say, my money, in a manner which
nothing can excuse or palliate. You might have made the turf a source
of gratifying amusement; your income was amply sufficient to enable
you to do so; but you have possessed so little self-control, so little
judgment, so little discrimination, that you have allowed yourself
to be plundered by every blackleg, and robbed by every--everybody in
short, who chose to rob you. The same thing has been the case in all
your other amusements and pursuits--"

"Well, my lord, I confess it all; isn't that enough?"

"Enough, Kilcullen!" said the earl, in a voice of horrified
astonishment, "how enough?--how can anything be enough after such a
course--so wild, so mad, so ruinous!"

"For Heaven's sake, my lord, finish the list of my iniquities, or
you'll make me feel that I am utterly unfit to become my cousin's
husband."

"I fear you are--indeed I fear you are. Are the horses disposed of yet,
Kilcullen?"

"Indeed they are not, my lord; nor can I dispose of them. There is more
owing for them than they are worth; you may say they belong to the
trainer now."

"Is the establishment in Curzon Street broken up?"

"To tell the truth, not exactly; but I've no thoughts of returning
there. I'm still under rent for the house."

The cross-examination was continued for a considerable time--till the
earl had literally nothing more to say, and Lord Kilcullen was so
irritated that he told his father he would not stand it any longer.
Then they went into money affairs, and the earl spoke despondingly
about ten thousands and twenty thousands, and the viscount somewhat
flippantly of fifty thousands and sixty thousands; and this was
continued till the earl felt that his son was too deep in the mire to
be pulled out, and the son thought that, deep as he was there, it would
be better to remain and wallow in it than undergo so disagreeable a
process as that to which his father subjected him in extricating him
from it. It was settled, however, that Mr. Jervis, Lord Cashel's
agent, should receive full authority to deal summarily in all matters
respecting the horses and their trainers, the house in Curzon Street,
and its inhabitants, and all other appendages and sources of expense
which Lord Kilcullen had left behind him; and that he, Kilcullen,
should at once commence his siege upon his cousin's fortune. And on
this point the son bargained that, as it would be essentially necessary
that his spirits should be light an