How the world will laugh! They were made
forsooth for my diversion. O, idiot! you will be the butt of everyone!
Talk of Bagshot, indeed! Why, he will scarcely speak to me!
'Away with this! Let me turn these things in my mind. Take it at one
hundred and fifty thousand. It is more, it must be more, but we will
take it at that. Now, suppose one hundred thousand is allotted every
year to meet my debts; I suppose, in nine or ten years I shall be free.
Not that freedom will be worth much then; but still I am thinking of the
glory of the House I have betrayed. Well, then, there is fifty thousand
a-year left. Let me see; twenty thousand have always been spent in
Ireland, and ten at Pen Bronnock, and they must not be cut down. The
only thing I can do now is, not to spare myself. I am the cause, and
let me meet the consequences. Well, then, perhaps twenty thousand a-year
remain to keep Hauteville Castle and Hauteville House; to maintain the
splendour of the Duke of St. James. Why, my hereditary charities alone
amount to a quarter of my income, to say nothing of incidental charges:
I too, who should and who would wish to rebuild, at my own cost, every
bridge that is swept away, and every steeple that is burnt, in my
county.
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