I
will not trouble you with technicalities, Sir Vavasour:
sufficient that the difficulty is great though perhaps not
unmanageable. But we have no need of management. Your claim
on the barony of Lovel is very good: I could recommend your
pursuing it. did not another more inviting still present
itself. In a word, if you wish to be Lord Bardolf, I will
undertake to make you so, before, in all probability, Sir
Robert Peel obtains office; and that I should think would
gratify Lady Firebrace."
"Indeed it would," said Sir Vavasour, "for if it had not been
for this sort of a promise of a peerage made--I speak in great
confidence Mr Hatton--made by Mr Taper, my tenants would have
voted for the whigs the other day at the ---shire election,
and the conservative candidate would have been beaten. Lord
Masque had almost arranged it, but Lady Firebrace would have a
written promise from a high quarter, and so it fell to the
ground."
"Well we are independent of all these petty arrangements now,"
said Mr Hatton.
"It is very wonderful," said Sir Vavasour, rising from his
chair and speaking as it were to himself. "And what do you
think our expenses will be in this claim?" he inquired.
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