Mrs. Malone gave a sniff of concentrated scorn.
"Niver mind your blarney, Tom Moore," said she. "Where is the rint?"
"What would I be doing with it?" came from behind the curtain.
"I knows," replied Mrs. Malone, indignantly. "You would be sending flowers to some actress at the theayter over on Drury Lane, instead of paying me. Thot's what you 'd be doing, young sir."
"You 've guessed it the first time," admitted Moore, "and that is all the good it would do me. She won't look at me, Mrs. Malone."
"Small blame to her since that shows she 's a dacint, sensible colleen," replied the landlady, in tones of conviction, as her lodger drew aside the curtains of the doorway, and stepped out into the room.
Tom Moore it was, but such a different youth from the one who in Ireland had pestered the little school-mistress with his loving attentions. Trouble and privation had thinned and hollowed his jolly face; lines of worry and disappointment were crossed round his eyes. His mouth was as sweet and tender as of yore, but the impertinent nose stood forth much more sharply. He looked ten years older, but the same winning smile played around his lips, and in its light the shadows of want and hopelessness vanished from his face like fog 'neath the warming touch of sunbeams. He was only half dressed, the absence of coat, vest, and stock being concealed beneath the enveloping folds of an old brocade dressing-gown, which undoubtedly had once been a magnificent affair, but now was only too much in harmony with the surrounding squalor.
"Sweet Mistress Malone, with your eyes deep and blue,
Don't ask me for rent, for I 'm telling you true,
'T would make me a bankrupt if I should pay you,
So let the rent slide like a darling,--Now do."
As Moore extemporized he laid his hand insinuatingly upon the landlady's muscular arm, but she threw it off roughly as he finished.
"You can't plaster me, Tom Moore," she declared, loudly.