"Why, not exactly rejoice in his death," replied Darby, wiping away a tear from his already suffused eye, "for he was a kind ould body to them he liked, though he didn't spake to me good or bad for three years afore he died: but never mind; maybe I wasn't hearty at his wake!"
"At his wake!" said I, with a look of disgust.
"Yes, yir honor!" replied he after a pause of surprise,—"at his wake, to be sure; and where can a body be so alive to fun of all sorts as at a well-conducted dead body's wake? Isn't there smokin', and drinkin', and story-tellin', and now and then a bit of dancin' in the other room with the young ones, to shake off the grief, eh? And didn't I get seven goold guineas from 'Turney Gubbins, that was one of his executors, and the ould mare that used to take him from town to town when he took to fair bisness, and the bracket hen that lays yir honor's eggs now, that was the mother of all the paceable fightin' cocks in the county; and, moreover, his white waistcoat and breeches when he was in the Yeomen, that Ned Fallon the tailor says he'll die any day for me into a second mournin'?"
"And what did you with the seven guineas?" said I: "did you turn them to any account?"
"Oh, the Lord bless yir honor!" said Darby sheepishly; "it's very hard to know what to do with a large sum of money now-a-days: it's dangerous keepin' by you, you know, sir; so I put it out to interest!"
"And pray what security did you get?" said I, suspecting something, from the fellow's roguish leer.
"Security, sir?" said Darby; "they tould me it was collatheral, I think, yir honor; collatheral was the word."
"Collateral!" said I, somewhat surprised at his knowledge of the term.
"Yes, sir," replied he, scratching his head with one hand, and thrusting the other into his breeches pocket, "I laid it out in HOUSES. But, for all that, half an hour afore I die I'll have as much money as'll do me all the days o' my life!"
I could not but smile at the fellow's satirical humour upon his own folly; and, as it was the first time I had ever admitted him to such familiar converse, I patiently listened while he continued to tell me how he "ran through his fortune" in less than three weeks; hoping, however, that he would soon make an end of his recital, and set out with my letter, for the day now began to decline.