There isn't a mortgage on an acre of it, and that's
what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don't know that
a man could do better; only I don't think much of those things. If
ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment.
There'll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the
bush. 'Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner?' that's
about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn't
she?" This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but
to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern's stables. "He bought her from
Charlie Dickers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn't
a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last
two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She's a screw, of course,
but there isn't anything carries Chiltern so well. There's nothing
like a good screw. A man'll often go with two hundred and fifty
guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the
animal's sound, and yet he don't know his work.
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