“To a certainty he would not, although proffered in your own most insinuating manner. Come, Meek, no nonsense; you must look out for a seat for your protégé Clare Jones, elsewhere; though I tell you frankly he is not worth the trouble.”
“I declare you are all wrong, Linton—quite wrong; I was thinking whether from motives of delicacy you would not like to press your own claim, which we might, with so much propriety.”
“Thanks,” said Linton; while a sly twinkle of his eye showed that he did not care to disguise the spirit of mistrust with which he heard the speech. “Thanks; you are too generous, and I am too modest, so let us not think more of the matter.”
“What is Cashel's real fortune?” said Meek, not sorry to turn the conversation into a less dangerous channel; “one hears so many absurd and extravagant reports, it is hard to know what to believe.”
“Kennyfeck calls it fourteen thousand a year above all charges and cost of collection.”
“And your own opinion?”
Linton shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and said, “There or thereabouts. I fancy that his ready money has been greatly overrated. But why do you ask? Your people wouldn't give him a peerage, would they?”
“Not now, of course,” said Meek, hesitating.
“Nor at any time, I trust,” said Linton, authoritatively. “The man does not know how to behave as a plain country gentleman; why increase his embarrassments by making him a Lord? Besides, you should take care in these new creations who are your peeresses, or one of these days you 'll have old Kennyfeck fancying that he is a noble himself.”
“There is no danger to be apprehended in that quarter?” asked Meek, with some trepidation of manner.