When O'Grady gruffly broke in with, "You'd better ask him, does he love teetotum."
"I thought you could recommend me the best establishment in the metropolis, Mr. Furlong, for buying shuttlecocks," continued the lady, unmindful of the interruption.
"You had better ask him where you can get mouse-traps," growled O'Grady.
Mrs. O'Grady was silent, and O'Grady, whose rage had now assumed its absurd form of tagging changes, continued, increasing his growl, like a crescendo on the double-bass, as he proceeded:—"You'd better ask, I think—mouse-traps—steel-traps—clap-traps—rat-traps—rattle-traps— rattle-snakes!"
Furlong stared, Mrs. O'Grady was silent, and the Misses O'Grady cast fearful sidelong glances at "Pa," whose strange irritation always bespoke his not being in what good people call a "sweet state of mind;" he laid hold of a tea-spoon, and began beating a tattoo on the mantel-piece to a low smothered whistle of some very obscure tune, which was suddenly stopped to say to Furlong, very abruptly—
"So Egan diddled you?"
"Why, he certainly, as I conceive, pwactised, or I might say, in short—he—a—in fact——"
"Oh, yes," said O'Grady, cutting short Furlong's humming and hawing; "oh, yes, I know—diddled you."
Bang went the spoon again, keeping time with another string of nonsense. "Diddled you—diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon—who was there?"
"A Mister Dawson."