‘I don’t doubt that the title would meet a readier acceptance there than here.’
‘Ah, you think so!’ cried Walpole. ‘What is the meaning of a rank that people acknowledge or deny at pleasure? Is this peculiar to Ireland?’
‘If you had asked whether persons anywhere else would like to maintain such a strange pretension, I might perhaps have answered you.’
‘For the few minutes of this visit to me, I liked him; he seemed frank, hearty, and genial.’
‘I suppose he is, and I suspect this folly of the lordship is no fancy of his own.’
‘Nor the daughter’s, then, I’ll be bound?’
‘No; the son, I take it, has all the ambition of the house.’
‘Do you know them well?’
‘No, I never saw them till yesterday. The son and I are chums: we live together, and have done so these three years.’
‘You like your visit here, however?’