“A couple of glasses of sherry, sir, at dinner; and about ten o’clock, a glass of brandy and water.”

“Carson, you are sober and prudent.  Well about these cursed petitions; you must help me to dispose of them.  Why, a man would think by the tenor of them, that these tenants of mine are ground to dust by a tyrant.”

“Ah!  Colonel, you know little about these fellows.  They would make black white.  Go and take a ride, sir, return about four o’clock, and I will have everything as it ought to be.”

“I wish to heaven, Carson, I had your talents for business.  Do you think my tenants attached to me?”

“Attached! sir, they are ready to cut your throat or mine, on the first convenient opportunity.  You could not conceive their knavishness and dishonesty, except you happened to be an agent for a few years.

“So I have been told, and I am resolved to remove every dishonest tenant from my estate.  Is there not a man, for instance, called Brady?  He has sent me a long-winded petition here.  What do you think of him?”

“Show me the petition, Colonel.”

“I cannot lay my hand on it just now; but you shall see it.  In the mean time, what’s your opinion of the fellow?”

“Brady!  Why, I know the man particularly well.  He is one of my favorites.  What the deuce could the fellow petition about, though?  I promised the other day to renew his lease for him.”

“Oh, then, if he be a favorite of yours, his petition may go to the devil, I suppose?  Is the man honest?”

“Remarkably so; and has paid his rents very punctually.  He is one of our safest tenants.”

“Do you know a man called Cullen?”

“The most litigious scoundrel on the estate.”

“Indeed?  Oh, then, we must look into the merits of his petition, as he is not honest.  Had he been honest like Brady, Carson, I should have dismissed it.”

“Cullen, sir, is a dangerous fellow.  Do you know, that rascal has charged me with keeping back his receipts, and with making I him pay double rent!—­ha, ha, ha!  Upon my honor, its fact.”

“The scoundrel!  We shall sift him to some purpose, however.”

“If you take my advice, sir, you will send him about his business; for if it be once known that you listen to malicious petitions, my authority over such villains as Cullen is lost.”

“Well, I set him aside for the present.  Here’s a long list of others, all of whom have been oppressed, forsooth.  Is there a man called M’Evoy on my estate?—­Dominick M’Evoy, I think.”

“M’Evoy!  Why that rascal, sir, has not been your tenant for ten years?  His petition, Colonel, is a key to the nature of their grievances in general.”

“I believe you, Carson—­most implicitly do I believe that.  Well, about that rascal?”

“Why, it is so long since, that upon my honor, I cannot exactly remember the circumstances of his misconduct.  He ran away.”