“Now tell me, my tight fellow,” continued Sir Terence, holding Mordicai fast, “when, in the name of all the saints, good or bad, in the calendar, do you reckon to let us sport the suicide?”
“Will you be so good, sir, to finish making out this estimate for me?” interrupted Lord Colambre.
Mordicai forcibly drew his mouth into what he meant for a smile, and answered, “As soon as possible, Sir Terence.” Sir Terence, in a tone of jocose, wheedling expostulation, entreated him to have the carriage finished out of hand: “Ah, now! Mordy, my precious! let us have it by the birthday, and come and dine with us o’ Monday at the Hibernian Hotel—there’s a rare one—will you?”
Mordicai accepted the invitation, and promised faithfully that the suicide should be finished by the birthday. Sir Terence shook hands upon this promise, and, after telling a good story, which made one of the workmen in the yard—an Irishman—grin with delight, walked off. Mordicai, first waiting till the knight was out of hearing, called aloud, “You grinning rascal! mind, at your peril, and don’t let that there carriage be touched, d’ye see, till farther orders.”
One of Mr. Mordicai’s clerks, with a huge long feathered pen behind his ear, observed that Mr. Mordicai was right in that caution, for that, to the best of his comprehension, Sir Terence O’Fay, and his principal too, were over head and ears in debt.
Mordicai coolly answered, that he was well aware of that, but that the estate could afford to dip farther; 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 were both at that work, he trusted he was their match.
“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 any thing 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.”