“I have got something better for you to do than that,” said the other; “I want you to see O’Halloran.  Come along; I have a hansom here.  We shall just catch him at Atkinson’s, the book-shop, you know.”

“Very well; all right,” Brand said, briskly:  this seemed to be rather a more cheerful business than cutting one’s throat.

“He’s at his telegraph-wire all night,” Lord Evelyn said, in the hansom.  “Then he lies down for a few hours’ sleep on a sofa.  Then he goes along to his rooms in Pimlico for breakfast; but at Atkinson’s he generally stops for awhile on his way, to have his morning drink.”

“Oh, is that the sort of person?”

“Don’t make any mistake.  O’Halloran may be eccentric in his ways of living, but he is one of the most remarkable men I have ever run against.  His knowledge, his reading—­politics, philosophy, everything, in short—­the brilliancy of his talking when he gets excited, even the extraordinary variety of his personal acquaintance—­why, there is nothing going on that he does not know about.”

“But why has this Hibernian genius done nothing at all?”

“Why?  You might as well try to kindle a fire with a flash of lightning.  He has more political knowledge and more power of brilliant writing than half the editors in London put together; but he would ruin any paper in twenty-four hours.  His first object would probably be to frighten his readers out of their wits by some monstrous paradox; his next to show them what fools they had been.  I don’t know how he has been kept on so long where he is, unless it be that he deals with news only.  I believe he had to be withdrawn from the gallery of the House; he was very impatient over the prosy members and his remarks about them began to reach the Speaker’s ear too frequently.”

“I gather, then, that he is merely a clever, idle, Irish vagabond, who drinks.”

“He does not drink.  And as for his Irish name I suppose he must be Irish either by descent or birth; but he is continually abusing Ireland and the Irish.  Probably, however, he would not let anybody else do so.”

Mr. Atkinson’s book-shop in the Strand was a somewhat dingy-looking place, filled with publications mostly of an exceedingly advanced character.  Mr. Atkinson himself claimed to be a bit of a reformer; and had indeed brought himself, on one or two occasions, within reach of the law by issuing pamphlets of a somewhat too fearless aim.  On this occasion he was not in the shop; so the two friends passed through, ascended a dark little stair, and entered a room which smelled strongly of tobacco-smoke.

The solitary occupant of this chamber, to whom Brand was immediately introduced, was a man of about fifty, carelessly if not even shabbily dressed, with large masses of unkempt hair, and eyes, dark gray, deep-set, that had very markedly the look of the eyes of a lion.  The face was worn and pallid, but when lit up with excitement it was capable of much expression; and Mr. O’Halloran, when he did become excited, got very much excited indeed.  He had laid aside his pipe, and was just finishing his gin and soda-water, taken from Mr. Atkinson’s private store.