There may be a learnable moment here, outside, naturally, of the corporate offices of The Fehrnstrom Fishwrap an Louisedayhicksville an the greater Rio Limbaugh area.
Mittius Coriolanus Pompo, Demander of Apologies, Master of Seamus, &c. &c. &c. &c., has been shamefully pestered about his taxes by plebes and proles and cobblers and weavers and (especially) representatives of the non-backwater media.
Pompo comes stately down to the Forum to show off his Classwar wounds, an to warn Senate an People against the dark threat of ... of, among other dusky unwhighteousnesses, protected patients an affordable public medicine. Also to commend his idiot stepnephew,
P. Smirquius Caseus Minor, who, though not from the City aristocracy, is considered, no doubt correctly, to be the very model of a respectably cloth-coated Republicanine at Janesville WI.The riff and the raff, however, are not half--not a twentieth--as interested as they oughtabe in Smirquius Minor with his ever-immortal Thirty Year Plan for TopPercenter Ascendancy, cleverly disguised as a Fedguv budget for whichever FY happens to begin next at any given moment. Roused by the hate-crazed demagogue Reid, who is still, somehow, to our shame as Neoromans,
Princeps Senatus, the rabble want M. Coriolanus Pompo's 1040's released to them almost as badly as their brethren of the external proletariat once wanted
that universal hearth-throb Barabbas released to them, instead of what's-his-name, some out-of-commonwealth relative of the Coriolani Pompones, I believe that troublemaker was.
Anyhow, it has seemed good to Pompo -- or perhaps to Erich, Freiherr von Fehrnstrom, which comes to the same thing -- to have Volumnia Equestrix, consort to Coriolanus Pompo, to join her guy on the rostrum an remark "There’s going to be no more tax releases given. Mittius is honest. His integrity is just golden.”
Now Freedame Volumnia notoriously lives an exceedinly retired life. Her freeladyship may be innocently unaware that Neorome ditched the gold standard sixteen (MCMXLIX - MCMXXXIII) years before her freeladyship was so much as hatched. Quite as likely, though, her freeladyship was just readin what Fabulous Fernie wrote for her freeladyship to read.
We now arrive at the learnability moment, which works as follows: what makes aristocratic goodvolks like the Coriolani Pompones (an Volumnii Equestres) be aristoes -- makes ’em constitue, that is, a CLASS of aristoes, not just a laundry list of ruggedly self-infatuated individuals -- is that the freeladylike appeal would actually work, were it addressed strictly to Classmates.
With the proles an plebes an cobblers an weavers an mainstreamers actually before her, Freedame Volumnia will, needless to say, effect nothin worth mentionin.
Inside The Class™, however, on the freeladylike home turf, so to speak, reciprocal self-avouchin like Fernie asked for not only works, 'tis the glue that hold the whole aristoe shebang together.
The late Dr. Marx made an admirable beginning on the hypothesis that Classmateyness is basically an economic phænomenon. I suppose that view is, even today, sound enough, provided that one glosses ‘basically' with a great deal of care. For rough-and-ready everyday use, however, it is more helpful to start with The Psychological Reality of Classmateyness, so to call it, and not get unduly hung up on technicalities about their freelordships' current net worths.
In practice, you may safely assume that you, too, nust be a Classmate, if you have no problem about takin Freedame Volumnia's bare unsupported word for the wunnerfulness of M. Coriolanus Pompo. (Inasmuch, however,as you appear to be readin the peanut gallery of The Fehrnstrom Fishwrap, there is no need to worry about where you stand, Classmatewise. "Four-letter word, starts with "SC", ends with a 'B', . . . . Either that or a Bolshie.)
Somebooby like the late Comrade Vidal--a traitor, I mean, like Comrade Delano, to his hereditary Classmates--expressed the essence of this concept by pointing out that, presented with some specimen of Dives not known to oneself personally, we humble of the Murrayan Underclass will probably wonder "How much is he worth?" A proper Classmate, however, will ask "Who are his people?" That is to say, an echt freelordship wants the dots filled in between himself an Dives Ignotus with genuine ‘people', Classmates whose vouchins for one another are known to be acceptable.
It follows (unexpectedly to Paddy McScribble) that Classmates must find the whole circus about M. Coriolanus Pompo's taxes (an the freelordly finances of other sorts as well) not so much distasteful as unintelligible.
Suppose the questionable Dives Ignotus attempts to enter the sacred precincts of
Fabulous Fernie's Jay School fruits an frathouse babes are likely to refer this sort of thing as WWNN (alio modo: W2N2), "wink, wink; nod, nod."
That observation, however, best serves to remind that Freelord Fehrnstrom is no Classmate. 'It is probably safe to say," thinks Paddy McTammany from well outside the mon[k]ey house, "That if one can detect any unmistakable winkin or noddin, probably the goodvolks involved are not Clasmates. Top-drawer hired gunclingers, possibly, yet not quight the really whight sorta volks whose ‘people' your Vidal-class Classmate would inquire after."
Naturally if Freedame Volumnia had winked or nodded whilst standin by her Heroe, one would take for granted that divorce proceedins have commenced. [*]
Happy days.
___
[*] It seems antecedently likely that her freeladyship has not much better an idea about the financial doins of the Baincapper Extraordinaire to whom she is hitched than Senator Reid, or Yoo, or Eye does. No more idea, that would be, than M. Coriolanus Pompo admitted to havin about some friend
of his wife's named ‘Rafalca’ who got into the non-backwater media recently by way of some politically irrelevant connexion. 
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