'There is some prospect now of my coming to that hundred and fifty, I hope,' said the captain. 'Uncle Jeremiah may now write another will.'
'How selfish you are! You think only of yourself, not how I am afflicted. But, Lamb, I have had you sponging on me all these years, and keeping me in an exhausted financial condition that is intolerable.'
'We shall revert to our former condition, I suppose, now,' said Lambert unconcernedly.
'That is precisely what I cannot do. Return to poverty and middle-class society, the very crown and climax of which is a Lord and Lady Mayoress—when we are on the eve of making the acquaintance of county people! What have you done for yourself? You have been too inert to seize the chances I have put in your way. You must marry money. Jane Mulberry was worth five hundred per annum, and you let her slip through your fingers.'
'She had a moustache.'
'She had money. Five hundred pounds would gild it. Then there was Miss Smithson.'
'She was insipid.'
'What of that? The insipid women make the best wives, they are so non-resistant. In marriage, men should be teetotalers and take weak and washy women. They are far the best to get on with.'
'Don't think I've much fancy for such,' said the captain languidly.
'I tremble to think,' said his mother angrily, 'what the offspring of a weak woman and such an unenergetic man would be!'