"Be the power-rs! and how are ye, my hearty old cock?" was the polite salutation of the gallant gentleman, as, advancing close up to the knight, he grasped his hand and shook it with as much energy as if he were a policeman carrying off a starving mendicant to the station-house for the heinous crime of begging.
"Thank you, Captain—I—I'm pretty well," responded Sir Christopher.
"Well, that's a blessing, be Jasus!" cried the Captain, coolly taking a seat. "Is it claret that you're after dhrinking, Sir-r Christopher?" he demanded, taking up the bottle and holding it between his eyes and the lamp. "Iligant stuff in its way—but not my lush. Have ye no potheen in the house, Sir Christopher-r?"
"Potheen?" repeated the knight, not understanding the name nor half liking the intrusion.
"Is it you, Sir-r Christopher, that don't know what rale Irish potheen is?" cried the Captain. "Why, there's niver a child in ould Ir-reland that can't spell potheen. Whiskey, Sir Christopher—whiskey! But I'll save ye the throuble of ringing for it yourself:"—and, with these words, Captain O'Blunderbuss applied his hand most vigorously to the bell-pull.
The footman answered the summons.
"Your masther says, sirrah," exclaimed the Captain, "that ye're to bring up a bottle of the best Irish whiskey—rale potheen—with a tumbler, a spoon, a lemon, hot water, and sugar and look shar-rp about it, too!"
The domestic retired, and Sir Christopher stared in amazement at the Captain; for the worthy knight was so astounded by the free and easy manners of his visitor, that he was not quite certain whether he, Sir Christopher Blunt, was actually in his own house at the moment, or whether he was in some public coffee-room where every one had a right to order the waiter about as he chose.
"I hope you're not offinded with me, Sir Christopher-r, by making myself at home?" said the Captain: "but it isn't me that's the boy to stand on any ceremony."
The knight thought that his visitor could never have said a truer thing in his life.