DEAR MR. PUNCH,--Look here! I've done good service in my time, and
no one likes to see himself deprived of an honoured title, or forced
to take a back seat. I've been trodden under-foot over and over
again--but I've borne it with fortitude, and never, never given way.
Now, what do I hear? That a Gentleman, a Government Whip, for whom I
have the highest esteem and respect, is now to assume the title which,
by right of position, place, time, and prescription, belongs to me,
and _to me only_, I can bear much, but, after so many years of devoted
service, during which, with all my opportunities, I have never once
made any attempt to leave my place to go higher up, or to go lower
down, or, in either case, to go with the tide, I cannot, and, indeed,
will not, yield my title to anyone, however good and useful to his
Party he may have been, but proudly declaring myself as good as any
"Sprig of Nobility," even as this one who cometh up as a Flower, I
beg, protestingly, to remind the world at large that I am "_Nulli
Secundus_," and _de facto et dejure_,