"Yes, sir; all right and ready for you; and barrin' the fish you 'll have an elegant dinner."

This little annoyance over, the guests relished their fare like hungry men; nor, time and place considered, was it to be despised.

"Digestion is a great leveller." Mr. Merl and Mr. Scan-Ian felt far more on an equality when, the dinner over and the door closed, they drew the table close to the fire, and drank to each other in a gla.s.s of racy port.

"Well, I believe a man might live here, after all," said Merl, as he gazed admiringly on the bright hues of his variegated lower garments.

"I 'm proud to hear you say so," said Scanlan; "for, of course, you've seen a deal of life; and when I say life, I mean fashion and high style,--n.o.bs and swells."

"Yes; I believe I have," said Merl, lighting his cigar; "that was always my 'line.' I fancy there's few fellows going have more experience of the really great world than Herman Merl."

"And you like it?" asked Maurice, confidentially.

"I do, and I do not," said the Jew, hesitatingly. "To one like myself, who knows them all, always on terms of close intimacy,--friendship, I may say,--it 's all very well; but take a new hand just launched into life, a fellow not of their own set,--why, sir, there 's no name for the insults and outrage he'll meet with."

"But what could they do?" asked Scanlan, inquiringly.

"What?--anything, everything; laugh at him, live on him, win his last guinea,--and then, blackball him!"

"And could n't he get a crack at them?"

"A what?"

"Couldn't he have a shot at some of them, at least?" asked Maurice.

"No, no," said Mr. Merl, half contemptuously; "they don't do _that_."

"Faix! and we 'd do it down here," said Scanlan, "devil may care who or what he was that tried the game."

"But I 'm speaking of London and Paris; I 'm not alluding to the Sandwich Islands," said Merl, on whose brain the port and the strong fire were already producing their effects.

Scanlan's face flushed angrily; but a glance at the other checked the reply he was about to make, and he merely pushed the decanter across the table.

"You see, sir," said Merl, in the tone of a man laying down a great dictum, "there 's worlds and worlds. There's Claude Willoughby's world, which is young Martin's and Stanhope's and mine. There, we are all young fellows of fortune, good family, good prospects, you understand,--no, thank you, no more wine;--I feel that what I 've taken has got into my head; and this cigar, too, is none of the best. Would it be taking too great a liberty with you if I were to s.n.a.t.c.h a ten minutes' doze,--just ten minutes?"

"Treat me like an old friend; make yourself quite at home," said Maurice. "There 's enough here"--and he pointed to the bottles on the table--"to keep me company; and I 'll wake you up when I 've finished them."

Mr. Merl made no reply; but drawing a chair for his legs, and disposing his drapery gracefully around him, he closed his eyes, and before Maurice had replenished his gla.s.s, gave audible evidence of a sound sleep.

Now, worthy reader, we practise no deceptions with you; nor so far as we are able, do we allow others to do so. It is but fair, therefore, to tell you that Mr. Merl was not asleep, nor had he any tendency whatever to slumber about him. That astute gentleman, however, had detected that the port was, with the addition of a great fire, too much for him; he recognized in himself certain indications of confusion that implied wandering and uncertain faculties, and he resolved to arrest the progress of such symptoms by a little repose. He felt, in short, that if he had been engaged in play, that he should have at once "cut out," and so he resolved to give himself the advantage of the prerogative which attaches to a tired traveller. There he lay, then, with closed eyes,--breathing heavily,--to all appearance sound asleep.

Maurice Scanlan, meanwhile, scanned the rec.u.mbent figure before him with the eye of a connoisseur. We have once before said that Mr. Scanlan's jockey experiences had marvellously aided his worldly craft, and that he scrutinized those with whom he came in contact through life, with all the shrewd ac.u.men he would have bestowed upon a horse whose purchase he meditated. It was easy to see that the investigation puzzled him. Mr.

Merl did not belong to any one category he had ever seen before. Maurice was acquainted with various ranks and conditions of men; but here was a new order, not referable to any known cla.s.s. He opened Captain Martin's letter, which he carried in his pocket-book, and re-read it; but it was vague and uninstructive. He merely requested that "every attention might be paid to his friend Mr. Merl, who wanted to see something of the West, and know all about the condition of the people, and such like.

He's up to everything, Master Maurice," continued the writer, "and so just the man for _you_." There was little to be gleaned from this source, and so he felt, as he folded and replaced the epistle in his pocket.

"What can he be," thought Scanlan, "and what brings him down here? Is he a member of Parliament, that wants to make himself up about Ireland and Irish grievances? Is he a money-lender, that wants to see the security before he makes a loan? Are they thinking of him for the agency?"--and Maurice flushed as the suspicion crossed him,--"or is it after Miss Mary he is?" And a sudden paleness covered his face at the thought. "I 'd give a cool hundred, this minute, if I could read you," said he to himself, "Ay, and I'd not ask any one's help how to deal with us afterwards," added he, as he drained off his gla.s.s. While he was thus ruminating, a gentle tap was heard at the door, and, anxious not to disturb the sleeper, Scanlan crossed the room with noiseless steps, and opened it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 124]

"Oh, it's you, Simmy," said he, in a low voice. "Come in, and make no noise; he's asleep."

"And that's him!" said Crow, standing still to gaze on the rec.u.mbent figure before him, which he scrutinized with all an artist's appreciation.

"Ay, and what do you think of him?" whispered Scanlan.

"That chap is a Jew," said Sim, in the same cautious tone. "I know the features well; you see the very image of him in the old Venetian pictures. Whenever they wanted cunning and cruelty--but more cunning than cruelty--they always took that type."

"I would n't wonder if you were right, Simmy," said Scanlan, on whom a new light was breaking.

"I know I am; look at the spread of the nostrils, and the thick, full lips, and the coa.r.s.e, projecting under-jaw. Faix!" said he to himself, "I 've seen the day I 'd like to have had a study of your face."

"Indeed!" said Scanlan.

"Just so; he'd make a great Judas!" said Crow, enthusiastically. "It is the miser all over. You know," added he, "if one took him in the historical way, you 'd get rid of the vulgarity, and make him grander and finer; for, looking at him now, he might be a dog-stealer."

Scanlan gave a low, cautious laugh as he placed a chair beside his own for the artist, and filled out for him a b.u.mper of port.

"I was just dying for a gla.s.s of this," said Crow. "I dined with Mr.

Barry upstairs; and though he's a fine-hearted old fellow in many respects, he's too abstemious; a pint of sherry for two at dinner, and a pint of port after, that's the allowance. Throw out as many hints as you like, suggest how and what you will, but devil a drop more you'll get."

"And who is he?" asked Scanlan.

"I wish you could tell me," said Crow.

"You haven't a notion; nor what he is?"

"Not the slightest. I think, indeed, he said he was in the army; but I'm not clear it wasn't a commissary or a surgeon; maybe he was, but he knows a little about everything. Take him on naval matters, and he understands them well; ask him about foreign countries,--egad, he was everywhere. Ireland seems the only place new to him, and it won't be so long; for he goes among the people, and talks to them, and hears all they have to say, with a patience that breaks my heart. Like all strangers, he's astonished with the acuteness he meets with, and never ceases saying, 'Ain't they a wonderful people? Who ever saw their equal for intelligence?'"

"Bother!" said Scanlan, contemptuously.

"But it is not bother! Maurice; he's right. They are just what he says."

"Arrah! don't be humbugging _me_, Mr. Crow," said the other. "They 're a set of scheming, plotting vagabonds, that are unmanageable by any one, except a fellow that has the key to them as I have."

"_You_ know them, that's true," said Crow, half apologetically, for he liked the port, and did not feel he ought to push contradiction too far.

"And that's more than your friend Barry does, or ever will," said Scanlan. "I defy an Englishman--I don't care how shrewd he is--to understand Paddy."

A slight movement on Mr. Merl's part here admonished the speaker to speak lower.

"Ay," continued Maurice, "that fellow there--whoever he is or whatever he is--is no fool! he 's deep enough; and yet there 's not a bare-legged gossoon on the estate I won't back to take him in."

"But Barry's another kind of man entirely. You wouldn't call him cute or cunning; but he's a sensible, well-judging man, that has seen a deal of life."

"And what is it, he says, brings him here?" asked Scanlan.

"He never said a word about that yet," replied Crow, "further than his desire to visit a country he had heard much of, and, if I understand him aright, where some of his ancestors came from; for, you see, at times he's not so easy for one to follow, for he has a kind of a foreign tw.a.n.g in his tongue, and often mumbles to himself in a strange language."

"I mistrust all these fellows that go about the world, pretending they want to see this and observe that," said Scanlan, sententiously.