"Have riches anything to do with it?"
"Something certainly. You would not name a pauper peer."
"Yes;—if he was a man whose career had been highly honourable to the country. Such a man, of course, could not be a pauper, but I do not think his want of wealth should stand in the way of his being honoured by the Garter."
"Wealth, rank, and territorial influence have been generally thought to have something to do with it."
"And character nothing!"
"My dear Duke, I have not said so."
"Something very much like it, my friend, if you advocate the claim of the Marquis of Mount Fidgett. Did you approve of the selection of the late Marquis?"
"I was in the Cabinet at the time, and will therefore say nothing against it. But I have never heard anything against this man's character."
"Nor in favour of it. To my thinking he has as much claim, and no more, as that man who just opened the door. He was never seen in the Lower House."
"Surely that cannot signify."