LITMIR.BIZ

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there no possible way.’ said I, as I chatted with O’Grady on the morning of the event; ‘is there no chance of our getting away in time to see something of the ball at least?’

      ‘None whatever,’ replied he despondingly; ‘as ill-luck would have it, it’s a command-night at the theatre. The duke has disappointed so often, that he is sure to go now, and for the same reason he ‘ll sit the whole thing out. By that time it will be half-past twelve, we shan’t get back here before one; then comes supper; and – in fact, you know enough of the habits of this place now to guess that after that there is very little use of thinking of going anywhere.’

      ‘It is devilish provoking,’ said I.

      ‘That it is: and you don’t know the worst of it. I ‘ve got rather a heavy book on the Loughrea race, and shall want a few hundreds in a week or so; and, as nothing renders my friend Paul so sulky as not eating his dinners, it is five-and-twenty per cent, at least out of my pocket, from this confounded contretemps. There goes De Vere. I say, Dudley, whom have we at dinner to-day?’

      ‘Harrington and the Asgills, and that set,’ replied he, with an insolent shrug of his shoulder.

      ‘More of it, by Jove,’ said O’Grady, biting his lip. ‘One must be as particular before these people as a young sub. at a regimental mess. There’s not a button of your coat, not a loop of your aiguillette, not a twist of your sword-knot, little Charley won’t note down; and as there is no orderly-book in the drawing-room, he will whisper to his grace before coffee.’

      ‘Whatabore!’

      ‘Ay, and to think that all that time we might have been up to the very chin in fun. The Rooneys to-day will outdo even themselves. They’ve got half-a-dozen new lords on trial; all the judges; a live bishop; and, better than all, every pretty woman in the capital. I’ve a devil of a mind to get suddenly ill, and slip off to Paul’s for the dessert.’

      ‘No, no, that’s out of the question; we must only put up with our misfortunes as well as we can. As for me, the dinner here is, I think, the worst part of the matter.’

      ‘I estimate my losses at a very different rate. First, there is the three hundred, which I should certainly have had from Paul, and which now becomes a very crooked contingency. Then there’s the dinner and two bottles – I speak moderately – of such burgundy as nobody has but himself. These are the positive bonâ fide losses: then, what do you say to my chance of picking up some lovely girl, with a stray thirty thousand, and the good taste to look out for a proper fellow to spend it with? Seriously, Jack, I must think of something of that kind one of these days. It’s wrong to lose time; for, by waiting, one’s chances diminish, while becoming more difficult to please. So you see what a heavy blow this is to me: not to mention my little gains at short-whist, which in the half-hour before supper I may fairly set down as a fifty.’

      ‘Yours is a very complicated calculation; for, except the dinner, and I suppose we shall have as good a one here, I have not been able to see anything but problematic loss or profit.’

      ‘Of course you haven’t: your English education is based upon grounds far too positive for that; but we mere Irish get a habit of looking at the possible as probable, and the probable as most likely. I don’t think we build castles more than our neighbours, but we certainly go live in them earlier; and if we do, now and then, get a chill for our pains, why we generally have another building ready to receive us elsewhere for change of air.’

      ‘This is, I confess, somewhat strange philosophy.’

      ‘To be sure it is, my boy; for it is of pure native manufacture. Every other people I ever heard of deduce their happiness from their advantages and prosperity. As we have very little of one or the other, we extract some fun out of our misfortunes; and, what between laughing occasionally at ourselves, and sometimes at our neighbours, we push along through life right merrily after all. So now, then, to apply my theory: let us see what we can do to make the best of this disappointment. Shall I make love to Lady Asgill? Shall I quiz Sir Charles about the review? Or can you suggest anything in the way of a little extemporaneous devilry, to console us for our disappointment? But, come along, my boy, we’ll take a canter; I want to show you Moddiridderoo. He improves every day in his training; but they tell me there is only one man can sit him across a country, a fellow I don’t much fancy, by-the-bye; but the turf, like poverty, leads us to form somewhat strange acquaintances. Meanwhile, my boy, here come the nags; and now for the park till dinner.’

      During our ride O’Grady informed me that the individual to whom he so slightly alluded was a Mr. Ulick Burke, a cousin of Miss Bellew. This individual, who by family and connections was a gentleman, had contrived by his life and habits to disqualify himself from any title to the appellation in a very considerable degree. Having squandered the entire of his patrimony on the turf, he had followed the apparently immutable law on such occasions, and ended by becoming a hawk, where he had begun as a pigeon. For many years past he had lived by the exercise of those most disreputable sources, his own wits. Present at every racecourse in the kingdom, and provided with that undercurrent of information obtainable from jockeys and stable-men, he understood all the intrigue, all the low cunning of the course: he knew when to back the favourite, when to give, when to take the odds; and, if upon any occasion he was seen to lay heavily against a well-known horse, the presumption became a strong one, that he was either ‘wrong’ or withdrawn. But his qualifications ended not here; for he was also that singular anomaly in our social condition – a gentleman-rider, ready upon any occasion to get into the saddle for any one that engaged his services; a flat race, or a steeplechase, all the same to him. His neck was his livelihood, and to support, he must risk it. A racing-jacket, a pair of leathers and tops, a heavy-handled whip, and a shot-belt, were his stock-in-trade, and he travelled through the world a species of sporting Dalgetty, minus the probity which made the latter firm to his engagements, so long as they lasted. At least, report denied the quality to Mr. Burke; and those who knew him well scrupled not to say that fifty pounds had exactly twice as many arguments in its favour as five-and-twenty.

      So much then in brief concerning a character to whom I shall hereafter have occasion to recur; and now to my own narrative.

      O’Grady’s anticipations as to the Castle dinner were not in the least exaggerated; nothing could possibly be more stiff or tiresome; the entertainment being given as a kind of ex officio civility, to the commander-of-the-forces and his staff, the conversation was purely professional, and never ranged beyond the discussion of military topics, or such as bore in any way upon the army. Happily, however, its duration was short. We dined at six, and by half-past eight we found ourselves at the foot of the grand staircase of the theatre in Crow Street, with Mr. Jones in the full dignity of his managerial costume waiting to receive us.

      ‘A little late, I fear, Mr. Jones,’ said his grace with a courteous smile. ‘What have we got?’

      ‘Your Excellency selected the Inconstant, said the obsequious manager; while a lady of the party darted her eyes suddenly towards the duke, and with a tone of marked sarcastic import, exclaimed —

      ‘How characteristic!’

      ‘And the after-piece, what is it?’ said the duchess, as she fussed her way upstairs.

      ‘Timour the Tartar, your grace.’

      The next moment the thundering applause of the audience informed us that their Excellencies had taken their places. Cheer after cheer resounded through the building, and the massive lustre itself shook under the deafening acclamations of the audience. The scene was truly a brilliant one. The boxes presented a perfect blaze of wealth and beauty; nearly every person in the pit was in full dress; to the very ceiling itself the house was crammed. The progress of the piece was interrupted, while the band struck up ‘God Save the King,’ and, as I looked upon the brilliant dress-circle, I could not but think that O’Grady had been guilty of some exaggeration when he said that Mrs. Rooney’s ball was to monopolise that evening the youth and the beauty of the capital The National Anthem over, ‘Patrick’s Day’ was called for loudly from every side, and the whole house beat time to the strains of their native melody, with an energy that showed it came as fully home to their hearts as the air that preceded

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