he terms, should they be acceded to by the other party.

"But you must bear in mind," added Daly, as his client for the second
time turned from the door, "that I don't guarantee that Martin Kelly
will accept these terms: it's very likely he may be sharp enough to
know that he can manage as well without you as he can with you. You'll
remember that, Mr Lynch."

"I will--I will, Daly; but look here--if he bites freely--and I think
he will, and if you find you could get as much as a thousand out of
him, or even eight hundred, you shall have one hundred clear for
yourself."

This was Barry's last piece of diplomacy for that day. Daly vouchsafed
him no answer, but returned into his office, and Barry mounted his
horse, and returned home not altogether ill-pleased with his prospects,
but still regretting that he should have gone about so serious a piece
of business, so utterly unprepared.

These regrets rose stronger, when his after-dinner courage returned to
him as he sate solitary over his fire. "I should have had him here,"
said he to himself, "and not gone to that confounded cold hole of
his. After all, there's no place for a cock to fight on like his own
dunghill; and there's nothing able to carry a fellow well through a
tough bit of jobation [33] with a lawyer like a stiff tumbler of brandy
punch. It'd have been worth a couple of hundred to me, to have had him
out here--impertinent puppy! Well, devil a halfpenny I'll pay him!"
This thought was consolatory, and he began again to think of Boulogne.

[FOOTNOTE 33: jobation--a tedious session; scolding]

XXI. LORD BALLINDINE AT HOME

Two days after the last recorded interview between Lord Ballindine and
his friend, Dot Blake, the former found himself once more sitting down
to dinner with his mother and sisters, the Honourable Mrs O'Kelly and
the Honourable Misses O'Kelly; at least such were the titular dignities
conferred on them in County Mayo, though I believe, strictly speaking,
the young ladies had no claim to the appellation.

Mrs O'Kelly was a very small woman, with no particularly developed
character, and perhaps of no very general utility. She was fond of her
daughters, and more than fond of her son, partly because he was so
tall and so handsome, and partly because he was the lord, the head
of the family, and the owner of the house. She was, on the whole, a
good-natured person, though perhaps her temper was a little soured by
her husband having,