"Why, sir, I never was popular, as you call it, but I was slowly sliding into my place, as the saying is, like a cheese along a bar of soap, for both you and your brother were thought to be poor men, and lost men, and men who had no chance of ever returning to Kilkenny; and them are just the sort of articles to get mouldy and forgotten, like a box of damaged prunes in the back shop, but--and how _they_ found it out, I am sure I cannot tell"--(my mother smiled here)--"but for these two years past, I have had hints, and to spare, that although your _brother_ was dead, _you_ had come alive again, and had bought a large estate, which, for the honour of Ireland, you had also called Ballywindle, in Jamaica, where all the cottiers were black negers, and that you had made a power of money, and had your nephew sent out to you; he that was the sailor, young Master Brail, her ladyship's Hopeful there--and that, in fact, if I did not write out to you _my own self_ (oh, murder, to be trated like a swimming pig, and made to cut my own troat),--if I did not write that you might have the estate again at prime cost, as we say in Cork, with a compliment (the devil burn them, with their compliment!) of all my improvements; that"--Here he looked in my aunt's face with the most laughable earnestness--"Now, what do you think they did say, my lady?" "Really, Mr Treacle, I cannot form any conception." "Why, they said that they would nail my two ears, which were long enough (at least so said the notice), _to my own hall-door_." Mr Frenche laughed outright. "Poo, poo, a vagary of the poor fellows. Why, you know our countrymen are fond of a joke, Treacle." "Joke, did you say? And was it a joke to fire this sugar-plum into the small of my back last market day?" Here he rubbed a part of his body with one hand, by no means answering the description of the _small_ of his back; while in the other he held out a leaden bullet. My mother drew me into the window, unable to restrain her laughter. "Oh, you need not retrate, my dear Mrs Brail, I don't mean to _descend_ to particulars. But," resuming his address to my uncle, "was it a joke to plump _that_ into me, Mr Frenche? But this is all foreign to the subject. One needs must go when the devil drives, so I am come here to fulfil their bidding, and to make you the _offer_; for the county is too hot to hold the ould plum-splitter, and the aristocracy too cold--so between hot and cold, I am sick of it." Here he turned himself to one side disconsolately, and pulling out his red bandana, began to wipe the profuse perspiration from his brow. My uncle and I exchanged looks. "Now, Misther Frenche, do think of it, will you? I am not very discrate in telling you all this, but really I am so worried, that I am half-dead with anxiety and vexation; more especially as I have this blessed day got another _hint_." "No! have you though?" said my uncle, unable to contain himself.