thing to pay
two-and-sixpence in the pound if you were bankrupt to-morrow? Does n't
it show an honest intention, any way?" said he, with a wink.

"Then what are the evils of Ireland?" asked Mrs. Ricketts, with an air
of inquiring interest.

"I 'll tell you, then," said Dalton, slowly, as he filled a capacious
glass with champagne. "It is n't the priests, nor it isn't the potatoes,
nor it isn't the Protestants either, though many respectable people
think so; for you see we had always priests and potatoes, and a
sprinkling of Protestants besides; but the real evil of Ireland--and
there's no man living knows it better than I do--is quite another thing,
and here's what it is." And he stooped down and dropped his voice to a
whisper. "'Tis this: 'tis paying money when you have n't it!" The
grave solemnity of this enunciation did not seem to make it a whit more
intelligible to Mrs. Ricketts, who certainly looked the very type of
amazement. "That's what it is," reiterated Dalton, "paying money when
you have n't it! There's the ruin of Ireland; and, as I said before, who
ought to know better? For you see, when you owe money, and you have n't
it, you must get it how you can. You know what that means; and if you
don't, I 'll tell you. It means mortgages and bond debts; rack-renting
and renewals; breaking up an elegant establishment; selling your horses
at Dycer's; going to the devil entirely; and not only yourself, but all
belonging to you. The tradesmen you dealt with, the country shop where
you bought everything, the tithes, the priests' dues,--not a farthing
left for them."

"But you don't mean to say that people shouldn't p-p-pay their debts?"
screamed Purvis.

"There's a time for everything," replied Dalton. "Shaving oneself is a
mighty useful process, but you wouldn't have a man get up out of his bed
at night to do it? I never was for keeping money,--the worst enemy would
n't say that of me. Spend it freely when you have it; but sure it's not
spending to be paying debts due thirty or forty years back, made by your
great-grandfather?"

"One should be just before being ge-gen-gene-gene----"

"Faix! I'd be both," said Dalton, who with native casuistry only
maintained a discussion for the sake of baffling or mystifying an
adversary. "I'd be just to myself and generous to my friends, them's my
sentiments; and it 's Peter Dalton that says it!"

"Dalton!" repeated Mrs. Ricketts, in a low voice,----"did n't he say
Dalton, M