“Order whatever you mean to have,” said Ladarelle, as the meal was concluded, “and don’t let us have that fellow coming into the room every moment.”
O’Rorke made his provision accordingly, and having secured a kettle, in case it should be his caprice to make punch, he bolted the door and resumed his place.
“There’s your letter!” said Ladarelle, throwing a coarse-looking scrawl, sealed with green wax, on the table; “and I’ll be shot if I understand one line of it!”
“And why not?” asked the other, angrily. “Is it the writing’s so bad?”
“No; the writing can be made out. I don’t complain of that. It’s your blessed style that floors me! Now, for instance, what does this mean? ‘Impelled by the exuberant indignation that in the Celtic heart rises to the height of the grandest sacrifices, whether on the altars———‘”
O’Rorke snatched the letter from his hand, crushed it into a ball, and threw it into the fire. “You’ll not have it to laugh at another time,” cried he, sternly, and with a stare so full of defiance that Ladarelle looked at him for some seconds in amazement, without speaking.
“My good friend,” said he, at last, with a calm, measured voice, “it is something new to me to meet conduct like this.”
“Not a bit newer or stranger than for me to be laughed at. Bigger and stronger fellows than you never tried that game with me.”
“I certainly never suspected you would take it so ill. I thought if any one knew what a joke meant, it was an Irishman.”
“And so he does; none better. The mistake was, you thought an Englishman knew how to make one.”