For this he is expected to pay, and he does pay for it. A
Lord Mayor is, I take it, much in the same category. He has a
salary as Lord Mayor, but if he do not spend more than that on
his office he becomes a byword for stinginess among Lord Mayors
To be Lord Mayor is his whistle, and he pays for it.
For myself, if I found myself called upon to pay for one whistle
or the other, I would sooner be a master of hounds than a Lord
Mayor. The power is certainly more perfect, and the situation, I
think, more splendid. The master of hounds has no aldermen, no
common council, no liverymen. As long as he fairly performs his
part of the compact, he is altogether without control. He is not
unlike the captain of a man-of-war; but, unlike the captain of a
man-of-war, he carries no sailing orders. He is free to go where
he lists, and is hardly expected to tell any one whither he
goeth. He is enveloped in a mystery which, to the young, adds
greatly to his grandeur; and he is one of those who, in spite of
the democratic tenderness of the age, may still be said to go
about as a king among men. No one contradicts him. No one speaks
evil of him to his face; and men tremble when they have whispered
anything of some half-drawn covert, of some unstopped earth, some
fox that should not have escaped, and, looking round, see that
the master is within earshot.
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