neighbourly. But, hang it,
I'm weary of the time--the world is a dull place. I'm tired of this
planet, and should not mind cutting my throat and trying a new star.
Suppose we make the journey together, Toole; there is a brace of pistols
over the chimney, and a fair wind for some of them.'

'Rather too much of a gale for my taste, thanking you again,' answered
Toole with a cosy chuckle; 'but, if _you're_ bent on the trip, and can't
wait, why, at least, let's have a glass together before parting.'

'With all my heart, what you will. Shall it be punch?'

'Punch be it. Come, hang saving; get us up a ha'porth of whiskey,' said
little Toole, gaily.

'Hallo, Mrs. Irons, Madam, will you do us the favour to make a bowl of
punch as soon as may be?' cried Devereux, over the banister.

'Come, Toole,' said Devereux, 'I'm very dismal. Losses and crosses, and
deuce knows what. Whistle or talk, what you please, I'll listen; tell
me anything; stories of horses, dogs, dice, snuff, women, cocks,
parsons, wine--what you will. Come, how's Sturk? He's beaten poor
Nutter, and won the race; though the stakes, after all, were scarce
worth taking--and what's life without a guinea?--he's grown, I'm told,
so confoundedly poor, "quis pauper? avarus." A worthy man was Sturk,
and, in some respects, resembled the prophet, _Shylock_; but you know
nothing of him--why the plague don't you read your Bible, Toole?'

'Well,' said Toole, candidly, 'I don't know the Old Testament as well as
the New; but certainly, whoever he's like, he's held out wonderfully.
'Tis nine weeks since he met that accident, and there he's still, above
ground; but that's all--just above ground, you see.'

'And how's Cluffe?'

'Pooh, Cluffe indeed! Nothing ever wrong with him but occasional
over-eating. Sir, you'd a laughed to-day had you seen him. I gave him a
bolus, twice the size of a gooseberry. "What's this?" said he. "A
bolus," says I. "The devil," says he; "dia-bolus, then," says I--"hey?"
said I, "well?" ha! ha! and by Jove, Sir, it actually half stuck in his
oesophagus, and I shoved it down like a bullet, with a probang; you'd
a died a laughing, yet 'twasn't a bit too big. Why, I tell you, upon my
honour, Mrs. Rebecca Chattesworth's black boy, only t'other day,
swallowed a musket bullet twice the size, ha! ha!--he did--and I set him
to rights in no time with a little powder.'

'Gunpowder?' said Devereux. 'And what of O'Flaherty? I'm told he was
going to shoot poo