Lord Cashel now prepared himself for action.  The first shot was fired, and he must go on with the battle.

“So I hear, Kilcullen; and yet, during the last four years, you’ve had nearly double your allowance; and, before that, I paid every farthing you owed.  Within the last five years, you’ve had nearly forty thousand pounds!  Supposing you’d had younger brothers, Lord Kilcullen—­supposing that I had had six or eight sons instead of only one; what would you have done?  How then would you have paid your debts?”

“Fate having exempted me and your lordship from so severe a curse, I have never turned my mind to reflect what I might have done under such an infliction.”

“Or, supposing I had chosen, myself, to indulge in those expensive habits, which would have absorbed my income, and left me unable to do more for you, than many other noblemen in my position do for their sons—­do you ever reflect how impossible it would then have been for me to have helped you out of your difficulties?”

“I feel as truly grateful for your self-denial in this respect, as I do in that of my non-begotten brethren.”

Lord Cashel saw that he was laughed at, and he looked angry; but he did not want to quarrel with his son, so he continued: 

“Jervis writes me word that it is absolutely necessary that thirty thousand pounds should be paid for you at once; or, that your remaining in London—­or, in fact, in the country at all, is quite out of the question.”

“Indeed, my lord, I’m afraid Jervis is right.”

“Thirty thousand pounds!  Are you aware what your income is?”

“Why, hardly.  I know Jervis takes care that I never see much of it.”

“Do you mean that you don’t receive it?”

“Oh, I do not at all doubt its accurate payment.  I mean to say, that I don’t often have the satisfaction of seeing much of it at the right side of my banker’s book.”

“Thirty thousand pounds!  And will that sum set you completely free in the world?”

“I am sorry to say it will not—­nor nearly.”

“Then, Lord Kilcullen,” said the earl, with most severe, but still most courteous dignity, “may I trouble you to be good enough to tell me what, at the present moment, you do owe?”

“I’m afraid I could not do so with any accuracy; but it is more than double the sum you have named.”

“Do you mean, that you have no schedule of your debts?—­no means of acquainting me with the amount?  How can you expect that I can assist you, when you think it too much trouble to make yourself thoroughly acquainted with the state of your own affairs?”

“A list could certainly be made out, if I had any prospect of being able to settle the amount.  If your lordship can undertake to do so at once, I will undertake to hand you a correct list of the sums due, before I leave Grey Abbey.  I presume you would not require to know exactly to whom all the items were owing.”