The Absentee Read Free Page B

over head and ears in debt.
    Mordicai coolly answered that he was well aware of that; but that the
estate could afford to dip further; that, for his part, he was under no
apprehension; he knew how to look sharp, and to bite before he was bit.
That he knew Sir Terence and his principal were leagued together to
give the creditors THE GO BY, but that, clever as they both were at that
work, he trusted he was their match.
    'Will you be so good, sir, to finish making out this estimate for me?'
interrupted Lord Colambre.
    'Immediately, sir. Sixty-nine pound four, and the perch. Let us see—Mr.
Mordicai, ask him, ask Paddy, about Sir Terence,' said the foreman,
pointing back over his shoulder to the Irish workman, who was at
this moment pretending to be wondrous hard at work. However, when Mr.
Mordicai defied him to tell him anything he did not know, Paddy, parting
with an untasted bit of tobacco, began, and recounted some of Sir
Terence O'Fay's exploits in evading duns, replevying cattle, fighting
sheriffs, bribing SUBS, managing cants, tricking CUSTODEES, in language
so strange, and with a countenance and gestures so full of enjoyment
of the jest, that, whilst Mordicai stood for a moment aghast with
astonishment, Lord Colambre could not help laughing, partly at, and
partly with, his countryman. All the yard were in a roar of laughter,
though they did not understand half of what they heard; but their
risible muscles were acted upon mechanically, or maliciously, merely by
the sound of the Irish brogue.
    Mordicai, waiting till the laugh was over, dryly observed that 'the law
is executed in another guess sort of way in England from what it is in
Ireland'; therefore, for his part, he desired nothing better than to set
his wits fairly against such SHARKS. That there was a pleasure in doing
up a debtor which none but a creditor could know.
    'In a moment, sir; if you'll have a moment's patience, sir, if you
please,' said the slow foreman to Lord Colambre; 'I must go down the
pounds once more, and then I'll let you have it.'
    'I'll tell you what, Smithfield,' continued Mr. Mordicai, coming close
beside his foreman, and speaking very low, but with a voice trembling
with anger, for he was piqued by his foreman's doubts of his capacity
to cope with Sir Terence O'Fay; 'I'll tell you what, Smithfield, I'll be
cursed, if I don't get every inch of them into my power. You know how?'
    'You are the best judge, sir,' replied the foreman; 'but I would not
undertake Sir Terence; and the question is, whether the estate will
answer the LOT of the debts, and whether you know them all for certain?'
    'I do, sir, I tell you. There's Green there's Blancham—there's
Gray—there's Soho—naming several more—and, to my knowledge, Lord
Clonbrony—'
    'Stop, sir,' cried Lord Colambre in a voice which made Mordicai, and
everybody present, start—'I am his son—'
    'The devil!' said Mordicai.
    'God bless every bone in his body, then! he's an Irishman,' cried Paddy;
'and there was the RASON my heart warmed to him from the first minute he
come into the yard, though I did not know it till now.'
    'What, sir! are you my Lord Colambre?' said Mr. Mordicai, recovering,
but not clearly recovering, his intellects. 'I beg pardon, but I did not
know you WAS Lord Colambre. I thought you told me you was the friend of
Mr. Berryl.'
    'I do not see the incompatibility of the assertion, sir,' replied Lord
Colambre, taking from the bewildered foreman's unresisting hand the
account, which he had been so long FURNISHING.
    'Give me leave, my lord,' said Mordicai. 'I beg your pardon, my lord,
perhaps we can compromise that business for your friend Mr. Berryl;
since he is your lordship's friend, perhaps we can contrive to
COMPROMISE and SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE.'
    TO COMPROMISE and SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE, Mordicai thought were favourite
phrases, and approved Hibernian modes of doing business, which would
conciliate this young Irish nobleman, and dissipate the proud tempest
which had gathered