Chapter Ten.
In which Major McShane narrates some curious Matrimonial Speculations.
Our hero was soon fitted out with the livery of a groom, and installed as the confidential servant of Captain O’Donahue, who had lodgings on the third floor in a fashionable street. He soon became expert and useful, and, as the captain breakfasted at home, and always ordered sufficient for Joey to make another cold meal of during the day, he was at little or no expense to his master.
One morning, when Captain O’Donahue was sitting in his dressing-gown at breakfast, Joey opened the door, and announced Major McShane.
“Is it yourself, O’Donahue?” said the major, extending his hand; “and, now, what d’ye think has brought me here this fine morning? It’s to do a thing that’s rather unusual with me,—neither more nor less than to pay you the 20 pounds which you lent me a matter of three years ago, and which, I dare say, you never expected to see anything but the ghost of.”
“Why, McShane, if the truth must be told, it will be something of a resurrection when it appears before me,” replied O’Donahue; “I considered it dead and buried; and, like those who are dead and buried, it has been long forgotten.”
“Nevertheless, here it is in four notes—one, two, three, four: four times five are twenty; there’s arithmetic for you, and your money to boot, and many thanks in the bargain, by way of interest. And now, O’Donahue, where have you been, what have you been doing, what are you doing, and what do you intend to do? That’s what I call a comprehensive inquiry, and a very close one too.”
“I have been in London a month, I have done nothing, I am doing nothing, and I don’t know what I intend to do. You may take that for a comprehensive answer.”