'Ah, the spalpeen,' said the priest, with a deep groan, 'didn't he do me out of that money already?'
'How so, father?' said I, scarce able to repress my laughter at the expression of his face.
'I was coming down the main street yesterday evening with Doctor Plunkett, the bishop, beside me, discoursing a little theology, and looking as pious and respectable as may be, when that villain Burke came running out of a shop, and pulling out his pocket-book, cried—
'“Wait a bit, Father Tom, you know I'm a little in your debt about that race; and as you're a sporting character, it's only fair to book up at once.”
'“What is this I hear, Father Loftus?” says the bishop.
'“Oh, my lord,” say I, “he's a jocosus puer—a humbugging bla-guard; a farceur, your reverence, and that's the way he is always cutting his jokes upon the people.”
“'And so he does not owe you this money?” said the bishop, looking mighty hard at us both.
'“Not a farthing of it, my lord.”
'“That's comfortable, anyhow,” says Burke, putting up his pocket-book; “and 'faith, my lord,” said he with a wink, “I wish I had a loan of you for an hour or two every settling day, for troth you 're a trump!” And with that he went off laughing, till ye'd have thought he'd split his sides—and I am sure I wish he had.'
I don't think Mr. Burke himself could have laughed louder or longer at his scheme than did we in hearing it, The priest at length joined in the mirth, and I could perceive, as the punch made more inroads upon him and the evening wore on, that his holy horror of duelling was gradually melting away before the warmth of his Hibernian propensities, like a wet sponge passed across the surface of a dark picture, bringing forth from the gloom many a figure and feature indistinct before, and displaying touches of light not hitherto appreciable, so whisky seems to exercise some strange power of displaying its votaries in all their breadth of character, divesting them of the adventitious clothes in which position or profession has invested them. Thus a tipsy Irishman stands forth in the exuberance of his nationality, Hibernicis Hibernior. Forgetting all his moral declamation on duelling, oblivious of his late indignation against his cousin, he rubbed his hands pleasantly, and related story after story of his own early experiences, some of them not a little amusing.