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Manners, J. Hartley, 1870-1928

"Peg O' My Heart"


He desired and exacted the full tribute due the dignity it carried.
Then why did not "Jerry" do the same?
She did not appreciate that to him the prefix having been handed
down from generations, was as natural to him as it was unnatural to
the aforementioned criminal lawyer. The one was born with it,
consequently it became second nature to him. The other had it
conferred on him for his zeal in procuring convictions of his own
countrymen, and never having in his most enthusiastic dreams
believed such a condition would come to pass--now that it was an
accomplished fact, he naturally wanted all to know and respect it.
They were two distinct breeds of men.
Peg had occasionally met the type of the honoured lawyer. They
sprang up as mushrooms over night during the pressure of the "Crimes
Act," and were liberally rewarded by the government--some were even
transferred to the English Bar. And they carried their blatant
insistence even across the channel.
But the man of breeding who exacted nothing; of culture, who
pretended not to have acquired it; of the real power and dignity of
life, yet was simplicity itself in his manner to others--that kind
of man was new to Peg.
She burned with shame as she thought of her leave-taking.


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