“She’s a very elegant lady, Tim.”
“Elegant enough, but, as tough as shoe-leather.”
By degrees, however, the fair Circe interested him, and when the others were engaged in listening with rapt attention to the major’s oft-repeated story commencing, “When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” Tibie Beamish, eyes plunged into those of the Tipperary farmer, would hang upon his accents as he detailed his own “cuteness” in the purchase of a drove of heifers at the great fair of Ballinasloe, or how he palmed off a spavined pony upon a neighboring but less wide-awake grazier.
If a woman wants to win a man, let her listen to him, if he be fond of narrating his personal experiences; and what man does not revel in ego?”
“She is a nice little girl, Mary, and is not above learning a trifle. I’ll be bail she could go into Ballinasloe fair next October and finger a baste as well as that villyan Phil Dempsey, from the knowledge I give her.”
The spell was working.
Christmas day came, bright, crisp, and joyous. Snow had fallen for the previous few days, and was now hard and shining in the streets, rendering walking somewhat hazardous and sliding almost unavoidable.
Colonel and Mrs. Bowdler arrived very early at Merrion Street—in fact, just in time for luncheon—and by a strange coincidence Major Beamish and his daughter dropped in almost at the same moment. A walk was proposed, but abandoned, and the party, broken up into two camps, sat chatting around the fires in the back and front drawing-rooms.
Everybody is hungry on Christmas day. Everybody thinks of the boiled turkey, Limerick ham, roast beef, plum-pudding, and mince-pies. Why, then, should the guests of Mickey Casey prove an exception to the rule?