id he, spiritedly, "next week will have its catalogue of shipwrecks.
There's a storm about to break that none have yet suspected."

"There will be some heavy sufferers," said Hankes gravely.

"No doubt, no doubt," muttered Dunn. "I never heard of a battle without
killed and wounded. I tell you, sir, again," said he, raising his voice,
"before the week ends the shore will be strewn with fragments; we alone
will ride through the gale unharmed. It is not fully a month since
I showed the Chief Secretary here--ay, and his Excellency, also--the
insolent but insidious system of attack the Government journals maintain
against me, the half-covert insinuations, the impertinent queries,
pretended inquiries for mere information's sake. Of course, I got for
answer the usual cant about 'freedom of the press,' 'liberty of public
discussion,' with the accustomed assurance that the Government had
not, in reality, any recognized organ; and, to wind up, there was the
laughing question, 'And what do you care, after all, for these fellows?'
But now I will show what I _do_ care,--that I have good and sufficient
reason to care,--that the calumnies which assail me are directed against
my material interests; that it is not Davenport Dunn is 'in cause,' but
all the great enterprises associated with his name; that it is not an
individual, but the industry of a nation, is at stake; and I will say to
them, 'Protect me, or--' You remember the significant legend inscribed
on the cannon of the Irish Volunteers, 'Independence or--' Take my word
for it, I may not speak as loudly as the nine-pounder, but my fire will
be to the full as fatal!"

Never before had Hankes seen his chief carried away by any sense of
personal injury; he had even remarked, amongst the traits of his great
business capacity, that a calm contempt for mere passing opinion was his
characteristic, and he was sorely grieved to find that such equanimity
could be disturbed. With his own especial quickness Dunn saw what was
passing in his lieutenant's mind, and he added hastily,--

"Not that, of all men, I need care for such assaults; powerful even
to tyranny as the press has become amongst us, there is one thing more
powerful still, and that is--Prosperity! Ay, sir, there may be cavil and
controversy as to your abilities; some may condemn your speech, or carp
at your book, they may cry down your statecraft, or deny your diplomacy;
but there is a test that all can appreciate, all compre