“Phew!” whistled the waiter. “Be the mortial the fat’s in the fire now, anyhow.”
Here was a situation! My misgivings realized. My portmanteau gone, perhaps never to return. How could I face the owner? I never gave up the hope of meeting her and of restoring the property.
“Who slept in number five?” I asked.
“Number five is two faymales.”
“When did they leave?”
“They left for Father Rooney’s first Mass beyant at Annamoe.”
“Where were they going to?”
“To Lake Dan and Luggelaw.”
I proceeded to hold a council of war—consisting of the landlord, the waiter, the boots, two or three stable-boys, and the surplus population of the village—when it was determined to send a boy on a fast-trotting pony in pursuit of the fugitive luggage.
I was two inches on a mild Havana after such a breakfast as the tourist alone can dispose of, when the waiter burst into the summer-house situated over the lake, whither we had repaired to enjoy the “witching weed.”