So these gentlemen met on the terms I’ve described:  and Nutter’s antipathy also, had waxed stronger and fiercer.  And indeed, since Dangerfield’s arrival, and Sturk’s undisguised endeavours to ingratiate himself with Lord Castlemallard, and push him from his stool, they had by consent ceased to speak to one another.  When Sturk met Nutter, he, being of superior stature, looked over his head at distant objects:  and when Nutter encountered Sturk, the little gentleman’s dark face grew instantaneously darker—­first a shade—­then another shadow—­then the blackness of thunder overspread it; and not only did he speak not a word to Sturk, but seldom opened his lips, while that gentleman remained in the room.

On the other hand, if some feuds grew blacker and fiercer by time, there were others which were Christianly condoned; foremost among which was the mortal quarrel between Nutter and O’Flaherty.  On the evening of their memorable meeting on the Fifteen Acres, Puddock dined out, and O’Flaherty was too much exhausted to take any steps toward a better understanding.  But on the night following, when the club had their grand supper in King William’s parlour, it was arranged with Nutter that a gentlemanlike reconciliation was to take place; and accordingly, about nine o’clock, at which time Nutter’s arrival was expected, Puddock, with the pomp and gravity becoming such an occasion, accompanied by O’Flaherty, big with his speech, entered the spacious parlour.

When they came in there was a chorus of laughter ringing round, with a clapping of hands, and a Babel of hilarious applause; and Tom Toole was seen in the centre, sitting upon the floor, hugging his knees, with his drawn sword under his arm, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, and a contortion so unspeakably ludicrous upon his queer little face, as was very near causing little Puddock to explode in an unseemly burst of laughter.

Devereux, sitting near the door, luckily saw them as they entered, and announced them in a loud tone—­’Lieutenant Puddock, gentlemen, and Lieutenant Fireworker O’Flaherty.’  For though Gipsy Devereux loved a bit of mischief, he did not relish it when quite so serious, as the Galwegian Fireworker was likely to make any sort of trifling on a point so tender as his recent hostilities on the Fifteen Acres.

Toole bounded to his feet in an instant, adjusting his wig and eyeing the new comers with intense but uneasy solemnity, which produced some suppressed merriment among the company.

It was well for the serenity of the village that O’Flaherty was about to make a little speech—­a situation which usually deprived him of half his wits.  Still with the suspicion of conscious weakness, he read something affecting himself in the general buzz and countenance of the assembly; and said to Devereux, on purpose loud enough for Toole to hear—­’Ensign Puddock and myself would be proud to know what was the divarting tom-foolery going on about the floor, and for which we arrived unfortunately a little too leet?’