"I don't mean to play any more."

"Not play any more! Do you mean to say that, because you have been once repulsed, you 'll never charge again? Is that your soldier's pluck?"

"There is no question here of my soldier's pluck. I only said I 'd not play billiards."

"May I ask you one thing? How can you possibly expect to attain excellence in any pursuit, great or small, when you are so easily abashed?"

"May I take the same liberty with you, and ask how can it possibly concern any one but myself that I have taken this resolution?"

"There you have me! a hazard and no mistake! I may be your match at billiards; but when it comes to repartee, you are the better man, Heathcote."

Coarse as the flattery was, it was not unpleasing. Indeed, in its very coarseness there was a sort of mock sincerity, just as the stroke of a heavy hand on your shoulder is occasionally taken for good fellowship, though you wince under the blow. Now Heathcote was not only gratified by his own smartness, but after a moment or two he felt half sorry he had been so "severe on the poor fellow." He had over-shotted his gun, and there was really no necessity to rake him so heavily; and so, with a sort of blundering bashfulness, he said,--

"You 're not offended; you 're not angry with me?"

"Offended! angry! nothing of the kind. I believe I am a peppery sort of fellow,--at least, down in the West there they say as much of me; but once a man is my friend,--once that I feel all straight and fair between us,--he may bowl me over ten times a day, and I 'll never resent it."

There was a pause after this, and Heathcote found his position painfully awkward. He did not fancy exactly to repudiate the friendship thus assumed, and he certainly did not like to put his name to the bond; and so he walked to the window and looked out with that half-hopeless vacuity bashful men are prone to.

"What's the weather going to do?" said he, carelessly. "More rain?"

"Of course, more rain! Amongst all the humbugs of the day, do you know of one equal to the humbug of the Italian climate? Where's the blue sky they rave about?"

"Not there, certainly," said Heathcote, laughing, as he looked up at the leaden-colored canopy that lowered above them.

"My father used to say," said O'Shea, "that it was all a mistake to talk about the damp climate of Ireland; the real grievance was, that when it rained it always rained dirty water!"

The conceit amused Heathcote, and he laughed again.

"There it comes now, and with a will too!" And at the same instant, with a rushing sound like hail, the rain poured down with such intensity as to shut out the hills directly in front of the windows.

"You 're caught this time, Heathcote. Make the best of it, like a man, and resign yourself to eat a mutton-chop here with me at four o'clock; and if it clears in the evening, I 'll canter back with you."

"No, no, the weather will take up; this is only a shower. They 'll expect me back to dinner, besides. Confound it, how it does come down!"

"Oh, faith!" said O'Shea, half mournfully, "I don't wonder that you are less afraid of the rain than a bad dinner."

"No, it's not that,--nothing of the kind," broke in Heathcote, hurriedly; "at another time I should be delighted! Who ever saw such rain as that!"

"Look at the river too. See how it is swollen already."

"Ah! I never thought of the mountain torrents," said Heathcote, suddenly.

"They 'll be coming down like regular cataracts by this time. I defy any one to cross at Borgo even now. Take my advice, Heathcote, and reconcile yourself to old Pan's cookery for to-day."

"What time do you dine?"

"What time will suit you? Shall we say four or five?"

"Four, if you'll permit me. Four will do capitally."

"That's all right And now I 'll just step down to Panini myself, and give him a hint about some Burgundy he has got in the cellar."

Like most men yielding to necessity, Heathcote felt discontented and irritated, and no sooner was he alone than he began to regret his having accepted the invitation. What signified a wetting? He was on horseback, to be sure, but he was well mounted, and it was only twelve miles,--an hour or an hour and a quarter's sharp canter; and as to the torrents, up to the girths, perhaps, or a little beyond,--it could scarcely come to swimming. Thus he argued with himself as he walked to and fro, and chafed and fretted as he went. It was in this irritated state O'Shea found him when he came back.

"We 're all right. They 've got a brace of woodcock below stairs, and some Pistoja mutton; and as I have forbidden oil and all the grease-pots, we 'll manage to get a morsel to eat."

"I was just thinking how stupid I was to--to--to put you to all this inconvenience," said he, hastily changing a rudeness into an apology.

"Isn't it a real blessing for me to catch you?" cried O'Shea. "Imagine me shut up here by myself all day, no one to speak to, nothing to do, nothing to read but that old volume of the 'Wandering Jew,' that I begin to know by heart, or, worse again, that speech of mine on the Italian question, that whenever I 've nearly finished it the villains are sure to do something or other that destroys all my predictions and ruins my argument What would have become of me to-day if you had n't dropped in?"

Heathcote apparently did not feel called upon to answer this inquiry, but walked the room moodily, with his hands in his pockets.

O'Shea gave a little faint sigh,--such a sigh as a weary pedestrian may give, as, turning the angle of the way, he sees seven miles of straight road before him, without bend or curve. It was now eleven o'clock, and five dreary hours were to be passed before dinner-time.

Oh, my good reader, has it been amongst your life's experiences to have submitted to an ordeal of this kind,--to be caged up of a wet day with an unwilling guest, whom you are called on to amuse, but know not how to interest; to feel that you are bound to employ his thoughts, with the sad consciousness that in every pause of the conversation he is cursing his hard fate at being in your company; to know that you must deploy all the resources of your agreeability without even a chance of success, your very efforts to amuse constituting in themselves a boredom? It is as great a test of temper as of talent. Poor O'Shea, one cannot but pity you! To be sure, you are not without little aids to pass time, in the shape of cards, dice, and such-like. I am not quite sure that a travelling roulette-table is not somewhere amongst your effects. But of what use are they all _now?_ None would think of a lecture on anatomy to a man who had Just suffered amputation.

No, no! play must not be thought of,--it must be most sparingly alluded to even in conversation,--and so what remains? O'Shea was not without reminiscences, and he "went into them like a man." He told scenes of early Trinity College life; gave sketches of his contemporaries, one or two of them now risen to eminence; he gave anecdotes of Gray's Inn, where he had eaten his terms; of Templar life, its jollities and its gravities; of his theatrical experiences, when he wrote the "Drama"

for two weekly periodicals; of his like employ when he reported prize-fights, boat-races, and pigeon-matches for "Bell's Life." He then gave a sketch of his entrance into public life, with a picture of an Irish election, dashed off spiritedly and boldly; but all he could obtain from his phlegmatic listener was a faint smile at times, and a low muttering sound, that resolved itself into, "What snobs!"

At last he was in the House, dealing with great names and great events, which he ingeniously blended up with Bellamy's and the oyster suppers below stairs; but it was no use,--they, too, were snobs! It was all snobbery everywhere. Freshmen, Templars, Pugilists, Scullers, County Electors, and House of Commons celebrities,--all snobs!

O'Shea then tried the Turf,--disparagingly, as a great moralist ought.

They were, as he said, a "bad lot;" but he knew them well, and they "could n't hurt _him_." He had a variety of curious stories about racing knaveries, and could clear up several mysterious circumstances, which all the penetration of the "Ring" had never succeeded in solving.

Heathcote, however, was unappeasable; and these, too,--trainers, jockeys, judges, and gentlemen,--they were all snobs!

It was only two o'clock, and there were two more mortal hours to get through before dinner. With a bright inspiration he bethought him of bitter beer. Oh, Bass! ambrosia of the barrack-room, thou nectar of the do-nothings in this life, how gracefully dost thou deepen dulness into drowsiness, making stupidity but semi-conscious! What a bond of union art thou between those who have talked themselves out, and would without thy consoling froth, become mutually odious! Instead of the torment of suggestiveness which other drinks inspire, how gloriously lethargic are all thy influences, how mind-quelling, and how muddling!

There is, besides, a vague notion prevalent with your beer-drinker, that there is some secret of health in his indulgence,--that he is undergoing a sort of tonic regimen, something to make him more equal to the ascent of Mont Blanc, or the defeat of the Zouaves, and he grows in self-esteem as he sips. It is not the boastful sentiment begotten of champagne, or the defiant courage of port, but a dogged, resolute, resistant spirit, stout in its nature and bitter to the last!

And thus they sipped, and smoked, and said little to each other, and the hours stole over, and the wintry day darkened apace, and, at last, out of a drowsy nap over the fire, the waiter awoke them, to say dinner was on the table.

"You were asleep!" said O'Shea, to his companion.

"Yes, 'twas your snoring set me off!" replied Heathcote, stretching himself, as he walked to the window. "Raining Just as hard as ever!"

"Come along," said the other, gayly. "Let us see what old Fan has done for us."

CHAPTER XXI. MR. O'SHEA UPON POLITICS, AND THINGS IN GENERAL

It was a most appetizing little dinner that was now set before the O'Shea and Charles Heathcote. The trout from Castellano and the mutton from Pistoja were each admirable; and a brace of woodcocks, shot in the first snowstorm on the Carrara mountains, were served in a fashion that showed the cook had benefited by English teachings.

"There are worse places than this, after all!" said O'Shea, as he sat at one side of the fire, Heathcote opposite, and a small table liberally covered with decanters between them.

"Wonderful Burgundy this," said Heathcote, gazing at his glass in the light. "What does he call it?"