"Arra, Tom jewel, what would you want wid the most of six hundred pounds; sure if you got it itself, you oughtn't to touch a penny of it."
Tom had not intended to say what he had said; it slipped out in his vexation. But here his worldly cunning and self-possession came to his aid, and he replied.
"Perhaps not, indeed, father; but there is a spot of land not far off which will soon be in the market, I hear, and it would be no bad speculation to buy it. I think it would pay six or seven per cent interest." Tom knew his father's weakness for a bit of land, and was ready enough.
"Oh, that's a horse of another color, Tom. Arra, where is it? I didn't hear of it."
"No matter now, father. I cannot get the money, so let me alone about it. I wish the d—l had the pair of them."
"Whist, whist, Tom avic; don't be talking in that way. Sure af it's a safe purchase for six per cent., the money might be to be had. Thanks be to God, we're not behouldin' to that hussey's dirty drib for money."
Here a new light dawned upon Tom. Might he not work a few hundreds out of his father in some way or other for this pretended purchase, and then say that it would not be sold after all; and that he had relodged the money, or lost it, or was robbed—or—or—something? The thought was too vague as yet to take any satisfactory shape; but the result upon his mind at the moment was, that his father was too wide awake to be dealt with in that way.
"Well, father," he said, "I shall be guided by your advice in this business still, although I have done no good by taking it to-day; but listen to me now, father."
"An' welcome, Tom. I like a young man to have a mind of his own, an' to be able to strike out a good plan; an' then, if my experience isn't able to back it up, why I spake plainly an' tell him what I think."
"My opinion is, father, that I ought to go away out of this place altogether for a while. You know I am not one that moping about the house and garden would answer at all. I must be out and going about, father, or I'd lose my senses."