LITMIR.BIZ

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Vere, my friend Mr. Hinton – one of ours.”

      His Lordship raised his delicate-looking eyebrows as high as he was able, letting fall his glass at the same moment from the corner of his eye; and while he adjusted his stock at the glass, lisped out,

      “Ah – yes – very happy. In the Guards, I think. Know Douglas, don’t you?”

      “Yes, very slightly.”

      “When did you come – to-day?”

      “No; last night.”

      “Must have got a buffeting; blew very fresh. You don’t happen to know the odds on the Oaks?”

      “Hecate, they say, is falling. I rather heard a good account of the mare.”

      “Indeed,” said he, while his cold, inanimate features brightened up with a momentary flush of excitement. “Take you five to two, or give you the odds, you don’t name the winner on the double event.”

      A look from O’Grady decided me at once on declining the proffered wager; and his Lordship once more returned to the mirror and his self-admiration.

      “I say, O’Grady, do come here for a minute. What the deuce can that be?”

      Here an immoderate fit of laughter from his Lordship brought us both to the window. The figure to which his attention was directed was certainly not a little remarkable. Mounted upon an animal of the smallest possible dimensions, sat, or rather stood, the figure of a tall, gaunt, raw-boned looking man, in a livery of the gaudiest blue and yellow, his hat garnished with silver lace, while long tags of the same material were festooned gracefully from his shoulder to his breast; his feet nearly touched the ground, and gave him rather the appearance of one progressing with a pony between his legs, than of a figure on horseback; he carried under one arm a leather pocket, like a despatch bag; and, as he sauntered slowly about, with his eyes directed hither and thither, seemed like some one in search of an unknown locality.

      The roar of laughter which issued from our window drew his attention to that quarter, and he immediately touched his hat, while a look of pleased recognition played across his countenance. “Holloa, Tim!” cried O’Grady, “what’s in the wind now?”

      Tim’s answer was inaudible, but inserting his hand into the leathern con-veniency already mentioned, he drew forth a card of most portentous dimensions. By this time Corny’s voice could be heard joining the conversation.

      “Arrah, give it here, and don’t be making a baste of yourself. Isn’t the very battle-axe Guards laughing at you? I’m sure I wonder how a Christian would make a merry-andrew of himself by wearing such clothes; you’re more like a play-actor nor a respectable servant.”

      With these words he snatched rather than accepted the proffered card; and Tim, with another flourish of his hat, and a singularly droll grin, meant to convey his appreciation of Cross Corny, plunged the spurs till his legs met under the belly of the little animal, and cantered out of the court-yard amid the laughter of the bystanders, in which even the sentinels on duty could not refrain from participating.

      “What the devil can it be?” cried Lord Dudley; “he evidently knows you, O’Grady.”

      “And you, too, my Lord; his master has helped you to a cool hundred or two more than once before now.”

      “Eh – what – you don’t say so! Not our worthy friend Paul – eh? Why, confound it, I never should have known Timothy in that dress.”

      “No,” said O’Grady, slyly; “I acknowledge it is not exactly his costume when he serves a latitat.”

      “Ha, ha!” cried the other, trying to laugh at the joke, which he felt too deeply; “I thought I knew the pony, though. Old three-and-fourpence; his infernal canter always sounds in my ears like the jargon of a bill of costs.”

      “Here comes Corny,” said O’Grady. “What have you got there?”

      “There, ‘tis for you,” replied he, throwing, with an air of the most profound disdain, a large card upon the table; while, as he left the room, he muttered some very sagacious reflections about the horrors of low company – his father the Jidge – the best in the land – riotous, disorderly life; the whole concluding with an imprecation upon heathens and Turks, with which he managed to accomplish his exit.

      “Capital, by Jove!” said Lord Dudley, as he surveyed the card with his glass.

      “‘Mr. and Mrs. Paul Rooney presents’ – the devil they does – ‘presents their compliments, and requests the honour of Captain O’Grady’s company at dinner on Friday, the 8th, at half-past seven o’clock.’”

      “How good! glorious, by Jove! eh, O’Grady? You are a sure ticket there —l’ami de la maison!”

      O’Grady’s cheek became red at these words; and a flashing expression in his eyes told how deeply he felt them. He turned sharply round, his lip quivering with passion; then, checking himself suddenly, he burst into an affected laugh,

      “You’ll go too, wont you?”

      “I? No, faith, they caught me once; but then the fact was, a protest and an invitation were both served on me together. I couldn’t accept one, so I did the other.”

      “Well, I must confess,” said O’Grady, in a firm, resolute tone, “there may be many more fashionable people than our friends; but I, for one, scruple not to say I have received many kindnesses from them, and am deeply, sincerely grateful.”

      “As far as doing a bit of paper now and then, when one is hard up,” said Lord Dudley, “why, perhaps, I’m somewhat of your mind; but if one must take the discount out in dinners, it’s an infernal bore.”

      “And yet,” said O’Grady, maliciously, “I’ve seen your Lordship tax your powers to play the agreeable at these same dinners; and I think your memory betrays you in supposing you have only been there once. I myself have met you at least four times.”

      “Only shows how devilish hard up I must have been,” was the cool reply; “but now, as the governor begins to behave better, I think I’ll cut Paul.”

      “I’m certain you will,” said O’Grady, with an emphasis that could not be mistaken. “But come, Hinton, we had better be moving; there’s some stir at the portico yonder, I suppose they’re coming.”

      At this moment the tramp of cavalry announced the arrival of the guard of honour; the drums beat, the troops stood to arms, and we had barely time to mount our horses, when the viceregal party took their places in the carriages, and we all set out for the Phoenix.

      “Confess, Hinton, it is worth while being a soldier to be in Ireland.” This was O’Grady’s observation as we rode down Parliament-street, beside the carriage of the Viceroy. It was the first occasion of a field-day since the arrival of his Excellency, and all Dublin was on the tiptoe of expectation at the prospect. Handkerchiefs were waved from the windows; streamers and banners floated from the house-tops; patriotic devices and allegoric representations of Erin sitting at a plentiful board, opposite an elderly gentleman with a ducal coronet, met us at every turn of the way. The streets were literally crammed with people. The band played Patrick’s-day; the mob shouted, his Grace bowed; and down to Phil O’Grady himself, who winked at the pretty girls as he passed, there did not seem an unoccupied man in the whole procession. On we went, following the line of the quays, threading our way through a bare-legged, ragged population, bawling themselves hoarse with energetic desires for prosperity to Ireland. “Yes,” thought I, as I looked upon the worn, dilapidated houses, the faded and bygone equipages, the tarnished finery of better days – “yes, my father was right, these people are very different from their neighbours; their very prosperity has an air quite peculiar to itself.” Everything attested a state of poverty, a lack of trade, a want of comfort and of cleanliness; but still there was but one expression prevalent in the mass – that of unbounded good humour and gaiety. With a philosophy quite his own, poor Paddy seemed to feel a reflected pleasure from the supposed happiness of those around him, the fine clothes, the gorgeous equipages, the prancing chargers, the flowing plumes – all,

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