oh that the lord the grace would g'ie us

Evening at the chateau.

Sitting in the front room with the lady known as Lildebeest.

Flicking through the channels in the mad March days.

By accident I hit CNN.

Someone styling himself Anderson Cooper is waxing compassionate about dead people in Haiti.

"Aw poor little rich boy," murmureth me darkly.

"What do you mean?" says the Mammy.

"That lad is the son of a New York billionaire heiress," I tell her. "His mother was Gloria Vanderbilt. And neither he nor she have ever done a day's work in their life."

Brief silence.

"What's wrong with that?" says the Mammy.

"Well it would be nice if CNN would occasionally employ a genuinely qualified journalist who isn't either a billionaire's son or sleeping with Ted Turner," quoth me sniffily.

"Why are you blaming him for his background?" asks the Mammy brow wrinkling.

"I doubt little Gloria Vanderbilt's son got the job on merit," proclaims me.

"You just resent him because he's got money," charges the Mammy.

"I resent him because he's a poor little rich boy playing at being a journalist," mutters me.

"People in this town say the same thing about you," avers the Mammy.

"I don't believe people in Kilcullen sneer at me for being rich," pronounceth me eyes wide and round.

"I know they do," insists the Mammy.

"They must be mad," I intone bitterly.

"Mad or envious it all boils down to the same thing," muses the Mammy socratically.

"And I suppose you think they look on you as Gloria Vanderbilt!" challengeth me.

There is a pulse in the universe.

"I don't care how they look on me," cries the Mammy warmly. "I'm only pointing out what they say about you because you're saying exactly the same thing about that nice Anderson Cooper."