“I?” said Sir Ulick.
“Ay, you and all your courtiers, ploughing the half acre [Footnote: Ploughing the half acre. The English reader will please to inquire the meaning of this phrase from any Irish courtier.] continually, pacing up and down that Castle-yard, while you’re waiting in attendance there. Every one to his taste, but—
‘If there’s a man on earth I hate,
Attendance and dependence be his fate.’”
“After all, I have very good prospects in life,” said Sir Ulick.
“Ay, you’ve been always living on prospects; for my part, I’d rather have a mole-hill in possession than a mountain in prospect.”
“Cornelius, what are you doing here to the roof of your house?” said Sir Ulick, striking off to another subject. “What a vast deal of work you do contrive to cut out for yourself.”
“I’d rather cut it out for myself than have any body to cut it out for me,” said Cornelius.
“Upon my word, this will require all your extraordinary ingenuity, cousin.”
“Oh, I’ll engage I’ll make a good job of it, in my sense of the word, though not in yours; for I know, in your vocabulary, that’s only a good job where you pocket money and do nothing; now my good jobs never bring me in a farthing, and give me a great deal to do into the bargain.”
“I don’t envy you such jobs, indeed,” said Sir Ulick; “and are you sure that at last you make them good jobs in any acceptation of the term?”