"I should say so," remarked Mr. Pepper.
"I tell you what it is, Fred," continued Ralph, becoming very confidential. "I don't mind telling you, because you are a man who understands things. There isn't such a great pull after all in having a property of your own."
"I shouldn't mind trying it,—just for a year or so," said Mr. Pepper.
"I suppose not," said Ralph, chuckling in his triumph. "And yet there isn't so much in it. What does it amount to when it's all told? You keep horses for other fellows to ride, you buy wine for other fellows to drink, you build a house for other fellows to live in. You've a deal of business to do, and if you don't mind it you go very soon to the dogs. You have to work like a slave, and everybody gets a pull at you. The chances are you never have any ready money, and become as stingy as an old file. You have to get married because of the family, and the place, and all that kind of thing. Then you have to give dinners to every old fogy, male and female, within twenty miles of you, and before you know where you are you become an old fogy yourself. That's about what it is."
"You ought to know," said Mr. Pepper.
"I've been expecting it all my life,—of course. It was what I was born to, and everybody has been telling me what a lucky fellow I am since I can remember. Now I've got it, and I don't find it comes to so very much. I shall always look back upon the dear old Moonbeam, and the B. B., and Hossy's wonderful port wine with regret. It hasn't been very swell, you know, but it's been uncommonly cosy. Don't you think so?"
"You see I wasn't born to anything better," said Mr. Pepper.
Just at this moment Cox and Fooks came out of the house. They had not as yet breakfasted, but had thought that a mouthful of air in the stable-yard might enable them to get through their toast and red herrings with an amount of appetite which had not as yet been vouchsafed to them. Second and third editions of that wonderful port had been produced on the previous evening, and the two warriors had played their parts with it manfully. Fooks was bearing up bravely as he made his way across the yard; but Cox looked as though his friends ought to see to his making that journey to Australia very soon if they intended him to make it at all. "I'm blessed if you fellows haven't been and breakfasted," said Captain Fooks.
"That's about it," said the Squire.
"You must be uncommon fond of getting up early."