“Which be they, Meek? I never heard of them. Maynooth is the only factory I know of in the land, and a brisk trade it has, home and colonial.”
“You know as well as any man the benefits we have conferred on this country.”
“Yes, it demands no great tax on memory to repeat them. You found a starving peasantry of a couple of millions, and, being unable or incompetent to aid them, you ruined the gentry to keep them company. You saw a mangy, miserable dog with famine in his flank and death in his eye, and, answering his appeal to your compassion, you cut an inch off his tail and told him to eat it.”
“You are too bad, Tom—a great deal too bad. What are you looking for?”
“Nothing at present,” was the cool reply.
“What in prospective, then?”
“I should like to be the Secretary for Ireland, Meek, whenever they shelve you among the other unredeemed pledges in that pawn-office, the Board of Trade.”
Meek affected a laugh, but not over successfully, while to turn the conversation, he said, “A propos to your friend Cashel, I have not been able to show him any attentions, so occupied have I been with one thing and another. Let us make a dinner for him.”
“No, no, he does n't care for such things. Come and Join his house-warming on the Shannon; that will be far better.”
“I mean it, but I should like also to see him here. He knows the Kilgoffs, doesn't he?”