“What the plague has the House of Tudor got to do with my stocks?”
“A great deal. Henry VIII. found a subsidy so unpopular that he gave it up; and the people, in return, allowed him to cut off as many heads as he pleased, besides those in his own family. Good Queen Bess, who, I know, is your idol in history—”
“To be sure!—she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury Fort.”
“Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain monopoly; she saw it would not do, and she surrendered it with that frank heartiness which becomes a sovereign, and makes surrender a grace.”
“Ha! and you would have me give up the stocks?”
“I would much rather the stocks had remained as it was before you touched it; but, as it is, if you could find a good plausible pretext—and there is an excellent one at hand,—the sternest kings open prisons, and grant favours, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the royal family is of course a joyful occasion! and so it should be in that of the King of Hazeldean.” Admire that artful turn in the parson’s eloquence!—it was worthy of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr. Dale had profited much by his companionship with that Machiavellian intellect.
“A marriage,—yes; but Frank has only just got into coattails!”
“I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Jemima!”