The silver-haired, grim man, with his mysterious reputation for money,
and that short decisive way of his, and sudden cynical chuckle, inspired
a sort of awe, which made his wishes, where expressed with that intent,
very generally obeyed; and, sure enough, Irons appeared, with his rod,
at the appointed hour, and the interesting anglers--Piscator and his
'honest scholar,' as Isaac Walton hath it--set out side by side on their
ramble, in the true fraternity of the gentle craft.
The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife--shrill, vehement, and
fluent. 'Rogue,' 'old miser,' 'old sneak,' and a great many worse names,
she called him. Good Mrs. Irons was old, fat, and ugly, and she knew it;
and that knowledge made her natural jealousy the fiercer. He had
learned, by long experience, the best tactique under fire: he became
actually taciturn; or, if he spoke, his speech was laconic and
enigmatical; sometimes throwing out a proverb, and sometimes a text; and
sometimes when provoked past endurance, spouting mildly a little bit of
meek and venomous irony.
He loved his trout-rod and the devious banks of the Liffey, where,
saturnine and alone, he filled his basket.
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