"Which all resolves itself into this," screamed Niel,--"that some men's after-gra.s.s is better than other men's meadows."

"Mine has fallen to the scythe many a day ago," said Rawlins, plaintively; "but I remember glorious times and glorious fellows. It was, indeed, worth something to say, '_Vixissi c.u.m illis_.'"

"There 's another still better, Rawlins," cried Repton, joyously, "which is to have survived them!"

"Very true," cried Niel. "I 'd always plead a demurrer to any notice to quit; for, take it all in all, this life has many enjoyments."

"Such as Attorney-Generalships, Masters of the Rolls, and such like,"

said Repton.

"By the way," said Rawlins, "who put that squib in the papers about your having refused the rolls,--eh, Niel?"

"Who but Niel himself?" chimed in Repton. "It was filing a bill of discovery. He wanted to know the intentions of the Government."

"I could have had but little doubt of them," broke in Niel. "It was my advice, man, cancelled your appointment as Crown Counsel, Repton. I told Ma.s.singbred, 'If you do keep a watch-dog, let it be, at least, one who 'll bite some one beside the family.'"

"He has muzzled you there, Repton," said Rawlins, laughing. "Eh, that was a bitter draught!"

"So it was," said Repton. "It was Curran wine run to the lees! and very unlike the racy flavor of the true liquor. And to speak in all seriousness, what has come over us all to be thus degenerate and fallen?

It is not alone that we have not the equals of the first-rate men, but we really have nothing to compare with O'Grady, and Parsons, and a score of others."

"I 'll tell you why," cried Niel,--"the commodity is n't marketable. The stupid men, who will always be the majority everywhere, have got up the cry, that to be agreeable is to be vulgar. We know how large cravats came into fashion; tiresome people came in with high neckcloths."

"I wish they 'd go out with hempen ones, then," muttered Repton.

"I 'd not refuse them the benefit of the clergy," said Niel, with a malicious twinkle of the eye, that showed how gladly, when occasion offered, he flung a pebble at the Church.

"They were very brilliant,--they were very splendid, I own," said Rawlins; "but I have certain misgivings that they gave themselves too much to society."

"Expended too much of their powder in fireworks," cried Niel, sharply,--"so they did; but their rockets showed how high they could rise to."

"Ay, Niel, and we only burn our fingers with ours," said Repton, sarcastically.

"Depend upon it," resumed Rawlins, "as the world grows more practical, you will have less of great convivial display. Agreeability will cease to be the prerogative of first-rate men, but be left to the smart people of society, who earn their soup by their sayings."

"He's right," cried Niel, in his shrillest tone. "The age of alchemists is gone; the sleight-of-hand man and the juggler have succeeded him."

"And were they not alchemists?" exclaimed old Repton, enthusiastically.

"Did they not trans.m.u.te the veriest dross of the earth, and pour it forth from the crucible of their minds a stream of liquid gold?--glorious fellows, who, in the rich abundance of their minds, brought the learning of their early days to ill.u.s.trate the wisdom of their age, and gave the fresh-heartedness of the schoolboy to the ripe intelligence of manhood."

"And yet how little have they bequeathed to us!" said Niel.

"Would it were even less," broke in Repton. "We read the witticism of brilliant conversera in some diary or journal, often ill recorded, imperfectly given, always unaccompanied by the accessories of the scene wherein they occurred. We have not the crash, the tumult, the headlong flow of social intercourse, where the impromptu fell like a thunderbolt, and the bon mots rattled like a fire of musketry. To attempt to convey an impression of these great talkers by a memoir, is like to picture a battle by reading out a list of the killed and wounded."

"Repton is right!" exclaimed Niel. "The recorded bon mot is the words of a song without the music."

"And often where it was the melody that inspired the verses," added Repton, always glad to follow up an ill.u.s.tration.

"After all," said Rawlins, "the fashion of the day is changed in other respects as well as in conversational excellence. Nothing is like what we remember it!--literature, dress, social habits, oratory. There, for instance, was that young fellow to-day; his speech to the jury,--a very good and sensible one, no doubt,--but how unlike what it would have been some five-and-thirty or forty years ago."

"It was first-rate," said Repton, with enthusiasm. "I say it frankly, and 'fas est ab hoste,' for he tripped me up in a point of law, and I have, therefore, a right to applaud him. To tell you the truth," he added slyly, "I knew I was making a revoke, but I thought none of the players were shrewd enough to detect me."

"Niel and I are doubtless much complimented by the remark," said Rawlins.

"Pooh, pooh!" cried Repton, "what did great guns like you and Niel care for such 'small deer.' You were only brought down here as a great _corps de reserve_. It was young Nelligan who fought the battle, and admirably he did it. While I was listening to him to-day, I could not help saying to myself, 'It's well for us that there were no fellows of this stamp in our day.' Ay, Rawlins, you know it well. We were speech-makers; these fellows are lawyers."

"Why didn't he dine with us to-day?" asked Niel, sharply.

"Heaven knows. I believe his father lives in the town here; perhaps, too, he had no fancy for a dress-parade before such drill-sergeants as you and Rawlins there."

"You are acquainted with him, I think?" asked Rawlins.

"Yes, slightly; we met strangely enough, at Cro' Martin last year. He was then on a visit there, a quiet, timid youth, who actually seemed to feel as though his college successes were embarra.s.sing recollections in a society who knew nothing of deans or proctors. There was another young fellow also there at the time,--young Ma.s.singbred,--with about a tenth of this man's knowledge, and a fiftieth of his capacity, who took the lead of him on every subject, and by the bare force of an admirable manner and a most unabashed impudence, threw poor Nelligan completely into the background. It was the same kind of thing I 've often seen Niel there perform at the Four Courts, where he has actually picked up his law from a worsted opponent, as a highwayman arms himself with the pistols of the man he has robbed."

"I never pillaged _you_, Repton," said Niel, with a sarcastic smile.

"_You_ had always the privilege the poet ascribes to him who laughs 'before a robber.'"

"Vacuus sed non Inanis," replied Repton, laughing good-humoredly.

"But tell us more of this man, Nelligan," said Rawlins. "I 'm curious to hear about him."

"And so you are sure to do some of these days, Rawlins. That fellow is the man to attain high eminence."

"His religion will stop him!" cried Niel, sharply; for, being himself a Romanist, he was not sorry to have an opportunity of alluding to the disqualifying element.

"Say, rather, it will promote him," chimed in Repton. "Take my word for it, Niel, there is a spirit of mawkish reparation abroad which affects to feel that all your coreligionists have a long arrear due to them, and that all the places and emoluments so long withheld from their ancestors should be showered down upon the present generation;--pretty much upon the same principle that you 'd pension a man now because his grandfather had been hanged for rebellion!"

"And very justly, too, if you discovered that what you once called rebellion had been very good loyalty!" cried Niel.

"We have not, however, made the discovery you speak of," said Rep ton; "we have only commuted a sentence, in the sincere hope that you are wiser than your forefathers. But to come back. You may trust me when I say that a day is coming when you 'll not only bless yourself because you're a Papist, but that you _are_ one! Ay, sir, it is in 'Liffey Street Chapel' we 'll seek for an attorney-general, and out of the Church of the Conception, if that be the name of it, we 'll cull our law advisers of the Crown. For the next five-and-twenty years, at least,"

said he, solemnly, "the fourth-rate Catholic will be preferred to the first-rate Protestant."

"I only hope you may be better at Prophecy than you are in Logic," cried Niel, as he tossed off his gla.s.s; "and so, I 'm sure, does Nelligan!"

"And Nelligan is exactly the man who will never need the preference, sir. His abilities will raise him, even if there were obstacles to be surmounted. It is men of a different stamp that the system will favor,--fellows without industry for the toils of a laborious profession, or talents for the subtleties of a difficult career; men who cherish ambition and are yet devoid of capacity, and will plead the old disabilities of their faith,--pretty much as a man might claim his right to be thought a good dancer because his father had a club foot."

"A most lame conclusion!" cried Niel. "Ah, Rawlins," added he, with much compa.s.sion, "our poor friend here is breaking terribly. Sad signs there are of decay about him. Even his utterance begins to fail him."

"No, no," said Repton, gayly. "I know what you allude to. It is an old imperfection of mine not to be able to enunciate the letter _r_ correctly, and that was the reason today in court that I called you my ingenious Bother; but I meant Brother, I a.s.sure you."

They all laughed good-humoredly at the old man's sally; in good truth, so trained were they to these sort of combats, that they cared little for the wounds such warfare inflicted. And although the tilt was ever understood as with "reversed lances," none ever cherished an evil memory if an unlucky stroke smote too heavily.

"I have asked young Nelligan to breakfast with me tomorrow," said Repton; "will you both come and meet him?"

"We 're off at c.o.c.k-crow!" cried Kiel. "Tell him, however, from me that I am delighted with his _debuts_ and that all the best wishes of my friends and myself are with him."

And so they parted.