“I knew you would,” said Jimmy. “It’s a good heart you have in you, Patsy Devlin, and a feeling for them that’s in distress. But the porter’s finished. Will I draw you another jug of the same, or will you try the whisky for a change?”
Patsy indicated the whisky bottle with his thumb. He remained lost in deep thought while the cork was drawn and a considerable quantity of the spirit poured into the tumbler before him. Indeed, so complete was his abstraction that the glass might have been absolutely filled with undiluted whisky if Jimmy had not, of his own accord, stayed the flow of it.
“I’m collecting the town and the neighbourhood,” said Patsy, “for the sports, and there’s no reason that I can see why I shouldn’t call on his lordship to-morrow and ask for a subscription.”
“You might.”
“And in the course of conversation I could draw down about the doctor and the young lady and give him the word.”
“Take care now would she be beforehand with you, if so be you were a bit late in going.”
“Let you see to that,” said Patsy.
“I might try,” said Jimmy; “but she’s that headstrong and determined it’s hard to stop her once she takes the notion into her head.”
“Be damn!” said Patsy, “but however you manage you’ll have to stop her. The old earl doesn’t have his breakfast took till near ten o’clock, and if I was to try to see him before half-past ten, he’d eat the face off me.”