“Is it Dr. O’Grady? Well, now, never a nicer gentleman there is about the place, nor one that’s more thought of, or better liked than Dr. O’Grady. It’s him that does be taking his dinner up at the Castle with the old lord and attending to his duties to the poor the same as if he was one of themselves. Many’s the time I’ve said to him: ‘Dr O’Grady,’ says I, ‘if anything was to take you away out of Clonmore, and I don’t deny but what you ought to be in a less backward place, but if ever—— ’”
“Will you be so good as to tell me where he lives?” said Miss Blow.
Patsy Devlin interposed at this point of the conversation with an air of contempt for Jimmy O’Loughlin.
“Can’t you stop your talking,” he said, “and tell the lady where the doctor lives?”
Jimmy cast a venomous glance at him.
“I will tell your ladyship to be sure. Why not? But it will be of no use for you to go to call on him to-day. Patsy Devlin here is after telling me this minute that he’s not at home.”
Miss Blow turned to Patsy.
“Do you know,” she asked, “when he’s likely to be back?”
“I do not, my lady. But I’d say it wouldn’t be for a couple of days anyway.”
“A couple of days! Where has he gone to?”