CHAPTER VII.
SHOWING HOW TWO GENTLEMEN MAY MISUNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER, WITHOUT
ENABLING THE COMPANY TO UNDERSTAND THEIR QUARREL.
Loftus had by this time climbed to the savage lair of his garret, overstrewn with tattered papers and books; and Father Roach, in the sanctuary of his little parlour, was growling over the bones of a devilled-turkey, and about to soothe his fretted soul in a generous libation of hot whiskey punch. Indeed, he was of an appeasable nature, and on the whole a very good fellow.
Dr. Toole, whom the young fellows found along with Nutter over the
draught-board in the club-room, forsook his game to devour the story of
Loftus's Lenten Hymn, and poor Father Roach's penance, rubbed his hands, and slapped his thigh, and crowed and shouted with ecstasy. O'Flaherty, who called for punch, and was unfortunately prone to grow melancholy and pugnacious over his liquor, was now in a saturnine vein of sentiment, discoursing of the charms of his peerless mistress, the Lady Magnolia Macnamara—for he was not one of those maudlin shepherds, who pipe their loves in lonely glens and other sequestered places, but rather loved to exhibit his bare scars, and roar his tender torments for the edification of the market-place.
While he was descanting on the attributes of that bewitching 'crature,'
Puddock, not two yards off, was describing, with scarcely less unction, the perfections of 'pig roast with the hair on:' and the two made a medley like 'The Roast Beef of Old England,' and 'The Last Rose of Summer,' arranged in alternate stanzas. O'Flaherty suddenly stopped short, and said a little sternly to Lieutenant Puddock—
'Does it very much signify, Sir (or as O'Flaherty pronounced it "Sorr,") whether the animal has hair upon it or not?'
'Every thing, Thir, in thith particular retheipt,' answered Puddock, a
little loftily.
'But,' said Nutter, who, though no great talker, would make an effort to
prevent a quarrel, and at the same time winking to Puddock in token that
O'Flaherty was just a little 'hearty,' and so to let him alone; 'what
signifies pigs' hair, compared with human tresses?'
'Compared with human tresses?' interrupted O'Flaherty, with stern
deliberation, and fixing his eyes steadily and rather unpleasantly upon
Nutter (I think he saw that wink and perhaps did not understand its
import.)
'Ay, Sir, and Mrs. Magnolia Macnamara has as rich a head of hair as you
could wish to see,' says Nutter, thinking he was drawing him off very
cleverly.
'As I could wish to see?' repeated O'Flaherty grimly.
'As you could desire to see, Sir,' reiterated Nutter, firmly, for he
was not easily put down; and they looked for several seconds in silence
a little menacingly, though puzzled, at one another.
But O'Flaherty, after a short pause, seemed to forget Nutter, and
returned to his celestial theme.
'Be the powers, Sir, that young leedy has the most beautiful dimple in
her chin I ever set eyes on!'
'Have you ever put a marrow fat pea in it, Sir?' enquired Devereux, simply, with all the beautiful rashness of youth.
'No, Sorr,' replied O'Flaherty, in a deep tone, and with a very
dangerous glare; 'and I'd like to see the man who, in my presence, id
preshum to teeke that libertee.'
'What a glorious name Magnolia is!' interposed little Toole in great
haste; for it was a practice among these worthies to avert
quarrels—very serious affairs in these jolly days—by making timely
little diversions, and it is wonderful, at a critical moment, what may
be done by suddenly presenting a trifle; a pin's point, sometimes—at
least, a marvellously small one—will draw off innocuously, the
accumulating electricity of a pair of bloated scowling thunder-clouds.
'It was her noble godmother, when the family resided at Castlemara, in
the county of Roscommon, the Lady Carrick-o'-Gunniol, who conferred it,'
said O'Flaherty, grandly, 'upon her god-daughter, as who had a better
right—I say, who had a better right?' and he smote his hand upon the
table, and looked round inviting contradiction. 'My godmothers, in my
baptism—that's catechism—and all the town of Chapelizod won't put that
down—the Holy Church Catechism—while Hyacinth O'Flaherty, of
Coolnaquirk, Lieutenant Fireworker, wears a sword.'
'Nobly said, lieutenant!' exclaimed Toole, with a sly wink over his
shoulder.
'And what about that leedy's neeme, Sir?' demanded the enamoured
fireworker.