Lord Kildee was none other than the rollicking Irish student Terrence Malone. In a few moments, he had divested the captain of his coat, trousers and vest, which, with his chapeau, he rolled up in a neat bundle and hurried away to his friend Fernando Stevens. The hour was late, and Fernando had almost given up going to the ball, when Terrence bolted into his room, his cheeks aglow with excitement.
"Here, me lad, don the royal robes at once. Begorra, it's noblemen we are goin' to be to-night!"
"What does this mean, Terrence?" Fernando asked, as Malone unrolled the bundle containing the elegant uniform of a British officer.
"Divil a question need ye be askin'; put on the uniform; it will fit ye to an exactness."
In vain Fernando expostulated; his friend forced him into compliance, and, almost before he knew it, he was encased in a British uniform, and a handsome looking officer he made. Terrence then gave him a drink at his bottle to "steady his nerves," and told him that it was one of the "divil's own toimes" they would have.
Fernando, despite all his staid qualities and Puritanic instincts, loved an adventure which promised fun, and finally entered into the scheme with a zest second only to his friend. The very idea of playing a prank on the captain of a man-of-war was enough to induce him to engage in almost any enterprise. They managed to escape the house without being detected by Sukey, who was puzzling his brain over deep questions in philosophy, and hastened down the street to a carriage which Terrence engaged to take them to the mayor's.
There was a ticket of admission in the captain's vest, which Fernando used, and Lord Kildee had one for himself.
As Terrence contemplated his young friend, whom the uniform fitted as neatly as if he had grown in it, he declared that he was perfection.
Arrived at the door, Fernando, whose brain was in a whirl, found himself suddenly hurried up a flight of marble steps to the great vestibule where there was a flood of subdued light. The wine made him bold, reckless, and when he was introduced as Lieutenant Smither, of his majesty's vice admiral's flag-ship, he half believed he was that person and, assuming what he supposed to be the manner and carriage of so high an official, received the bows and smiles of the fair ladies assembled with the grace of a veteran seaman.
There were a few officers from the Xenophon present, among them a Lieutenant Matson, who was dividing his time between a very pretty girl and asking why Captain Conkerall was so late.