And here their little great-great-grandson stands as they stood, the ghost
of their servitude in his sluggish blood. He is content with his role of
watcher as his people were content. These slightly grotesque trappings of
his are a disguise. He wishes to disguise the fact that he is of the
torchbearers, the varlets, the bathkeepers who produced him. So he
imitates servilely what he fancies to be the distinguishing marks of his
betters--their clothes, their manners, their aplomb. This accomplished, he
is content to yield himself to the mysterious impulses and dreams that
move silently through him.
And so he takes his position beside his people--the mixed breeds dragged
from their scattered villages--so he stands as they stood through the
centuries, their faces watching from the shadows the gorgeousness and
tumult of the great aristocrats.
MOTTKA
Since most of the great minds that have weighed the subject have arrived
at the opinion that between poverty and crime there is an inevitable
affinity, the suspicion with which the eye of Policeman Billings rested
upon Mottka, the vender of roasted chestnuts, reflected creditably upon
that good officer's grasp of the higher philosophies.
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