This was serious.
His rupture with Muldoon, senior, had left him but poorly provided with linen and lucre; and a campaign of assault upon the barricades of prejudice and suspicion, which was involved in the anxious solicitude of the man seeking employment, demanded every possible accessory of personal appearance and a reasonably equipped commissariat.
Anxious, therefore, to subject his meager resources to the least strain possible, Dennis at last succeeded in securing, in one of the more pretentious stores on Baxter Street, a contrivance for the relief of penury and threadbare gentility known at that time by the name of “dickey.”
This convenience consisted in a series of three shirt bosoms made of paper to resemble the luxury of linen.
When the surface first exposed showed symptoms of soil or wear, its removal revealed a fresh bosom directly under.
Adjusted to his waistcoat, it was almost impossible to detect the agreeable sham, which, under favorable auspices, could be made to last for a week.
Thus equipped, Dennis proceeded to his hotel, where, after according the cheerful salutation of the industrious barkeeper the acknowledgment of a lively Irish nod, in which there was both fellowship and refusal, he proceeded to the rear, to banquet upon whatever offered the most for his money.
During the two days succeeding, Dennis, true to the apprehensive calculation natural to the unemployed, did not propose to rest upon the assurances of his Irish friend in the publishing house.
Anything untoward might occur.
In fact, he was familiar with this seamy side of Providence.