I ask for?'
'I'll show you the light from the steps. Ask for Dr. Toole; and he's certainly there; and if he's not, for Mr. Nutter; and just say you came from my house, where you – a – pooh! accidentally heard, through Mr. Loftus, do ye mind, there was a difficulty in finding a friend to – a – strive to make up matters between thim.'
By this time they stood upon the door-steps; and Mr. Mahony had clapt on his hat with a pugnacious cock o' one side; and following, with a sporting and mischievous leer, the direction of the priest's hand, that indicated the open door of the Phœnix, through which a hospitable light was issuing.
'There's where you'll find the gentlemen, in the front parlour,' says the priest. 'You remember Dr. Toole, and he'll remember you. An' mind, dear, it's to make it up you're goin'.' Mr. Mahony was already under weigh, at a brisk stride, and with a keen relish for the business. 'And the blessing of the peacemaker go with you, my child!' added his reverence, lifting his hands and his eyes towards the heavens, 'An' upon my fainy!' looking shrewdly at the stars, and talking to himself, 'they'll have a fine morning for the business, if, unfortunately' – and here he re-ascended his door-steps with a melancholy shrug – 'if unfortunately, Pat Mahony should fail.'
When Mr. Pat Mahony saw occasion for playing the gentleman, he certainly did come out remarkably strong in the part. It was done in a noble, florid, glowing style, according to his private ideal of the complete fine gentleman. Such bows, such pointing of the toes, such graceful flourishes of the three-cocked hat – such immensely engaging smiles and wonderful by-play, such an apparition, in short, of perfect elegance-valour, and courtesy, were never seen before in the front parlour of the Phœnix.
'Mr. Mahony, by jingo!' ejaculated Toole, in an accent of thankfulness amounting nearly to rapture. Nutter seemed relieved, too, and advanced to be presented to the man who, instinct told him, was to be his friend. Cluffe, a man of fashion of the military school, eyed the elegant stranger with undisguised disgust and wonder, and Devereux with that sub-acid smile with which men will sometimes quietly relish absurdity.
Mr. Mahony, 'discoursin' a country neighbour outside the half-way-house at Muckafubble, or enjoying an easy tête-à-tête with Father Roach, was a very inferior person, indeed, to Patrick Mahony, Esq., the full-blown diplomatist and pink of gentility astonishing the front parlour of the Phœnix.
There, Mr. Mahony's periods were fluent and florid, and the words chosen occasionally rather for their grandeur and melody than for their exact connexion with the context or bearing upon his meaning. The consequence was a certain gorgeous haziness and bewilderment, which made the task of translating his harangues rather troublesome and conjectural.
Having effected the introduction, and made known the object of his visit, Nutter and he withdrew to a small chamber behind the bar, where Nutter, returning some of his bows, and having listened without deriving any very clear ideas to two consecutive addresses from his companion, took the matter in hand himself, and said he —
'I beg, Sir, to relieve you at once from the trouble of trying to arrange this affair amicably. I have been grossly insulted, he's not going to apologise, and nothing but a meeting will satisfy me. He's a mere murderer. I have not the faintest notion why he wants to kill me; but being reduced to this situation, I hold myself obliged, if I can, to rid the town of him finally.'
'shake hands, Sir,' cried Mahony, forgetting his rhetoric in his enthusiasm; 'be the hole in the wall, Sir, I honour you.'
Chapter X
The Dead Secret, Showing How the Fireworker Proved To Puddock That Nutter Had Spied Out the Nakedness Of the Land
When Puddock, having taken a short turn or two in the air, by way of tranquillising his mind, mounted his lodging stairs, he found Lieutenant O'Flaherty, not at all more sober than he had last seen him, in the front drawing-room, which apartment was richly perfumed with powerful exhalations of rum punch.
'Dhrink this, Puddock – dhrink it,' said O'Flaherty, filling a large glass in equal quantities with rum and water; 'dhrink it, my sinsare friend; it will studdy you, it will, upon my honour, Puddock!'
'But – a – thank you, Sir, I am anxious to understand exactly' – said Puddock. Here he was interrupted by a frightful grin and a 'ha!' from O'Flaherty, who darted to the door, and seizing his little withered French servant, who was entering, swung him about the room by his coat collar.
'so, Sorr, you've been prating again, have you, you desateful, idle old dhrunken miscreant; you did it on purpose, you blundherin' old hyena; it's the third jewel you got your masther into; and if I lose my life, divil a penny iv your wages ye'll ever get – that's one comfort. Yes, Sorr! this is the third time you have caused me to brew my hands in human blood; I dono' if it's malice, or only blundherin'. Oh!' he cried, with a still fiercer shake, 'it's I that wishes I could be sure 'twas malice, I'd skiver you, heels and elbows, on my sword, and roast you alive on that fire. Is not it a hard thing, my darlin' Puddock, I can't find out.' He was still holding the little valet by the collar, and stretching out his right hand to Puddock. 'But I am always the sport of misfortunes – small and great. If there was an ould woman to be handed in to supper – or a man to be murthered by mistake – or an ugly girl to be danced with, whose turn was it, ever and always to do the business, but poor Hyacinth O'Flaherty's – (tears). I could tell you, Puddock,' he continued, forgetting his wrath, and letting his prisoner go, in his eager pathos – the Frenchman made his escape in a twinkling – 'I was the only man in our regiment that tuck the mazles in Cork, when it was goin' among the children, bad luck to them – I that was near dyin' of it when I was an infant; and I was the only officer in the regiment, when we were at Athlone, that was prevented going to the race ball – and I would not for a hundred pounds. I was to dance the first minuet, and the first country dance, with that beautiful creature, Miss Rose Cox. I was makin' a glass of brandy punch – not feelin' quite myself – and I dhressed and all, in our room, when Ensign Higgins, a most thoughtless young man, said something disrespectful about a beautiful mole she had on her chin; bedad, Sir, he called it a wart, if you plase! and feelin' it sthrongly, I let the jug of scaldin' wather drop on my knees; I wish you felt it, my darlin' Puddock. I was scalded in half a crack from a fut above my knees down to the last joint of my two big toes; and I raly thought my sinses were leving me. I lost the ball by it. Oh, ho, wirresthrue! poor Hyacinth O'Flaherty!' and thereupon he wept.
'You thee, Lieutenant O'Flaherty,' lisped Puddock, growing impatient, 'we can't say how soon Mr. Nutter's friend may apply for an interview, and – a – I must confeth I don't yet quite understand the point of difference between you and him, and therefore – '
'A where the devil's that blackguard little French wazel gone to?' exclaimed O'Flaherty, for the first time perceiving that his captive had escaped. 'Kokang Modate! Do you hear me, Kokang Modate!' he shouted.
'But really, Sir, you must be so good as to place before me, before me, Sir, clearly, the – the cause of this unhappy dispute, the exact offenth, Thir, for otherwithe – '
'Cause, to be sure! and plenty iv cause. I never fought a jewel yet, Puddock, my friend – and this will be the ninth – without cause. They said, I'm tould, in Cork, I was quarrelsome; they lied; I'm not quarrelsome; I only want pace, and quiet, and justice; I hate a quarrelsome man. I tell you, Puddock, if I only knew where to find a quarrelsome man, be the powers I'd go fifty miles out of my way to pull him be the nose. They lied, Puddock, my dear boy, an' I'd give twenty pounds this minute I had them on this flure, to tell them how damnably they lied!'
'No doubt, Thir,' said Puddock, 'but if you pleathe I really mutht have a dithtinct answer to my – '
'Get out o' that, Sorr,' thundered O'Flaherty, with an awful stamp on the floor, as the 'coquin maudit,' O'Flaherty's only bit of French, such as it was, in obedience to that form of invocation, appeared nervously at the threshold, 'or I'll fling the contints of the r-r-oo-oo-oom at your head, (exit Monsieur, again). Be gannies! if I thought it was he that done it, I'd jirk his old bones through the top of the window. Will I call him back and give him his desarts, will I, Puddock! Oh, ho, hone! my darlin' Puddock, everything turns agin me; what'll I do, Puddock, jewel, or what's to become o' me?' and he shed some more tears, and drank off the greater