ur hand, my buck! I 'd
rather draw the settlements, so help me, than I 'd see the warrant to
make me Master of the Rolls. Who 'd say there isn't luck in a leg of
pork? She's a darling girl; and beautiful as she is, her looks isn't
the best of her--an angel as sure as I am here! And look here'--here
he dropped his voice--'seven thousand a year, that may be made nine!
Hennessy's farm is out of lease in October; and the Cluangoff estate is
let at ten shillings an acre. Hurroo! maybe I won't be drunk to-night;
and bad luck to the Cossack, Tartar, Bohemian, or any other blackguard
I'll let into the house this day or night! Sworn, my lord.'

After some little discussion, it was arranged that if Louisa would give
her consent to the arrangement, the marriage should take place before
the Rooneys left Paris. Meanwhile, Paul agreed with me in keeping
the whole matter a perfect secret from everybody, Mrs. Rooney herself
included. Our arrangements were scarcely completed when O'Grady
appeared. Having waited for me some time at his hotel, he had set out in
search of me.

'I'm your man to-day, Paul,' said he. 'You got my note, I suppose?'

'All right,' said Mr. Rooney, whose double secret of the marriage and
the leg of pork seemed almost too much for him to bear.

'I suppose I may tell Phil,' said I in a whisper.

'No one else,' said Paul, as we left the house, and I took O'Grady's arm
down the street.

'Well, I have frightened De Vere to some purpose,' said O'Grady. 'He has
made a full confession about Burke, who was even a deeper villain than
we supposed. What do you think? He has been the spy of the Bonapartist
faction all this time, and selling old Guillemain as regularly as the
others. To indulge his passion for play, he received the pay of four
different parties, whom he pitted against one another exactly as he
saw proper. Consummate clever scoundrel!--he had to deal with men whose
whole lives are passed in the very practice of every chicanery and
deceit, and yet he has jockied them all. What a sad thing to think that
such abilities and knowledge of mankind should be prostituted to the
lowest and most debasing uses; and that the sole tendency of such
talent should be to dishonour and disgrace its possessor! Some of his
manufactured despatches were masterpieces of cleverness.'

'Well, where is he now? Still in Paris?'

'No. The moment he had so far forgotten himself as to strike De Vere,
he forged a passport and returned