“But to proceed regularly. On my reaching Dublin, after a hurried visit to my father, I drove off to Mr. Repton's house. You may remember his name as that of the old lawyer, some of whose bar stories amused you so highly. I found him in a spacious mansion of an old neglected street,--Henrietta Street,--once the great aristocratic quarter of Ancient Dublin, and even to this day showing traces of real splendor. The old man received me in a room of immense proportions, furnished as it was when Flood was the proprietor. He was at luncheon when I entered; and for company had the very same stranger with whom I made acquaintance in the packet. “Repton started as we recognized each other, but at a sign or a word, I'm not certain which, from the other, merely said, 'My friend was just speaking of his having met you, Mr. Massingbred.' This somewhat informal presentation over, I joined them, and we fell a chatting over the story of Cro' Martin. “They were both eager to hear something about Merl, his character, pursuits, and position; and you would have been amazed to see how surprised they were at my account of a man whose type we are all so familiar with. “You would scarcely credit the unfeigned astonishment manifested by these two shrewd and crafty men at the sketch I gave them of our Hebrew friend. One thing is quite clear,--it was not the habit, some forty or fifty years ago, to admit the Merls of the world to terms of intimacy, far less of friendship. “'As I said, Repton,' broke in the stranger, sternly, 'it all comes of that degenerate tone which has crept in of late, making society like a tavern, where he who can pay his bill cannot be denied entrance. Such fellows as this Merl had no footing in our day. The man who associated with such would have forfeited his own place in the world.' “'Very true,' said Repton, 'though we borrowed their money we never bowed to them.' “'And we did wisely, sir,' retorted the other. 'The corruption of their manners was fifty times worse than all their usury! The gallant Hussar Captain, as we see here, never scrupled about admitting to his closest intimacy a fellow not fit company for his valet. Can't you perceive that when a man will descend to such baseness to obtain money, there is no measuring the depth he will go to when pressed to pay it?' “'I am intimate with Martin,' said I, interrupting, 'and I can honestly assure you that it was rather to an easy, careless, uncalculating disposition he owes his misfortunes, than to anything like a spendthrift habit.' “'Mere hair-splitting this, sir,' replied he, almost rudely. 'He who spends what is not his own, I have but one name for. It matters little in my estimation whether he extorts the supply by a bill or a bullet.'