“I must set you right upon one point, at least, Mr. Nelligan,” said Massingbred, with an easy smile. “If you be only as accurate in your knowledge of my affairs as you are with respect to my private friendships, this visit has certainly proceeded from some misconception. Your son and I were friends once upon a time. We are so no longer!”
“I never heard of this. I never knew you had quarrelled!”
“We have not, sir. We have not even met. The discourtesy he has shown me since my arrival here—his avoidance of me, too marked to be explained away—is an offence. The only misfortune is that it is one which can be practised with impunity.”
“My son asks for none such,” said Dan, fiercely. “And if your observation is meant for an insult—” He stopped suddenly, as if checked by something within, and then said, but in a voice full and measured, “I'm magistrate of this town, sir, and I come here upon information that has reached me of your intentions to commit a breach of the peace.”
“My dear Mr. Nelligan,” began Massingbred, in his most seductive of manners,—but the other had already witnessed the rupture of the only tie which bound them, the supposed friendship between Joe and Massingbred, and cared nothing for all the blandishments he could bestow,—“my dear Mr. Nelligan, you cannot, surely, suppose that a mere stranger as I am in your county—scarcely ten days here—should have been unfortunate enough to have incurred the animosity of any one.”
“I hold here a statement, sir,” said Nelligan, sternly, “which, if you please to pledge your honor to be incorrect—”
“And this is Galway!” exclaimed Massingbred,—“this glorious land of chivalrous sentiment of which we poor Englishmen have been hearing to satiety! The Paradise of Point of Honor, then, turns out a very commonplace locality, after all!”
“I 'm proud to say that our county has another reputation than its old one; not but—” and he added the words in some temper—“there are a few left would like to teach you that its character was not acquired for nothing.”
“Well, well!” sighed Jack, as he closed his eyes, and appeared as if indulging in a revery, “of all the mockeries I have lived to see unmasked, this is the worst and meanest.”
“I have not come here to listen to this, sir,” said Nelli-gan, haughtily, as he arose. “I waited upon you, intending to accept your solemn pledge, by word of honor, to commit no act hostile to the public peace. Now, sir, I shall call upon you to give me the legal guarantee for this security,—good and sufficient bail, and that within an hour!”