'Well?' said Devereux, by this time recovering breath, as the little doctor, looking very red and glum, strutted up to him along the shady pavement.
'Well? well?—oh, ay, very well, to be sure. I'd like to know what the plague we're to do now,' grumbled Toole.
'Your precious armour-bearer refuses to act then?' asked Devereux.
'To be sure he does. He sees you walking down the street, ready to die o' laughing—at nothing, by Jove!' swore Toole, in deep disgust; 'and—and—och! hang it! it's all a confounded pack o' nonsense. Sir, if you could not keep grave for five minutes, you ought not to have come at all. But what need I care? It's Nutter's affair, not mine.'
'And well for him we failed. Did you ever see such a fish? He'd have shot himself or Nutter, to a certainty. But there's a chance yet: we forgot the Nightingale Club; they're still in the Phœnix.'
'Pooh, Sir! they're all tailors and green-grocers,' said Toole, in high dudgeon.
'There are two or three good names among them, however,' answered Devereux; and by this time they were on the threshold of the Phœnix.
'Larry,' he cried to the waiter, 'the Nightingale Club is there, is it not?' glancing at the great back parlour door.
'Be the powers! Captain, you may say that,' said Larry, with a wink, and a grin of exquisite glee.
'See, Larry,' said Toole, with importance, 'we're a little serious now; so just say if there's any of the gentlemen there; you—you understand, now; quite steady? D'ye see me?'