Determined that bang it should be, he hurried from the terminus to Philip’s hotel, where he had left him, and was thence despatched to the house of Captain Con O’Donnell, where he created a joyful confusion, slightly dashed with rigour on the part of the regnant lady; which is not to be wondered at, considering that both the gentlemen attending her, Philip and her husband, quitted her table with shouts at the announcement of his name, and her husband hauled him in unwashed before her, crying that the lost was found, the errant returned, the Prodigal Pat recovered by his kinsman! and she had to submit to the introduction of the disturber:  and a bedchamber had to be thought of for the unexpected guest, and the dinner to be delayed in middle course, and her husband corrected between the discussions concerning the bedchamber, and either the guest permitted to appear at her table in sooty day-garb, or else a great gap commanded in the service of her dishes, vexatious extreme for a lady composed of orderliness.  She acknowledged Patrick’s profound salute and his excuses with just so many degrees in the inclining of her head as the polite deem a duty to themselves when the ruffling world has disarranged them.

‘Con!’ she called to her chattering husband, ’we are in England, if you please.’

‘To be sure, madam,’ said the captain, ’and so ’s Patrick, thanks to the stars.  We fancied him gone, kidnapped, burned, made a meal of and swallowed up, under the earth or the water; for he forgot to give us his address in town; he stood before us for an hour or so, and then the fellow vanished.  We’ve waited for him gaping.  With your permission I’ll venture an opinion that he’ll go and dabble his hands and sit with us as he is, for the once, as it happens.’

‘Let it be so,’ she rejoined, not pacified beneath her dignity.  She named the bedchamber to a footman.

‘And I’ll accompany the boy to hurry him on,’ said the captain, hurrying Patrick on as he spoke, till he had him out of the dining-room, when he whispered:  ’Out with your key, and if we can scramble you into your evening-suit quick we shall heal the breach in the dinner.  You dip your hands and face, I’ll have out the dress.  You’ve the right style for her, my boy:  and mind, she is an excellent good woman, worthy of all respect:  but formality’s the flattery she likes:  a good bow and short speech.  Here we are, and the room’s lighted.  Off to the basin, give me the key; and here’s hot water in tripping Mary’s hands.  The portmanteau opens easy.  Quick! the door’s shut on rosy Mary.  The race is for domestic peace, my boy.  I sacrifice everything I can for it, in decency.  ’Tis the secret of my happiness.’

Patrick’s transformation was rapid enough to satisfy the impatient captain, who said:  ’You’ll tell her you couldn’t sit down in her presence undressed.  I married her at forty, you know, when a woman has reached her perfect development, and leans a trifle more to ceremonies than to substance.  And where have you been the while?’