“You don't say so!” rejoined Lawless: “what is to be done? It must be stopped somehow: we had better tell him all we know about it. Thomas, leave the room.”
Thomas obeyed, giving me a look of great intelligence, the meaning of which, however, I was totally at a loss to conceive, as he went; and Lawless continued:—
“I am afraid you will hardly believe us,—it is really a most unheard-of thing,—but we have lately missed a great many of our clothes, and we have every reason to suspect (I declare I can scarcely bear to mention it) that Mildman takes them himself, fancying, of course, that, placed by his position so entirely above suspicion, he may do it with impunity. We have suspected this for some time; and lately one or two circumstances—old clothesmen having been observed leaving his study, a pawn-ticket falling out of his waistcoat pocket one day as he went out of our parlour, etc.—have put the matter beyond a doubt; but he has never gone to such an extent as this before. Mind you don't mention a word of this to Thomas, for, bad as Mildman is, one would not wish to show him up before his own servant.”
“Good gracious!” cried I, “but you are joking, it never can be really true!” Reading, however, in the solemn, not to say distressed, expression of their faces indisputable evidence of the reality of the accusation, I continued: “I had no idea such things ever could take place, and he a clergyman, too!—dreadful! but what in the world am I to do? I have not got a pair of trousers to put on. Oh! if he would but have taken anything else, even my watch instead, I should not have minded—what shall I do?”
“Why really,” replied Coleman, “it is not so easy to advise: you can't go down as you are, that's certain. Suppose you were to wrap yourself up in a blanket, and go and tell him you have found him out, and that you will call a policeman if he does not give you your clothes instantly; have it out with him fairly, and check the thing effectually once for all—eh?”
“No, that won't do,” said Lawless. “I should say, sit down quietly (how cold you must be!) and write him a civil note, saying, that you had reason to believe he had borrowed your trousers (that's the way I should put it), and that you would be very much gratified by his lending you a pair to wear to-day; and then you can stick in something about your having been always accustomed to live with people who were very particular in regard to dress, and that you are sorry you are obliged to trouble him for such a trifle; in fact, do a bit of the respectful, and then pull up short with 'obedient pupil,' etc.”
“Ay, that's the way to do it,” said Coleman, “in the shop-fellow's style, you know—much obliged for past favours, and hope for a continuance of the same—more than you do, though, Fairlegh, I should fancy; but there goes the bell—I am off,” and away he scudded, followed by Lawless humming:—
“Brian O'Lynn had no breeches to wear,
So he took an old catskin, and made him a pair.”
Here was a pretty state of things: the breakfast bell had rung, and I, who considered being too late a crime of the first magnitude, was unable even to begin dressing from the melancholy fact that every pair of trousers I possessed in the world had disappeared; while, to complete my misery, I was led to believe the delinquent who had abstracted them was no less a person than the tutor, whom I had come fully prepared to regard with feelings of the utmost respect and veneration.
However, in such a situation, thinking over my miseries was worse than useless; something must be done at once—but what? Write the note as Lawless had advised? No, it was useless to think of that; I felt I could not do it. “Ah! a bright idea!—I'll try it.” So, suiting the action to the word, I rang the bell, and then jumping into bed muffled myself up in the bedclothes.