The ladies now all stared; but Furlong advanced a vehement assurance, in answer to their looks of wonder, that he had taken some very fine salmon indeed.
The girls could not suppress their laughter; and O'Grady, casting a look of mingled rage and contempt on the fisherman, merely uttered the ejaculation, "Oh, Moses!" and threw himself back in his chair; but starting up a moment after, he rang the bell violently. "What do you want, my dear?" said his poor wife, venturing to lift her eyes, and speaking in the humblest tone—"what do you want?"
"Some broiled bones!" said O'Grady, very much like an ogre; "I want something to settle my stomach after what I've heard, for, by the powers of ipecacuanha, 't is enough to make a horse sick—sick, by the powers!—shivering all over like a dog in a wet sack. I must have broiled bones and hot punch!"
The servant entered, and O'Grady swore at him for not coming sooner, though he was really expeditious in his answer to the bell.
"Confound your lazy bones; you're never in time."
"'Deed, sir; I came the minit I heerd the bell."
"Hold your tongue!—who bid you talk? The devil fly away with you!—and you'll never go fast till he does. Make haste now—go to the cook——"
"Yes, sir."
"Curse you! can't you wait till you get your message? Go to the devil with you!—get some broiled bones—hot water and tumblers—don't forget the whisky—and pepper them well. Mind, hot—everything hot—screeching hot. Be off, now, and make haste—mind, make haste!"
"Yes, sir," said the servant, whipping out of the room with celerity, and thanking Heaven when he had the door between him and his savage master. When he got to the kitchen, he told the cook to make haste, if ever she made haste in her life, "for there's owld Danger up-stairs in the divil's temper, God bless us!" said Mick.