“No, no, Sir, don’t say that—you can’t say that. The world is to you, as to all men who have taken a large part in public affairs, the wide circle of those who bring to their judgment on their fellow-men a vast acquaintance with motives, and interests, and reasons; and, besides all these, with conventionalities and decorums. They form the jury who decide on, not alone the good morals of their contemporaries, but on their good taste.”
“Perhaps it might be my fortune to offer them a most undeniable proof of mine,” said the old man, intentionally mistaking what the other had said.
“Take care, Sir Within! Take care. You might be like that case at Guildford t’other day, where the judge said, ‘There is nothing so serious in the indictment against you as your own defence.’”
“I believe you said you never took snuff,” said the envoy, tapping the gorgeous box he still held in his fingers. “That clump of oaks you see yonder,” continued he, pointing with his finger, “shuts out one of the most beautiful bits of landscape I ever saw, and I have only waited for your presence here, to decide on cutting them down.”
“I will not consent to fell timber, Sir, for the sake of landscape. I am certain Adolphus would agree with me.”
They now walked on, side by side, in silence. How beautiful that wood alley was! How calmly sweet the leafy shade, how deliciously the blackbird carolled from its depths, and how soft the smooth turf beneath their feet, and yet how little they heeded or cared for it all! The banker spoke first: “If you had been prepared to propose terms on which it was possible to treat, Sir Within, my son, I know—as for myself, the plan has no attractions for me—but my son, I know, would have felt disposed to meet you; but when you start on the basis that an interval of five years, or something akin to it, makes no inroad whatever on a man’s life, and then, possibly aided by that theory, hint at the likelihood of having to charge the estate with settlement——”
“My dear Mr. Ladarelle, forgive my interrupting you. All this is very painful, and, what is worse, unprofitable. I remember a remark of the charming old Duke of Anhalt to his neighbouring sovereign, the Prince of Hohen Alttingen: ‘My dear Prince,’ said he, ‘whatever our ministers can and ought to discuss together, will always prove a most unseemly topic for us;’ so be assured, Sir, that what our lawyers can wrangle over, we will do much better if we leave to them.”
“You know best, I am certain, Sir. I feel it is your province to understand these cases; but I own it would never have occurred to me to take a stupid old German potentate as an authority on a matter of business. May I ask what is that edifice yonder, like a piece of confectionary?”
“It is my aviary, which I shall be proud to-show you.” “Excuse me, I know nothing about birds.”
“I shall not insist, for it is the season when they lose their plumage.”