Tales from Many Sources / Vol. V

AT HE WAS DESP

THEODOSIA

tpence, as we used to call him. I knew he was the confidential agent of the Macnamaras; and as he had carried on sixteen lawsuits for my father, I thought I had a claim to learn something about the affairs of Miss Dosy. I understood she was an heiress, but had never, until now, thought of inquiring into the precise amount of her expectancies. Seeing that the old fellow was up, I determined to step over, and found him in the middle of law-papers, although it was th

ht?-but your father's son is always welcome. Ay, there were few men like your father-never stagged in a lawsuit in his life-saw it always out to the end-drove it from court to court;-if he was beat, why, so muc

adily, because I well knew, from long experience, that his skill in punch-making was unimpeachable. So we talked about my father's old lawsuits, and I got Barney into excellent humour, by letting him tell me of the great skill and infinite adroitness which he had displayed upon a mu

xpec-hiccup-tances to a ten-ten-penny. So you are after-after-her? Ah, Bo-bob! She'll be a ca-catch-but not a wo-word from me. No-

ired with herself; but her uncle, by the father's side, Mick Macnamara of Kawleash, had an estate of at least five hundred a-year, which, in case of his dying without issue, was to come to her-besides a power of money saved; Mick being one who, to use the elegant phraseology of my friend the attorney, would skin a flea for the sake of

on. You are ve-very like him-as I sa-saw him sitting many a ti-time in that cha-chair. But you nev-never will have his spu-spunk in a sho-shoot (suit). There, the lands of Arry-arry-arry-bally-bally-be-beg-clock-clough-macde-de-duagh-confound the wo-w

ne in the room,

ir je-joke. However, as the je-jug is out, you must be je-jogging. Early to bed, and early to rise, is t

ith want of spunk in not carrying on a Chancery suit begun by him some twelve years before, for a couple of hundred acres of bog, the value of which would sc

ful period, brief in duration, but crowded with thoughts of happiness never to recur again! As I gained the Walk, the moon was high and bright in heaven, pouring a flood of mild light over the trees. The stars shone with sapphire lustre in the cloudless sky-not a breeze disturbed the deep serene. I was alone. I thought of my love-of what else could I think? What I had just heard had kindled my passion for the divine Theodosia into a quenchless blaze. Yes, I exclaimed a

nd we more willingly make an assignation with a mutton-chop, than with an angel in female form. The bonds of love are exchanged for those of the conveyancer-bills take the place of billets, and we do not protest, but are protested against, by a three-and-six-penny notary. Such are the melancholy effects of age. I knew them not then. I continued to muse full of sweet thoughts, until gradually the moon faded from the sk