“You don’t mean it!” I said.
“Mean what, George?”
“Subscription to the party funds. Reciprocal advantage. Have we got to that?”
“Whad you driving at, George?”
“You know. They’d never do it, man!”
“Do what?” he said feebly; and, “Why shouldn’t they?”
“They’d not even go to a baronetcy. No!.... And yet, of course, there’s Boom! And Collingshead and Gorver. They’ve done beer, they’ve done snippets! After all Tono-Bungay—it’s not like a turf commission agent or anything like that!... There have of course been some very gentlemanly commission agents. It isn’t like a fool of a scientific man who can’t make money!”
My uncle grunted; we’d differed on that issue before.
A malignant humour took possession of me. “What would they call you?” I speculated. “The vicar would like Duffield. Too much like Duffer! Difficult thing, a title.” I ran my mind over various possibilities. “Why not take a leaf from a socialist tract I came upon yesterday. Chap says we’re all getting delocalised. Beautiful word—delocalised! Why not be the first delocalised peer? That gives you—Tono-Bungay! There is a Bungay, you know. Lord Tono of Bungay—in bottles everywhere. Eh?”
My uncle astonished me by losing his temper.