'Oh! Barney, dear, are we ruined?' faltered poor little Mrs. Sturk.
'Ruined, indeed!' cried Sturk, with an oath, 'Come in here.' He thought
his study was on the same floor with his bed-room, as it had been in old
times in their house in Limerick, ten or twelve years before.
'That's the nursery, Barney, dear,' she said, thinking, in the midst of
the horror, like a true mother, of the children's sleep.
Then he remembered and ran down to the study, and pulled out a sheaf of
bills and promissory notes, and renewals thereof, making a very
respectable show.
'Ruined, indeed!' he cried, hoarsely, talking to his poor little wife in
the tones and with the ferocity which the image of Nutter; with which
his brain was filled, called up. 'Look, I say, here's one fellow owes me
that--and that--and that--and there--there's a dozen in that by
another--there's two more sets there pinned together--and here's an
account of them all--two thousand two hundred--and you may say three
hundred--two thousand three hundred--owed me here; and that miscreant
won't give me a day.'
'Is it the rent, Barney?'
'The rent? To be sure; what else should it be?' shouted the doctor, with
a stamp.
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