“You’re right,” said the Bodagh, aside to his wife; “he’s sartinly deranged.  Fardorougha,” he added, “have you lost any money lately?”

“I’m losin’ every day,” said the other; “I’m broke assistin’ them that won’t thank me, let alone paying me as they ought.”

“Then you have lost nothing more than usual?”

“If I didn’t, I tell you there’s a good chance of losin’ it before me;—­can a man call any money of his safe that’s in another man’s pocket?”

“An’ so you’ve come to propose a marriage between your son and my daughter, yet you lost no money, an’ you’re not mad!”

“Divil a morsel o’ me is mad—­but you’ll be so if you refuse to let this match go an.”

“Out wid him—­a shan roghara,” shouted Mrs. O’Brien, in a state of most dignified offence; “Damho orth, you ould knave! is it the son of a miser that has fleeced an’ robbed the whole counthry side that we ’ud let our daughther, that resaved the finish to her edication in a Dubling boardin’ school, marry wid?—­Vic na hoiah this day!”

“You had no sich scruple yourself, ma’am,” replied the bitter usurer, “when you bounced at the son of the ould Bodagh Buie, an’ every one knows what he was.”

“He!” said the good woman; “an’ is it runnin’ up comparishments betuxt yourself an’ him you are afther?  Why, Saint Peter wouldn’t thrive on your money, you nager.”

“Maybe Saint Pethur thruv on worse—­but havn’t you thruv as well on the Bodagh’s, as if it had been honestly come by?  I defy you an’ the world both—­to say that ever I tuck a penny from any one, more than my right.  Lay that to the mimory of the ould Bodagh, an’ see if it’ll fit.  It’s no light guinea, any how.”

Had Fardorougha been a man of ordinary standing and character in the country, from whom an insult could be taken, he would no doubt have been by a very summary process expelled the parlor.  The history of his querulous and irascible temper, however, was so well known, and his offensive eccentricity of manner a matter of such established fact, that the father and son, on glancing at each other, were seized with the same spirit, and both gave way to an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

“Is it a laughin’ stock you’re makin’ of’ it?” said Mrs. O’Brien, highly indignant.

“Faith, achora, it may be no laughin’ stock afther all,” replied the Bodagh.

“I think, mother,” observed John, “that you and my father had better treat the matter with more seriousness.  Connor O’Donovan is a young man not to be despised by any person at all near his own class of life who regards the peace and welfare of a daughter.  His character stands very high; indeed, in every way unimpeachable.”

The bitter scowl which had sat upon the small dark features of Fardorougha, when replying to the last attack of Mrs. O’Brien, passed away as John spoke.  The old man turned hastily around, and, surveying the eulogist of his son, said,