'In an evil temper,' he remarked. 'Gone without dinner, eh? If I am not a drunkard and a gambler, whose fault is it, sir, but yours? Who taught me that as a younger son I have my way to carve through life? Who made me choose the Bar? Who superintended my studies, and gave a helping hand? _You_--you cross Curran! and, believe me, I'm not ungrateful, though a bit more idle than you like.' 'Then get you gone, and leave us to our folly,' was the testy rejoinder. 'I won't have your mother saying some day that I brought her boy to danger, and instilled ideas into his vacant mind which put his neck in danger.' 'Fiddlededee!' laughed the good-humoured scapegrace. 'You are no more a conspirator than I. Why are you here, and why have you brought my cousin if awful rites are going forward?' 'Because I'm an ass!' growled the other. 'Conspirator--why not, pray? My heart is sick when I look round me. Why should I not be maddened as others are? Do I love Erin less? Doreen belongs through her religion to the people, and it is fitting she should sorrow with them. Yes, it is maddening?' he pursued, kindling suddenly, and breaking through the crust in which for prudence' sake he cased himself, as the thoughts over which he had been brooding took form. 'What is to become of us? It would have been merciful if Spencer's desire had been gratified, and the land turned into a seapool. Our travail is long, and endeth not. Our master gives us a hangman and a taxgatherer; what more should such as we require? His laws are like shoes sent forth for exportation. 'Twere idle to take our measures, for if they pinch us, what matters it? We stand between a social Scylla and Charybdis. Poets and visionaries, like this poor fool here, work on the hare-brained people, whose craving for freedom is whetted to voracity; and, led by the blind, they tumble into traps, at which a less ardent nation would be moved to laughter. Temerity, despair, annihilation--that is the _mot d'ordre_. See if I am not a true prophet. And the luxurious nobles--do they help with their counsel? Not they! Their twin-gods are their belly and their lust. They have nothing in common with the people.' 'The French shall drive them into the sea,' remarked Tone, placidly. 'The French, the French!' retorted Curran. 'Much good may they do us! A revolution achieved by such means would merely mean a change of masters. You live in a fool's paradise, Theobald. I can see farther into futurity than you, for I'm older, worse luck. I see a time coming--nay, it's close at hand--when a spectre will be set up and nicknamed Justice; which, if God wills, it shall be my mission to tear down. Yet what may I do with my little weight? A mean weak man with feeble health. May I be the log to stop the wheels of the triumphal car? Verily, the ways of Heaven are inscrutable!'