Mickey couldn't resist it, and his countenance broke into a broad smile.
"Ah no! I've got it in two pockets.

Begorra, it was the wife herself made up the money in two parcels, and she put one into each pocket, to be sure--and I wasn't to give your honour but one, if you would take it.
But there's the money, and I daresay it's all for the best." On another occasion, when he was collecting the rents of a property in the county of Longford, one tenant came forward as the spokesman of the rest, admitted that the rents had been accepted fairly after a reduction under the Land Act, expressed the general wish of the tenants to meet their obligations, and wound up by asking a further abatement, "the times were so bad, and the money couldn't be got, it couldn't indeed!" Mr.Tener listened patiently--to listen patiently is the most essential quality of an agent in Ireland--and finally said:-- "Very well, if you haven't got the money to pay in full, pay three-quarters of it, and I'll give you time for the rest." "Thank your honour!" said Pat, "and that'll be thirty pounds--and here it is in one pound notes, and hard enough to get they are, these times!" So Mr.Tener took the money, counted the notes twice over, and then, writing out a receipt, handed it to the tenant.
"All right, Pat, there's your receipt for thirty-nine pounds, and I'm glad to see ten-pound notes going about the country in these hard times!" By mistake the "distressful" orator had put one ten-pound note into his parcel! He took his receipt, and went off without a word.

But the combination to get an "abatement" broke down then and there, and the other tenants came forward and put down their money.
These incidents occurred to Mr.Tener himself.

Not less amusing and instructive was a similar mistake on a larger scale made by an over-crafty tenant in dealing with one of Mr.Tener's friends a few years ago in the county of Leitrim.

This tenant, whom we will call Denis, was the fugleman also of a combination.