“I'm glad of it; I'm heartily glad of it,” said Martin, calmly reseating himself. “I'm glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many a change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin of Cro' Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan, and that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff of a county town,--that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no wise prepared.” “Well, sir, I 'm sorry if I have given any offence,” said Scanlan, rising, and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his excuses. “Your rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest leaves me, at least, at liberty to offer my services where they will not be rejected so contumeliously.” “Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?” said Martin, with a supercilious smile. “No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes _my_ station, and is _due to yours_, to forget myself so far; but as you don't set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others who do--” “Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan,” said Martin. “I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir--” “Send an apology to her; say it was _my_ fault,--that I detained you.” And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room, leaving the attorney alone with his reflections. CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR Young Nelligan had distanced all his competitors in his college career; some who were his equals in ability, were inferior to him in habits of hard and patient labor; and others, again, were faint-hearted to oppose one in whose success they affected to believe luck had no small share. One alone had the honest candor to avow that he deserved his pre-eminence, on the true ground of his being their superior. This was a certain Jack Massingbred, a young fellow of good family and fortune, and who, having been rusticated at Oxford, and involved in some outrage against authority in Cambridge, had come over to finish his college career in the “Silent Sister.”