"Sir, I fail to see your argument," said I.
"What?" cried Sir Richard, facing round on me, "d'you think
you'd have a chance with her then?"
"Why not?"
"Without friends, position, of money? Pish, boy! don't I tell
you that every buck and dandy--every mincing macaroni in the
three kingdoms would give his very legs to marry her--either for
her beauty or her fortune?" spluttered the baronet. "And let me
inform you further that she's devilish high and haughty with it
all--they do say she even rebuffed the Prince Regent himself."
"But then, sir, I consider myself a better man than the Prince
Regent," said I.
Sir Richard sank into the nearest chair and stared at me
openmouthed.
"Sir," I continued, "you doubtless set me down as an egoist of
egoists. I freely confess it; so are you, so is Mr. Grainger
yonder, so are we all of us egoists in thinking ourselves as good
as some few of our neighbors and better than a great many."
"Deuce take me!" said Sir Richard.
"Referring to the Lady Sophia, I have heard that she once
galloped her horse up the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral--"
"And down again, Peter," added Sir Richard.
"Also she is said to be possessed of a temper," I continued, "and
is above the average height, I believe, and I have a natural
antipathy to termagants, more especially tall ones."
"Termagant!" cried Sir Richard. "Why, she's the handsomest woman
in London, boy. She's none of your milk-and-watery, meek-mouthed
misses--curse me, no! She's all fire and blood and high mettle--a
woman, sir glorious--divine--damme, sir, a black-browed goddess--a
positive plum!"
"Sir Richard," said I, "should I ever contemplate marriage, which
is most improbable, my wife must be sweet and shy, gentle-eyed and
soft of voice, instead of your bold, strong-armed, horse-galloping
creature; above all, she must be sweet and clinging--"
"Sweet and sticky, oh, the devil! Hark to the boy, Grainger,"
cried Sir Richard, "hark to him--and one glance of the glorious
Sefton's bright eyes--one glance only, Grainger, and he'd be at
her feet--on his knees--on his confounded knees, sir!"
"The question is, how do you propose to maintain yourself in the
future?" said Mr. Grainger at this point; "life under your altered
fortunes must prove necessarily hard, Mr. Peter."
"And yet, sir," I answered, "a fortune with a wife tagged on to
it must prove a very mixed blessing after all; and then again,
there may be a certain amount of satisfaction in stepping into a
dead man's shoes, but I, very foolishly, perhaps, have a hankering
for shoes of my own. Surely there must be some position in life
that I am competent to fill, some position that would maintain me
honorably and well; I flatter myself that my years at Oxford were
not altogether barren of result--"