"Bagatelle!" said Mr Hatton. "Why a dozen years ago I have
known men lay out nearly half a million in land and not get
two per cent for their money, in order to obtain a borough
influence which might ultimately obtain them a spick and span
coronet; and now you are going to put one on your head, which
will give you precedence over every peer on the roll, except
three (and I made those), and it will not cost you a paltry
twenty or thirty thousand pounds. Why I know men who would
give that for the precedence alone.--Here!" and he rose and
took up some papers from a table: "Here is a case; a man you
know, I dare say; an earl, and of a decent date as earls go:
George the First. The first baron was a Dutch valet of
William the Third. Well I am to terminate an abeyance in his
favour through his mother, and give him one of the baronies of
the Herberts. He buys off the other claimant who is already
ennobled with a larger sum than you will expend on your
ancient coronet. Nor is that all. The other claimant is of
French descent and name; came over at the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. Well, besides the hush money, my client is
to defray all the expense of attempting to transform the
descendant of the silkweaver of Lyons into the heir of a
Norman conqueror.
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