"Do you happen to know anybody would lend me a thousand pounds on no particular security, O'Reardon?"
"Not just at the minute,--perhaps if I had a day or two to think of it."
"I could give you a week,--a fortnight if it was any use, but it is not; and you know it's not, Master O'Reardon, as well as any man breathing."
There was a silence of some minutes now between them; and while Sewell brooded over his hard fortune, O'Reardon seemed to be reviewing in his mind the state of the share market, and taking a sweeping view of the course of the exchanges.
"Well, indeed, sir, money is tight,--mighty tight, at this time. Old M'Cabe of the lottery office wouldn't advance three hundred to Lord Arthur St. Aubin without the family plate, and I saw the covered dishes going in myself."
"I wish _I_ had family plate," sighed Sewell.
"So you will yet, please God," said the other, piously. "His Lordship can't live forever! But jewels is as good," resumed he, after a slight pause.
"I have just as much of the one as the other, O'Reardon. They were a sort of scrip I never invested in."
"It is n't a bad thing to do, after all. I remember poor Mr. Giles Morony saying one day, 'I dined yesterday, Tom,' says he, 'off one of my wife's ear-rings, and I never ate a better dinner in my life; and with the blessing of Providence I'll go drunk to bed off the other to-night.'"
"Was n't he hanged afterwards for a murder?"
"No, sir,--sentenced, but never hanged. Mr. Wallace got him off on a writ of error. He was a most agreeable man. Has Mrs. Sewell any trinkets of value, sir?"
"I believe not--I don't know--I don't care," said he, angrily; for the subject, as an apropos, was scarcely pleasant. "Any one at the office since I left?" asked he, with a twang of irritation still in his tone.
"That ould man I tould your honor about called three times."
"I wrote it twice to your honor since I saw you, and left the letters here myself."
"You don't think I break open letters in such handwriting as yours, do you? Why, man, my table is covered with them. Who is the old man you speak of?"
"Well, sir, that's more than I know yet; but I 'll be well acquainted with all about him before a week ends, for I knew him before and he puzzled me too."