ys I, for I saw his honour
was tired out of his life; but Jason, very short and cruel, cuts me off
with--'Don't be talking of punch yet awhile; it's no time for punch yet
a bit--units, tens, hundreds,' goes he on, counting over the master's
shoulder, units, tens, hundreds, thousands.

'A-a-ah! hold your hand,' cries my master. 'Where in this wide world am
I to find hundreds, or units itself, let alone thousands?'

'The balance has been running on too long,' says Jason, sticking to
him as I could not have done at the time, if you'd have given both the
Indies and Cork to boot; 'the balance has been running on too long, and
I'm distressed myself on your account, Sir Condy, for money, and the
thing must be settled now on the spot, and the balance cleared off,'
says Jason.

'I'll thank you if you'll only show me how,' says Sir Condy.

'There's but one way,' says Jason, 'and that's ready enough. When
there's no cash, what can a gentleman do but go to the land?'

'How can you go to the land, and it under custodiam to yourself
already?' says Sir Condy; 'and another custodiam hanging over it? And no
one at all can touch it, you know, but the custodees.'

'Sure, can't you sell, though at a loss? Sure you can sell, and I've a
purchaser ready for you,' says Jason.

'Have you so?' says Sir Condy. 'That's a great point gained. But there's
a thing now beyond all, that perhaps you don't know yet, barring Thady
has let you into the secret.'

'Sarrah bit of a secret, or anything at all of the kind, has he learned
from me these fifteen weeks come St. John's Eve,' says I, 'for we have
scarce been upon speaking terms of late. But what is it your honour
means of a secret?'

'Why, the secret of the little keepsake I gave my Lady Rackrent the
morning she left us, that she might not go back empty-handed to her
friends.'

'My Lady Rackrent, I'm sure, has baubles and keepsakes enough, as those
bills on the table will show,' says Jason; 'but whatever it is,' says
he, taking up his pen, 'we must add it to the balance, for to be sure it
can't be paid for.'

'No, nor can't till after my decease,' says Sir Condy; 'that's one good
thing.' Then colouring up a good deal, he tells Jason of the memorandum
of the five hundred a-year jointure he had settled upon my lady; at
which Jason was indeed mad, and said a great deal in very high words,
that it was using a gentleman who had the management of his affairs, and
was, moreover, his principal c