‘Immediately; the boy has the jug in his hand; it’s coming upstairs, please your honour, as fast as possible,’ says I, for I saw his honour was tired out of his life; but Jason, very short and cruel, cuts me off with—‘Don’t be talking of punch yet awhile; it’s no time for punch yet a bit—units, tens, hundreds,’ goes he on, counting over the master’s shoulder, units, tens, hundreds, thousands.
‘A-a-ah! hold your hand,’ cries my master. ‘Where in this wide world am I to find hundreds, or units itself, let alone thousands?’
‘The balance has been running on too long,’ says Jason, sticking to him as I could not have done at the time, if you’d have given both the Indies and Cork to boot; ‘the balance has been running on too long, and I’m distressed myself on your account, Sir Condy, for money, and the thing must be settled now on the spot, and the balance cleared off,’ says Jason.
‘I’ll thank you if you’ll only show me how,’ says Sir Condy.
‘There’s but one way,’ says Jason, ‘and that’s ready enough. When there’s no cash, what can a gentleman do but go to the land?’
‘How can you go to the land, and it under custodiam to yourself already?’ says Sir Condy; ‘and another custodiam hanging over it? And no one at all can touch it, you know, but the custodees.’
‘Sure, can’t you sell, though at a loss? Sure you can sell, and I’ve a purchaser ready for you,’ says Jason.
‘Have you so?’ says Sir Condy. ‘That’s a great point gained. But there’s a thing now beyond all, that perhaps you don’t know yet, barring Thady has let you into the secret.’
‘Sarrah bit of a secret, or anything at all of the kind, has he learned from me these fifteen weeks come St. John’s Eve,’ says I, ‘for we have scarce been upon speaking terms of late. But what is it your honour means of a secret?’
‘Why, the secret of the little keepsake I gave my Lady Rackrent the morning she left us, that she might not go back empty-handed to her friends.’