LITMIR.BIZ

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be sure you were; in all form proposed, seconded, and duly blackballed. I own to you, I thought it very hard, very illiberal. There are plenty of fellows there that have no right to be particular; and so Jack Massingbred as much as told them. The fact is, Merl, you ought to have waited awhile, and by the time that Harlowe and Spencer Cavendish and a few more such were as deep in your books as I am, you ‘d have had a walk over. Willoughby says the same. It might have cost you something smart, but you ‘d have made it pay in the end, – eh, Merl?”

      To this speech, uttered in a strain of jocular impertinence, Merl made no reply. He had just torn one of his gloves in pieces in the effort to draw it on, and he was busily exerting himself to get rid of the fragments.

      “Lady Dorothea had given me a card for you for Saturday,” resumed the Captain; “but as you ‘re going away – Besides, after this defeat at the Club, you could n’t well come amongst all these people; so there’s nothing for it but patience, Merl, patience – ”

      “A lesson that may be found profitable to others, perhaps,” said the Jew, with one of his furtive looks at the Captain, who quailed under it at once.

      “I was going to give you a piece of advice, Merl,” said he, in a tone the very opposite to his late bantering one. “It was, that you should just take a run over to Ireland yourself, and see the property.”

      “I mean to do so, Captain Martin,” said the other, calmly.

      “I can’t offer you letters, for they would defeat what you desire to accomplish; besides, there is no member of the family there at present but a young lady-cousin of mine.”

      “Just the kind of introduction I ‘d like,” said the Jew, with all the zest of a man glad to say what he knew would be deemed an impertinence.

      Martin grew crimson with suppressed anger, but never spoke a word.

      “Is this the Cousin Mary I have heard you speak of,” said Merl, – “the great horsewoman, and she that ventures out alone on the Atlantic in a mere skiff?”

      Martin nodded. His temper was almost an overmatch for him, and he dared not trust himself to speak.

      “I should like to see her amazingly, Captain,” resumed Merl.

      “Remember, sir, you have no lien upon her,” said Martin, sternly.

      The Jew smirked and ran his fingers through his hair with the air of one who deemed such an eventuality by no means so very remote.

      “Do you know, Master Merl,” said Martin, staring at him from head to foot with an expression the reverse of complimentary, “I ‘m half disposed to give you a few lines to my cousin; and if you ‘ll not take the thing as a mauvais plaisanterie on my part, I will do so.”. “Quite the contrary, Captain. I ‘ll deem it a great favor, indeed,” said Merl, with an admirable affectation of unconsciousness.

      “Here goes, then,” said Martin, sitting down to a table, and preparing his writing materials, while in a hurried hand he began: —

      “‘Dear Cousin Mary, – This will introduce to you Mr. Herman Merl, who visits your remote regions on a tour of – What shall I say?”

      “Pleasure, – amusement,” interposed Merl.

      “No, when I am telling a fib, I like a big one, – I ‘ll say, philanthropy, Merl; and there’s nothing so well adapted to cover those secret investigations you are bent upon, – a tour of philanthropy.

      “‘You will, I am sure, lend him all possible assistance in his benevolent object, – the same being to dispose of the family acres, – and at the same time direct his attention to whatever may be matter of interest, – whether mines, quarries, or other property easily convertible into cash, – treating him in all respects as one to whom I owe many obligations – and several thousand pounds.’

      “Will that do, think you?”

      “Perfectly; nothing better.”

      “In return, I shall ask one favor at your hands,” said Martin, as he folded and addressed the epistle. “It is that you write me a full account of what you see in the West, – how the country looks, and the people. Of course it will all seem terribly poor and destitute, and all that sort of thing, to your eyes; but just try and find out if it be worse than usual. Paddy is such a shrewd fellow, Merl, that it will require all your own sharpness not to be taken in by him. A long letter full of detail – a dash of figures in it – as to how many sheep have the rot, or how many people have caught the fever, will improve it, – you know the kind of thing I mean; and – I don’t suppose you care about shooting, yourself, but you ‘ll get some one to tell you – are the birds plenty and in good condition. There’s a certain Mr. Scanlan, if you chance upon him; he ‘s up to everything, and not a bad performer at dummy whist, – though I think you could teach him a thing or two.” Merl smiled and tried to look flattered, while the other went on: “And there ‘s another, called Henderson, – the steward, – a very shrewd person, – but you don’t need all these particulars; you may be trusted to your own good guidance, – eh, Merl?”

      Merl again smiled in the same fashion as before; in fact, so completely had he resumed the bland expression habitual to him, that the Captain almost forgot the unpleasant cause of his visit, and all the disagreeable incidents of the interview.

      “You could n’t give me a few lines to this Mr. Scanlan?” asked Merl, with an air of easy indifference.

      “Nothing easier,” cried the Captain, reseating himself; then suddenly rising, with the expression of one to whom a sudden thought had just crossed the mind, “Wait one second for me here, Merl; I’ll be back with you at once.” And as he spoke he dashed out of the room, and hastened to his father.

      “By a rare piece of luck,” cried he, as he entered, “I ‘ve just chanced upon the very fellow we want; an acquaintance I picked up at the Cape, – up to everything; he goes over to Ireland to-night, and he ‘ll take a run down to Cro’ Martin, and send us his report of all he sees. Whatever he tells us may be relied upon; for, depend upon ‘t, no lady can humbug him. I ‘ve just given him a note for Mary, and I ‘ll write a few lines also by way of introducing him to Scanlan.”

      Martin could barely follow the Captain, as with rapid utterance he poured forth this plan. “Do I know him? What’s his name?” asked he at last.

      “You never saw him. His name is Merl, – Herman Merl, – a fellow of considerable wealth; a great speculator, – one of those Stock Exchange worthies who never deal in less than tens of thousands. He has a crotchet in his head about buying up half the West of Ireland, – some scheme about flax and the deep-sea fishery. I don’t understand it, but I suppose he does. At all events, he has plenty of money, and the head to make it fructify; and if he only take a liking to it, he ‘s the very fellow to buy up Kilkieran, and the islands, and the rest of that waste district you were telling me of t’other night. But I must n’t detain him. He starts at four o’clock; and I only ran over here to tell you not to worry yourself any more about Mary’s letter. He ‘ll look to it all.”

      And with this consolatory assurance the Captain hastened away, leaving Martin as much relieved in mind as an indolent nature and an easy conscience were sure to make him. To get anybody “to look to” anything had been his whole object in life; to know that, whatever happened, there was always somebody who misstated this, or neglected that, at whose door all the culpability – where there was such – could be laid and but for whom he had himself performed miracles of energy and devotedness, and endured all the tortures and trials of a martyr. He was, indeed, as are a great many others in this world, an excellent man to his own heart, – kind, charitable, and affectionate; a well-wisher to his kind, and hopeful of almost every one; but, all this while, his virtues, like a miser’s gold, had no circulation; they remained locked up within him for his own use alone, and there he sat, counting them over and gazing at them, speculating upon all that this affluence could do, and – never doing it!

      Life abounds with such men. They win respect while they live,

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