so violent. I bore a great
deal from you this day, Mr. M'Louglin--a great deal, indeed, and so
patiently as I bore it too; upon my credit I did."

M'Loughlin made no reply, but stamped on the floor, in order to bring up
some person to whom he might pay the reckoning.

"You need not stamp," said the other, "this is my share of the
reckoning."

"Your share, no: I told you before, it must not be yours. I wouldn't
have it said, that bit or sup, paid for by your ill-gotten wealth,
should ever cross my lips--no, no."

The waiter, or rather waitress, a red-haired, barefooted wench, now came
up.

"Here," said M'Loughlin, "take the refreshments we've had last out of
that, and keep the change to yourself. I have settled what we've had
before, as well as this."

"And why not allow me to settle for this?" asked M'Clutchy.

"Because," replied this honest and respectable man, "I could not swallow
a thimbleful of anything paid for by your money; what is it? If I did I
would dream for weeks of all that you have done, or if I didn't dream,
the sorrows and the wrongs of my near relative, Widow O'Hagan and her
family, would prevent me from sleeping; the Kellys that you've driven to
beggary--The Gormleys that you got put out--good God! and who now holds
their places? Your own cousin. It's useless, however, to mention all
you've done. You, Val the Vulture, as the people call you, are one of
those scourges that rise and flourish upon the distresses of the poor,
and the injustice that you yourself bring upon them by your falsehood
and calumny; and all because the property they live on is neglected by
those who have a right to look after it. Ay, there is another of your
white and cowardly laughs. Well, you know that there is not a neglected
estate in the country but can produce another vulture like yourself,
playing the same heartless pranks upon the poor people--tying,
misrepresenting, swaggering over and robbing them, and that, too, in the
open face of day, merely because you think there is no one to bring you
to an account.

"Now go home," he added, "and when next you want to get a wife for your
spanking son, that's likely to become a squireen upon our hands, don't
come to Brian M'Loughlin, who knows you from the paring of the nails to
the core of the heart."

M'Glutchy looked at him and laughed again; "before you go, at all
events," he replied, "I hope you remember the observation I made when I
introduced the discourse."

"I