’I admit the necessity for it, my son.  Say you hand me a cheque for a temporary thousand.  Your credit and mine in conjunction can replace it before the expiration of the two months.  Or,’ he meditated, ’it might be better to give a bond or so to a professional lender, and preserve the account at your bankers intact.  The truth is, I have, in my interview with the squire, drawn in advance upon the, material success I have a perfect justification to anticipate, and I cannot allow the old gentleman to suppose that I retrench for the purpose of giving a large array of figures to your bankers’ book.  It would be sheer madness.  I cannot do it.  I cannot afford to do it.  When you are on a runaway horse, I prefer to say a racehorse,—­Richie, you must ride him.  You dare not throw up the reins.  Only last night Wedderburn, appealing to Loftus, a practical sailor, was approved when he offered—­I forget the subject-matter—­the illustration of a ship on a lee-shore; you are lost if you do not spread every inch of canvas to the gale.  Retrenchment at this particular moment is perdition.  Count our gains, Richie.  We have won a princess . . .’

I called to him not to name her.

He persisted:  ’Half a minute.  She is won; she is ours.  And let me, in passing,—­bear with me one second—­counsel you to write to Prince Ernest instanter, proposing formally for his daughter, and, in your grandfather’s name, state her dowry at fifty thousand per annum.’

‘Oh, you forget!’ I interjected.

’No, Richie, I do not forget that you are off a leeshore; you are mounted on a skittish racehorse, with, if you like, a New Forest fly operating within an inch of his belly-girths.  Our situation is so far ticklish, and prompts invention and audacity.’

’You must forget, sir, that in the present state of the squire’s mind, I should be simply lying in writing to the prince that he offers a dowry.’

‘No, for your grandfather has yielded consent.’

‘By implication, you know he withdraws it.’

‘But if I satisfy him that you have not been extravagant?’

‘I must wait till he is satisfied.’

’The thing is done, Richie, done.  I see it in advance—­it is done!  Whatever befalls me, you, my dear boy, in the space of two months, may grasp—­your fortune.  Besides, here is my hand.  I swear by it, my son, that I shall satisfy the squire.  I go farther; I say I shall have the means to refund to you—­the means, the money.  The marriage is announced in our prints for the Summer—­say early June.  And I undertake that you, the husband of the princess, shall be the first gentleman in England—­that is, Europe.  Oh! not ruling a coterie:  not dazzling the world with entertainments.’  He thought himself in earnest when he said, ’I attach no mighty importance to these things, though there is no harm I can perceive in leading the fashion—­none that I see in having a consummate style.  I know your taste, and hers, Richie, the noble lady’s.