“Bedad,--and it’s hard enough to find the plan,” said he. It struck me that after that he rose into a somewhat higher flight of speech, as though he had remembered and was desirous of dropping his country. It is the customary and perhaps the only fault of an Irishman. “Whether it be there or not, we can expatiate free, as the poet says. How unintelligible is London! New York or Constantinople one can understand,--or even Paris. One knows what the world is doing in these cities, and what men desire.” “What men desire is nearly the same in all cities,” we remarked,--and not without truth as we think. “Is it money you mane?” he said, again relapsing. “Yes; money, no doubt, is the grand desideratum,--the ‘to prepon,’ the ‘to kalon’ the ‘to pan!’” Plato and Pope were evidently at his fingers’ ends. We did not conclude from this slight evidence that he was thoroughly imbued with the works either of the poet or the philosopher; but we hold that for the ordinary purposes of conversation a superficial knowledge of many things goes further than an intimacy with one or two. “Money,” continued he, “is everything, no doubt;--rem--rem; rem, si possis recte, si non,----; you know the rest. I don’t complain of that. I like money myself. I know its value. I’ve had it, and,--I’m not ashamed to say it, Sir,--I’ve been without it.” “Our sympathies are completely with you in reference to the latter position,” we said,--remembering, with a humility that we hope is natural to us, that we were not always editors. “What I complain of is,” said our new friend still whispering, as he passed his hand over his arms and legs, to learn whether the temperature of the room was producing its proper effect, “that if a man here in London have a diamond, or a pair of boots, or any special skill at his command, he cannot take his article to the proper mart, and obtain for it the proper price.” “Can he do that in Constantinople?” we enquired. “Much better and more accurately than he can in London. And so he can in Paris!” We did not believe this; but as we were thinking after what fashion we would express our doubts, he branched off so quickly to a matter of supply and demand with which we were specially interested, that we lost the opportunity of arguing the general question. “A man of letters,” he said, “a capable and an instructed man of letters, can always get a market for his wares in Paris.” “A capable and instructed man of letters will do so in London,” we said, “as soon as he has proved his claims. He must prove them in Paris before they can be allowed.”