Nearly ten minutes had elapsed, during which he was making the ham and chicken disappear, when, on hearing a foot which he took for granted must be that of his lordship, he once more threw himself into his former attitude, and putting the handkerchief again to his eyes, exclaimed: 

“No, my lord.  A cheat!  Curse it, isn’t my name Norton? and am I not your friend?”

“Why, upon my soul, Barney, you used of ould to bring out only one lie at a time but now you give them in pairs.  ‘Isn’t my name Norton?’ says you.  I kept the saicret bekaise you never meddled with Lord Cullamore or Lady Emily, or attempted your tricks on them, and for that raison you ought to thank me.  Here’s a note from Lord Dunroe, who looks as black as midnight.”

“What! a note from Dunroe!” exclaimed Norton.  “Why he only left me this minute!  What the deuce can this mean?”

He opened the note, and read, to his dismay and astonishment as follows: 

“Infamous and treacherous scoundrel,—­I have this moment received your letter to Mr. Birney, enclosed by that gentleman to me, in which you offer, for a certain sum, to betray me, by placing in the hands of my enemies the very documents you pretended to have destroyed.  I now know the viper I have cherished—­begone.  You are a cheat, an impostor, and a villain, whose name is not Norton, but Bryan, once a horse-jockey on the Curragh, and obliged to fly the country for swindling and dishonesty.  Remove your things instantly; but that shall not prevent me from tracing you and handing you over to justice for your knavery and fraud.

“DUNROE.”

“All right!  Morty—–­all right!” exclaimed Norton; “upon my soul, Dunroe is too generous.  You know he is going to be married to-day.  Was that Roberts who went up stairs?”

“It was the young officer, if that’s his name,” replied Morty.

“All right!  Morty; he’s to be groom’s-man—­that will do; this requires no answer.  The generous fellow has made me a present on his wedding-day.  That will do, Morty; you may go.”

“All’s discovered,” he exclaimed, when Morty was gone; “however, it’s not too late:  I shall give him a Roland for his Oliver before we part.  It will be no harm to give the the respectable old nobleman a hint of what’s going on, at any rate.  This discovery, however, won’t signify, for I know Dunroe.  The poor fool has no self-reliance; but if left to himself would die.  He possesses no manly spirit of independent will, no firmness, no fixed principle—­he is, in fact, a noun adjective, and cannot stand alone.  Depraved in his appetites and habits of life, he cannot live without some hanger-on to enjoy his freaks of silly and senseless profligacy, who can praise and laugh at him, and who will act at once as his butt, his bully, his pander, and his friend; four capacities in which I have served him—­at his own expense, be it said.  No; my ascendancy over him has been too long established, and I know that, like a prime