RELATING HOW DOCTOR TOOLE AND CAPTAIN DEVEREUX WENT ON A MOONLIGHT
ERRAND.
Nearly a dozen gentlemen broke out at once into voluble speech. Nutter
was in a confounded passion; but being a man of few words, showed his
wrath chiefly in his countenance, and stood with his legs apart and his
arms stuffed straight into his coat pockets, his back to the fire-place,
with his chest thrown daringly out, sniffing the air in a state of high
tension, and as like as a respectable little fellow of five feet six
could be to that giant who smelt the blood of the Irishman, and swore,
with a 'Fee! Faw!! Fum!!!' he'd 'eat him for his supper that night.'
'None of the corps can represent you, Nutter, you know,' said Captain
Cluffe. 'It may go hard enough with Puddock and O'Flaherty, as the
matter stands; but, by Jove! if any of us appear on the other side, the
general would make it a very serious affair, indeed.'
'Toole, can't you?' asked Devereux.
'Out of the question,' answered he, shutting his eyes, with a frown, and
shaking his head. 'There's no man I'd do it sooner for, Nutter knows;
but I can't--I've refused too often; besides, you'll want me
professionally, you know; for Sturk must attend that Royal Hospital
enquiry to-morrow all day--but hang it, where's the difficulty? Isn't
there?--pooh!--why there must be lots of fellows at hand. Just--a--just
think for a minute.'
'I don't care who,' said Nutter, with dry ferocity, 'so he can load a
pistol.'
'Tom Forsythe would have done capitally, if he was at home,' said one.
'But he's _not_,' remarked Cluffe.
'Well,' said Toole, getting close up to Devereux, in a coaxing
undertone, 'suppose we try Loftus.'
'Dan Loftus!' ejaculated Devereux.
'Dan Loftus,' repeated the little doctor, testily; 'remember, it's just
eleven o'clock. He's no great things, to be sure; but what better can we
get.'
'Allons, donc!' said Devereux, donning his cocked-hat, with a shrug, and
the least little bit of a satirical smile, and out bustled the doctor
beside him.
'Where the deuce did that broganeer, O'Flaherty, come from?' said
Cluffe, confidentially, to old Major O'Neill.
'A Connaughtman,' answered the major, with a grim smile, for he was
himself of that province and was, perhaps, a little bit proud of his
countryman.
'Toole says he's well connected,' pursued Cluffe; 'but, by Jupiter! I
never saw so-mere a Teague; and the most cross-grained devil of a
cat-a-mountain.'
'I could not quite understand why he fastened on Mr. Nutter,' observed
the major, with a mild smile.
'I'll rid the town of him,' rapped out Nutter, with an oath, leering at
his own shoebuckle, and tapping the sole with asperity on the floor.
'If you are thinking of any unpleasant measures, gentlemen, I'd rather,
if you please, know nothing of them,' said the sly, quiet major; 'for
the general, you are aware, has expressed a strong opinion about such
affairs; and as 'tis past my bed-hour, I'll wish you, gentlemen, a
good-night,' and off went the major.
'Upon my life, if this Connaught rapparee is permitted to carry on his
business of indiscriminate cut-throat here, he'll make the service very
pleasant,' resumed Cluffe, who, though a brisk young fellow of
eight-and-forty, had no special fancy for being shot. 'I say the general
ought to take the matter into his own hands.'
'Not till I'm done with it,' growled Nutter.
'And send the young gentleman home to Connaught,' pursued Cluffe.
'I'll send him first to the other place,' said Nutter, in allusion to
the Lord Protector's well-known alternative.
In the open street, under the sly old moon, red little Dr. Toole, in his
great wig, and Gipsy Devereux, in quest of a squire for the good knight
who stood panting for battle in the front parlour of the 'Phoenix,'
saw a red glimmer in Loftus's dormant window.
'He's alive and stirring still,' said Devereux, approaching the hall
door with a military nonchalance.
'Whisht!' said Toole, plucking him back by the sash: 'we must not make a
noise--the house is asleep. I'll manage it--leave it to me.'
And he took up a handful of gravel, but not having got the range, he
shied it all against old Tom Drought's bed-room window.
'Deuce take that old sneak,' whispered Toole vehemently, 'he's always in
the way; the last man in the town I'd have--but no matter:' and up went
a pebble, better directed, for this time it went right through Loftus's
window, and a pleasant little shower of broken glass jingled down into
the street.
'Confound you, Toole,' said Devereux, 'you'll rouse the town.
'Plague take the fellow's glass--it's as thin as paper,' sputtered
Toole.
'Loftus, we want you,' said Toole, in a hard whispered shout, and making
a speaking trumpet of his hands, as the wild head of the student, like
nothing in life but a hen's nest, appeared above.
'Cock-Loftus, come down, d'ye hear?' urged Devereux.
'Dr. Toole and Lieutenant Devereux--I--I--dear me! yes. Gentlemen, your
most obedient,' murmured Loftus vacantly, and knocking his head smartly
on the top of the window frame, in recovering from a little bow. 'I'll
be wi' ye, gentlemen, in a moment.' And the hen's nest vanished.
Toole and Devereux drew back a little into the shadow of the opposite
buildings, for while they were waiting, a dusky apparition, supposed to
be old Drought in his night-shirt, appeared at that gentleman's windows,
saluting the ambassadors with mop and moe, in a very threatening and
energetic way. Just as this demonstration subsided, the hall door opened
wide--and indeed was left so--while our friend Loftus, in a wonderful
tattered old silk coat, that looked quite indescribable by moonlight,
the torn linings hanging down in loops inside the skirts, pale and
discoloured, like the shreds of banners in a cathedral; his shirt loose
at the neck, his breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and a gigantic,
misshapen, and mouldy pair of slippers clinging and clattering about his
feet, came down the steps, his light, round little eyes and queer, quiet
face peering at them into the shade, and a smokified volume of divinity
tucked under his arm, with his finger between the leaves to keep the
place.
When Devereux saw him approaching, the whole thing--mission, service,
man, and all--struck him in so absurd a point of view, that he burst out
into an explosion of laughter, which only grew more vehement and
uproarious the more earnestly and imploringly Toole tried to quiet him,
pointing up with both hands, and all his fingers extended, to the
windows of the sleeping townsfolk, and making horrible grimaces, shrugs,
and ogles. But the young gentleman was not in the habit of denying
himself innocent indulgences, and shaking himself loose of Toole, he
walked down the dark side of the street in peals of laughter, making,
ever and anon, little breathless remarks to himself, which his colleague
could not hear, but which seemed to have the effect of setting him off
again into new hemi-demi-semiquavers and roars of laughter, and left the
doctor to himself, to conduct the negociation with Loftus.
'Well?' said Devereux, by this time recovering breath, as the little
doctor, looking very red and glum, strutted up to him along the shady
pavement.
'Well? _well?_--oh, ay, _very_ well, to be sure. I'd like to know what
the plague we're to do now,' grumbled Toole.
'Your precious armour-bearer refuses to act then?' asked Devereux.
'To be sure he does. He sees _you_ walking down the street, ready to die
o' laughing--at _nothing_, by Jove!' swore Toole, in deep disgust;
'and--and--och! hang it! it's all a confounded pack o' nonsense. Sir, if
you could not keep grave for five minutes, you ought not to have come at
all. But what need _I_ care? It's Nutter's affair, not mine.'
'And well for him we failed. Did you ever see such a fish? He'd have
shot himself or Nutter, to a certainty. But there's a chance yet: we
forgot the Nightingale Club; they're still in the Phoenix.'
'Pooh, Sir! they're all tailors and green-grocers,' said Toole, in high
dudgeon.
'There are two or three good names among them, however,' answered
Devereux; and by this time they were on the threshold of the Phoenix.
'Larry,' he cried to the waiter, 'the Nightingale Club is _there_, is it
not?' glancing at the great back parlour door.
'Be the powers! Captain, you may say that,' said Larry, with a wink, and
a grin of exquisite glee.
'See, Larry,' said Toole, with importance, 'we're a little serious now;
so just say if there's any of the gentlemen there; you--you understand,
now; quite steady? D'ye see me?'
Larry winked--this time a grave wink--looked down at the floor, and up
to the cornice, and--
'Well,' said he, 'to be candid with you, jest at this
minute--half-an-hour ago, you see, it was different--the only gentleman
I'd take on myself to recommend to you as perfectly sober is Mr. Macan,
of Petticoat-lane.'
'Is he in business?' asked Toole.
'Does he keep a shop?' said Devereux.
'A shop! _two_ shops;--a great man in the chandlery line,' responded
Larry.
'H'm! not precisely the thing we want, though,' says Toole.
'There are some of them, surely, that _don't_ keep shops,' said
Devereux, a little impatiently.
'Millions!' said Larry.
'Come, say their names.'
'Only one of them came this evening, Mr. Doolan, of Stonnybatther--he's
a retired merchant.'
'That will do,' said Toole, under his breath, to Devereux. Devereux
nodded.
'Just, I say, tap him on the shoulder, and tell him that Dr. Toole, you
know, of this town, with many compliments and excuses, begs one word
with him,' said the doctor.
'Hoo! Docthur dear, he was the first of them down, and was carried out
to his coach insensible jist when Mr. Crozier of Christ Church began,
"Come Roger and listen;" he's in his bed in Stonnybatther a good hour
and a half ago.'
'A retired merchant,' says Devereux; 'well, Toole, what do you advise
now?'
'By Jove, I think one of us must go into town. 'Twill never do to leave
poor Nutter in the lurch; and between ourselves, that O'Flaherty's a--a
blood-thirsty idiot, by Jove--and ought to be put down.'
'Let's see Nutter--you or I must go--we'll take one of these songster's
"noddies."'
A 'noddy' give me leave to remark, was the one-horse hack vehicle of
Dublin and the country round, which has since given place to the
jaunting car, which is, in its turn, half superseded by the cab.
And Devereux, followed by Toole, entered the front parlour again. But
without their help, the matter was arranging itself, and a second, of
whom they knew nothing, was about to emerge.