Worcester, reddening with indignation, said, "I must take the liberty of acquainting you, Fitzgerald, that the lady you call Harriette I consider as my wife; and, when I assure you that you will wound and offend me if ever you treat her with less respect than you would show to the Marchioness of Worcester, I am sure you will desist from the familiarity of calling her by her christian name."
Fitzgerald good-naturedly assured him he had spoken with his usual thoughtlessness.
Worcester now inquired who had been making so free with us.
"Why that stupid old Doctor Tierney is the man," answered Fitzgerald.
Worcester said he should call on him to desire he would hold his tongue.
"And," interrupted Fitzgerald, "confine his attention to his draughts and pills."
Worcester asked what sort of a man Tierney was, and if at all like a gentleman.
Fitzgerald did not recollect to have seen him.
I assured them I had known him of old, and that he attended me when I lived on the Marine Parade. He was a pedantic, disagreeable, affected fool, who visited his patients in leather breeches and topped boots. He had formerly made sentimental love to my sister Amy when she came over from France. She passed herself off on the amorous doctor, comme une grande vertu, on purpose to laugh at him. As to his vulgar wife, she was ugly and unattractive enough to disgust a man with the whole fair sex, since such unfair things formed part of it.