"Leaving your baggage on board," I added.
"Yis, sor—but that's no differ—shure the duds was all new, and I care little for thim." His eagerness increased as we neared his home, down on the wharf, and above his junk-store and saloon. So our conferences came in short sentences.
"I will get your baggage back," I began.
"Can you do that, sor?"
"Certainly. I will see the steamship company." He sighed comfortably.
"Thank you, sor. 'Twill be a favor to me. But, whishper! When we reaches my place, I will shtand outside forninst the corner. Thin, do you go inside and exshplain to me wife and prepare her for me return, do ye see?"
I quite understood, and said so. As we turned our last corner, we caught the soft caress of a gentle, belated sea-breeze, and I felt my heart uplift and my brain clear.
"Go on, now, you," was his parting instruction. "I will wait here till ye come back and tell me."
You may be sure I made my way to the royal mansion as quickly as the temperature would permit. In response to my knock at the inner door, it was opened by Mrs. O'Connor herself. She greeted me with quiet, simple courtesy and, as soon as I was seated and she had remarked upon the heat of the day (her remarks fitting exactly into my own opinion of the weather) she asked, before I had time to even set the wheels of my diplomacy in motion:
"Is Michael on the corner, sor?"