“But the name is R-R-Ricketts,” screamed Purvis.
“And so it is,” sighed Peter. “My brain is woolgathering. By my conscience, I have it now, though!” cried he, in wild delight. “I knew I 'd scent it out. It was one Fogles that was here,——a chap with a red wig, and deaf as a door-nail.”
“Foglass, you mean,—Fo-Foglass,——don't you?”
“I always called him Fogies; and I 'm sure it's as good a name as the other, any day.”
“He's so pl-pleasant,” chimed in Scroope, who, under the influence of Dalton's champagne, was now growing convivial,——“he's so agreeable; always in the highest cir-circles, and dining with no-no-no——”
“With nobs,” suggested Peter. “He might do better, and he might do worse. I 've seen lords that was as great rapscallions as you 'd meet from this to Kilrush.”
“But Foglass was always so excl-exclusive, and held himself so high.”
“The higher the better,” rejoined Dalton, “even if it was out of one's reach altogether; for a more tiresome ould crayture I never forgathered with; and such a bag of stories he had, without a bit of drollery or fun in one of them. You may think that kind of fellow good company in England; but, in my poor country, a red herring and a pint of beer would get you one he could n't howld a candle to. See now, Mister—”
“P-P-Purvis,” screamed the other.
“Mister Purvis,—if that's the name,—see, now, 't is n't boasting I am, for the condition we 're in would n't let any man boast,—but it's what I 'm saying, the English is a mighty stupid people. They have their London jokes, and, like London porter, mighty heavy they are, and bitter, besides; and they have two or three play-actors that makes them die laughing at the same comicalities every day of the year. They get used to them as they do the smoke and the noise and the Thames water; and nothing would persuade them that, because they 're rich, they 're not agreeable and social and witty. And may I never leave this, but you 'd find cuter notions of life, droller stories, and more fun, under a dry arch of the Aqueduct of Stoney Batter than if you had the run of Westminster Hall. Look at the shouts of laughter in the Law Coorts; look at the loud laughter in the House of Commons! Oh dear! oh dear! it makes me quite melancholy just to think of it I won't talk of the Parliament, because it's gone; but take an Irish Coort in Dublin or on the Assizes, at any trial,—murder, if you like,——and see the fun that goes on: the judge quizzing the jury, and the counsel quizzing the judge, and the prisoner quizzing all three. There was poor ould Nor-bury,—rest his soul!—I remember well how he could n't put on the black cap for laughing.”