“Nothing more easy,” broke in the wife and mother. “He marries the Duke’s daughter; he obtains a high appointment at a foreign court; he enters upon diplomacy; I’m sure he was born for it; he always had, as a child, such a taste for mechanics. I only wish I’d kept the mouse-trap he invented when he was six years old. Depend upon it, he’s a born ambassador, my dear.”
“Isn’t marked anywhere with the name of the court, eh?” asked Jericho.
“Now, my love, I adore your wit; but do respect a mother’s feelings. Consider, Jericho. As I say, he marries Lady Malypense. He is sent abroad. Our politics are in a tangle somewhere—in Egypt, or Greece, or Belgium, or the Sandwich Islands—’tis all the same—and Basil winds the affair off as cleanly as a skein of silk. Then, of course, he is ennobled—he has somehow saved his country; and, choosing an estate from the map of England, it is bought for ever and for ever for him by a grateful people, and he takes his seat among the lords spiritual and temporal—a peer of the realm. I’m sure of it, from his genius; though I never named it before. Certain.”
“Well,” said Jericho, satirically, “there’s something in it. And yet to consider a peer in his robes and coronet—well, it must be confessed ’tis a mighty grand thing to come out of a mousetrap.”
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Jericho, “peerages have come of much smaller matters. And, in fact, my love, this intended marriage—this folly—this sacrifice must, at any cost, be prevented.”
“As you please; but for my part, I think you’d better let matters take their course.”
“Solomon!” cried the wife, in the voice of reproach.
“And as for a peerage, why, where Basil’s going, he may choose the rank he best likes; earl, marquess, duke.—And what’s more, he can have himself tattooed, dog-cheap, with garters on both legs, and any number of orders.” And Jericho laughed at his own wit, with the partiality of a parent.
Mrs. Jericho visited the scorner with one scathing glance of anger; then half in pity, half in contempt, she cried—“Mr. Jericho, you are not a mother.” And it must be confessed the Man of Money bore the information with pattern tranquillity.