"I wouldn't give £50 a year for your chance of it. What is this property worth?"
"£9,000 a year. The governor has lived very extravagantly. The stable establishment is fit for a duke now; and, then, look at the servants!"
"He is not living up to ten thousand a year now, I should say."
"No; but it is only the other day he gave up the hounds. They cost him two thousand a year; and, while he had them, the house was carried on very extravagantly. The governor has a wonderful talent for muddling away money; and, what is more, I believe he was bit with the railways. You know, I believe, the estate is involved."
"Bathershin. But still, Cuthbert won't marry, and his life is a bad one, and you are a heretic, my poor little innocent."
"And then?"
"Heaven only knows what then. I am sure I don't. At what time does the worthy and intellectual Welter arrive?"
"He will be here about six."
"Two hours more rational existence for one, then. After that a smell as of ten thousand stables and fifty stale copies of Bell's Life in one's nose, till his lordship takes his departure. I don't like your cousin, Charles."