the knight was out of hearing, called
aloud--

'You grinning rascal! mind, at your peril, and don't let that there
carriage be touched, d'ye see, till further orders.'

One of Mr. Mordicai's clerks, with a huge long-feathered pen behind his
ear, observed that Mr. Mordicai was right in that caution, for that, to
the best of his comprehension, Sir Terence O'Fay and his principal, too,
were over head and ears in debt.

Mordicai coolly answered that he was well aware of that; but that the
estate could afford to dip further; that, for his part, he was under no
apprehension; he knew how to look sharp, and to bite before he was bit.
That he knew Sir Terence and his principal were leagued together to
give the creditors THE GO BY, but that, clever as they both were at that
work, he trusted he was their match.

'Will you be so good, sir, to finish making out this estimate for me?'
interrupted Lord Colambre.

'Immediately, sir. Sixty-nine pound four, and the perch. Let us see--Mr.
Mordicai, ask him, ask Paddy, about Sir Terence,' said the foreman,
pointing back over his shoulder to the Irish workman, who was at
this moment pretending to be wondrous hard at work. However, when Mr.
Mordicai defied him to tell him anything he did not know, Paddy, parting
with an untasted bit of tobacco, began, and recounted some of Sir
Terence O'Fay's exploits in evading duns, replevying cattle, fighting
sheriffs, bribing SUBS, managing cants, tricking CUSTODEES, in language
so strange, and with a countenance and gestures so full of enjoyment
of the jest, that, whilst Mordicai stood for a moment aghast with
astonishment, Lord Colambre could not help laughing, partly at, and
partly with, his countryman. All the yard were in a roar of laughter,
though they did not understand half of what they heard; but their
risible muscles were acted upon mechanically, or maliciously, merely by
the sound of the Irish brogue.

Mordicai, waiting till the laugh was over, dryly observed that 'the law
is executed in another guess sort of way in England from what it is in
Ireland'; therefore, for his part, he desired nothing better than to set
his wits fairly against such SHARKS. That there was a pleasure in doing
up a debtor which none but a creditor could know.

'In a moment, sir; if you'll have a moment's patience, sir, if you
please,' said the slow foreman to Lord Colambre; 'I must go down the
pounds once more, and then I'll let you have it.'

'I'll tell you