CHAPTER XXXVII.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE FIRST.

VER since Count Maremma's rescue

everything had gone well, up to this

time, with his son, Count Casimir. Both in London and in the country, his preparations for emigration had been most hopefully conducted. But, on his return from Loudenham Castle, his fortunes seemed to have taken another and quite a different turn. He found discord and difficulty where he had left accord and facility. He was overwhelmed by unwelcome letters, and by demands for interviews, which were only to give vent to complaints and grievances.

A few days after his return he was at Lochawe House; and he could not help disclosing

some of his troubles to his friends and coadjutors there. His practical men, he said, the engineers, doctors, first-class artisans, were all wanting something or other that could not be done, and were ingeniously inventing difficulties.

Poor Casimir! he had yet to learn what a terrible part temper plays in the most serious business of the world. And yet, not exactly temper," but the desire for eminence.

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Ask any great statesman or commander, and he will tell you that the work to be done is easy enough the main trouble is with the tempers, dignities, vanities, and susceptibilities of the people who have to do it. This is chiefly the fault of our system of education. We say to the child, "Be first: whatever you do, take care to get precedence from your way of doing it ;" and then, having implanted in the child a morbid desire for pre-eminence, we wonder that it acts so tiresomely in the grown-up man, and that he will never be contented with being, as they say at college, "a good second." There will be no great improvement in the world until this dis

content, fostered by too ardent competition, is somewhat abated.

Casimir was not yet versed enough in the ways of the world to philosophize in the foregoing fashion; and he felt most keenly the unreasonableness he had to deal with on all sides. For the first time, perhaps, he fully realized the difficulty of the enterprise he had undertaken. Not that he was really daunted, not that the faintest idea of abandoning his work entered his mind. Men of Count Casimir's stamp are sure to go through with what they have once undertaken. But, still, he was, for the moment, profoundly discouraged; it always being a very serious time of trouble for a young man, when he finds out fully that human beings are very difficult creatures to act with, or to manage.

The young Count leant his head upon his hands at a table covered with papers; and notwithstanding his boast of being as hardy in mind as an Englishman, tears of vexation were very near his eyes. The tears of foreigners are nearer to their eyes than our tears are to ours.

"Just look at the absurdity of it," he exclaimed; " every one of these men wants to be first. Each of the clergymen wants to be a bishop; each of the young doctors a medical director; and every one of the principal laymen wishes to be the first in a council.

"Wise old John, too, sent a message to me, to say that there was a mort of trouble' down there, and that I must come to him as soon as I could. I have not been able to go yet."

"And what shall you do first, Count Casimir?" said Ruth, who, together with Maggie and Lord Glenant, was in the room when Casimir indulged in this detail of his troubles.

"Why, I shall try the engineers, and the other men of business first," replied the Count: "they are the pith and marrow of the undertaking."

"My dear Casimir," said Lord Glenant, "take me with you to see these fellows. I am a foolish, frivolous sort of person, I know; but there is, deep down, a mine of wisdom in me. Of the nature and value of the hidden treasures in this

mine, you may judge when I tell you that I could declare, upon oath, if it were necessary, that I have never been astonished at the development of any amount of folly in any human being. In my epitaph, let it be said, 'Here lies Lord Glenant, as foolish a fellow as ever was

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(here he stole a glance at Maggie, who looked the other way), "but who never expected anybody else to be less foolish."

Then he went to Casimir, put his hand affectionately upon the other's arm, and said,

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Seriously, Casimir, take me with you tomorrow I shall do you a world of good in making you laugh, if such a sober-minded fellow can be made to laugh, as we go from one interview to another."

Casimir consented. Ruth and Maggie said. nothing; but each of them determined to take some part of the work into their own handsand afterwards they arranged not to tell Casimir beforehand of their intention, but to call upon him the following evening about seven o'clock, if they were successful.