_Nutts._ Humph! it reminds me of the old story of the eagle and the child, only instead of the eagle it’s that old Gallic cock Louis Philippe. How he’ll pounce upon the little wench, and carry her off to his nest in Paris, there to make the most of her! Quite a case of child-stealing, only, you see, there’s no police-van--no Newgate for kings. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. _Limpy._ (_With newspaper._) It isn’t a bad notion of Mr O’Connell’s, nohow. _Tickle._ I haven’t read it; but I can guess what it is. Seein’ the state Ireland’s in, he’s buttoned up his pockets and taken another vow. _Nutts._ I know; a vow to turn every day into eight-and-forty hours, and work every minute of ’em for Ireland. _Tickle._ No; it’s a newer vow than that, for that vow’s a week old. It’s a vow that his pockets, so long as the folk are starving--shall fast too. That they shan’t know the taste of rent--not so much as the copper taste of a farthing--till the peasantry have every day a bellyful. He’s buttoned up his pocket with that vow; and he’ll defy a troop of horse with drawn swords to open it again. _Limpy._ Nothin’ o’ the sort. Quite another notion. Mr O’Connell’s too modest a man to say anything about his own pockets: no, the hon. gentleman, as they say in the Commons, knows his place, and confines himself to the pockets of other people; and here in his letter to “dear Mr Ray” he says, “How delighted I should be to be able with any prospect of success, to propose that the gentry in each locality in Ireland _should appoint a delegation_ of their number to meet together in Dublin without delay, in order to organise the best plans for obtaining Government and local relief during the impending calamities of famine and pestilence, and to embody in practical form their suggestions to Parliament for laws suited to the emergency.” Now isn’t this the liberal thing? To give such advice as this, to bring all the cream of the gentry together? _Nutts._ It might be called the Parliament of Famine. A tremendous gathering, to be sure! And if only all the landlords as live away, taking their change out of Ireland, would for once be brought together in Dublin, wouldn’t it be an awful meeting? To only consider what many of such members would for the time represent! There’s a good many of ’em the best of men, to be sure; but again, supposin’ it, as I say, to be a Parliament of Famine, wouldn’t there be the hon. member for Filth and Rags, the hon. member for the Houseless, the hon. member for the Fevered and Naked, the hon. member for Despair, the hon. member for Midnight Housebreaking, and the hon. member for Midday Murder? _Slowgoe._ What mad stuff are you preaching, Mr Nutts?