h! Hinton, my hearty, how goes it? your headpiece nothing the worse,
I hope, for either the car or the claret? By-the-by, capital claret that
is! you've nothing like it in England."

I could scarce help a smile at the remark, as he proceeded,

"But come, my boy, sit down; help yourself to a cutlet, and make
yourself quite at home in Mount O'Grady."

"Mount O'Grady!" repeated I. "Ha! in allusion, I suppose, to these
confounded two flights one has to climb up to you."

"Nothing of the kind; the name has a very different origin. Tea or
coffee? there's the tap! Now, my boy, the fact is, we O'Gradys were once
upon a time very great folk in our way; lived in an uncouth old barrack,
with battlements and a keep, upon the Shannon, where we ravaged the
country for miles round, and did as much mischief, and committed as much
pillage upon the peaceable inhabitants, as any respectable old family
in the province. Time, however, wagged on; luck changed; your countrymen
came pouring in upon us with new-fangled notions of reading, writing,
and road-making; police and petty sessions, and a thousand other
vexatious contrivances followed, to worry and puzzle the heads of simple
country gentlemen; so that, at last, instead of taking to the hill-side
for our mutton, we were reduced to keep a market-cart, and employ a
thieving rogue in Dublin to supply us with poor claret, instead of
making a trip over to Galway, where a smuggling craft brought us our
liquor, with a bouquet fresh from Bordeaux. But the worst wasn't come;
for you see, a litigious spirit grew up in the country, and a kind
of vindictive habit of pursuing you for your debts. Now, we always
contrived, somehow or other, to have rather a confused way of managing
our exchequer. No tenant on the property ever precisely knew what he
owed; and, as we possessed no record of what he paid, our income was
rather obtained after the maimer of levying a tribute, than receiving a
legal debt. Meanwhile, we pushed our credit like a new colony: whenever
a loan was to be, obtained, it was little we cared for ten, twelve, or
even fifteen per cent.; and as we kept a jolly house, a good cook, good
claret, and had the best pack of beagles in the country, he'd have been
a hardy creditor who'd have ventured to push us to extremities. Even
sheep, however, they say, get courage when they flock together, and so
this contemptible herd of tailors, tithe-proctors, butchers, barristers,
and bootmakers, took