Mrs. Perry exclaimed at this form of address, and after a short pause, during which Mr. Perry removed his hat and looked rather sheepish, Mr. Blother said joyfully: "Ah, I see. At last they have recognised your value, and have knighted you. Three cheers for Sir Samuel and Lady Perry!"
Mr. Perry held up his hand, and the cheers died on our lips. "You are on the right track, Blother," he said, "but you have not gone far enough. You should have said: 'Three cheers for Lord and Lady Magnolia!' which is the title I have decided to adopt, subject to her ladyship's approval. My dear, a great and unexpected honour has been conferred on me. They have offered me a peerage, contingent on my accepting or refusing it at once. I have accepted, thinking you would wish it for the sake of the children, and my patent was handed to me this afternoon."
We all congratulated the new peer heartily, concealing our surprise at the honour having been conferred on him, and saying that it was only what ought to have been done long ago.
When Mr. Blother had left us to carry the news into the servants' quarters, Mr. Perry, or rather Lord Magnolia, told us all about it.
"It is the reward of my life-long service in the cause of the downtrodden," he said, "and dear Edward will be gratified to know that the punishment so harshly inflicted upon him has had something to do with it. I was given to understand that the Government much regrets the necessity of having had to prosecute him, and, as a good deal of feeling has been aroused against them in consequence of that action, they hoped that this honour, conferred upon me so promptly, might remove some of that feeling, as showing that, whatever may be thought of them, they are really on our side. Therefore, in one way, I may be said to be doing as much for them as they are doing for me, which made it, perhaps, easier to accept the unlooked-for honour. I did not do so without some demur. I said that I should not consent to be a mere puppet peer,[34] and they assured me that nothing of the sort was intended. They also assured me in the handsomest way that the offer of a peerage to me had long been under consideration, and the only difficulty about it had been that my way of living might bring ridicule on the nobility generally. I told them at once that my work was far too dear to me to be given up, and that if the stipulation was that I should leave my friends amongst the rich, and go back to live amongst the poor, I could not consent to it. They said that no such stipulation would be made, and that removed my last objection."
What his other objections had been, Lord Magnolia did not tell us. It was obvious that he had not had the least idea of such an honour ever being conferred on him, and was quite agreeably stirred by it.
"I only wish that dear Edward were here to share our gratification," he said, "but it will not be long now before we have him with us again. My dear, I think you might write him a note to tell him what has happened. To-morrow will be his day for receiving letters, and do not forget to address him as the Honourable Edward Perry."
"I must go home at once and tell Herman," said Mrs. Eppstein. "It was a step up for him to marry me, but he little thought that he would be marrying into the peerage."