“Thank you, Mister Purcel, I feel that as a compliment coming from you; and by the way, I haven’t forgotten to mention you with praise in my correspondence with the Castle.  However—­ha! ha! ha! you rather misunderstood me—­I mane to say that the life is worn out of me, by our present government—­Good God! my friend, surely they ought to know that there’s plenty of magistrates in the country besides myself, that could give them the information they want upon the state of the country, and the steps they ought to take to tranquillize it, as well as I could; I can’t, however, get them to think so, and the consequence is that that d—­n Castle can’t rub its elbow without consulting, me.”

“Well,” replied Purcel, “you are to blame yourself for it; if you were not so loyal, and zealous, and courageous too, as you are, they would let you alone and leave you to peace and quietness, as they do other people.”

“Upon my honor and conscience, it’s little pace or quietness they leave me, then; but I agree with you, that the whole cause of it is my well-known loyal principle and surprising activity in keeping down disturbance and sedition.  Widow Cleary’s affair was an unlucky one for me, and indeed, Mat, it was the activity and resolution that I displayed in making herself and her spawn of ragged brats prisoners at the head of the Possy Comeatus, aided by the military, that first brought me into notice with the Castle.”

The proctor, who feared now that he had mounted his hobby, and that he would inflict on him, as he was in the habit of doing after dinner, a long-winded series of his magisterial exploits, reminded him that he had expressed a wish to see him on very important business.

“I wouldn’t care,” he added, “but the truth is, Fitzy, I am pressed for want of time, as I should have been at the bishop’s court, where I have cited several of these tithe rebels long before this.  What is the business, then?”

“It is a matter, my dear Mr. Purcel—­”

“Why the devil do you Mr. Purcel me?” asked the proctor, warmly.  “It was formerly Mat and Fitzy between us, and I don’t see why it should not be so still.”

“Hem—­ahem—­why it was, I grant, but then—­not that I am at all a proud man, Mr. Purcel—­far from it, I trust—­but you see—­hem—­the truth is, that to a man as I am, a magistrate—­trusted and—­consulted by government, and having, besides, to meet certain low prejudices against me in the country, here, I don’t think—­I’m spaking of the magistrate now, Purcel—­not of the man—­observe that, but the truth is—­d—­m the word, for I don’t think there’s in the whole catalogue of names, so vulgar a one as Fitzy—­and be d—­d to it.”

The proctor laughed till the tears came from his eyes, at the dignified distress with which the great little man resented this degrading grievance.

“Ha! ha! ha! and so,” said he, “I’m not to call you Fitzy; well, well, so be it—­but I have been so long in the habit of using it in our conversation, that I shall, find it a difficult matter to change the practice.  But upon my conscience, Fitzy—­I beg pardon, Mr. O’Driscol, I must say—­I think it great weakness in your worship, to let such a trifle as that annoy you.”