Hycy then returned to dinner, whilst his father in the meantime sat smoking his pipe, and sipping from time to time at his tumbler of punch.

Mrs.Burke, herself, occupied an arm-chair to the left of the fire, engaged at a stocking which was one of a pair that she contrived to knit for her husband during every twelve months; and on the score of which she pleaded strong claims to a character of most exemplary and indefatigable industry.
"Any news from the market, Hycy ?" said his father.
"Yes," replied Hycy, in that dry ironical tone which he always used to his parents--"rather interesting--Ballymacan is in the old place." "Bekaise," replied his father, with more quickness than might be expected, as he whiffed away the smoke with a face of very sarcastic humor; "I hard it had gone up a bit towards the mountains--but I knew you wor the boy could tell me whether it had or not--ha!--ha!--ha!" This rejoinder, in addition to the intelligence Hycy had just received from his mother, was not calculated to improve his temper.

"You may laugh," he replied; "but if your respectable father had treated you in a spirit so stingy and beggarly as that which I experience at your hands, I don't know how you might have borne it." "My father!" replied Burke; "take your time, Hycy--my hand to you, he had a different son to manage from what I have." "God sees that's truth," exclaimed his wife, turning the expression to her son's account.
"I was no gentleman, Hycy," Burke proceeded.
"Ah, is it possible ?" said the son, with a sneer.

"Are you sure of that, now ?" "Nor no spendthrift, Hycy." "No," said the wife, "you never had the spirit; you were ever and always a _molshy_." (* A womanly, contemptible fellow) "An' yet _molshy_ as I was," he replied, "you wor glad to catch me.
But Hycy, my good boy, I didn't cost my father at the rate of from a hundre'-an'-fifty to two-hundre'-a-year, an' get myself laughed at and snubbed by my superiors, for forcin' myself into their company." "Can't you let the boy ait his dinner in peace, at any rate ?" said his mother.

"Upon my credit I wouldn't be surprised if you drove him away from us altogether." "I only want to drive him into common sense, and the respectful feeling he ought to show to both you an' me, Rosha," said Burke; "if he expects to have either luck or grace, or the blessing of God upon him, he'll change his coorses, an' not keep breakin' my heart as he's doin'." "Will you pay for the mare I bought, father ?" asked Hycy, very seriously.