own showing. Go on, I say."

"Fired at I say, and shot, sir. The whole White boy system has turned
itself into a great tithe conspiracy. The farmers, the landholders
of all descriptions, the cottiers, the daily laborers, and the very
domestic servants, have all joined this conspiracy, and sworn neither to
pay tithes themselves nor to allow others to pay them. They compare the
established church to a garrison; and although the law prevents them
from openly destroying it by force, they swear that they'll starve it
out."

"Eh!" said Turbot, starting, "what's that you say? Starve us out! What
an infamous and unconstitutional project! What a diabolical procedure!
But I forgot--bravo, Purcel! This was all the case before upon your own
showing."

"Well, sir," returned Purcel, "there was at least this difference, that
I was able to get something out of them then, but devil a copper can
I get out o' them now. I think you'll admit, sir, that this fact gives
some weight to my argument."

"You don't mean to say, Purcel," replied the other, from whose chin the
rosy tint gradually paled away until it assumed that peculiar hue which
is found inside of a marine shell, that is to say, white with a dream
of red barely and questionably visible; "you don't mean to say, my good
friend Purcel, that you have no money for me on this occasion?"

"By no means, sir," replied the proctor. "Money I have got for you, no
doubt--money I have got certainly."

The double chin once more assumed its natural hue of celestial rosy
red."

"Upon my honor, Purcel," he replied, "I have not temper for this; it
seems to me that you take particular delight in wantonly tampering with
my feelings. I am really quite tired of it. Why harass and annoy me with
your alarms? Conspiracy, blood, and massacre are the feeblest terms in
your vocabulary. It is absolutely ridiculous, sir, and I beg you will
put an end to it."

"I would be very glad to do so, sir," replied Purcel; "and still more
satisfied if I had never had anything to do with the temporalities of
your church."

"I don't see why, above all men living, you should say so, Purcel; you
have feathered your nest tolerably well by the temporalities of our
church."

"If I have, sir," replied the proctor, "it has been at the expense of my
popularity and good name. I and my family are looked upon as a part and
parcel of your system, and, I may add, as the worst and most odious
part of it. I and they are loo