“Ah, ah!” returned the pedlar, with a knowing wink, “behave yourself, captain; I’m not so soft as all that comes to; but sure as I have a favor to ax from his honor, your father, I’m glad to have your assistance.  Faix, by all accounts you pleaded your own cause well, at any rate; and I hope you’ll give me a lift now wid his honor here.”

Dick the younger laughed heartily, but really had not ready virtue sufficient about, to disclaim the pedlar’s compliment.

“Come, then,” he added; “let us hear what your favor is?”

“Oh, thin, thank you, an’ God bless you, captain.  It’s this:  only to know if you’d be good enough to grant a new lease of Cargah Farm to young Condy Dalton; for the ould man, by all accounts, is not long for this world.”

Both turned their eyes upon him with a look of singular astonishment.

“Who are you at all, my good fellow?” asked the father; “or what devil drove you here on such an impudent message?  A lease to the son of that ould murderer and his crew of beggars!  That’s good, Dick!  Well done, soger! will you back him in that, captain?  Ha, ha, ha!  D—­n me, if I ever heard the like of it!”

“I hope you will back me, captain,” said the pedlar.

“Upon what grounds, comrade?  Ha, ha, ha!  Go on!  Let us hear you!”

“Why, your honor, bekaise he’s best entitled to it.  Think of what it was when he got it, an’ think of what it is now, and then ax yourselves—­’Who raised it in value an’ made it worth twiste what it was worth?’ Wasn’t it the Daltons?  Didn’t they lay out near eight hundre pounds upon it?  An, didn’t you, at every renewal, screw them up—­beggin’ your pardon, gintlemen—­until they found that the more they improved it the poorer they were gettin’?  An’ now that it lies there worth double its value, an’ they that made it so (to put money into your pocket) beggars—­within a few hundred yards of it—­wouldn’t it be rather hard to let them die an’ starve in destitution, an’ them wishin’ to get it back at a raisonable rint?”

“In this country, brother soldier,” replied Dick ironically, “we generally starve first and die afterwards.”

“You may well say so, your honor, an’ God knows, there’s not upon the face of the arth a counthry where starvation is so much practised, or so well understood.  Faith, unfortunately, it’s the national divarsion wid us.  However, is what I’m sayin’ raisonable, gintlemen?”

“Exceedingly so,” said Dick; “go on.”

“Well, then, I wish to know, will you give them a new lease of their farm?”

“You do! do you?”

“Troth I do, your honor.”

“Well, then,” replied the son, “I beg to inform you that we will not.”

“Why so, your honor?”

“Simply, you knave,” exclaimed the father, in a passion, “because we don’t wish it.  Kick him out, Dick!”

“My good friend and brother soldier,” said Dick, “the fact is, that we are about to introduce a new system altogether upon our property.  We are determined to manage it upon a perfectly new principle.  It has been too much sublet under us, and we have resolved to rectify this evil.  That is our answer.  You get no lease.  Provide for yourself and your friends, the Daltons, as best you can, but on this property you get no lease.  That is your answer.”