“We are glad to see you so comfortable,” we replied.
“Father is quite comfortable, Sir,” said the little girl. We looked into Mr. Molloy’s face and saw nothing but the twinkle in the eye. We had certainly been “done” by the most elaborate hoax that had ever been perpetrated. We did not regret the sovereign so much as those outpourings from the butter-boat of benevolence of which we felt that we had been cheated. “Here’s mother,” said the girl running to the door. Mr. Molloy stood grinning in the middle of the room with the youngest child again in his arms. He did not seem to be in the least ashamed of what he had done, and even at that moment conveyed to us more of liking for his affection for the little boy than of anger for the abominable prank that he had played us.
That he had lied throughout was evident as soon as we saw Mrs. Molloy. Whatever ailment might have made it necessary that she should visit the hospital, it was not one which could interfere at all with her power of going and returning. She was a strong hearty-looking woman of about forty, with that mixture in her face of practical kindness with severity in details which we often see in strong-minded women who are forced to take upon themselves the management and government of those around them. She courtesied, and took off her bonnet and shawl, and put a bottle into a cupboard, as she addressed us. “Mick said as you was coming, Sir, and I’m sure we is glad to see you;—only sorry for the trouble, Sir.”
We were so completely in the dark that we hardly knew how to be civil to her,—hardly knew whether we ought to be civil to her or not. “We don’t quite understand why we’ve been brought here,” we said, endeavouring to maintain, at any rate a tone of good-humour. He was still embracing the little boy, but there had now come a gleam of fun across his whole countenance, and he seemed to be almost shaking his sides with laughter. “Your husband represented himself as being in distress,” we said gravely. We were restrained by a certain delicacy from informing the woman of the kind of distress to which Mr. Molloy had especially alluded,—most falsely.
“Lord love you, Sir,” said the woman, “just step in here.” Then she led us into a little back room in which there was a bedstead, and an old writing-desk or escritoire, covered with papers. Her story was soon told. Her husband was a madman.
“Mad!” we said, preparing for escape from what might be to us most serious peril.
“He wouldn’t hurt a mouse,” said Mrs. Molloy. “As for the children, he’s that good to them, there aint a young woman in all London that’d be better at handling ’em.” Then we heard her story, in which it appeared to us that downright affection for the man was the predominant characteristic. She herself was, as she told us, head day nurse at Saint Patrick’s Hospital, going there every morning at eight, and remaining till six or seven. For these services she received thirty shillings a week and her board, and she spoke of herself and her husband as being altogether removed from pecuniary distress. Indeed, while the money part of the question was being discussed, she opened a little drawer in the desk and handed us back our sovereign, almost without an observation. Molloy himself had “come of decent people.” On this point she insisted very often, and gave us to understand that he was at this moment in receipt of a pension of a hundred a year from his family. He had been well educated, she said, having been at Trinity College, Dublin, till he had been forced to leave his university for some slight, but repeated irregularity. Early in life he had proclaimed his passion for the press, and when he and she were married absolutely was earning a living in Dublin by some use of the scissors and paste-pot. The whole tenor of his career I could not learn, though Mrs. Molloy would have told us everything had time allowed. Even during the years of his sanity in Dublin he had only been half-sane, treating all the world around him with the effusions of his terribly fertile pen. “He’ll write all night if I’ll let him have a candle,” said Mrs. Molloy. We asked her why she did let him have a candle, and made some enquiry as to the family expenditure in paper. The paper, she said, was given to him from the office of a newspaper which she would not name, and which Molloy visited regularly every day. “There aint a man in all London works harder,” said Mrs. Molloy. “He is mad. I don’t say nothing against it. But there is some of it so beautiful, I wonder they don’t print it.” This was the only word she spoke with which we could not agree. “Ah, Sir,” said she; “you haven’t seen his poetry!” We were obliged to tell her that seeing poetry was the bane of our existence.
There was an easy absence of sham about this woman, and an acceptance of life as it had come to her, which delighted us. She complained of nothing, and was only anxious to explain the little eccentricities of her husband. When we alluded to some of his marvellously untrue assertions, she stopped us at once. “He do lie,” she said. “Certainly he do. How he makes them all out is wonderful. But he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” It was evident to us that she not only loved her husband, but admired him. She showed us heaps of manuscript with which the old drawers were crammed; and yet that paper on the Church of England had been new work, done expressly for us.
When the story had been told we went back to him, and he received us with a smile. “Good-bye, Molloy,” we said. “Good-bye to you, Sir,” he replied, shaking hands with us. We looked at him closely, and could hardly believe that it was the man who had sat by us at the Turkish bath.
He never troubled us again or came to our office, but we have often called on him, and have found that others of our class do the same. We have even helped to supply him with the paper which he continues to use,—we presume for the benefit of other editors.