“Of course,” was the answer.

“Well, she is a widow, and I suppose she’s going to remain one, for she’s had lots of offers.  If I marry a girl I shall never like her half as much as Peggy Lovell.  She’s done me up for every other woman living.  She never lets me feel a fool with her; and she has a way, by Jove, of looking at me, and letting me know she’s up to my thoughts and isn’t angry.  What’s the use of my thinking of her at all?  She’d never go to the Colonies, and live in a log but and make cheeses, while I tore about on horseback gathering cattle.”

“I don’t think she would,” observed Edward, emphatically; “I don’t think she would.”

“And I shall never have money.  Confound stingy parents!  It’s a question whether I shall get Wrexby:  there’s no entail.  I’m heir to the governor’s temper and his gout, I dare say.  He’ll do as he likes with the estate.  I call it beastly unfair.”

Edward asked how much the opal had cost.

“Oh, nothing,” said Algernon; “that is, I never pay for jewellery.”

Edward was curious to know how he managed to obtain it.

“Why, you see,” Algernon explained, “they, the jewellers—­I’ve got two or three in hand—­the fellows are acquainted with my position, and they speculate on my expectations.  There is no harm in that if they like it.  I look at their trinkets, and say, ‘I’ve no money;’ and they say, ’Never mind;’ and I don’t mind much.  The understanding is, that I pay them when I inherit.”

“In gout and bad temper?”

“Gad, if I inherit nothing else, they’ll have lots of that for indemnification.  It’s a good system, Ned; it enables a young fellow like me to get through the best years of his life—­which I take to be his youth—­without that squalid poverty bothering him.  You can make presents, and wear a pin or a ring, if it takes your eye.  You look well, and you make yourself agreeable; and I see nothing to complain of in that.”

“The jewellers, then, have established an institution to correct one of the errors of Providence.”

“Oh! put it in your long-winded way, if you like,” said Algernon; “all I know is, that I should often have wanted a five-pound note, if—­that is, if I hadn’t happened to be dressed like a gentleman.  With your prospects, Ned, I should propose to charming Peggy tomorrow morning early.  We mustn’t let her go out of the family.  If I can’t have her, I’d rather you would.”

“You forget the incumbrances on one side,” said Edward, his face darkening.

“Oh! that’s all to be managed,” Algernon rallied him.  “Why, Ned, you’ll have twenty thousand a-year, if you have a penny; and you’ll go into Parliament, and give dinners, and a woman like Peggy Lovell ’d intrigue for you like the deuce.”

“A great deal too like,” Edward muttered.