“But you don’t know them!” exclaimed Paddy, whose face at the same time expressed the greatest relish at the episode.
“I’ve been introduced,” was the calm reply. “Fletcher introduced me in Hill Street a week ago.”
“Whatever did they think of you?” asked Eileen, unable to resist smiling.
“Oh, we had a ripping time. They’re awfully jolly girls, and they had that little imp Basil with them. He amused himself trying to throw everything he could get at out of the window as we went along. But touching this blouse,” with a sudden change of voice, “why don’t you ask my advice? You haven’t either of you a grain of taste compared to mine.”
“Yours!” exclaimed Paddy scornfully, “and there you sit with emerald green in your stockings, a yellow waistcoat, and a terra cotta tie.”
“What’s the matter with my stockings?” surveying his fine pair of legs with an air of pride. “That’s the O’Hara tartan; I’m very proud of it. You’re not supposed to look at me all at once. You should enjoy the stockings first, and then gradually work up to the waistcoat, and afterward to the tie.”
“Get thoroughly seasoned and strengthened before reaching the face, I suppose you mean!” said Paddy, for which a well-aimed cushion brought her rippling red-brown hair half-way down her back.
Not that Jack had any occasion to feel insulted, because after twenty-four years’ acquaintance with a looking glass, it was hardly likely he could be totally oblivious to the fact that Nature had been almost prodigal to him in her good gifts. One might go far to find a more sunny pair of blue eyes, a brighter smile, or a more handsome specimen of manhood generally. And to this was added a rare fineness of disposition, so full of sincerity and sweetness, that there was no room for anything small at all, not even the personal vanity that one would have felt obliged to forgive him. But, then, as a matter of fact, every one forgave Jack anything, and there was scarcely a house within a radius of twelve miles where he did not come in and out just as he pleased, finding an unfailing welcome when he entered, and leaving the same regret when he left. Yet he did things that would not have been suffered, by one in a thousand, in anyone else. He shot over every one’s moors and covers uninvited, he fished every one’s stream, he sailed every one’s yacht, and rode most people’s horses. He was, in fact, an arrant poacher, and yet neither gamekeeper nor owner could withstand his witty sallies, nor the laughter in his blue eyes when he was caught, and the young sinner himself used to say that though he was a poor clergyman’s son with scarcely a penny to his name, he had some of the finest shooting and fishing in Ireland, and lived a life a prince might envy. Of course he ought to have been worrying about his future, and what would eventually become of him, but he was far too thoroughly Irish to do anything so foolish. “What’s the use of worrying yet!” he would say. “Can’t a fellow have a good time in peace, while he has the chance! I’ll start worrying presently—if I don’t forget”; then he would probably give his last sixpence to a beggar, and immediately afterward go into a shop to buy something for Aunt Jane that he thought would please her; and when he discovered, with surprise, that he was unable to pay for it, he would get the shopkeeper to put it down to his father and promise to call in another day with the money. But that would generally be the very last he would remember of it, and two or three months later the Rev. Patrick O’Hara would wonder when and why he had bought that copy of “The Eternal City,” or that work-basket with red lining. It was no use asking Jack, because he had always forgotten; and though he would immediately empty his pockets into his father’s lap, so to speak, there was never enough in them to make it worth while. It was quite the exception for Jack ever to remember anything. If he rowed across to Warrenpoint to buy the sausages for Sunday’s breakfast, he would be quite as likely as not to return without them; and if he took a note, it was a hundred to one it came back in his pocket unopened, and remained there several days.
“Now I wonder what I came across for, Pat!” was a usual remark to the old boatman, when on the point of rowing himself back again.
“Faith! Ye’ve a head like a sieve, Mr Jack,” Pat would reply. “Was it they sausages agen? or maybe something at the grocers? or some shoe laces for ’is riverence?”