CONN AUGHT. 13 



CHAPTER II. 



I HAVE said that in this my hour of need I would seek 

 succour from my Irish kinsman. I wrote to him 

 accordingly, implored him to abandon his mountain 

 den, and join me at Lai worth Park. To my invitation 

 I received a decisive and, I would almost say, insulting 

 refusal. " He hated puppies, avoided flirts, was neither 

 a fool or a fortune, and therefore had no business with 

 such society as I should expose him to." The man 

 appears to be a misanthrope ; I gave him in return a 

 tart rejoinder, and he seems disinclined to remain my 

 debtor. Hear what he says : 



" Francis, I pity thee ! Like the Moor, your 'occupa- 

 tion's gone,' and your letter seals your condemnation. 



" You talk of exercise : pshaw ! what is it ? You 

 knock some party-coloured balls over the smooth surface 

 of a green table ; you hazard suffocation for an hour in 

 Rotten Row, and should you survive the dust, endure 

 eternal dread of empalement by a carriage-pole ; you 

 shoot a score of rascally pigeons within the enclosures 

 of Batters ea, or make a grand excursion to slaughter 

 pheasants in a preserve ; last and proudest feat comes 

 the battu, when, with noble and honourable confederates, 

 you exterminate a multitude of semi-civilized fowls, 

 manfully overcoming the fatigue of traversing an 

 ornamented park, and crossing a few acres of turnips. 

 And is this ignoble course befitting one of ' lith and limb ' 

 like thine ? You, the best of your day in Trinity 



