Indeed, his troubles seldom kept him from making up parties for excursions to the various objects of interest in the town and its environs.
Only when the days were both cold and wet, as is sometimes, not often, the case in early autumn there, did Abel Force allow his young folks to go forth alone under the care of their mother and the escort of Leonidas, while he stayed within doors and played chess with the invalid earl.
In this way the brothers-in-law became better acquainted and more attached.
“I wish you were an Englishman, Force,” said the earl one day, when he had just checkmated Abel and was resting on his laurels.
“Why?”
“Not because I do not admire and respect your nationality, but simply for one reason.”
“What is that?”
“I will tell you. You know, of course, that your wife is my heiress, and if she survives me, will be my successor. Now, if you were an Englishman you might get the reversion of your wife’s title.”
“I do not want it. I would not ask for it, nor even accept it.”
“That is your republican pride. Perhaps you are right. The old earldom has fallen to the distaff at length, and it will be likely to stay there for some generations to come; for Elfrida, who will be a countess in her own right, has only daughters, which is a pity. And yet I don’t know—I don’t know. If those fellows at Exeter Hall, and elsewhere, get their way, in another century from this there will not be an emperor or a king, to say nothing of a little earl, to be found above ground on the surface of this fourth planet of the solar system commonly called the earth, and their bones will be as great a curiosity as those of the behemoth or the megatherium. Shall we have another game?”