This terrified Mistress O'Calligan; and she said so.
Mr. Jinks explained that he was angry,—in a towering rage; and added, that nothing but the presence of Mistress O'Calligan had prevented him from exterminating O'Brallaghan, who was a wretched creature, beneath the contempt, etc.
Whereto the lady replied, Really, to think it; but that these feelings was wrong; and she were only too happy if her presence had prevented bloodshed. She thought that Mr. Jinks was flattering her—with more of the same description.
Thus commenced this interview, which the loving and flattered Mistress O'Calligan wrongly supposed to be intended as one of courtship, on the part of Mr. Jinks. She was greatly mistaken. If ever proceeding was calm, deliberate, and prompted by revengeful and diabolical intentions, the proceeding of Mr. Jinks, on the present occasion, was of that description.
But none of this appeared upon the countenance of our friend. Mr. Jinks was himself—he was gallant, impressive; and warming with the rum, entered into details of his private feelings.
He had ever admired and venerated—he said—the character of the beautiful and fascinating Judith O'Calligan, who had alone, and by her unassisted merits, removed from his character that tendency toward contempt and undervaluation of women, which, he was mortified to say, he had been induced to feel from an early disappointment in love.
Mistress O'Calligan here looked very much flurried, and ejaculated,
Lor!
Mr. Jinks proceeded to say, that the lady need not feel any concern for him now; that the early disappointment spoken of, had, it was true, cast a shadow on his life, which, he imagined, nothing but the gory blood of his successful rival could remove; that still he, Mr. Jinks, had had the rare, good fortune of meeting with a divine charmer who caused him to forget his past sorrows, and again indulge in hopes of domestic felicity and paternal happiness by the larean altars of a happy home. That the visions of romance had never pictured such a person; that the lady whom he spoke of, was well known to the lady whom he addressed; and, indeed, to be more explicit, was not ten thousand miles from them at the moment in question.
This was so very broad, that the "lady" in question blushed the color of the red bricks in her fire-place, and declared that Mr. Jinks was the dreadfulest creature, and he need'nt expect to persuade her that he liked her—no, he need'nt.
Mr. Jinks repelled the accusation of being a dreadful creature, and said, that however terrifying his name might be to his enemies among the men, that no woman had ever yet had cause to be afraid of him, or to complain of him.