“Is the ould gintleman a-bed?” asked Mr Murphy, in the tone of a fellow-conspirator, and speaking in a half-muted, confidential voice.
“He is,” said Dicky.
“Me respects,” said Mr Murphy, tasting the half tumbler of John Jameson. He grinned with satisfaction, and Dicky contemplated him for a moment. This was a type of the human animal he had never come across before.
Quite well he knew that, if there were a ghost of a chance, Mr Murphy would have attacked him with the ferocity of a tiger.
An atrocious villain—that was Mr Murphy in three words. Yet there was a certain humour and a certain amount of bonhomie in the man that, contrasted with his other qualities, made him, in a way, attractive.
“Put the mattress be the furthest corner from the door, Patsy,” said Mr Murphy, as though he were directing a chamber-maid. “And you may lave me the candle, for it’s afeared I am of the rats.”
“There aren’t any rats,” said Dicky, “and I’m going to leave you no candle—don’t want the house burnt down. Here—get on your mattress before I take away the light.”
Mr Murphy rather grumblingly complied.
“I’ll take this ould bit of a sack for a pilla’,” said he, rolling an old sack up and putting it under his head. “Musha! but it smells of onions; no mather, beggars can’t be chosers. Patsy, haven’t you got a blankit to cover me wid?”
“Bother the chap!” cried Mr Fanshawe, “we’ve forgot a blanket; hurry off, Patsy, and fetch one.”