When Mr. Pat Mahony saw occasion for playing the gentleman, he certainly did come out remarkably strong in the part.  It was done in a noble, florid, glowing style, according to his private ideal of the complete fine gentleman.  Such bows, such pointing of the toes, such graceful flourishes of the three-cocked hat—­such immensely engaging smiles and wonderful by-play, such an apparition, in short, of perfect elegance-valour, and courtesy, were never seen before in the front parlour of the Phoenix.

‘Mr. Mahony, by jingo!’ ejaculated Toole, in an accent of thankfulness amounting nearly to rapture.  Nutter seemed relieved, too, and advanced to be presented to the man who, instinct told him, was to be his friend.  Cluffe, a man of fashion of the military school, eyed the elegant stranger with undisguised disgust and wonder, and Devereux with that sub-acid smile with which men will sometimes quietly relish absurdity.

Mr. Mahony, ‘discoursin’ a country neighbour outside the half-way-house at Muckafubble, or enjoying an easy tete-a-tete with Father Roach, was a very inferior person, indeed, to Patrick Mahony, Esq., the full-blown diplomatist and pink of gentility astonishing the front parlour of the Phoenix.

There, Mr. Mahony’s periods were fluent and florid, and the words chosen occasionally rather for their grandeur and melody than for their exact connexion with the context or bearing upon his meaning.  The consequence was a certain gorgeous haziness and bewilderment, which made the task of translating his harangues rather troublesome and conjectural.

Having effected the introduction, and made known the object of his visit, Nutter and he withdrew to a small chamber behind the bar, where Nutter, returning some of his bows, and having listened without deriving any very clear ideas to two consecutive addresses from his companion, took the matter in hand himself, and said he—­

’I beg, Sir, to relieve you at once from the trouble of trying to arrange this affair amicably.  I have been grossly insulted, he’s not going to apologise, and nothing but a meeting will satisfy me.  He’s a mere murderer.  I have not the faintest notion why he wants to kill me; but being reduced to this situation, I hold myself obliged, if I can, to rid the town of him finally.’

‘Shake hands, Sir,’ cried Mahony, forgetting his rhetoric in his enthusiasm; ‘be the hole in the wall, Sir, I honour you.’

CHAPTER X.

THE DEAD SECRET, SHOWING HOW THE FIREWORKER PROVED TO PUDDOCK THAT NUTTER HAD SPIED OUT THE NAKEDNESS OF THE LAND.

When Puddock, having taken a short turn or two in the air, by way of tranquillising his mind, mounted his lodging stairs, he found Lieutenant O’Flaherty, not at all more sober than he had last seen him, in the front drawing-room, which apartment was richly perfumed with powerful exhalations of rum punch.