“To be sure I did, sir,” responded the girl, not perceiving the alarm which she had created in the minds of the gentlemen, but rather attributing their excited ejaculations to an approval of her conduct: “for I thinks to myself, thinks I, ‘Now, my fine feller, you’ll believe that there’s no Smiths or Browns here; and you won’t be quite so positive another time.’”
“Well—and what did the man say?” demanded Frank Curtis, darting another uneasy glance at his friend.
“He only said ‘Oh!’ and went away,” returned the girl; “and that’s what kept me a little in going——”
“What sort of a looking fellow was he?” asked Curtis.
“He warn’t a gentleman, sir—and he smelt horrible of drink,” said the domestic.
“But what should you take him for?” demanded Frank, impatiently.
“A thief, sir,” was the ingenuous response.
“Be Jasus! and thin it’s a shiriff’s——” ejaculated Captain O’Blunderbuss, starting in his chair: but, instantly stopping short ere he completed the sentence, he added in a few moments and in a less excited tone, “You may go down stairs, my dear; and if any one comes and asks for Misther Frank Cur-r-tis or Captain O’Bluntherbuss, ye must deny us, mind—or I’ll be afther skinning ye alive!”
“Lor, sir!” cried the girl; and, horrified by the dreadful threat, she hastened from the room as if the individual who had uttered the menace were preparing to carry it into execution.
For some few minutes after she had taken her departure, Captain O’Blunderbuss and Mr. Curtis sate eyeing each other in silence,—the same idea evidently occupying both—and both fearful to express it; as if to give utterance to the thought were positively to meet the dreaded misfortune half-way.