‘An affair of honour?’ said O’Flaherty, squaring himself.  He smelt powder in everything.

‘More like an affair of dishonour,’ said Toole, buttoning his coat.  ’He’s been “kiting” all over the town.  Nutter can distrain for his rent to-morrow, and Cluffe called him outside the bar to speak with him; put that and that together, Sir.’  And home went Toole.

Sturk, indeed, had no plan, and was just then incapable of forming any.  He changed his route, not knowing why, and posted over the bridge, and a good way along the Inchicore road, and then turned about and strode back again and over the bridge, without stopping, and on towards Dublin; and suddenly the moon shone out, and he recollected how late it was growing, and so turned about and walked homeward.

As he passed by the row of houses looking across the road towards the river, from Mr. Irons’s hall-door step a well-known voice accosted him—­

’A thweet night, doctor—­the moon tho thilver bright—­the air tho thoft!’

It was little Puddock, whose hand and face were raised toward the sweet regent of the sky.

‘Mighty fine night,’ said Sturk, and he paused for a second.  It was Puddock’s way to be more than commonly friendly and polite with any man who owed him money; and Sturk, who thought, perhaps rightly, that the world of late had been looking cold and black upon him, felt, in a sort of way, thankful for the greeting and its cordial tone.

‘A night like this,’ pursued the little lieutenant, ’my dear Sir, brings us under the marble balconies of the palace of the Capulets, and sets us repeating “On such a night sat Dido on the wild seabanks”—­you remember—­“and with a willow wand, waved her love back to Carthage,”—­or places us upon the haunted platform, where buried Denmark revisits the glimpses of the moon.  My dear doctor, ’tis wonderful—­isn’t it—­how much of our enjoyment of Nature we owe to Shakespeare—­’twould be a changed world with us, doctor, if Shakespeare had not written—­’ Then there was a little pause, Sturk standing still.

‘God be wi’ ye, lieutenant,’ said he, suddenly taking his hand.  ’If there were more men like you there would be fewer broken hearts in the world.’  And away went Sturk.

CHAPTER XLIII.

SHOWING HOW CHARLES NUTTER’S BLOW DESCENDED, AND WHAT PART THE SILVER SPECTACLES BORE IN THE CRISIS.

In the morning the distress and keepers were in Sturk’s house.

We must not be too hard upon Nutter.  ’Tis a fearful affair, and no child’s play, this battle of life.  Sturk had assailed him like a beast of prey; not Nutter, to be sure, only Lord Castlemallard’s agent.  Of that functionary his wolfish instinct craved the flesh, bones, and blood.  Sturk had no other way to live and grow fat.  Nutter or he must go down.  The little fellow saw his great red maw and rabid fangs at his throat.  If he let him off, he would devour him, and lie in his bed, with his cap on, and his caudles and cordials all round, as the wolf did by Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmamma; and with the weapon which had come to hand—­a heavy one too,—­he was going, with Heaven’s help, to deal him a brainblow.