ain these tremendous paroxysms, until the bloody foam
fell in red flakes from his mouth, and as portions of it were carried
by the violence of his gesticulations over several parts of his face,
he had more the appearance of some bloody-fanged ghoul, reeking from the
spoil of a midnight grave, than that of a human being.

"Now," said he, "how did it happen that--brainless, worthless, and
beneath all contempt, as you are, most execrable scoundrel--you suffered
that adroit ruffian, Dulcimer--whom I shall punish, never fear--how came
it, you despicable libel on nature and common sense--that you allowed
him to humbug you to your face, to laugh at you, to scorn you, to spit
upon you, to poke your ribs, as if you were an idiot, as you are, and
to kick you, as it were, in every imaginable part of your worthless
carcass--how did it come, I say, that you did not watch them properly,
that you did not get them immediately arrested, as you ought to have
done, or that you did not do more than would merely enable you to
chronicle my disgrace and misery?"

"A' did all a' could, Sir Thomas. A' searched through all Dublin for her
without success; but as to where he has her, a' can't guess. The first
thing a' did, after takin' a sleep, was to come an' tell you to-day; for
a' travelled home by last night's coach. You ought to do something, Sir
Thomas, for every one has it now. It's through all Ballytrain. 'Deed a'
pity you, Sir Thomas."

Now this unfortunate being took it for granted that the last brief
silence of the baronet resulted from, some reasonable attention to
what he (Crackenfudge) had been saying, whereas the fact was, that
his terrible auditor had been transfixed into the highest and most
uncontrollable fit of indignation by the substance of his words.

"What!" said he, in a voice that made Crackenfudge leap at least a foot
from the sofa. "You pity me, do you!--you, you diabolical eavesdropper,
you pity me. Sacred heaven! And again, you searched through all
Dublin for my daughter!--carrying her disgrace and infamy wherever you
appeared, and advertising them as you went along, like an emissary of
shame and calumny, as you are. Yes," said he, as he foamed with the fury
of a raging bull; "'I--I--I,' you might have said, 'a nameless whelp,
sprung from the dishonest clippings of a counter--I, I say, am in quest
of Miss Gourlay, who has eloped with an adventurer, an impostor--with a
brushmaker's clerk.'"

"A tooth-brush manufact