Barney, you know, you’re so clever—­there’s no one like you!’ And he was fond of just nibbling at speculations in a small safe way, and used to pull out a roll of bank-notes, when he was lucky, and show his winnings to his wife, and chuckle and swear over them, and boast and rail, and tell her, if it was not for the cursed way his time was cut up with hospital, and field days, and such trumpery regimental duties, he could make a fortune while other men were thinking of it; and he very nearly believed it.  And he was, doubtless, clear-headed, though wrong-headed, too, at times, and very energetic; but his genius was for pushing men out of their places to make way for himself.

But with all that he had the good brute instincts too, and catered diligently for his brood, and their ’dam’—­and took a gruff unacknowledged pride in seeing his wife well dressed—­and had a strong liking for her—­and thanked her in his soul for looking after things so well; and thought often about his boys, and looked sharply after their education; and was an efficient and decisive head of a household; and had no vices nor expensive indulgences; and was a hard but tolerably just man to deal with.

All this time his uneasiness and puzzle about Dangerfield continued, and, along with other things, kept him awake often to unseasonable hours at night.  He did not tell Mrs. Sturk.  In fact, he was a man, who, though on most occasions he gave the wife of his bosom what he called ’his mind’ freely enough, yet did not see fit to give her a great deal of his confidence.

Dangerfield had his plans too.  Who has not?  Nothing could be more compact and modest than his household.  He had just a housekeeper and two maids, who looked nearly as old, and a valet, and a groom, who slept at the ‘Phoenix,’ and two very pretty horses at livery in the same place.  All his appointments were natty and complete, and his servants, every one, stood in awe of him; for no lip or eye-service would go down with that severe, prompt, and lynx-eyed gentleman.  And his groom, among the coachmen and other experts of the ‘Salmon House,’ used to brag of his hunters in England; and his man, of his riches, and his influence with Lord Castlemallard.

In England, Dangerfield, indeed, spent little more money than he did in Chapelizod, except in his stable; and Lord Castlemallard, who admired his stinginess, as he did everything else about him, used to say:  ’He’s a wonder of the world!  How he retains his influence over all the people he knows without ever giving one among them so much as a mutton-chop or a glass of sherry in his house, I can’t conceive. I couldn’t do it, I know.’  But he had ultimate plans, if not of splendour, at least of luxury.  His tastes, and perhaps some deeper feelings, pointed to the continent, and he had purchased a little paradise on the Lake of Geneva, where was an Eden of fruits and flowers, and wealth of marbles and coloured canvas, and wonderful wines