Some legal proceedings are reported by the Dublin papers of September 18, 1818, as having been instituted by the histrions of Crow Street Theatre for the recovery of their salaries. McNally's swaggering pretensions to pose as an honourable man are amusingly marked. He was counsel for the lessee, Frederick W. Jones.
Mr. MacNally—Now, Sir, you suppose your profession to be a very honourable and gentlemanlike employment—equally respectable with my own as a barrister. Now, Sir, let me ask you, are you not a servant?
Mr. Gladstone—Most certainly. I consider myself the servant of Mr. Jones and the public. But there is higher authority than mine, for the Lord Chancellor of England declared, at an investigation of the affairs of Drury-lane Theatre, that all the performers were servants, and must be paid before any other creditor.
The Lord Mayor instantly ordered Mr. Gladstone his money.
The last important case in which McNally figured was that of the Wild Goose Lodge murderers at Dundalk. This case, highly tragic in its nature, has been invested with thrilling interest by the powerful pen of Carleton.
'From grave to gay' marked his course on circuit. A glimpse of the 'chaff' which followed McNally at mess is shown by Charles Phillips.
It was a common practice with the juniors to play upon his vanity by inducing him to enumerate the vast sums he made by 'Robin Hood.' The wicked process was thus. They first got him to fix the aggregate amount; and then, luring him into details, he invariably, by third nights and copyright, quintupled the original. Woe to the wight, however, luckless enough to have been detected in this waggery. He was ready with his pistol.
Phillips also describes 'Mac' as ever varying in his account of how he lost his thumbs, and that one night, tired and perplexed by repeated questioning on the point,[513] he at last exclaimed, 'I don't know how I lost them!' It seems to me that 'Mac' was too cool and cunning to trip. Phillips, as a most distinguished co-operator with the Catholic Board, was a man worth McNally's while to 'draw'; and the hoary-headed 'father,' in encouraging the juniors' chaff, probably feigned features which he did not possess. We have seen how resolutely incredulous Phillips stood when the spy's real character was first impugned. Phillips is remembered by the English bar as a very cunning man. But as regards McNally's treachery he died unconvinced. The man whose seeming simplicity he loved to chaff was of deeper acumen. The 'Metropolis,' a review of the Bar, printed in 1805, indicated among McNally's gifts—
With all he saw or learned his memory fraught
Acute perception of his neighbour's thought.
Phillips seemed to pity the awkward simplicity of his venerable friend; but it was clearly McNally's game at times to pose as a 'butt,' and Charles adds no more than the truth in saying, 'his eyes and voice pierced you through like arrows.'