“And the 'Four Counties,'” added Hankes. “Driscoll is ready with four thousand of the notes 'to open the ball,' as he says, and when Terry's name gets abroad it will be worse to them than a placard on the walls.”
“I shall not be sorry for the 'Four Counties.' It was Mr. Morris, the chairman, had the insolence to allude to me in the House, and ask if it were true that the Ministry had recommended Mr. Davenport Dunn as a fit object for the favors of the Crown? That question, sir, placed my claim in abeyance ever since. The Minister, pledged solemnly to me, had to rise in his place and say 'No.' Of course he added the stereotyped sarcasm, 'Not that, if such a decision had been come to, need the Cabinet have shrunk from the responsibility through any fears of the honorable gentleman's indignation.'”
“Well, Mr. Morris will have to pay for his joke now,” said Hankes. “I 'm told his whole estate is liable to the Bank.”
“Every shilling of it. Driscoll has got me all the details.”
“Lushington will be the great sufferer by the 'Tyrawley,'” continued Hankes.
“Another of them, Hankes,—another of them,” cried Dunn, rubbing his hands joyfully. “Tom Lushington—the Honorable Tom, as they called him—blackballed me at 'Brookes's. They told me his very words: 'It's bad enough to be “Dunned,” as we are, out of doors, but let us, at least, be safe from the infliction at our Clubs.' A sorry jest, but witty enough for those who heard it.”
“I don't think he has sixpence.”
“No, sir; nor can he remain a Treasury Lord with a fiat of bankruptcy against him. So much, then, for Tom Lushington! I tell you, Hankes,” said he, spiritedly, “next week will have its catalogue of shipwrecks. There's a storm about to break that none have yet suspected.”
“There will be some heavy sufferers,” said Hankes gravely.
“No doubt, no doubt,” muttered Dunn. “I never heard of a battle without killed and wounded. I tell you, sir, again,” said he, raising his voice, “before the week ends the shore will be strewn with fragments; we alone will ride through the gale unharmed. It is not fully a month since I showed the Chief Secretary here—ay, and his Excellency, also—the insolent but insidious system of attack the Government journals maintain against me, the half-covert insinuations, the impertinent queries, pretended inquiries for mere information's sake. Of course, I got for answer the usual cant about 'freedom of the press,' 'liberty of public discussion,' with the accustomed assurance that the Government had not, in reality, any recognized organ; and, to wind up, there was the laughing question, 'And what do you care, after all, for these fellows?' But now I will show what I do care,—that I have good and sufficient reason to care,—that the calumnies which assail me are directed against my material interests; that it is not Davenport Dunn is 'in cause,' but all the great enterprises associated with his name; that it is not an individual, but the industry of a nation, is at stake; and I will say to them, 'Protect me, or—' You remember the significant legend inscribed on the cannon of the Irish Volunteers, 'Independence or—' Take my word for it, I may not speak as loudly as the nine-pounder, but my fire will be to the full as fatal!”