When they had arrived opposite the Hôtel Dieu, he stopped the carriage, dismounted, looked in at the window, and burst into a roar of laughter.
O'Hara turned from the girl, who was leaning back in a corner, her eyes open in a wide, wondering way, and confronted the stranger with a fierce yet perplexed look. But he only renewed his laughter.
'Is it at me or your sister you're laughing, sir?' O'Hara found words at length to say.
'My sister! Ha, ha! never saw her in my life before,' and he resumed his guffaw.
'Open the door,' cried O'Hara, at last thoroughly roused.
'Who's your tailor?' said the irrepressible man in the frieze coat.
The pride of the poverty-stricken Irish gentleman was touched; his shame overcame his anger, and, foolish fellow! he blushed for that of which he had no need to be ashamed.
'That's the loudest thing in vestings I know; you've got the falls of Niagara on your back, man.'
O'Hara, removing his waistcoat in a flurry of confusion, discovered that the painted side of the old canvas, the remains of some artist friend, had been, indeed, turned outwards when he had put it for a patch to his waistcoat a few days before in his blundering amateur tailor fashion.[8] Looking at it, he could not help laughing himself.
'When a man wears that pattern of waistcoat, he shouldn't forget his coat after him.'