ply.

The old man leaped up again, and looked impatiently and wildly and
fiercely about him.

"What are you?" he shouted; "what are you? You're a divil--a born divil.
Will nothing but my death satisfy you? Do you want to rob me--to
starve me--to murdher me? Don't you see the state I'm in by you? Look at
me--look at these thremblin' limbs--look at the sweat powerin' down from
my poor ould face! What is it you want? There--there's my gray hairs
to you. You have brought me to that--to more than that--I'm dyin' this
minute--I'm dyin'--oh, my boy--my boy, if I had you here--ay,
I'm--I'm--"

He staggered over on his seat, his eyes gleaming in a fixed and intense
glare at the attorney; his hands were clenched, his lips parched, and
his mummy-like cheeks sucked, as before, into his toothless jaws. In
addition to all this, there was a bitter white smile of despair upon his
features, and his thin gray locks, that were discomposed in the paroxysm
by his own hands, stood out in disorder upon his head. We question,
indeed, whether mere imagination could, without having actually
witnessed it in real life, conceive any object so frightfully
illustrative of the terrible dominion which the passion of avarice is
capable of exercising over the human heart.

"I protest to Heaven," exclaimed the attorney, alarmed, "I believe the
man is dying--if not dead, he is motionless."

"O'Donovan, what's the matter with you?"

The old man's lips gave a dry, hard smack, then became desperately
compressed together, and his cheeks were drawn still further into his
jaws. At length he sighed deeply, and changed his fixed and motionless
attitude.

"He is alive, at all events," said one of his young men.

Fardorougha turned his eyes upon the speaker, then upon his master, and
successively upon two other assistants who were in the office.

"What is this?" said he, "what is this?--I'm very weak--will you get me
a dhrink o' wather? God help me--God direct me! I'm an unhappy man; get
me a dhrink, for Heaven's sake! I can hardly spake, my mouth and lips
are so dry."

The water having been procured, he drank it eagerly, and felt evidently
relieved.

"This business," he continued, "about the money--I mane about my poor
boy. Connor, how will it be managed, sir?"

"I have already told you that there is but one way of managing it, and
that is, as the young man's life is at stake, to spare no cost."

"And I must do that?"

"You ought, at least, remem