‘Not exactly,’ said Mr. Kendal, drily.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Kendal,’ said Ulick, who had apparently only just resumed the use of speech; ‘don’t know what I may have done when you collared me, but I’d no more notion of its being you than the Lord Lieutenant.’
‘And pray what took you there?’ asked Mr. Kendal. ‘The surprise was quite as great to me.’
‘Why,’ said Ulick, ‘one of the little lads of my Sunday class gave me a hint the other day that those brutes meant to have a pretty go to-night, and that Jackson was getting up a figure of the Nabob to break their spite upon. So I told my little fellow to give a hint to a few more of the right sort, and we’d go up together and not let the rascals have their own way.’
‘Upon my word, I wonder what the Vicar will say to the use you make of his Sunday-school. Pretty work for his model teacher.’
‘What better could the boys be taught than to fight for the good cause? Why, no one is a scratch the worse for it. And do you think we could sit by and see our best friend used worse than a dog?’
‘Why not give notice to the police?’
‘And would you have me hinder a fight?’ cried Ulick, in the most Irish of all his voices.
‘Oh! very well, if you like—only there will be a run on the bank to-morrow.’
‘What has Ulick been doing, Sophy?’ asked Maurice.