“I’ve news for ye, Matilda,” exclaimed Casey one evening as he took his seat at the dinner-table. “I’ve news for ye, pet. I defended old Colonel Bowdler in a case in which a servant sued him for wages, and got him off at half-price. He’s on half-pay, lives with his wife in Stephen’s Green, and is a tip-topper, mixing with the lord-lieutenant’s household as if they were his own.”
“Well, and what is that to me?” exclaimed Miss Casey with considerable asperity.
“This, me darling: he was so pleased at the way I got him out on half-pay—ha! ha! ha!—that he and his wife—wife, mind ye—are coming to call on you to-morrow.”
Mrs. Casey was never taken into account, Matilda being the central figure.
“Pshaw! I wonder you can be such a fool, papa. It’s the old story,” retorted his daughter. “This colonel will come here, eat our dinners, drink our wine, and perhaps drop his wife’s card without her knowledge, as Mr. Neligan did—as we found out to our mortification when we went to return a visit that was never paid, and were politely told by Mrs. Neligan that her husband had never even mentioned our names to her.”
“Never fear, Matilda. We’re in the right box this time. They’ll be here to-morrow, you may depend upon it.”
Casey had his own good reasons for believing that the colonel would bide tryste—of which more anon. The morrow came, and with it Colonel and Mrs. Bowdler.
The colonel was a chatty, elderly gentleman of imposing aspect and dyed hair; his wife a tall, gaunt female, with a vulture-like appearance, and a sort of sergeant-major-in-petticoats look—the outcome of many a hard-fought campaign. The colonel had sketched Casey and Casey’s social desires, and Mrs. Bowdler, like the shrewd veteran that she was, took in the situation at a glance.
The flutter of excitement at 190 Merrion Street was intense when the thundering knock came to the door, accompanied by a crashing pull at the bell.
“Be awfully civil to these people, Jemima,” whispered the colonel as he entered, “and we can forage here three times a week. Promise them the moon.”