“A baronetcy, my Lord,” said he, with a slow, thick utterance, “has become the recognized reward of a popular writer, or a fashionable physician, whose wives acquire a sort of Brummagem rank in calling themselves 'My Lady;' but men like myself,—men who have sustained a party,—men who, wielding many arms of strength, have devoted them all to the one task of maintaining in power a certain administration, which, whatever their gifts, assuredly did not possess the art of conciliating—”
“Come, it is a peerage you want?” broke in his Lordship, whose manner betrayed a temper pushed to its last limits.
“If I am to trust your Lordship's tone, the pretension would seem scarcely credible,” said Dunn, calmly.
“I believe I can understand how it would appear to others. I can, without great difficulty, imagine the light in which it would be viewed.”
“As to that, my Lord, any advancement to a man like me will evoke plenty of animadversion. I have done too-much for your party not to have made many enemies. The same objection would apply were I to accept the paltry acknowledgment you so graciously contemplated for me, and which I warn you not to offer me.”
Was it the naked insolence of this speech, or was it that in uttering it the proud pretension of the man summoned a degree of dignity to his manner; but certainly the Minister now looked at him with a sort of respect, he had not deigned hitherto to bestow.
“You know well, Dunn,” he began, in a tone of conciliation, “that fitness for the elevation is only one of the requirements in such a case. There are a mass of other considerations,—the ostensible claims; I mean such as can be-avowed and declared openly,—of the pretending party,—the services he has rendered to the country at large,—the merits he can show for some great public recognition. The press, whatever be its faults nowadays, has no defects on the score of frankness, and we shall have the question put in twenty different quarters, 'What brilliant campaign has Mr. Dunn concluded?' 'What difficult negotiation carried to successful issue?' 'Where have been his great achievements in the law courts?' To be sure, it might be said that we honor the industrial spirit of our country in ennobling one who has acquired a colossal fortune by his own unaided abilities; but Manchester and Birmingham have also their 'millionnaires.'”
“Your Lordship's time is far too valuable to be passed in such discussion; even mine might be more profitably spent than in listening to it, My demand is now before you; in some three weeks hence it is not impossible it may await the consideration of your Lordship's successors. In one word, if I leave this room without your distinct pledge on the subject, you will no longer reckon me amongst the followers of your party.”
“Half-past four, I protest,” said Lord Jedburg, taking up his gloves. “I shall be too late at the House. Let us conclude this to-morrow morning. Come down here at eleven.”
“Excuse me, my Lord. I leave town to-night I am going over to Ireland.”