'Faith,' continued George, with the smile broadening over his face, 'but it is indeed the very picture of Christian meekness,' and then, breaking into a laugh, 'Will you sit down, you noisy firebrand. As for Thomas Wogan--be damned to him and to all his twenty-eight Cavaliers into the bargain!'
Mr. Wogan will never deny but what the man's laugh was irresistible, for the Parson's features wore in repose something of clerkly look. They were cast in a mould of Episcopal gravity; but when he laughed his blue eyes would lighten at you like the sun from a bank of clouds, and the whole face of him wrinkled and creased into smiles, and his mouth shook a great rumbling laugh out of his throat, and then of a sudden you had come into the company of a jolly man. Wogan put his hat on the table and struggled to preserve his countenance from any expression of friendliness.
'It is the common talk at the Cocoa Tree that you sailed from Cadiz. It is thought that you were one of the remnant at Glenshiel. Oh, the rumour of your whereabouts has marched before you, and that you might have guessed. But see what it is to know no Virgil, and,' shaking a minatory finger,
'Fama, malum quo non aliud velocius ullum.'
Mr. Wogan bowed before Latin like a sapling before the wind. He seated himself as he was bid.
'And you must needs come parading your monstrous person through the thick of London, like any fashionable gentleman,' continued George. 'What am I to do with you? Why couldn't you lie quiet in a village and send me news of you? Did you meet any of your acquaintance by chance when you came visiting your friend Mr. Kelly? Perhaps you passed the time of day with Mr. Walpole--' and as he spoke the name he stopped abruptly. He walked once or twice across the room, shifting his peruke from one side of his head to the other in the fluster of his thoughts. Then he paused before Wogan.
'Oh, what am I to do with you?' he cried. 'Tell me that, if you please.' But the moment Wogan began,
'Sure, George, it's not you that I will be troubling for my security'--Kelly cut in again:
'Oh, if you have nothing better to say than that, you say nothing at all. It is dribbling baby's talk,' and then he repeated a question earnestly. 'Did you see anyone you knew, or rather did anyone that knows you see you?'
'Why,' replied Wogan meekly, 'I cannot quite tell whether he knows me or not, but to be sure I ran into the arms of Captain Montague not half a dozen yards from the corner of Ryder Street.'