he son (unless in a passion, he always called
his father by his baptismal name, or rather by its abbreviation),
"what's the use going on that way before the girls there, and Feemy
too." Feemy, however, was reading the "Mysterious Assassin," and
paying little heed to her father's lamentations. "When we're done,
and the things is out, we'll have a look at the rent-book, and send
for the boys to come in; and if they haven't it, why, Pat Brady must
go round agin, and see what he can do with the potatoes and oats,
and the pigs; but the times, Larry, is very hard on them; too hard
entirely, so it is, poor things--"

"Poor things!" said the father, "and aint I a poor thing? and won't
you and Feemy be poor things? Hard times, too! who is the times
hardest on? See that sneaking ould robber, Flannelly, that cozened
my father--good father for him--with such a house as this, that's
falling this day over his son's head, and it not hardly fifty years
built, bad luck to it for a house! See that ould robber, Flannelly,
who has been living and thriving on it for all them years, and a
stone or stick not as good as paid for yet; and he getting two
hundred a year off the land from the crayturs of tenants."

True enough it was, that Mr. Joe Flannelly, of Carrick-on-Shannon,
whatever might have been the original charge of building the
Ballycloran mansion, now claimed L200 a year from that estate, to
which his ingenious friend and legal adviser, Mr. Hyacinth Keegan
usually managed to add certain mysterious costs and ceremonious
expenses, which made each half year's rent of Larry Macdermot's
own house about L140, before the poor man had managed to scrape it
together. To add to this annoyance, Mr. Macdermot had continually
before his eyes the time, which he could not but foresee was not
distant, when this hated Flannelly would come down on the property
itself, insist on being paid his principal, and probably not only
sell, but buy, Ballycloran itself. And whither, then, would the
Macdermots betake themselves?

Often and often did Larry, in his misfortunes, regret the slighted
offers of Sally Flannelly's charms and cash. Oh, had he but then
condescended to have married the builder's daughter, he would not
now have been the builder's slave. But Sally Flannelly was now Sally
Keegan, the wife of Hyacinth Keegan, Esq., Attorney; who, if he had
not the same advantages as Larry in birth and blood, had compensation
for his inferiority in cash and c