the paper, eh? ho!  I see, Sir, haven’t read it.  Well, and what do you think—­a queer night for the purpose, eh? you’ll say—­we had a funeral in the town last night, Sir—­some one from Dublin.  It was Tressel’s men came out.  The turnpike rogue—­just round the corner there—­one of the talkingest gossips in the town—­and a confounded prying, tattling place it is, I can tell you—­knows the driver; and Bob Martin, the sexton, you know—­tells me there were two parsons, no less—­hey!  Cauliflowers in season, by Jove.  Old Dr. Walsingham, our rector, a pious man, Sir, and does a world of good—­that is to say, relieves half the blackguards in the parish—­ha! ha! when we’re on the point of getting rid of them—­but means well, only he’s a little bit lazy, and queer, you know; and that rancid, raw-boned parson, Gillespie—­how the plague did they pick him up?—­one of the mutes told Bob ’twas he.  He’s from Donegal; I know all about him; the sourest dog I ever broke bread with—­and mason, if you please, by Jove—­a prince pelican!  He supped at the Grand Lodge after labour, one night—­you’re not a mason, I see; tipt you the sign—­and his face was so pinched, and so yellow, by Jupiter, I was near squeezing it into the punch-bowl for a lemon—­ha! ha! hey?’

Mervyn’s large eyes expressed a well-bred surprise.  Dr. Toole paused for nearly a minute, as if expecting something in return; but it did not come.

So the doctor started afresh, never caring for Mervyn’s somewhat dangerous looks.

’Mighty pretty prospects about here, Sir.  The painters come out by dozens in the summer, with their books and pencils, and scratch away like so many Scotchmen.  Ha! ha! ha!  If you draw, Sir, there’s one prospect up the river, by the mills—­upon my conscience—­but you don’t draw?’

No answer.

’A little, Sir, maybe?  Just for a maggot, I’ll wager—­like my good lady, Mrs. Toole.’  A nearer glance at his dress had satisfied Toole that he was too much of a maccaroni for an artist, and he was thinking of placing him upon the lord lieutenant’s staff.  ’We’ve capital horses here, if you want to go on to Leixlip,’ (where—­this between ourselves and the reader—­during the summer months His Excellency and Lady Townshend resided, and where, the old newspapers tell us, they ’kept a public day every Monday,’ and he ’had a levee, as usual, every Thursday.’) But this had no better success.

’If you design to stay over the day, and care for shooting, we’ll have some ball practice on Palmerstown fair-green to-day.  Seven baronies to shoot for ten and five guineas.  One o’clock, hey?’

At this moment entered Major O’Neill, of the Royal Irish Artillery, a small man, very neatly got up, and with a decidedly Milesian cast of countenance, who said little, but smiled agreeably—­

’Gentlemen, your most obedient.  Ha, doctor; how goes it?—­anything new—­anything on the Freeman?’

Toole had scanned that paper, and hummed out, as he rumpled it over,—­’nothing—­very—­particular.  Here’s Lady Moira’s ball:  fancy dresses—­all Irish; no masks; a numerous appearance of the nobility and gentry—­upwards of five hundred persons.  A good many of your corps there, major?’