“Nothing in this country, my dear sir! positively nothing. Why, there was Titus, my neighbour in the country—when will you come down to Newcome?—who married a devilish pretty girl, of very good family, too, Miss Burgeon, one of the Devonshire Burgeons. He looks, I am sure, twenty years older than you do. Why should not you do likewise?”
“Because I like to remain single, and want to leave Clive a rich man. Look here, Barnes, you know the value of our bank shares, now?”
“Indeed I do; rather speculative; but of course I know what some sold for last week,” says Barnes.
“Suppose I realise now. I think I am worth six lakhs. I had nearly two from my poor father. I saved some before and since I invested in this affair; and could sell out to-morrow with sixty thousand pounds.”
“A very pretty sum of money, Colonel,” says Barnes.
“I have a pension of a thousand a year.”
“My dear Colonel, you are a capitalist! we know it very well,” remarks Sir Barnes.
“And two hundred a year is as much as I want for myself,” continues the capitalist, looking into the fire, and jingling his money in his pockets. “A hundred a year for a horse; a hundred a year for pocket-money, for I calculate, you know, that Clive will give me a bedroom and my dinner.”
“He! he! If your son won’t, your nephew will, my dear Colonel!” says the affable Barnes, smiling sweetly.
“I can give the boy a handsome allowance, you see,” resumes Thomas Newcome.