Jeffrey.

"Would you like to occupy a farm in Scotland?" said Plantagenet
Palliser.

"And pay rent?"

"You would have to pay rent of course."

"Thank you, no. It would be dishonest, as I know I should never pay
it."

"You are too old, I fear, for the public service."

"You mean a desk in the Treasury,--with a hundred a year. Yes; I
think I am too old."

"But have you no plan of your own?"

"Not much of one. Sometimes I have thought I would go to New
Zealand."

"You would have to be a farmer there."

"No;--I shouldn't do that. I should get up an opposition to the
Government and that sort of thing, and then they would buy me off and
give me a place."

"That does very well here, Jeffrey, if a man can get into Parliament
and has capital enough to wait; but I don't think it would do out
there. Would you like to go into Parliament?"

"What; here? Of course I should. Only I should be sure to get
terribly into debt. I don't owe very much, now,--not to speak
of,--except what I owe you."

"You owe nothing to me," said Plantagenet, with some little touch of
magniloquence in his tone. "No; don't speak of it. I have no brother,
and between you and me it means nothing. You see, Jeffrey, it may
be that I shall have to look to you as my--my--my heir, in short."
Hereupon Jeffrey muttered something as to the small probability of
such necessity, and as to the great remoteness of any result even if
it were so.

"That's all true," said the elder heir of the Pallisers, "but
still--. In short, I wish you would do something. Do you think about
it; and then some day speak to me again."

Jeffrey, as he left his cousin with a cheque for L500 in his
waist-coat pocket, thought that the interview which had at one
time taken important dimensions, had not been concluded altogether
satisfactorily. A seat in Parliament! Yes, indeed! If his cousin
would so far use his political, monetary, or ducal interest as to
do that for him;--as to give him something of the status properly
belonging to the younger son of the House, then indeed life would
have some charms for him! But as for the farm in Scotland, or a desk
at an office in London,--his own New Zealand plan would be better
than those. And then as he went along of course he bethought himself
that it might be his lot yet to die, and at least to be buried, in
the purple, as a Duke of Omnium. If so, certainly it would be his
duty to prepare another heir, and leave a duke behind him,--