LETTER XIII. KENNY JAMES DODD TO THOMAS PURCELL, ESQ., OF THE GRANGE, BRUFF
Como
My dear Tom,—This may perchance be a lengthy despatch, for I have just received a polite invitation from the authorities here to pack off, bag and baggage, over the frontier; and as it is doubtful where our next move may take us, I write this "in extenso," and to clear off all arrears up to the present date.
At the conclusion of my last, if I remember aright, I was in anxious expectation of a visit from Signor Giacomo Lamporeccho. That accomplished gentleman, however, had been so fatigued by his labors in the procession, and so ill from a determination of blood to the head, brought on by being tied for two hours to a tree, with his legs uppermost, to represent the saint's martyrdom, that he could not wait upon me till the third day after the Festa; and then his streaked eyeballs and flushed face attested that even mock holiness is a costly performance.
"You are Giacomo?" said I, as he entered; and I ought to mention that in air and appearance he was a large, full, fine-looking man, of about eight-and-thirty or forty, dressed in very accurate black, and with a splendid chain of mosaic gold twined and festooned across his ample chest; opal shirt-studs and waistcoat buttons, and a very gorgeous-looking signet-ring on his forefinger aided to show off a stylish look, rendered still more imposing by a beard a Grand Vizier might have envied, and a voice a semi-tone deeper than Lablache's.
"Giacomo Lamporeccho," said he; and though he uttered the words like a human bassoon, they really sounded as if he preferred not to be himself, but somebody else, in case I desired it.
"Well, Giacomo," said I, easily, and trying to assume as much familiarity as I could with so imposing a personage, "I want you to afford me some information about these accounts of mine."
"Ah! the house accounts!" said he, with a very slight elevation of the eyebrows, but quite sufficient to convey to me an expression of contemptuous meaning.
"Just so, Giacomo; they appear to me high,—enormously, extravagantly high!"
"His Excellency paid, at least, the double in London," said he, bowing.