"The cowardly scoundthrel!" roared Costigan. "He's frightened, already going to swear the peace against me."
"I'll have nothing to do with the fighting, mark that," the tragedian doggedly said, "and I wish I'd not seen Tatham neither, nor that bit of—"
"Hold your tongue, Bob Acres. It's my belief ye're no better than a coward," said Captain Costigan, quoting Sir Lucius O'Trigger, which character he had performed with credit, both off and on the stage, and after some more parley between the couple they separated in not very good humor.
Their colloquy has been here condensed, as the reader knows the main point upon which it turned. But the latter will now see how it is impossible to give a correct account of the letter which the captain wrote to Major Pendennis, as it was never opened at all by that gentleman.
When Miss Costigan came home from rehearsal, which she did in the company of the faithful Mr. Bows, she found her father pacing up and down their apartment in a great state of agitation, and in the midst of a powerful odor of spirits-and-water, which, as it appeared, had not succeeded in pacifying his disordered mind. The Pendennis papers were on the table surrounding the empty goblets and now useless teaspoon which had served to hold and mix the captain's liquor and his friend's. As Emily entered he seized her in his arms, and cried out "Prepare yourself me child, me blessed child," in a voice of agony, and with eyes brimful of tears.
"Ye're tipsy again, papa," Miss Fotheringay said, pushing back her sire. "Ye promised me ye wouldn't take spirits before dinner."
"It's to forget me sorrows, me poor girl, that I've taken just a drop," cried the bereaved father—"it's to drown me care that I drain the bowl."
"Your care takes a deal of drowning, captain dear," said Bows, mimicking his friend's accent; "what has happened? Has the soft-spoken gentleman in the wig been vexing you?"
"The oily miscreant! I'll have his blood!" roared Cos. Miss Milly, it must be premised, had fled to her room out of his embrace, and was taking off her bonnet and shawl there.
"I thought he meant mischief. He was so uncommon civil," the other said. "What has he come to say?"