for his idle townsfolk.

'They lie, then!' cried the young man, stopping short, more fiercely
than was pleasant, and fixing his great lurid eyes upon the cunning face
of the doctor; and, after a pause, 'Why can't they let me and my
concerns alone, Sir?'

'But there's no use in saying so, _I_ can tell you,' exclaimed little
Toole, recovering his feet in an instant. 'Why, I suppose there isn't so
tattling, prying, lying, scandalous a little colony of Christians on
earth; eyes, ears, and mouths all open, Sir; heads busy, tongues
wagging; lots of old maids, by Jove; ladies' women, and gentlemen's
gentlemen, and drawers and footmen; club talk, Sir, and mess-table talk,
and talk on band days, talk over cards, talk at home, Sir--talk in the
streets--talk--talk; by Jupiter Tonans! 'tis enough to bother one's
ears, and make a man envy Robinson Crusoe!'

'So I do, Sir, if we were rid of his parrot,' answered Mervyn: and with
a dry 'I wish you a good-morning, doctor--doctor--a--_Sir_'--turned
sharply from him up the Palmerstown-road.

'Going to Belmont,' murmured little Toole, with his face a little redder
than usual, and stopping in an undignified way for a moment at the
corner to look after him. 'He's close--plaguy close; and Miss Rebecca
Chattesworth knows nothing about him neither--I wander does she
though--and doesn't seem to care even. He's not there for nothing
though. _Some_ one makes him welcome, depend on't,' and he winked to
himself. 'A plaguy high stomach, too, by Jove. I bet you fifty, if he
stays here three months, he'll be at swords or pistols with some of our
hot bloods. And whatever his secret is--and I dare say 'tisn't worth
knowing--the people here will ferret it out at last, I warrant you.
There's small good in making all the fuss he does about it; if he knew
but all, there's no such thing as a secret here--hang the one have _I_,
I know, just because there's no use in trying. The whole town knows when
I've tripe for dinner, and where I have a patch or a darn. And when I
got the fourteen pigeons at Darkey's-bridge, the birds were not ten
minutes on my kitchen table when old Widow Foote sends her maid and her
compliments, as she knew my pie-dish only held a dozen, to beg the two
odd birds. Secret, indeed!' and he whistled a bar or two contemptuously,
which subsided into dejected silence, and he muttered, 'I wish I knew
it,' and walked over the bridge gloomily; and he roared more fiercely on
smaller occasions