‘That just depends on how ye treat me,’ muttered Blake. ‘I don’t know whether it is that I’m getting old, or whether the whisky is playing false with my nerves--which is what I’d call my conscience, if I was one o’ the pious sort--or what it is, but I--I fluctuate! Sometimes--it’s generally in the morning, when I wake--I feel penitent: I feel that I’d like to go over to the enemy and clear my breast o’ the load I’ve borne this eighteen years and more. What are ye doin’?’ he asked angrily, as Conseltine trod heavily on his foot beneath the table. ‘Oh, the cub! Sure I said nothin’ that he has the brains to understand. Yes, Mr. Richard Conseltine, that’s how I feel at times, and it comes over me generally in the mornin’, when the whisky’s out and my pockets are empty. And, by thunder, if I did! if I did tell all I know--Holy Moses! what a racket it would make up at the Castle, and all Ireland over. Faith, I’d live in history! ’Twould be what the play-actors call a fine situation! And let me tell ye, there’s them as ’d make it worth me while to do it!’ ‘You drunken hog!’ murmured Conseltine under his breath; adding aloud, ‘You won’t do that, Blake!’ ‘Won’t I?’ returned Blake. ‘Faith, you’re surer about it than I am!’ ‘No,’ said Conseltine, ‘you won’t do it. I can make it better worth your while to keep silent.’ ‘Then why the divil don’t ye?’ asked Blake. ‘You’re very fond o’ talking about your gratitude, and you hold out fine promises, but what do ye _do?_’ ‘It seems to me,’ returned the other, ‘that I’ve done a good deal.’ ‘And it seems to me,’ exclaimed Blake, banging the table to emphasize the personal pronoun, ‘that ye do damn’d little. I tell ye, Dick Conseltine, it’s not for nothing that I’m going to suffer the torments of an aching conscience!’ ‘Your aching conscience,’ said Conseltine, with a scarcely perceptible sneer, ‘has been fairly well salved so far. Is it money that you want?’ ‘Bedad it is, then!’ cried the other. ‘I haven’t the price of a glass in the wide world.’ ‘Well,’ said his fellow conspirator, ‘I’m willing to do what I can, in reason.’ ‘In reason!’ repeated Blake. ‘Your notions of what’s reasonable and mine may not agree. Look here, now, what d’ye say to two hundred pounds?’ ‘Two hundred pounds!’ cried Conseltine, with well-acted amazement. ‘Oh, come, come, Blake!’ ‘Come, come!’ echoed Blake. ‘’Tis you that has to come--I’ve gone far enough along the road to hell; I’ll go no farther unless I’m paid for it. I want two hundred pounds to-morrow, and I’ll have it, or know the reason why!’ ‘I can’t do it, Blake,’ cried Conseltine. ‘Very well, then,’ said Blake, ‘his lordship can, and I’ll not only get two hundred, but ease my aching conscience at the same time.’