Those who please to consult old domestic receipt-books of the last century, will find the whole process very exactly described therein.

‘Be the powers, Sorr, that was the stuff!’ said O’Flaherty, discussing the composition afterwards, with an awful shake of his head; ’my chops wor blazing before you could count twenty.’

It was martyrdom; but anything was better than the incapacity which threatened, and certainly, by the end of five minutes, his head was something better.  In this satisfactory condition—­Jerome being in the back garden brushing his regimentals, and preparing his other properties—­he suddenly heard voices close to the door, and gracious powers! one was certainly Magnolia’s.

‘That born devil, Juddy Carrol,’ blazed forth.  O’Flaherty, afterwards, ’pushed open the door; it served me right for not being in my bed-room, and the door locked—­though who’d a thought there was such a cruel eediot on airth—­bad luck to her—­as to show a leedy into a gentleman, with scarcely the half of his clothes on, and undhergoin’ a soart iv an operation, I may say.’

Happily the table behind which he stood was one of those old-fashioned toilet affairs, with the back part, which was turned toward the door, sheeted over with wood, so that his ungartered stockings and rascally old slippers, were invisible.  Even so, it was bad enough:  he was arrayed in a shabby old silk roquelaire, and there was a towel upon his breast, pinned behind his neck.  He had just a second to pop the basin under the table, and to whisk the towel violently from under his chin, drying that feature with merciless violence; when the officious Judy Carrol, Grand Chamberlain in Jerome’s absence, with the facetious grin of a good-natured lady about to make two people happy, introduced the bewitching Magnolia, and her meek little uncle, Major O’Neill.

In they came, rejoicing, to ask the gallant fireworker (it was a different element just now), to make one of a party of pleasure to Leixlip.  O’Flaherty could not so much as hand the young lady a chair; to emerge from behind the table, or even to attempt a retreat, was of course not to be thought of in the existing state of affairs.  The action of Puddock’s recipe was such as to make his share in the little complimentary conversation that ensued very indistinct, and to oblige him, to his disgrace and despair, when the poor fellow tried a smile, actually to apply his towel hastily to his mouth.

He saw that his visitors observed those symptoms with some perplexity:  the major was looking steadfastly at O’Flaherty’s lips, and unconsciously making corresponding movements with his own, and the fair Magnolia was evidently full of pleasant surprise and curiosity.  I really think, if O’Flaherty had had a pistol within reach, he would have been tempted to deliver himself summarily from that agonising situation.

‘I’m afraid, lieutenant, you’ve got the toothache,’ said Miss Mag, with her usual agreeable simplicity.