Oh, if God in His goodness to them had took me an' spared him, they wouldn't be sendin' to you this day for meal to keep life in them till things comes round." "Troth I pity them--from my heart I pity them now they're helpless and ould--especially for havin' sich a daughter as you are; but if it was my own father an' mother, God rest them, I couldn't give meal out on credit.

There's not in the parish a poorer man than I am.

I'm done wid givin' credit now, thank goodness; an' if I had been so long ago, it isn't robbed, and ruined, an' beggared by rogues I'd be this day, but a warm, full man, able and willin' too to help my neighbors; an' it is not empty handed I'd send away any messenger from your father or mother, as I must do, although my heart bleeds for them this minute." Here once more he wiped away the rheum, with every appearance of regret and sorrow.

In fact, one would almost suppose that by long practice he had trained one of his eyes--for we ought to have said that there was one of them more sympathetic than the other--to shed its hypocritical tear at the right place, and in such a manner, too, that he might claim all the credit of participating in the very distresses which he refused to relieve, or by which he amassed his wealth.
The poor heart-broken looking girl, who by the way carried an unfortunate baby in her arms, literally tottered out of the room, sobbing bitterly, and with a look of misery and despair that it was woeful to contemplate.
"Ah, then, Harry Hacket," said he, passing to another, "how are you?
an' how are you all over in Derrycloony, Harry?
not forgettin' the ould couple ?" "Throth, middlin' only, Darby.

My fine boy, Denis, is down wid this illness, an' I'm wantin' a barrel of meal from you till towards Christmas." "Come inside, Harry, to this little nest here, till I tell you something; an', by the way, let your father know I've got a new prayer that he'll like to learn, for it's he that's the pious man, an' attinds to his duties--may God enable him! and every one that has the devotion in the right place; _amin a Chiernah!_" He then brought Hacket into a little out-shot behind the room in which the scales were, and shutting the door, thus proceeded in a sweet, confidential kind of whisper-- "You see, Harry, what I'm goin' to say to you is what I'd not say to e'er another in the parish, the divil a one--God pardon me for swearin'-- _amin a Chiernah!_ I'm ruined all out--smashed down and broke horse and foot; there's the Slevins that wint to America, an' I lost more than thirty pounds by them." "I thought," replied Hacket, "they paid you before they went; they were always a daicent and an honest family, an' I never heard any one speak an ill word o' them." "Not a penny, Harry." "That's odd, then, bekaise it was only Sunday three weeks, that Murty Slevin, their cousin, if you remember, made you acknowledge that they paid you, at the chapel green." "Ay, an' I do acknowledge; bekaise, Harry, one may as well spake charitably of the absent as not; it's only in private to you that I'm lettin' out the truth." "Well, well," exclaimed the other, rather impatiently, "what have they to do wid us ?" "Ay, have they; it was what I lost by them an' others--see now, don't be gettin' onpatient, I bid you--time enough for that when you're refused--that prevints me from bein' able to give credit as I'd wish.
I'm not refusin' you, Harry; but _achora_, listen; you'll bring your bill at two months, only I must charge you a trifle for trust, for chances, or profit an' loss, as the schoolmasther says; but you're to keep it a saicret from livin' mortal, bekaise if it 'ud get known in these times that I'd do sich a thing, I'd have the very flesh ait off o' my bones by others wantin' the same thing; bring me the bill, then, Harry, an' I'll fill it up myself, only be _dhe husth_ (* hold your tongue) about it." Necessity forces those who are distressed to comply with many a rapacious condition of the kind, and the consequence was that Hacket did what the pressure of the time compelled him to do, passed his bill to Skinadre, at a most usurious price, for the food which was so necessary to his family.
It is surprising how closely the low rustic extortioner and the city usurer upon a larger scale resemble each other in the expression of their sentiments, in their habits of business, their plausibility, natural tact, and especially, in that hardness of heart and utter want of all human pity and sympathy, upon which the success of their black arts of usury and extortion essentially depends.