'And you mean to say you pawned my coat?'

'I left it in the temporary care of a relative, Dick; but it is a
redeemable mortgage, and don't fret about it.'

'Ever the same!'

'No, Dick, that means worse and worse! Now, I am in the process of
reformation. The natural selection, however, where honesty is in the
series, is a slow proceeding, and the organic changes are very complicated.
As I know, however, you attach value to the effect you produce in that
coat, I'll go and recover it. I shall not need Terence or Juvenal till we
come back, and I'll leave them in the avuncular hands till then.'

'I wonder you're not ashamed of these miserable straits.'

'I am very much ashamed of the world that imposes them on me. I'm
thoroughly ashamed of that public in lacquered leather, that sees
me walking in broken boots. I'm heartily ashamed of that well-fed,
well-dressed, sleek society, that never so much as asked whether the
intellectual-looking man in the shabby hat, who looked so lovingly at the
spiced beef in the window, had dined yet, or was he fasting for a wager?'

'There, don't carry away that newspaper; I want to read over that pleasant
paragraph again!'

CHAPTER XII

THE JOURNEY TO THE COUNTRY

The two friends were deposited at the Moate station at a few minutes after
midnight, and their available resources amounting to something short of two
shillings, and the fare of a car and horse to Kilgobbin being more than
three times that amount, they decided to devote their small balance to
purposes of refreshment, and then set out for the castle on foot.

'It is a fine moonlight; I know all the short cuts, and I want a bit of
walking besides,' said Kearney; and though Joe was of a self-indulgent
temperament, and would like to have gone to bed after his supper and
trusted to the chapter of accidents to reach Kilgobbin by a conveyance some
time, any time, he had to yield his consent and set out on the road.

'The fellow who comes with the letter-bag will fetch over our portmanteau,'
said Dick, as they started.

'I wish you'd give him directions to take charge of me, too,' said Joe, who
felt very indisposed to a long walk.

'I like _you_,' said Dick sneeringly; 'you are always telling me that you
are the sort of fellow for a new colony, life in the bush, and the rest
of it, and when it conies to a question of a few miles' tramp on a bright
night in June, you try to skulk it in every possible way. You're a great