'In bed! When?'
'Whilst you turned your head, while I was tying the handkerchief over my face. Within the room, look, he is snug.'
And there he was in bed certainly, and his clothes on the chest.
A knock, a loud knock at the door.
'St. Dennis himself!—Stay, till I unbar the door,' said the woman; and, making a great difficulty, she let him in, groaning, and saying—
'We was all done up for the night, PLASE your honour, and myself with the toothache, very bad—And the lodger, that's going to take an egg only, before he'd go into his bed. My man's in it, and asleep long ago.'
With a magisterial air, though with a look of blank disappointment, Mr. Dennis Garraghty walked on, looked into THE ROOM, saw the good man of the house asleep, heard him snore, and then, returning, asked Lord Colambre 'who he was, and what brought him there?'
Our hero said he was from England, and a traveller; and now, bolder grown as a geologist, he talked of his specimens, and his hopes of finding a mine in the neighbouring mountains; then adopting, as well as he could, the servile tone and abject manner in which he found Mr. Dennis was to be addressed, 'he hoped he might get encouragement from the gentleman at the head of the estate.'
'To bore, is it?—Well, don't BORE me about it. I can't give you any answer now, my good friend; I'm engaged.'
Out he strutted. 'Stick to him up the town, if you have a mind to get your answer,' whispered the woman. Lord Colambre followed, for he wished to see the end of this scene.