“Easy, Connell—­I am not to be palmed off in that manner; I really have a respect for the character which you bore, and wish you to recover it once more.  Consider that you are disgracing yourself and your children by drinking so excessively from day to day—­indeed, I am told, almost from hour to hour.”

“Augh! don’t believe the half o’ what you hear, sir.  Faith, somebody has been dhraw-in’ your honor out!  Why I’m never dhrunk, sir; faith, I’m not.”

“You will destroy your health, Connell, as well as your character; besides, you are not to be told that it is a sin, a crime against.  God, and an evil example to society.”

“Show me the man, plase your honor, that ever seen me incapable.  That’s the proof o’ the thing.”

“But why do you drink at all?  It is not-necessary.”

“An’ do you never taste a dhrop yourself, sir, plase your honor?  I’ll be bound you do, sir, raise your little finger of an odd time, as well as another.  Eh, Ma’am?  That’s comin’ close to his honor!  An’ faix, small blame to him, an’ a weeshy sup o’ the wine to the misthress herself, to correct the tindherness of her dilicate appetite.”

“Peter, this bantering must not pass:  I think I have a claim upon your respect and deference.  I have uniformly been your friend and the friend of your children and family, but more especially of your late excellent and exemplary wife.”

“Before God an’ man I acknowledge that, sir—­I do—­I do.  But, sir; to spake sarious—­it’s thruth, Ma’am, downright—­to spake sarious, my heart’s broke, an’ every day it’s brakin’ more an’ more.  She’s gone, sir, that used to manage me; an’ now I can’t turn myself to anything, barrin’ the dhrink—­God help me!”

“I honor you, Connell, for the attachment which you bear towards the memory of your wife, but I utterly condemn the manner in which you display it.  To become a drunkard is to disgrace her memory.  You know it was a character she detested.”

“I know it all, sir, an’ that you have thruth an rason on your side; but, sir, you never lost a wife that you loved; an’ long may you be so, I pray the heavenly Father this day!  Maybe if you did, sir, plase your honor, that, wid your heart sinkin’ like a stone widin you, you’d thry whether or not something couldn’t rise it.  Sir, only for the dhrink I’d be dead.”

“There I totally differ from you, Connell.  The drink only prolongs your grief, by adding to it the depression of spirits which it always produces.  Had you not become a drinker, you would long before this have been once more a cheerful, active, and industrious man.  Your sorrow would have worn away gradually, and nothing but an agreeable melancholy—­an affectionate remembrance of your excellent wife—­would have remained.  Look at other men.”

“But where’s the man, sir, had sich a wife to grieve for as she was?  Don’t be hard on me, sir.  I’m not a dhrunkard.  It’s thrue I dhrink a great dale; but thin I can bear a great dale, so that I’m never incapable.”