If the Knight enjoyed the absurdity of Daly's supper with the noted Freney, he laughed till the tears came at the account of his dining with Con Heffernan. Darcy could appreciate the dismay of Heffernan, and the cool, imperturbable tyranny of Daly's manner throughout, and would have given largely to have witnessed the tête-à-tête.
“I will do him the justice to say,” said Daly, “that when he found escape impossible, he behaved as well as any man, his conversation was easy and unaffected, and his manner perfectly well-bred. Freney was more anecdotic, but Heffernan saw deeper into mankind.”
“I hope you hinted the comparison?” said Darcy, slyly.
“Yes, I observed upon the superiority practical men possess in all the relations of social intercourse, and quoted Freney and himself as instances!”
“And he took it well?”
“Admirably. Once, and only once, did he show a little disposition to turn restive; it was when I remarked upon the discrepancy in point of destiny, the one being employed to empty, the other to fill, the pockets of his Majesty's lieges. He winced, but it was over in a second. His time was up at ten o'clock, but we sat chatting till near twelve, and we parted with what the French term a 'sense of the most distinguished consideration' on each side.”
“By Jove! I envy the fellows who sat at the other tables and saw you.”
“They were most discreet in their observations,” remarked Daly, significantly. “One young fellow, it is true, coughed twice or thrice as a signal to a friend across the room, but I ordered the waiter to bring me a plate, and, taking three or four bullets out of my pocket, sent them over to him, with my respectful compliments, as 'admirable pills for a cough.' The cure was miraculous.”
“Excellent! Men have taken out a patent for a poorer remedy. And now, Bagenal, for the reason of your journey. What, in the name of everything strange and eccentric, brought you up to town? Don't affect to tell me you came for the debate.”
“And why not?” said Daly, who, unwilling to reveal the true cause, preferred to do battle on this pretence. “I admit as freely as ever I did, I'm no lover of Parliament. I have slight respect or esteem for deliberative assemblies split up into factions and parties. A Government, to my thinking, should represent unity as the chief element of strength; but such as it is,—bad enough and base enough, in all conscience,—yet it is the last remnant of national power left, the frail barrier between us and downright provincialism. But I had another reason for coming up,—half-a-dozen other reasons, for that matter,—one of them was, to see your invaluable business man, Gleeson, who, from some caprice or other about a higher rate of interest, has withdrawn my sister's fortune from the funds to invest it in some confounded mortgage. I suppose it's all right, and judicious to boot; but Maria, like every other Daly I ever heard of, has a will of her own, and has commissioned me to have the money restored to its former destination. I verily believe, Darcy, the most troublesome animal on the face of the globe is an old maid with a small funded capital. At one moment deploring the low rate of interest and dying for a more profitable use of the money; at another, decrying all deposit save the Bank, she inveighs against public theft and private credit, and takes off three-and-a-half per cent of her happiness in pure fretting.”