“Yes, of course. Be quick! So there you are at last, you young puppy. Bless me! how like the squire you are.”
The squire must have been amazingly handsome, I thought, as I gazed admiringly at my comrade. Our staring made him shy, and as he blushed and touched up the stephanotis in his buttonhole, the engineer changed the subject by saying, “Talking of the squire, is it true, Dennis, what Jack tells me about the twenty pounds? Did he really forget to put it in?”
“As true as gospel,” said Dennis, and taking up the tails of his coat he waltzed round the room to the tune of
“They say some disaster
Befell the paymaster,
On my conscience, I think that the money’s not there!”
I stood out on the verandah to see them off, Dennis singing and chaffing and chattering to the last. He waved his hat to me as his friend gathered
the reins, a groom sprang up behind, and they were whirled away. The only part of the business I envied them was the drive.
It was a glorious night, despite the oppressive heat and the almost intolerable biting of mosquitoes and sandflies. In the wake of the departing trap flew a solitary beetle, making a noise exactly like a scissor-grinder at work. Soft and silent moths—some as big as small birds—went past my face, I fear to the hanging lamp behind me. Passing footfalls echoed bluntly from the wooden pavement, and in the far-away distance the bull-frogs croaked monotonously. And down below, as I looked upon the trees, I could see fireflies coming and going, like pulsations of light, amongst the leaves.
O’Brien waited on me with the utmost care and civility; served me an excellent supper with plenty of ice and cooling drinks, and taught me the use of the “swizzle stick” for mixing them. I am sure he did not omit a thing he could think of for my comfort. He had been gone for some time, and I had been writing letters, turning over the engineer’s books, and finally dozing in his chair, when I was startled by sounds from his bedroom, as if O’Brien were engaged, first in high argument, and then in deadly struggle with some intruder. I rushed to his assistance, and found him alone, stamping vehemently on the floor.
“What’s the matter?” said I.
“Matther is it? Murther’s the matther,” and he gave another vicious stamp, and then took a stride that nearly cost him his balance, and gave another. “I beg yor pardon, sorr; but it’s the cockroaches. The place swarms wid ’em. Av they’d keep peaceably below, now, but invading the master’s bedroom—that’s for ye, ye thief!” and he stamped again.