“Faith! I don't wonder at it!” said Maurice, with a hearty sincerity in the tone.
“Yet, after all, Scanlan, let us be just! How in Heaven's name, are men to become debaters, except by this same training? You require men not alone to be strong upon the mass of questions that come up in debate, but you expect them to be prompt with their explanations, always prepared with their replies. Not ransacking history, or searching through 'Hansard,' you want a man who, at the spur of the moment, can rise to defend, to explain, to simplify, or mayhap to assail, to denounce, to annihilate. Is n't that true?”
“I don't want any such thing, sir!” said Scanlan, with a sulky determination that there was no misunderstanding.
“You don't. Well, what _do_ you ask for?”
“I'll tell you, sir, and in very few words, too, what I do _not_ ask for! I don't ask to be humbugged, listening to this, that, and the other, that I have nothing to say to; to hear how you failed or why you succeeded; what you did or what you could n't do. I put a plain case to you, and I wanted as plain an answer. And as to your flattering me about being practical, or whatever you call it, it's a clean waste of time, neither less nor more!”
“The agency and the niece!” said Massingbred, with a calm solemnity that this speech had never disconcerted.
“Them 's the conditions!” said Scanlan, reddening over face and forehead.
“You 're a plucky fellow, Scanlan, and by Jove I like you for it!” said Massingbred. And for once there was a hearty sincerity in the way he spoke. “If a man _is_ to have a fall, let it be at least over a 'rasper,' not be thrown over a furrow in a ploughed field! You fly at high game, but I'm far from saying you'll not succeed.” And with a jocular laugh he turned away and left him.
Jack Massingbred was one of those who, in questions of difficulty, resort to the pen in preference to personal interference. It was a fancy of his that he wrote better than he talked. Very probably he thought so because the contrary was the fact. On the present occasion another motive had also its influence. It was Lady Dorothea that he addressed, and he had no especial desire to commit himself to a direct interview.
His object was to convey Mr. Scanlan's propositions,--to place them fully and intelligibly before her Ladyship without a syllable of comment on his own part, or one word which could be construed into advocacy or reprobation of them. In truth, had he been called upon for an opinion, it would have sorely puzzled him what to say. To rescue a large estate from ruin was, to be sure, a very considerable service, but to accept Maurice Scanlan as a near member of one's family seemed a very heavy price even for that. Still, if the young lady liked him, singular as the choice might appear, other objections need not be insurmountable. The Martins were very unlikely ever to make Ireland their residence again, they would see little or nothing of this same Scanlan connection, “and, after all,” thought Jack, “if we can only keep the disagreeables of this life away from daily intercourse, only knowing them through the post-office and at rare intervals, the compact is not a bad one.”