If I can once get my hold of a place, I keep it.

Many's the house I have been to where I have seen the men avoid me.

'Faugh! the low Irishman,' they would say.

'Bah! the coarse adventurer!' 'Out on the insufferable blackleg and puppy!' and so forth.

This hatred has been of no inconsiderable service to me in the world; for when I fasten on a man, nothing can induce me to release my hold: and I am left to myself, which is all the better.