His Grace — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIS GRACE. 91 out of parliament I should think Mr. Gascoigne was about the easiest man in England to put to confusion. He poisons foxes, he doesn’t play cricket, he isn’t much of a shot, and I haven’t yet met a single individual who pretends to like him personally. Just let him try to trample upon his betters, that’s all!” Hurstbourne considered this a very spirited speech on Nora’s part. He told me so afterwards, adding that he believed my sister was as shrewd a woman as his mother—which he meant for a high compliment. He did not detect any shrewdness at all in my recommenda- tion that he should leave his cousin alone; he was un- able to seethe slightest point in my allusion to brazen and earthenware vessels; he said he was a peaceable creature, but that if people chose to tread upon his toes, they must take the consequences. He was, in a word, so evidently bent upon having his revenge by hook or by crook that it was useless to reason with him. Were this world inhabited only by the male variety of the species, we should doubtless be spared an infinity of worry, not to mention occasional catastrophes; but we have been created male and female, and, like the unwary persons who tread upon Hurstbourne’s toes, I suppose we must accept the consequences of our em- barrassing position. ' GComicboo l = \ cS EO