Would you believe it, I made this very morning two suits to the Prince, and he has rejected them both: what do you think of it ?' 'What can I think,' answered Waverley, 'till I know what your requests were ?' 'Why, what signifies what they were, man?
I tell you it was I that made them,--I, to whom he owes more than to any three who have joined the standard; for I negotiated the whole business, and brought in all the Perthshire men when not one would have stirred.

I am not likely, I think, to ask anything very unreasonable, and if I did they might have stretched a point .-- Well, but you shall know all, now that I can draw my breath again with some freedom .-- You remember my earl's patent; it is dated some years back, for services then rendered; and certainly my merit has not been diminished, to say the least, by my subsequent behaviour.

Now, sir, I value this bauble of a coronet as little as you can, or any philosopher on earth; for I hold that the chief of such a clan as the Sliochd nan Ivor is superior in rank to any earl in Scotland.

But I had a particular reason for assuming this cursed title at this time.

You must know, that I learned accidentally that the Prince has been pressing that old foolish Baron of Bradwardine to disinherit his male heir, or nineteenth or twentieth cousin, who has taken a command in the Elector of Hanover's militia, and to settle his estate upon your pretty little friend Rose; and this, as being the command of his king and overlord, who may alter the destination of a fief at pleasure, the old gentleman seems well reconciled to.' 'And what becomes of the homage ?' 'Curse the homage!--I believe Rose is to pull off the queen's slipper on her coronation-day, or some such trash.