"The advantages are self-evident. The family surely do not wish to see an honorable and ancient title dragged through the mire at the heels of a pauper, and what am I but a pauper? Then, again, I am not a marrying man. I don't want to marry. Miss Collumpton and Mr. Boscombe may become man and wife with the blissful certainty that the title will be theirs in ten or a dozen years at the most--it may be in ten or a dozen months."
"Suppose, on the other hand, that we decline in toto to have anything to say to your proposition?"
"In that case, madam, my course lies clear before me. I cannot, as an earl, be expected to exist on a pound a week; that would be too absurd. I have the honor to rent an apartment over a milk-shop in one of our most populous suburbs. My landlady has one daughter a buxom, apple-cheeked, red-armed young woman of five-and-twenty, who serves in the shop. I should make this estimable young person Countess of Loughton. For I am growing old, madam, and feel to need the comforts of a home, and what is twenty shillings a week for a nobleman to live on? I have reason to believe that the milk business is a lucrative one, and, with an earl at the head of it, it would become ten times more lucrative than it is now. Of course, I should have my name in full over the door: 'John Marmaduke Lorrimore, Earl of Loughton.' And the same on our business cards, with the family escutcheon underneath, and the family motto Je puis. Then would follow the usual announcements: 'New milk twice a day. Pure Aylesbury butter. Our eggs, eight a shilling, are guaranteed by the Countess. References kindly permitted to the Dowager Lady Loughton, No. 287 Harley street, and to Mr. Flicker, of the eminent firm of Flicker & Tapp. The earl will be on view in the shop any day from ten till eleven A. M. engaged in the perusal of the Morning Post.' I should send out circulars and cards to every name enshrined in Debrett. Twelve hundred a year, madam, would not cover the profits of such a concern. And, by and by, I should hope to have a son and heir to inherit his father's title and his mother's business."
His lordship, for so we must henceforth call him, stared gravely across the table at Lady Loughton. For a little time no sound was heard save the obtrusive ticking of Mr. Flicker's watch.
"Do you think, sir, you are altogether in your right senses?" asked the countess at length, turning on him in her quick way.
"Well, really, Aunt Barbara"--she winced at the appellation--"I have sometimes asked myself the same question. I have a theory that we are all more or less mad on some point or other, and probably I am neither better nor worse than the majority of my fellows."
"You can go now, sir," said the countess, presently. "I have seen enough of you for one day--more than enough. Should I care to see you again I will send for you."
"Flicker knows where a letter will always find me," said the earl, with easy condescension, as he pushed back his chair and possessed himself of his dilapidated hat. "You will think over what I have said, Aunt Barbara, will you not? As I remarked before, I am not a marrying man, and really, to go into the milk trade would be rather below the dignity of an earl, would it not?" He was rubbing his hat tenderly with the sleeve of his threadbare coat as he spoke.
"Go! go!" was all that the countess could say, as she pointed with a skinny finger to the door.
"I have the honor, madam, to wish you a very good morning," said the earl, bowing low over his hat. "Flicker, I shall, doubtless, see you again before long."