James flatters me.

Had I been born a peasant, I should now be a tramp.

My notion of my father's income is even vaguer than his own was--and that is saying a good deal--but he always had an income of at least three figures (four, if you count in dollars instead of pounds); and what made him poor was that he conceived himself as born to a social position which even in Ireland could have been maintained in dignified comfort only on twice or thrice what he had.

And he married on that assumption.

Fortunately for me, social opportunity is not always to be measured by income.