The captain and Mr. Curtis fell to work upon the delicacies thus placed before them; and after an interval of silence, during which the boiled pork and et ceteras disappeared with astonishing rapidity, the latter leaning across the table, said in a low whisper, “It was a deuced lucky thing that I met my friend Styles just now; for if he hadn’t lent me this sovereign, we might have gone without dinner as well as without breakfast.”
“Be Jasus! and that’s thrue enough, Frank!” returned the gallant officer, likewise in sotto voce. “Where did ye appint to mate Misther Styles again this afternoon?”
“At a nice quiet little public that I know of—where there’s a good parlour and capital spirits,” answered Mr. Curtis.
“Ah! the thrue potheen—the rale cratur!” said the captain. “Well that’s a blissing, at all evints! And, be Jasus! I hope your frind Misther Styles will be after putting us up to do a something, as he suggisted—for, be the power-r-rs! Frank, it’s hard work looking about for the sinews of war-r-r!”
“Styles is a splendid fellow, captain,” replied Mr. Curtis, smacking his lips after his last glass of pale ale—or “palale,” as the waiter denominated it. “Why, God bless you! It was him who got up the London and Paris Balloon Conveyance Company, with Parachute Branches to Dover and Calais.”
“And how came it to fail?” demanded the gallant officer.
“Simply because it was never meant to succeed,” answered Frank, in a matter-of-fact way. “The object was to make money by showing the balloons and parachutes that were to be used in the business; and the press took up the affair quite seriously. As long as curiosity was kept alive, Styles cleared upwards of five guineas a-day by the admissions at a shilling a head. Ah! he’s a clever fellow—a deuced clever fellow, I can tell you. But it’s pretty near time we went to meet him: for, though he hasn’t any thing particular to do at present, he always pretends to be in a hurry, and never waits one minute over the hour for an appointment:—that’s the way he has got himself the character of a man of punctuality and business-habits.”
“Waiter-r!” vociferated Captain O’Blunderbuss.
“Coming, sir!” cried the functionary thus adjured: then, rushing up to the table, he said interrogatively, “Cheese, gentle-men?”
“No. What’s to pay?” demanded Curtis.