“And take away those dreadful peacocks?” cried Agatha, “They make one shiver.”
“Magna Charta House would be a good name,” said Hodmadod; “that is, when I say Magna Charta, I mean Runnymede Cottage. Of course, my dear sir, you’ll ask all Parliament, lords and commons, to the house-warming?”
“Couldn’t we make it a fancy ball, and have ’em in historical dresses?” cried Agatha, jumping up and down, tipsy with happiness.
Candituft, with a sudden, serious look, took Jericho aside. “It has just struck me,” he said, “and I must out with it, though it is abrupt.” He then took Jericho by the right hand, squeezed it, looked tenderly in his face, and with a voice of emotion, like one compelled to suggest a sharp surgical operation, asked—“How should you like to be made a baronet?”
Jericho twitched his shoulders; drew himself up; and put his hand in his bosom. “I have not the least ambition of the kind. But it might please my wife. Title is a straw that tickles women; so, for the sake of Mrs. Jericho, I might not resist.”
Candituft looked relieved. It was plain a leaden weight of doubt was removed from his soul. He smiled, and again squeezed Jericho’s hand, saying as he squeezed—“Good creature! Bless you!”
Mr. Jericho returned to the party; and again and again he was hailed by all as the lord of the domain. “Hurrah!” cried the impulsive Agatha, jumping up, and hitching a wreath of honeysuckle about the head of Jericho, “hurrah for the king of Marigolds!” The next moment Jericho stepped under an apple-tree; and the next, a shower of apples fell bouncing about him.
“The devil!” cried Jericho, running; and the ladies screamed.
Basil’s Practical Joke.