O’Fi. (looking at her sternly). Matilda, are ye in earnest, or have ye bin at the eau de Cologne?
Mat. Oh! I’m in earnest. Tom’s dead.
O’Fi. Who’s killed him?
Mat. Faith, an’ he killed himself. He’s written to say so. Here’s his letter. He encloses yer two bills and app’ints ye his executor.
O’Fi. Ye pain and surproise me more than I can tell ye. Poor Tom! He was a koind and ginerous lad, and I’d hoped to have met these bills under happier circumstances. Well, his executor deals with them now—that’s me; and the question is whether, in the interests of Tom’s estate, it would be worth while to proceed against the acceptor—that’s me again; and, on the whole, I don’t recommend it. (Tears them up.) Now, tell me all about it; don’t cry, my child.
Mat. No, pa. Well, it’s loike this—Ben Isaacs was overpressin’, and poor Tom was bothered, and thought he’d make an end of himself; and just then he heard that the ould man, that Whipple called Tom Cobb from the loikeness, had just died. So Tom thought he’d make one death do for the two. Sure, he’s been economically brought up.
O’Fi. What! Am I to onderstand that Thomas Cobb has been troiflin’ with the most sacred feelings of an old soldier’s grey-headed ould harr’t?
Mat. Well, he’s shamming dead, if ye mean that, and he hopes you’ll go to the funeral!
O’Fi. (rises). Shamming dead, is he! Shamming dead! Let me come across him, and by the blood of the O’Fipps, I’ll make him sham dead in rale earnest!
Mat. But, papa dear, the boy’s hard pressed!