n she had gone, "Lanty, you clip,
go and tell her to forgive me; I said too much, and I'm sorry for it,
say--go you scoundrel."

"Faix I'll do no such thing, sir," replied Lanty, alarmed at the nature
of the message; "I know better than to come across her now; she'd whale
the life out o' me. Sure she's afther flailing the cook out o' the
kitchen--and Tom Corbet the butler has one of his ears, he says, hangin'
off him as long as a blood-hound's."

"Speak easy," said Doaker, in a voice of terror, "speak lower, or she
may hear you--Isn't it strange," he said to himself, "that I who never
feared God or man, should quail before this Jezabel!"

"Begad, an' here's one, your honor, that'll make her quail, if he meets
her."

"Who is it," asked the other eagerly, "who is it you imp?"

"Why, Mr. M'Clutchy, sir; he's ridin' up the avenue."

"Ay, Val the Vulture--Val the Vulture--I like that fellow--like him for
his confoundedly clever roguery; only he's a hypocrite, and doesn't set
the world at defiance as I do;--no, he's a cowardly, skulking hypocrite,
nearly as great a one as M'Slime, but doesn't talk so much about
religion as that oily gentleman."

In a few moments M'Clutchy entered. "Good morrow, Val. Well, Val--well,
my Vulture, what's in the wind now? Who's to suffer? Are you ready for a
pounce? Eh?"

"I was sorry to hear that your health's not so good, sir, as it was."

"You lie, my dear Vulture, you lie in your throat, I tell you. You're
watching for my carcase, snuffing the air at a distance under the hope
of a gorge. No--you didn't care the devil had me, provided you could
make a haul by it."

"I hope sir, there's no----"

"Hope! You rascally hypocrite, what's hope good for? Hope to rot in the
grave is it? To melt into corruption and feed the worms? What a precious
putrid carcase I'll make, when I'm a month in the dirt. Maybe you
wouldn't much relish the scent of me then, my worthy Vulture. Curse your
beak, at all events! what do you want? what did you come for?"

Val, who knew his worthy sire well, knew also the most successful method
of working out any purpose with him. He accordingly replied, conscious
that hypocrisy was out of the question--

"The fact is, sir, I want you to aid me in a piece of knavery."

"I'll do it--I'll do it. Hang me if I don't. Come--I like that--it
shows that there's no mock modesty between us--that we know one another.
What's the knavery?"

"Why, sir, I'm anxious, in the fir