But honest Father Roach was confoundedly put out by the performance.  He sat with his blue double chin buried in his breast, his mouth pursed up tightly, a red scowl all over his face, his quick, little, angry, suspicious eyes peeping cornerwise, now this way, now that, not knowing how to take what seemed to him like a deliberate conspiracy to roast him for the entertainment of the company, who followed the concluding verse with a universal roaring chorus, which went off into a storm of laughter, in which Father Roach made an absurd attempt to join.  But it was only a gunpowder glare, swallowed in an instant in darkness, and down came the black portcullis of his scowl with a chop, while clearing his voice, and directing his red face and vicious little eyes straight on simple Dan Loftus he said, rising very erect and square from an unusually ceremonious bow—­

’I don’t know, Mr. Loftus, exactly what you mean by a “ring-goat in a Spanish dress"’ (the priest had just smuggled over a wonderful bit of ecclesiastical toggery from Salamanca):  ’and—­a—­person wearing patches, you said of—­of—­patches of concupiscence, I think.’ (Father Roach’s housekeeper unfortunately wore patches, though, it is right to add, she was altogether virtuous, and by no means young); ’but I’m bound to suppose, by the amusement our friends seem to derive from it, Sir, that a ring-goat, whatever it means, is a good joke, as well as a good-natured one.’

‘But, by your leave, Sir,’ emphatically interposed Puddock, on whose ear the ecclesiastic’s blunder grated like a discord, ’Mr. Loftus sang nothing about a goat, though kid is not a bad thing:  he said, “ringos,” meaning, I conclude, eringoeous, a delicious preserve or confection.  Have you never eaten them, either preserved or candied—­a—­why I—­a—­I happen to have a receipt—­a—­and if you permit me, Sir—­a capital receipt.  When I was a boy, I made some once at home, Sir; and, by Jupiter, my brother, Sam, eat of them till he was quite sick—­I remember, so sick, by Jupiter, my poor mother and old Dorcas had to sit up all night with him—­a—­and—­I was going to say, if you will allow me, Sir, I shall be very happy to send the receipt to your housekeeper.’

‘You’ll not like it, Sir,’ said Devereux, mischievously:  ’but there really is a capital one—­quite of another kind—­a lenten dish—­fish, you know, Puddock—­the one you described yesterday; but Mr. Loftus has, I think, a still better way.’

‘Have you, Sir?’ asked Puddock, who had a keen appetite for knowledge.

‘I don’t know, Captain Puddock,’ murmured Loftus, bewildered.

‘What is it?’ remarked his reverence, shortly.

‘A roast roach,’ answered Puddock, looking quite innocently in that theologian’s fiery face.

‘Thank you,’ said Father Roach, with an expression of countenance which polite little Puddock did not in the least understand.

‘And how do you roast him—­we know Loftus’s receipt,’ persisted Devereux, with remarkable cruelty.