I asked at the post-office repeatedly for letters for Mr. Redmond, but none such had arrived; and, indeed, I always felt rather relieved when the answer of ‘No’ was given to me; for I was not very anxious that my mother should know my proceedings in the extravagant life which I was leading at Dublin.  It could not last very long, however; for when my cash was quite exhausted, and I paid a second visit to the tailor, requesting him to make me more clothes, the fellow hummed and ha’d, and had the impudence to ask payment for those already supplied:  on which, telling him I should withdraw my custom from him, I abruptly left him.  The goldsmith too (a rascal Jew) declined to let me take a gold chain to which I had a fancy; and I felt now, for the first time, in some perplexity.  To add to it, one of the young gentlemen who frequented Mr. Fitzsimons’s boarding-house had received from me, in the way of play, an IOU for eighteen pounds (which I lost to him at piquet), and which, owing Mr. Curbyn, the livery-stable keeper, a bill, he passed into that person’s hands.  Fancy my rage and astonishment, then, on going for my mare, to find that he positively refused to let me have her out of the stable, except under payment of my promissory note!  It was in vain that I offered him his choice of four notes that I had in my pocket—­one of Fitzsimons’s for L20, one of Counsellor Mulligan’s, and so forth; the dealer, who was a Yorkshireman, shook his head, and laughed at every one of them; and said, ’I tell you what, Master Redmond, you appear a young fellow of birth and fortune, and let me whisper in your ear that you have fallen into very bad hands—­it’s a regular gang of swindlers; and a gentleman of your rank and quality should never be seen in such company.  Go home:  pack up your valise, pay the little trifle to me, mount your mare, and ride back again to your parents,—­it’s the very best thing you can do.’

In a pretty nest of villains, indeed, was I plunged!  It seemed as if all my misfortunes were to break on me at once; for, on going home and ascending to my bedroom in a disconsolate way, I found the Captain and his lady there before me, my valise open, my wardrobe lying on the ground, and my keys in the possession of the odious Fitzsimons.  ‘Whom have I been harbouring in my house?’ roared he, as I entered the apartment.  ‘Who are you, sirrah?’

‘Sirrah!  Sir,’ said I, ‘I am as good a gentleman as any in Ireland.’

‘You’re an impostor, young man:  a schemer, a deceiver!’ shouted the Captain.

‘Repeat the words again, and I will run you through the body,’ replied I.

’Tut, tut!  I can play at fencing as well as you, Mr. Redmond Barry.  Ah! you change colour, do you—­your secret is known, is it?  You come like a viper into the bosom of innocent families; you represent yourself as the heir of my friends the Redmonds of Castle Redmond; I inthrojuice you to the nobility and genthry of this methropolis’ (the Captain’s brogue was large, and his words, by preference, long); ’I take you to my tradesmen, who give you credit, and what do I find?  That you have pawned the goods which you took up at their houses.’