want. Don't
I know it myself? The poor man has no inimy but hunger; for, ye see, the
other vexations and troubles of life, there's always a way of gettin'
round them. You can chate even grief, and you can slip away from danger;
but there's no circumventin' an empty stomach."

"What a tyrant is then your rich man!" sighed the youth, heavily.

"That he is. 'Dives honoratus. Pulcher rex denique regum.' You may do as
you please if ye'r rich as a Begum."

"A free translation, rather, Billy," said the other, laughing.

"Or ye might render it this way," said Billy,--

"If ye 've money enough and to spare in the bank,
The world will give ye both beauty and rank.

And I 've nothing to say agin it," continued he. "The raal stimulus to
industhry in life, is to make wealth powerful. Gettin' and heapin'
up money for money's sake is a debasin' kind of thing; but makin' a
fortune, in order that you may extind your influence, and mowld the
distinies of others,--that's grand."

"And see what comes of it!" cried the youth, bitterly. "Mark the base
and unworthy subserviency it leads to; see the race of sycophants it
begets."

"I have you there, too," cried Billy, with all the exultation of a ready
debater. "Them dirty varmint ye speak of is the very test of the truth
I 'm tellin' ye. 'T is because they won't labor--because they won't
work--that they are driven to acts of sycophancy and meanness. The
spirit of industhry saves a man even the excuse of doin' anything low!"

"And how often, from your own lips, have I listened to praises at your
poor humble condition; rejoicings that your lot in life secured you
against the cares of wealth and grandeur!"

"And you will again, plaze God! if _I_ live, and _you_ pre-sarve
your hearin'. What would I be if I was rich, but an ould--an ould
voluptuary?" said Billy, with great emphasis on a word he had some
trouble in discovering. "Atin' myself sick with delicacies, and drinkin'
cordials all day long. How would I know the uses of wealth? Like all
other vulgar creatures, I 'd be buyin' with my money the respect that I
ought to be buyin' with my qualities. It's the very same thing you
see in a fair or a market,--the country girls goin' about, hobbled
and crippled with shoes on, that, if they had bare feet, could walk as
straight as a rush. Poverty is not ungraceful itself. It's tryin' to be
what isn't natural, spoils people entirely."

"I think I hear voices without. Listen!" cri