The plot thickened. Con Brickley's daughter was my late kitchenmaid.
Jer Keohane smiled tolerantly.
"Ah! That was a thing o' nothing!"
"Nothing!" said Mr. Mooney, with the roar of a tornado, "do you call an impudent proposal of marriage to a respectable man's daughter nothing! That's English manners, I suppose!"
"I was goin' home one Sunday," said Jer Keohane, conversationally to the Bench, "and I met the gerr'l and her mother. I spoke to the gerr'l in a friendly way, and asked her why wasn't she gettin' marrid, and she commenced to peg stones at me and dhrew several blows of an umbrella on me. I had only three bottles o' porther taken. There now was the whole of it."
Mrs. Brickley, from under the gallery, groaned heavily and ironically.
I found it difficult to connect these coquetries with my impressions of my late kitchenmaid, a furtive and touzled being, who, in conjunction with a pail and scrubbing brush, had been wont to melt round corners and into doorways at my approach.
"Are we trying a breach of promise case?" interpolated Flurry, "if so, we ought to have the plaintiff in."
"My purpose, sir," said Mr. Mooney, in a manner discouraging to levity, "is to show that my clients have received annoyance and contempt from this man and his sister such as no parents would submit to."
A hand came forth from under the gallery and plucked at Mr. Mooney's coat. A red monkey face appeared out of the darkness, and there was a hoarse whisper whose purport I could not gather. Con Brickley, the defendant, was giving instructions to his lawyer.