‘I’ll tell you by and by,’ said Patrick.

’Tell me now, and don’t be smirking at the glass; your necktie’s as neat as a lady’s company-smile, equal at both ends, and warranted not to relax before the evening ’s over.  And mind you don’t set me off talking over-much downstairs.  I talk in her presence like the usher of the Court to the judge.  ‘Tis the secret of my happiness.’

‘Where are those rascally dress-boots of mine?’ cried Patrick.

Captain Con pitched the contents of the portmanteau right and left.  ’Never mind the boots, my boy.  Your legs will be under the table during dinner, and we’ll institute a rummage up here between that and the procession to the drawing-room, where you’ll be examined head to foot, devil a doubt of it.  But say, where have you been?  She’ll be asking, and we’re in a mess already, and may as well have a place to name to her, somewhere, to excuse the gash you’ve made in her dinner.  Here they are, both of ‘m, rolled in a dirty shirt!’

Patrick seized the boots and tugged them on, saying ‘Earlsfont, then.’

’You’ve been visiting Earlsfont?  Whack! but that’s the saving of us!  Talk to her of her brother he sends her his love.  Talk to her of the ancestral hall—­it stands as it was on the day of its foundation.  Just wait about five minutes to let her punish us, before you out with it.  ’Twill come best from you.  What did you go down there for?  But don’t stand answering questions; come along.  Don’t heed her countenance at the going in:  we’ve got the talisman.  As to the dressing, it’s a perfect trick of harlequinade, and she’ll own it after a dose of Earlsfont.  And, by the way, she’s not Mrs. Con, remember; she’s Mrs. Adister O’Donnell:  and that’s best rolled out to Mistress.  She’s a worthy woman, but she was married at forty, and I had to take her shaped as she was, for moulding her at all was out of the question, and the soft parts of me had to be the sufferers, to effect a conjunction, for where one won’t and can’t, poor t’ other must, or the union’s a mockery.  She was cast in bronze at her birth, if she wasn’t cut in bog-root.  Anyhow, you’ll study her.  Consider her for my sake.  Madam, it should be—­madam, call her, addressing her, madam.  She hasn’t a taste for jokes, and she chastises absurdities, and England’s the foremost country of the globe, indirect communication with heaven, and only to be connected with such a country by the tail of it is a special distinction and a comfort for us; we’re that part of the kite!—­but, Patrick, she’s a charitable soul; she’s a virtuous woman and an affectionate wife, and doesn’t frown to see me turn off to my place of worship while she drum-majors it away to her own; she entertains Father Boyle heartily, like the good woman she is to good men; and unfortunate females too have a friend in her, a real friend—­that they have; and that ’s a wonder in a woman chaste as ice.  I do respect her; and I’d like to see the man to favour me with an opportunity of proving it on him!  So you’ll not forget, my boy; and prepare for a cold bath the first five minutes.  Out with Earlsfont early after that.  All these things are trifles to an unmarried man.  I have to attend to ’m, I have to be politic and give her elbow-room for her natural angles.  ’Tis the secret of my happiness.’