"That's so," Peckover assented dogmatically. "The millionaire business has been overdone," Gage proceeded, warming feelingly as he got into the swing of his grievance. "Men like myself have been in too much of a hurry to buy up all the cake in the universe, consequently the price has gone up for it, and now, instead of a good substantial slice for a reasonable sum, we get only a few crumbs at famine prices." "No doubt," Peckover agreed, getting impatient of the preamble and anxious to come to the gist of the offer. "The fact is," Gage went on, hammering one fist on the other emphatically, "money by itself is a delusion and a daily eye-opener. Money with a title like yours is quite another pair of shoes. If you reckon its purchasing power, and that's what justifies its existence, the golden sovereign in a millionaire's pocket dwindles to the size of a threepenny bit, and in a peer's it expands to the size of this." He held up a dinner plate. "Inconveniently bulky," observed Peckover with a grin. "That's merely my illustration of the fact," said Gage severely, as deprecating cheap witticism in business discussions. "Anyhow, I am content to put up with the inconvenience. I want to have a good time. Fate has given me money with one hand and with the other prevents my getting value for it. I don't want to waste time in building up a social position for myself; I want one ready-made, now; when I can enjoy it. You want to have a good time, a better time than you'll get living on an empty title which means starving at Staplewick Towers. You're just the man I have been looking out for. When I heard of your being found in Australia, I determined to do business with you if I could catch you soon enough, before you got known." "Well, what do you propose?" Peckover asked, a vista of escape and the enjoyment of a snatched opulence opening before him. "I propose," Gage replied impressively, "that you should allow me to assume the title, the identity and privileges of Lord Quorn. After all, you did not expect to come into it; you are a backblocksman, like myself; only my father made it pay, and you hadn't begun to when you were sent for to join the House of Lords. So far as any one outside our two skins is concerned it doesn't matter a rush whether you are Lord Quorn, or I. So far as the British constitution goes there's no divine right about you, visible at least to the naked eye, that I don't possess. You don't feel anything like it inside, do you?" "Can't say I do," answered Peckover, with more instant conviction than the other could possibly give him credit for. "No," resumed Gage; "we are of the same make, I guess; and if it suits us to make a fair exchange, why nobody's hurt." "Just so," assented Peckover. "Well, what's your offer?" "Four thousand a year, paid monthly, as long as you let me hold the title undisputed."