of polo in the gardens. A drive through the estate in the vintage Rolls. Even a pause from time to time to favor one of my menials with eye contact.
I like to think of myself as charitable toward the lower classes. And I would like to admonish my peers to be the same. Let us be gracious in our actions and our attitudes. After all, there but for the grace of God go we.
Darling, Darling, darling. Fret not. Let them get married. Then you can set to work on breaking them apart. As long as they are married for six months, they won’t have to return the wedding gifts. She can keep the Limoges and the Baccarat (face it, the tooth-puller won’t have an interest in such things) while he can keep those vulgar home depot gifts his side of the family will give.
Then she can make a second debut, if you will, as a young divorcee, wiser for the experience. She can travel a bit, perhaps see the continent, and meet a more agreeable sort of fellow. Perhaps even a slightly older chap who is himself looking for a newer second wife to help him tastefully live on the trust fund and raise a future generation of heirs.
Well said, Mr. Libertarian. Perchance when the weather is warmer you might indulge me in a visitation so we might sample some of my newest imported cognac and speak of yesterdays’ triumphs.
Cranky
[…wistful sigh…]
True. I suppose that there is nothing that can be done about the insanity of youthful lust. We have decided to give her a choice between leaving the dentist or leaving her inheritance.
But we don’t want to throw her out destitute on the streets. We’re going to let her have her Bentley and her cottage in the Hamptons, along with a modest five-figure weekly allowance.
Maybe when she has lived like the riff-raff for a while, she will come to her senses.
Baron Heap
I shall be delighted to visit you and sample your cognac. Should I bring my Weatherby? Will we be hunting any tails?
Hunting tails! Oh, how you delight! I haven’t divulged in such unrepentant dalliance since the war (at the time I was forced to flee from my hunts in Southern Niger to avoid the wide manuevers of Rommel and found a lovely locally-made yacht on which I sailed from the Gold Coast).
But I should think a bit of hunting would be in order, certainly. I have been informed by the forestry service that our resident game birds should be in good condition population-wise.
Jeeves -
Fetch the gamekeeper, and some of the larger kennel boys, and disperse me this rabble with the cricket bats. They are keeping the polo ponies from their naps.
Hence, you dross! Hence, I say!
Fires over the heads of the mob with an antique shotgun
Deucedly bad show, what? ‘Tis gettin’ so a man can’t walk on his own manorial grounds without being botherated by a lot of the hoi polloi.
Well, I’m off to the library. Fetch in the drink tray, would you old boy? I’m feeling a spot bilious again.
Regards,
Shodan Kensington Farnsworthy III, MC, PDQ, etc.
It’s spelt Shodan, but it’s pronounced Throat-Wobbler-Mangrove
Excellent, Heap.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to repay your hospitality by blocking out a weekend for us at Augusta National. We can stay the evenings at our mountain cottage in the Great Smokeys. I just happen to have a photograph.
Shodan, old bean! Do you still have the Magna Carta in your library, or have you sold it? I’ve been meaning to inquire.
Lib old sock -
Can’t remember what became of it after the second under-housemaid used it to train my best pointer bitch’s second litter. Probably still knocking around the old place somewhere or other.
*rummages around the library, tossing aside first editions of Shakespeare, Gutenberg Bibles, stained copies of last month’s Architectural Digest, an even-more-stained copy of Hot Babes In Leather - “hmmph - how did that get removed from the stand by the bidet?” - finally emerges with a tattered parchment in his hand - *
Here it is, old fellow. Sorry about the highball glass stains - had a roughish sort of evening at the Hunt Ball last Michaelmas. Bring it back some time or other - Mater would be livid if it went the way of the signed copy of Songs of Innocence and Experience Ainsley lost somehow.
So what’s your poison? Sherry? Brandy and ginger beer? Still have a bit of absinthe left over from the Grand Tour of the Continent that Binky took last season if you prefer.
Take a pew and let’s hear about this season’s shooting. Have the beaters all survived this time? Have to say it ruins a day’s sport when one of those keels over, what?
Regards,
Shodan