Amazement so completely mastered my indignation at this insolence, that I could make no answer but by a look. This had its effect, however; and the fellow, without further delay, bustled off to make the inquiry. He returned in a few minutes with a civil message, that I could be accommodated, and having placed before me the simple meal I ordered, retired.
As I sat over my supper, I could not help feeling that unless memory played me false, the company were little like the former frequenters of this house. I remembered it of old, when Bubbleton and his brother officers came there; and when the rooms were thronged with members of both Houses of Parliament,—when peers and gentlemen of the first families were grouped about the windows and fireplaces, and the highest names of the land were heard in the din of recognition; handsome equipages and led horses stood before the doors. But now the ragged mob without was scarce a less worthy successor to the brilliant display than were the company within to the former visitants. A tone of pretentious impertinence, an air of swagger and mock defiance,—the most opposite to the polished urbanity which once prevailed,—was now conspicuous; and in their loud speech and violent gesticulation, it was easy to mark how they had degenerated from that high standard which made the Irish gentleman of his day the most polished man of Europe.
If in appearance and manner they fell far short of those my memory recalled, their conversation more markedly still displayed the long interval between them. Here, of old, were retailed the latest news of the debate,—the last brilliant thing of Grattan, or the last biting retort of Flood; here came, hot from debate, the great champions of either party to relax and recruit for fresh efforts; and in the groups that gathered around them you might learn how great genius can diffuse its influence and scatter intelligence around it,—as the Nile waters spread plenty and abundance wherever they flow: high and noble sentiments, holy aspirations and eloquent thoughts, made an atmosphere, to breathe which was to feel an altered nature. But now a vapid mixture of conceit and slang had usurped the place of these, and a tone of vulgar self-sufficiency unhappily too much in keeping with the externals of those who displayed it: the miserable contentions of different factions had replaced the bolder strife of opposite parties, and provincialism had put its stamp on everything. The nation, too, if I might trust my ears with what fell around me, had lost all memory of its once great names, and new candidates for popular favor figured in their places.
Such were some of the changes I could mark, even as I sat. But my attention was speedily drawn from them by a circumstance more nearly concerning myself. This was the appearance in the coffee-room of the gentleman who first addressed me in the street.
As he passed round the room, followed by a person whose inferiority was evident, he was recognized by most of those present, many of whom shook him warmly by the hand, and pressed him to join their parties. But this he declined, as he continued to walk slowly on, scrutinizing each face as he went. At last I saw his eyes turn towards me. It was scarcely a glance, so rapid was it, and so quickly were his looks directed to a different quarter; but I could mark that he whispered something to a person who followed, and then, after carelessly turning over a newspaper on the table, sauntered from the room. As he did so, the shaggy head of the dwarf newsvendor peeped in, and the great black eyes took a survey of the coffee-room, till finally they settled on me.
“Ah!” cried the fellow, with a strange blending of irony and compassion in his voice; “be gorra, I knew how it would be,—the major has ye!” At this a general laugh broke out from all present, and every eye was fixed on me.
Meanwhile the follower had taken his place nearly opposite me at the table, and was busily engaged examining a paper which he had taken from his pocket.
“May I ask, sir, if your name be Burke?” said he, in a low voice, across the table.
I started with amazement to hear my name pronounced where I believed myself so completely a stranger, and in my astonishment, forgot to answer.
“I was asking, sir—” repeated he.