tion of
good manners.

"Your ladyship has been misinformed," I said with extreme deference.
"The case is already in the hands of dignified men of law, who are
mightily pleased with it."

"Pleased with it, you idiot," she cried. "They are pleased with it
simply because they know somebody will pay them for their work, even
it's a beggar from Ireland, who has nothing on him but rags."

"Your ladyship," said I, not loath to call attention to my costume,
"I assure you these rags cost golden guineas in London."

"Well, you will not get golden guineas from Brede estate," snapped her
ladyship.

"Again your ladyship is misinformed. The papers are so perfect, and so
well do they confirm my title to this beautiful domain, that the
money-lenders of London simply bothered the life out of me trying to
shovel gold on me, and both his lordship and your ladyship know that
if a title is defective there is no money to be lent on it."

"You're a liar," said the Countess genially, although the Earl looked
up in alarm when I mentioned that I could draw money on the papers.
Again I bowed deeply to her ladyship, and, putting my hands in my
pockets, I drew out two handfuls of gold, which I strewed up and down
the floor as if I were sowing corn, and each guinea was no more than a
grain of it.

"There is the answer to your ladyship's complimentary remark," said I
with a flourish of my empty hands; and, seeing Lady Mary's eyes
anxiously fixed on me, I dropped her a wink with the side of my face
farthest from the Countess, at which Lady Mary's eyelids drooped
again. But I might have winked with both eyes for all the Countess,
who was staring like one in a dream at the glittering pieces that lay
here and there and gleamed all over the place like the little yellow
devils they were. She seemed struck dumb, and if anyone thinks gold
cannot perform a miracle, there is the proof of it.

"Is it gold?" cried I in a burst of eloquence that charmed even
myself, "sure I could sow you acres with it by the crooking of my
little finger from the revenues of my estate at the Old Head of
Kinsale."

"O'Ruddy, O'Ruddy," said Father Donovan very softly and reprovingly,
for no one knew better than him what my ancestral revenues were.

"Ah well, Father," said I, "your reproof is well-timed. A man should
not boast, and I'll say no more of my castles and my acres, though the
ships on the sea pay tribute to them. But all good Saints preserve us,
Earl of Westp