“For a number of reasons. First of all, you are strongly prejudiced against them; you are disposed to regard them as something little better than savages----” “Pardon me, there you are wrong--as not one whit better.” “That’s enough, then; you shall be no envoy to them from me.” “Well, I’ll knock under; I’ll agree to your high estimate of them, intellectually and morally, only with that detractive element of poverty which makes even clever men submissive, and occasionally squeezes conscience into a compromise. You tell me they are very amenable to reason; let me see if I agree with you. You assure me that with all their seeming impulsiveness and headlong rashness they are eminently calculating and forecasting. I want to see this. Bethink you what a grand witness I shall be to the truth of your theory when I am converted. Come, consent to send for this old fellow; make any pretext you please for seeing him, so that I may have a quarter of an hour’s talk with him.” “To what end? You could scarcely address to him the arguments you have just used to me----” “Leave that to my discretion. I suspect, Vyner--mind, it is mere suspicion--but I suspect that your Celtic friend will be far more practical and business-like in his dealings with me than with you; that his shrewdness will show him that I am a common-place man of the world, not caring, nor indeed believing, in any great regeneration for Ireland, and that all our intercourse must take the shape of a bargain.” “I consent,” said Vyner; “but, I own, less from choice than necessity, for time presses, and I find by a note I have just received that M’Kinlay, my man of business, has arrived at Westport, and whatever we decide on must be done at once.” “If I’m not very much mistaken, Vyner, my negotiation will not take ten minutes, and perhaps as many pounds, so that you may order whatever it be that is to carry us hence, and I’ll guarantee to be ready.” While Vyner hastened to give the necessary orders, Grenfell opened his writing-desk, from which he took some bank-notes and gold, and thrust them together in his pocket. CHAPTER XIV. A DISCUSSION “When that old man comes,” said Grenfell--“Malone, I think, is the name--let him come in here. I want to speak to him.” “He’s outside now, before the door,” said O’Rorke, whose prying looks showed how eager he felt to know what might be the subject of their conversation. “Does he hold any land in this neighbourhood?” “He’s like the rest,” replied the other, half sullenly; “he lives where he can, and how he can.” “What you would call a squatter?” said the Englishman, who smiled at his own sharpness in employing the word. “What I wouldn’t call any such thing,” replied O’Rorke, firmly. “No more than I’d say it was squatting to sit down on my own hearthstone.” “Which, perhaps, wouldn’t be your own, my good friend, if you were merely a tenant, and not a solvent one.”