‘Ah, sir,’ replied the little man, ’were
all our great people like you! In the country—the
provinces—they treat the representatives
of the Fourth Estate as the squires a couple of generations
back used to treat the parsons.’
‘What! Have you got a place at their tables?’
inquired Captain DeWitt.
’No, I cannot say that—not even below
the salt. Mr. Richmond—Mr. Roy, you
may not be aware of it: I am the proprietor of
the opposition journals in this county. I tell
you in confidence, one by itself would not pay; and
I am a printer, sir, and it is on my conscience to
tell you I have, in the course of business, been compelled
this very morning to receive orders for the printing
of various squibs and, I much fear, scurrilous things.’
My father pacified him.
‘You will do your duty to your family, Mr. Hickson.’
Deeply moved, the little man pulled out proof-sheets
and slips.
‘Even now, at the eleventh hour,’ he urged,
’there is time to correct any glaring falsehoods,
insults, what not!’
My father accepted the copy of proofs.
’Not a word,—not a line! You
spoke of the eleventh hour, Mr. Hickson. If we
are at all near the eleventh, I must be on my way to
make my bow to Lady Wilts; or is it Lady Denewdney’s
to-night? No, to-morrow night.’
A light of satisfaction came over Mr. Hickson’s
face at the mention of my father’s visiting
both these sovereign ladies.
As soon as we were rid of him, Captain DeWitt exclaimed,
‘If that’s the Fourth Estate, what’s
the Realm?’
‘The Estate,’ pleaded my father, ‘is
here in its infancy—on all fours—’
’Prehensile! Egad, it has the vices of
the other three besides its own. Do you mean
that by putting it on all fours?’
’Jorian, I have noticed that when you are malignant
you are not witty. We have to thank the man for
not subjecting us to a pledge of secresy. My
Lady Wilts will find the proofs amusing. And mark,
I do not examine their contents before submitting
them to her inspection. You will testify to the
fact.’
I was unaware that my father played a master-stroke
in handing these proof-sheets publicly to Lady Wilts
for her perusal. The incident of the evening
was the display of her character shown by Miss Penrhys
in positively declining to quit the house until she
likewise had cast her eye on them. One of her
aunts wept. Their carriage was kept waiting an
hour.
‘You ask too much of me: I cannot turn
her out’, Lady Wilts said to her uncle.
And aside to my father, ‘You will have to marry
her.’
‘In heaven’s name keep me from marriage,
my lady!’ I heard him reply.
There was sincerity in his tone when he said that.
