I have settled what we've had before, as well as this." "And why not allow me to settle for this ?" asked M'Clutchy.
"Because," replied this honest and respectable man, "I could not swallow a thimbleful of anything paid for by your money; what is it?
If I did I would dream for weeks of all that you have done, or if I didn't dream, the sorrows and the wrongs of my near relative, Widow O'Hagan and her family, would prevent me from sleeping; the Kellys that you've driven to beggary--The Gormleys that you got put out--good God! and who now holds their places?
Your own cousin.

It's useless, however, to mention all you've done.

You, Val the Vulture, as the people call you, are one of those scourges that rise and flourish upon the distresses of the poor, and the injustice that you yourself bring upon them by your falsehood and calumny; and all because the property they live on is neglected by those who have a right to look after it.

Ay, there is another of your white and cowardly laughs.

Well, you know that there is not a neglected estate in the country but can produce another vulture like yourself, playing the same heartless pranks upon the poor people--tying, misrepresenting, swaggering over and robbing them, and that, too, in the open face of day, merely because you think there is no one to bring you to an account.
"Now go home," he added, "and when next you want to get a wife for your spanking son, that's likely to become a squireen upon our hands, don't come to Brian M'Loughlin, who knows you from the paring of the nails to the core of the heart." M'Glutchy looked at him and laughed again; "before you go, at all events," he replied, "I hope you remember the observation I made when I introduced the discourse." "I can't say I do," said M'Loughlin, "but I suppose you will let us hear it." "I will," replied Val, and his brow darkened as before.