This effrontery was too much, and Lord Cashel was very near to losing his temper.

“Upon my honour, Kilcullen, you’re cool, very cool.  You come upon me to pay, Heaven knows how many thousands—­more money, I know, than I’m able to raise; and you condescendingly tell me that you will trouble yourself so far as to let me know how much money I am to give you—­but that I am not to know what is done with it!  No; if I am to pay your debts again, I will do it through Jervis.”

“Pray remember,” replied Lord Kilcullen, not at all disturbed from his equanimity, “that I have not proposed that you should pay my debts without knowing where the money went; and also that I have not yet asked you to pay them at all.”

“Who, then, do you expect will pay them?  I can assure you I should be glad to be relieved from the honour.”

“I merely said that I had not yet made any proposition respecting them.  Of course, I expect your assistance.  Failing you, I have no resource but the Jews.  I should regret to put the property into their hands; especially as, hitherto, I have not raised money on post obits [24].”

[FOOTNOTE 24:  post obit—­a loan that need not be repaid until
the death of a specified individual, usually
someone from whom the borrower expected to inherit
enough to repay the loan]

“At any rate, I’m glad of that,” said the father, willing to admit any excuse for returning to his good humour.  “That would be ruin; and I hope that anything short of that may be—­may be—­may be done something with.”

The expression was not dignified, and it pained the earl to make it; but it was expressive, and he didn’t wish at once to say that he had a proposal for paying off his son’s debts.  “But now, Kilcullen, tell me fairly, in round figures, what do you think you owe?—­as near as you can guess, without going to pen and paper, you know?”

“Well, my lord, if you will allow me, I will make a proposition to you.  If you will hand over to Mr Jervis fifty thousand pounds, for him to pay such claims as have already been made upon him as your agent, and such other debts as I may have sent in to him:  and if you will give myself thirty thousand, to pay such debts as I do not choose to have paid by an agent, I will undertake to have everything settled.”

“Eighty thousand pounds in four years!  Why, Kilcullen, what have you done with it?—­where has it gone?  You have five thousand a-year, no house to keep up, no property to support, no tenants to satisfy, no rates to pay—­five thousand a-year for your own personal expenses—­and, in four years, you have got eighty thousand in debt!  The property never can stand that, you know.  It never can stand at that rate.  Why, Kilcullen, what have you done with it?”

“Mr Crockford has a portion of it, and John Scott has some of it.  A great deal of it is scattered rather widely—­so widely that it would be difficult now to trace it.  But, my lord, it has gone.  I won’t deny that the greater portion of it has been lost at play, or on the turf.  I trust I may, in future, be more fortunate and more cautious.”