’Your friend up stairs, Sir, intended playing the lady for the rest of her days,’ answered M. M., with a cat-like demureness, sly and cruel, ’at my cost and to my sorrow.  For twenty long years, or nigh hand it, she has lived with my husband, consuming my substance, and keeping me in penury.  What did she allow me all that time?—­not so much as that crust—­ha! ha!—­no, not even allowed my husband to write me a line, or send me a shilling.  I suppose she owes me for her maintenance here—­in my house, out of my property—­fully two thousand pounds.  Make money of that, Sir;—­and my lawyer advises me to make her pay it.’

’Or rather to make her account, Ma’am; or you will, if she’s disposed to act fairly, take anything you may be advised, to be reasonable and equitable, Ma’am,’ interposed Dirty Davy.

‘That’s it,’ resumed Madam Mary.  ’I don’t want her four bones.  Let her make up one thousand pounds—­that’s reason, Sir—­and I’ll forgive her the remainder.  But if she won’t, then to gaol I’ll send her, and there she may rot for me.’

‘You persave, Sir,’ continued the attorney; ’your client—­I mane your friend—­has fixed herself in the character of an agent—­all the late gintleman’s money, you see, went through her hands—­an agent or a steward to Charles Nutther, desased—­an’ a coort iv equity’ll hould her liable to account, ye see; an’ we know well enough what money’s past through her hands annually—­an’ whatever she can prove to have been honestly applied, we’ll be quite willin’ to allow; but, you see, we must have the balance!’

‘Balance!’ said the priest, incensed beyond endurance; ’if you stay balancin’ here, my joker, much longer, you’ll run a raysonable risk of balancin’ by the neck out iv one of them trees before the doore.’

‘So you’re threatenin’ my life, Sir!’ said the attorney, with a sly defiance.

‘You lie like the divil, Sir—­savin’ your presence, Ma’am.  Don’t you know the differ, Sir, between a threat an’ a warnin’, you bosthoon?’ thundered his reverence.

‘You’re sthrivin’ to provoke me to a brache iv the pace, as the company can testify,’ said Dirty Davy.

‘Ye lie again, you—­you fat crature—­’tis thryin’ to provoke you to keep the pace I am.  Listen to me, the both o’ yez—­the leedy up stairs, the misthress iv this house, and widow of poor Charles Nutter—­Mrs. Sally Nutther, I say—­is well liked in the parish; an’ if they get the wind o’ the word, all I say ’s this—­so sure as you’re found here houldin’ wrongful possession of her house an’ goods, the boys iv Palmerstown, Castleknock, and Chapelizod will pay yez a visit you won’t like, and duck yez in the river, or hang yez together, like a pair of common robbers, as you unquestionably are—­not,’ he added, with a sudden sense of legal liability.

‘Who’s that?’ demanded the lynx-eyed lady, who saw Pat Moran cross the door in the shadow of the lobby.

’That’s Mr. Moran, a most respectable and muscular man, come here to keep possession, Madam, for Mrs. Sally Nutther, our good friend and neighbour, Ma’am,’ replied the priest.