“May I say we 'll come for her? The great mystery will be so perfectly in keeping with one of the household carriages and your Excellency's liveries.”
“Won't that be too strong, Balfour?” said the Viceroy, laughing.
“Nothing is too strong, my Lord, in this country. They take their blunders neat as they do their sherry, and I'm sure that this part of the arrangement will, in the gossip it will give rise to, be about the best of the whole exploit.”
“Take your own way, then; only make no such mistake as you made with the husband. No documents, Balfour,—no documents, I beg;” and with this warning laughingly given, but by no means so pleasantly taken, his Excellency went off and left him.
CHAPTER XLIII. MR. BALFOUR'S MISSION
Lady Lendrick was dictating to her secretary, Miss Morse, the Annual Report of the “Benevolent Ballad-Singers' Aid Society,” when her servant announced the arrival of Mr. Cholmondely Balfour. She stopped abruptly short at a pathetic bit of description,—“The aged minstrel, too old for erotic poetry, and yet debarred by the stern rules of a repressive policy from the strains of patriotic song,”—for, be it said parenthetically, Lady Lendrick affected “Irishry” to a large extent,—and, dismissing Miss Morse to an adjoining room, she desired the servant to introduce Mr. Balfour.
Is it fancy, or am I right in supposing that English officials have a manner specially assumed for Ireland and the Irish,—a thing like the fur cloak a man wears in Russia, or the snowshoes he puts on in Lapland, not intended for other latitudes, but admirably adapted for the locality it is made for? I will not insist that this theory of mine is faultless, but I appeal to a candid public of my own countrmen if they have not in their experience seen what may support it. I do not say it is a bad manner,—a presuming manner,—a manner of depreciation towards these it is used to, or a manner indicative of indifference in him who uses it. I simply say that they who employ it keep it as especially for Ireland as they keep their macintosh capes for wet weather, and would no more think of displaying it in England than they would go to her Majesty's levee in a shooting-jacket. Mr. Balfour was not wanting in this manner. Indeed, the Administration of which he formed a humble part were all proficients in it. It was a something between a mock homage and a very jocular familiarity, so that when he arose after a bow, deep and reverential enough for the presence of majesty, he lounged over to a chair and threw himself down with the ease and unconcern of one perfectly at home.
“And how is my Lady? and how are the fourscore and one associations for turnkeys' widows and dog-stealers' orphans doing? What 's the last new thing in benevolence? Do tell me, for I 've won five shillings at loo, and want to invest it.”
“You mean you have drawn your quarter's salary, Mr. Balfour.”