judge, and an enlightened jury—­the counthry’s glory, the netion’s cheap defender, the poor man’s priceless palladium:  how must I thrimble, my lard, how must the blush bejew my cheek—­” (somebody cried out, “O cheeks!” In the court there was a dreadful roar of laughing; and when order was established, Mr. Mulligan continued:)—­“My lard, I heed them not; I come from a counthry accustomed to opprission, and as that counthry—­yes, my lard, that Ireland—­(do not laugh, I am proud of it)—­is ever, in spite of her tyrants, green, and lovely, and beautiful:  my client’s cause, likewise, will rise shuperior to the malignant imbecility—­I repeat, the malignant imbecility—­of those who would thrample it down; and in whose teeth, in my client’s name, in my counthry’s—­ay, and my own—­I, with folded arrums, hurl a scarnful and eternal defiance!”

“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Milligan”—­("Mulligan, me lard,” cried my defender)—­“Well, Mulligan, then, be calm, and keep to your brief.”

Mr. Mulligan did; and for three hours and a quarter, in a speech crammed with Latin quotations, and unsurpassed for eloquence, he explained the situation of me and my family; the romantic manner in which Tuggeridge the elder gained his fortune, and by which it afterwards came to my wife; the state of Ireland; the original and virtuous poverty of the Coxes—­from which he glanced passionately, for a few minutes (until the judge stopped him), to the poverty of his own country; my excellence as a husband, father, landlord; my wife’s, as a wife, mother, landlady.  All was in vain—­the trial went against us.  I was soon taken in execution for the damages; five hundred pounds of law expenses of my own, and as much more of Tuggeridge’s.  He would not pay a farthing, he said, to get me out of a much worse place than the Fleet.  I need not tell you that along with the land went the house in town, and the money in the funds.  Tuggeridge, he who had thousands before, had it all.  And when I was in prison, who do you think would come and see me?  None of the Barons, nor Counts, nor Foreign Ambassadors, nor Excellencies, who used to fill our house, and eat and drink at our expense,—­not even the ungrateful Tagrag!

I could not help now saying to my dear wife, “See, my love, we have been gentlefolks for exactly a year, and a pretty life we have had of it.  In the first place, my darling, we gave grand dinners, and everybody laughed at us.”

“Yes, and recollect how ill they made you,” cries my daughter.

“We asked great company, and they insulted us.”

“And spoilt mamma’s temper,” said Jemimarann.

“Hush!  Miss,” said her mother; “we don’t want your advice.”

“Then you must make a country gentleman of me.”

“And send Pa into dunghills,” roared Tug.

“Then you must go to operas, and pick up foreign Barons and Counts.”