CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE DESPATCH.
I was preparing to visit the town on the following morning, when my attention was attracted by a dialogue which took place beneath my window.
“I say, my good friend,” cried a mounted orderly to Mike, who was busily employed in brushing a jacket,—“I say, are you Captain O’Malley’s man?”
“The least taste in life o’ that same,” replied he, with a half-jocular expression.
“Well, then,” said the other, “take up these letters to your master. Be alive, my fine fellow, for they are despatches, and I must have a written return for them.”
“Won’t ye get off and take a drop of somethin’ refreshing; the air is cowld this morning.”
“I can’t stay, my good friend, but thank you all the same; so be alive, will you?”
“Arrah, there’s no hurry in life. Sure, it’s an invitation to dinner to Lord Wellington or a tea-party at Sir Denny’s; sure, my master’s bothered with them every day o’ th’ week: that’s the misfortune of being an agreeable creature; and I’d be led into dissipation myself, if I wasn’t rear’d prudent.”