Chapter Twenty-Three The Poet has Callers and gives a Dinner-Party
“Good avening, Misther Moore. Oh, it’s yourself, Mistress Dyke? The top of the afternoon, darling. I just dropped in for a moment to tell yez the news.”
“Ah,” said Moore, hopefully, “the rent has been lowered, I suppose?”
“You will have your joke, Misther Moore,” chuckled the landlady, sitting down in the chair Moore placed for her.
“And you ’ll have your rent, eh, Mrs. Malone?”
“Tom,” said Bessie, “do be still. What is the news, Mrs. Malone?”
“You are a couple of gossips,” declared Moore, sitting on the table between Bessie and the old woman. “Oh, well, scandal is the spice of life they say.”
“Well,” began Mrs. Malone, in a tone appropriate to the importance of her story, “it seems that Sweeny, who kapes the grocery next door but two, has been having throuble with his darter.”
“My, oh, my!” exclaimed Moore, properly horrified at the unfilial behavior of the young person mentioned.
“Hush, Tom,”
“Why don’t he spank the girl?” demanded the poet. “If my daughter—”
“Tom!” said Bessie, giving him a reproving pinch.
“Well, I mean if ever I have a daughter.”
“When you have will be time enough to tell about her, won’t it, Mrs. Malone.”
“Faith,” said that hopeful old female, “I luvs to hear young couples planning for the future.”
“Go on out of that,” said Moore, shaking with laughter, while Bessie was visibly discomposed. “You make me blush, Mrs. Malone.”
“I niver t’ought I ’d do thot,” observed the landlady. “I t’inks that must be one of your kump’ny manners. Howiver, to continyer.”
“I would if I were you, Mrs. Malone.”
“Well how can I, if yez kape on bletherin’?”
“I ’m silent as the grave, Mrs. Malone.”
“Jane Sweeny is the purtiest gal in the neighborhood—”
“Bar one, Mrs. Malone, bar one,” interrupted Moore.
“Prisent company is always accepted,” said the landlady, politely wagging her frilled cap till it creaked in its starchy immaculateness.
“If you had been here a few moments ago, you would have heard it refused,” said Bessie, ruefully.
“Who is interrupting now?” demanded Moore in wrathful tones.
“Well, the lassie has took up kapin kump’ny on the sly wid some strange laddybuck, whom nobody knows a t’ing about, and will hardly look at the dairyman’s son Ike, wid whom she has been thrainin’ these t’ree years.”
“The faithless hussy!” ejaculated the poet, in scathing condemnation.
“Hush!” said Bessie, now scenting a love story, and correspondingly interested.
“So Isaac—that’s the son of the dairyman, you know—”
“I ’m satisfied on that point, if the dairyman is,” observed Moore, wickedly.
Bessie took a pin from her dress.
“I ’ll punch you with this if you don’t behave, Tom Moore.”
“Is that a joke, Bessie?”
“Yes, you ’ll think so.”
“Well, I won’t be able to see the point of it if you perforate me. Go on, Mrs. Malone.”
“So he swore he ’d get even—”
“The dairyman? Oh, then he did have his doubts after all? Whom did he suspect, Mrs. Malone?”
Moore leaped off the table just in time to escape a vicious thrust from the pin, as Mrs. Malone, good-naturedly indifferent to his interruption, continued her recital.
“Ike thracked the fine fellow home, or at least as far as he could, and though he lost sight of him without locatin’ his house, he learned beyond all doubtin’ that he is a great gentleman of wealth and fashion.”
“Ike is? I ’ll have to look him up if that is so,” said Moore, pleasantly. “Evidently the dairyman was right to be suspicious, and what does Mrs. Dairyman say now?”
“I ’m not talkin’ about Ike,” replied Mrs. Malone, scornfully. “It’s the strange lad who is the rich man.”
“Oh, I see, Mrs. Malone. I thought you had discovered the reason for the dairyman’s suspicions. Now I think he was quite unreasonable to have his doubts.”
“Go on, Mrs. Malone. I think it is delightfully romantic,” said Bessie, paying no attention to the remarks of her lover.
“Romantic!” repeated Moore, in a disgusted tone. “Sure, put a bit of a scoundrel after a lass of lower station and instead of shouting for the watch she always says ‘How romantic!’
“You will have to leave the room, if you speak again before Mrs. Malone has finished her story,” said Bessie, severely.
“So, by hook or by crook, who should get wind of Misther Gay Spark, but Sweeny himself.”
Mrs. Malone paused dramatically, that the awful news of the situation should have time to take effect.
“Oh, dear!” said Bessie, “how terrible for poor Jane. Do tell me the rest without delay. I ’m getting so excited.”
“I ’ll not sleep to-night, thinking of it,” declared Moore. “Really, Mrs. Malone, you do wrong to harrow up our feelings in this thrilling manner. Well, Jennie is discovered, and then—?”
“Then Sweeny learned that the unknown gintilman was to meet her to-night.”
“How did he learn that?” asked Moore, greatly interested.
“From Jane.”
“That girl talks too much. She does n’t deserve to be the flame of such a spark,” said the poet, utterly disgusted with the heroine of the tale.
“Niver mind thot. So Sweeny has locked up the gal in her room—”
“Alone?”
“Faith, who would be likely to be with her, sorr?”
“Well, you said something about a gay incognito, did n’t you?” suggested Moore.
“I niver did in me loife. I ’ll have yez to understand, Misther Moore, I ’d scorn to use such profane langwidge. I ’m a dacent Catholic, as Father O’Houlihan will tell yez, if yez ask him.”
“I ’ll ask him the next time I see him,” said Moore. “It is always best to be sure about these things. But go on, Mrs. Malone.”
“Where was I?”
“You were locked up in the room with Jane Sweeny.”
“I wuz not, sorr.”
“I ’m sure it could n’t have been with Sir Incognito,” said Moore, shocked.
“If I wuz locked up wid Jane Sweeny how could I be here now?” demanded the landlady.
“Perhaps you made a ladder of the bedclothes, and let yourself down from the window,” suggested the poet.
“I did not, sorr,” replied Mrs. Malone, quite puzzled by the web in which her lodger had entangled her.
“Then I ’ll give it up, as I never was a good hand at conundrums,” said Moore, bubbling over with merriment. “Go on with your story about Father O’Houlihan’s gay friend.”
“Well anniehow, Isaac and Sweeny and some other of the byes is laying for Masther Gay Spark.”
“For what purpose, Mrs. Malone?”
“For what do yez t’ink?”
“Perhaps they wish to present him with the freedom of the city and a service of silver plate.”
“Not much,” said Mrs. Malone. “They are going to bate his head off for him, thot’s what they are going to do.”
“Are n’t they good-natured, Bessie?” said Moore. “I hope he will see the humorous side of the affair and treat it all as a joke.”
“Well, it will be no laughing matter,” said Mrs. Malone, stoutly. “As I said before, they ’ll make jelly of Masther Gay Spark.”
“How terrible!” said Bessie, half frightened.
“Quite,” said Moore. “He ’ll have a sugary time I ’m thinking, for if heaven don’t preserve him, Sweeny will turn him into jelly. I ’m afraid he will be badly jammed one way or another.”
“Who can this strange gallant be?” asked Bessie.
“By Gad, what if he were Sir Percival?” exclaimed the poet, struck suddenly by the thought.
“You don’t think so, Tom?”
“No, dear,” said Moore, soothingly, “no such good luck I ’m afraid.”
“Well, I t’ink I must be goin’,” observed Mrs. Malone, rising from her chair reluctantly. “Good avenin’ to yez both, darlin’s. Oh, there will be doin’s to-night, there will be doin’s.”
“Tell the dairyman I sympathize with him in his domestic disappointments,” said Moore, “and give my regards to your friend Master Incognito, though he is a naughty boy. And a word to you, Mrs. Malone. Don’t trust him too far yourself. I ’d never be alone with him, if I were you, for it is best to be on the safe side always,”
“Stop your tazing me, Tom Moore, or I ’ll take you across me knee and give you what you deserve,” retorted the landlady, with a broad grimace which was quite in keeping with her portly person.
Moore opened the door with a bow in his most drawing-room manner, and having bestowed upon Bessie a ponderous courtesy, the old woman waddled out, running into Mr. Sheridan, who, being about to enter, was thus rudely thrust back against Mr. Brummell, who, elegantly attired as usual, was directly behind him.
“Zooks!” exclaimed the Beau plaintively. “Sherry, I told you that you should not drink that last glass. You have ruffled my cravat in a most shameful manner.”
“I beg your parding, gintlemen,” said Mrs. Malone, remorsefully, “but divil a bit did I see yez.”
“Mistress Bridget, no apologies are necessary,” said Mr. Sheridan, graciously. “How well you are looking to-day.”
“D’ye t’ink so?” giggled the ancient dame, more than tickled by her great countryman’s condescension.
“On me honor,” replied Mr. Sheridan. “You agree with me, don’t you, George?”
“Entirely,” drawled Brummell, “entirely, ’pon my soul. How d’ ye do, Tom?”
Moore’s face beamed with delight as he saw who his visitors were.
“I ’m fine,” he said. “Come in, friends, and make yourself easy.”
“Mistress Dyke,” murmured Brummell, with a courtly bow.
“Mistress Moore that is to be,” corrected Moore, proudly, “whenever I can afford such a luxury.”
“What did I tell you, George?” said Sheridan, delightedly, nudging the Beau with his elbow.
“Do be careful, Sherry,” replied Brummell, warningly. “Tom, I congratulate you.”
“So do I,” said Sheridan. “You have a cheerful den, Tommy. Here is a home for you, Brummell.”
“Does Mr. Brummell need a home?” asked Moore, waving his guests to the most comfortable of the chairs.
“Faith, the Beau is better at breaking them than making them,” remarked the elder man, with a chuckle.
“Zooks!” drawled Brummell, “that reminds me of an execrable jest of which the Regent was guilty a fortnight ago. ‘Why am I like a farmer?’ he inquired of Percy Lovelace, who politely confessed that he could detect no resemblance. ‘Because,’ said his Highness, ‘I keep a rake within reach,’ and pointed with his monocle at Richard Brinsley.”
“That is a mighty bad pun, I ’m thinking,” said Moore to Bessie.
“Tom,” she said warningly, “are you not already sufficiently out of favor?”
“Pooh, Bessie, these lads are my friends. Tell me the news, you old gossip. Am I still in disgrace?”
Sheridan shook his gray wig dolefully.
“You are, Tommy, I regret to say,” he answered. “The Regent honors you with his personal profanity almost daily.”
Brummell took a dainty pinch of snuff and proceeded to change the subject.
“Have you heard of the Prince’s quarrel with Mrs. FitzHerbert?” he asked.
“No,” said Moore, “have those turtle-doves had a falling out?”
“Oh, it won’t last long,” said Sheridan, “but while it does endure it is a mighty warm little spat.”
“What caused the trouble if I may ask, Sherry?”
“The drollest reason,” said the Beau with a dignified smile. “You ’ll never guess it, Tommy.”
“Then I ’ll not try.”
“Tell him, Sherry,” said the Beau, adjusting his ruffles.
“She became angry because the Regent visited his wife late in the evening without a chaperon,” laughed the old Irishman.
“My, oh, my!” exclaimed Moore, horrified. “Has the Prince no sense of decorum?”
“How goes the world with you, children?” demanded Sheridan, kindly. “Do you manage to exist without the approval of royalty?”
“We are getting on somehow. I have enough to eat, almost enough to drink—”
“You are indeed fortunate,” interjected Sheridan. “I cannot recall any period in my career when I had anywhere near enough to drink.”
“You must remember, Sherry,” said the Beau, languidly, “every Irishman does not have a bottomless pit where nature usually places a stomach. Your pardon, Mistress Dyke, for using so corporeal a term.”
“Well, to continue,” said Moore, “besides the possessions already enumerated I have a roof over my head, and these same luxuries I can offer to my wife when I get her.”
Bessie looked up at him lovingly as he sat down on the arm of the chair she occupied.
“We will be so happy,” she said shyly to Mr. Sheridan.
“And we will need no chaperon, I ’m thinking,” said Moore.
“I ’ll wager you won’t,” said Sheridan, wisely. “Well, George, let’s get on our way.”
“What’s that?” said Moore, quickly. “Get on your way? Not much. You are going to stay to supper with us.”
“Well,” said Sheridan, who had risen in a hesitating way, “I—”
“Oh,” said Moore, divining the cause of his countryman’s embarrassment, “it is true that you won’t get much to eat, but you are more than welcome to whatever there is; and besides, think of the company you will be in.”
“That last decides me, if Mistress Dyke extends the invitation,” said Sheridan, yielding in response to a nod from the Beau, who had decided to remain.
“Tom speaks for both of us,” said Bessie. “Don’t you, Tom?”
“Yes, and some day I ’ll listen for both of us, no doubt. That will be when she points out my faults, lads. You must stay. Bessie will make the tea—that is, if there is any tea. If there is n’t any, she ’ll mix the whisky.”
“Good,” said Sheridan, smacking his lips.
“But there is tea,” said the girl, opening the caddy which she found in the cupboard.
“Just our luck, eh, Sherry?” said the poet, disconsolately.
Buster entered at this opportune moment and busied himself, with the assistance of Bessie, in preparing the simple meal.
Moore drew the chairs into position by the table as Bessie laid the plates.
“You are to sit there, you disreputable old Hibernian,” said he, assisting Sheridan to a seat on the right.
“Your place is there at the end, Fashion Plate. I ’ll preside just opposite you across the festive board, and Bessie shall sit on your left hand.”
“Is she heavy?” inquired Sheridan, interestedly, as he sat down.
“I ’m speaking metaphorically,” the poet rattled on. “How goes the play, Sherry?”
“‘Pizarro’ is certainly doing a fine business,” replied the aged dramatist. “The public likes blood and thunder.”
“I suppose you sent a box to the Dutchman that wrote it?” said Moore.
“On the contrary, Tommy, I think he should buy one to see how his play should have been written in the first place,” replied Sheridan, not at all disconcerted, for he made no bones about admitting his indebtedness to Kotzebue for his last great success. “For my part, I ’m afraid Anacreon might not appreciate some of the Odes as now rendered according to the gospel of Thomas.”
“Well, he was dead when I tackled him,” retorted Moore.
“Which no doubt saved you from answering at the bar to the charge of manslaughter, for I ’m sure he ’d never have survived the heroic treatment you gave him.”
“Tea is ready,” announced Bessie, opportunely.
“Good,” said Moore. “Buster, bring the wine.”
“But there hain’t none,” responded the lad.
“Bring it, anyway. Any one can bring wine when there is wine, but it takes a smart boy to fetch it when there is n’t any.”
“Hi hain’t smart henuff,” said Buster.
“It is of no importance, Tom,” said Brummell, graciously.
“Since when?” demanded Moore in surprise. “How is that, Sherry?”
“I never drink,” said the elder man, waving aside the idea of alcoholic indulgence with a gesture of fine contempt.
“No?” asked the poet, wonderingly. “Oh, I suppose you have it rubbed into your skin by your valet.”
At this moment Bessie, having finished setting the table, sat down in the chair pulled out for her by Sheridan and the Beau in gallant competition, and the supper began.
“Will you say grace, Brummell?” asked Moore.
“Say it yourself,” drawled the Arbiter of Fashion, smiling lazily at his hostess.
“But, his Highness thinks me a graceless rogue,” objected the poet, “so it would be an act of treason for me to prove him a liar.”
“Well, then, I ’ll say it meself,” volunteered Sheridan, with a wink at Moore.
“Good man. Hush, now, every one.”
Sheridan rose from his chair and leaning over took possession of the bread plate.
“Ah,” said Moore, knowingly, “then it is to be ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ eh, Sherry?”
“You are away off the scent, Tommy,” responded the dramatist in a superior tone. “Nothing so conventional would be appropriate for this festive occasion.”
“Do go on, Sherry,” advised Brummell, “I am growing disgracefully hungry.”
“Anything to oblige, Beau. See, friends,
‘There’s bread here for four of us:
Thank God, there’s no more of us!’”
Sheridan sat down amidst the laughing approval of the others.
“That,” observed Moore, “is what I call a curst fine bit of prayer-making. Sherry and I like our prayers like our liquor—concentrated.”
“Your remark is a trifle paradoxical,” commented Brummell. “Yes, Mistress Bessie, sugar and milk both.”
“Brummell has a sweet tooth,” said Sheridan, taking the cup Bessie passed him.
“And Bessie has a sweet mouth,” said Moore, buttering his bread generously.
“I suppose you know all about that, Tom?”
“Trust me for that, Sherry.”
“That sort of credit is easy for an Irishman to obtain,” said the old gentleman.
“With Bessie?” inquired Moore. “That shows you have never tried, Sherry.”
“He does n’t know whether I have or not, does he, Mistress Bessie?”
“Of course he does n’t,” chimed in the girl, coquettishly. “We don’t have to tell him all our little frolics, do we?”
“I ’d hate to if I hoped to retain his friendship,” chuckled the wit. “It is like confident youth to imagine itself ever the only favored.”
“Look here,” said Moore, aggressively, “there will be enough of this supper, such as it is, to go around handsomely without trying to spoil my appetite with your base innuendoes, you old scandal-school maker.”
“He is jealous,” observed Sheridan. “Just have the kindness to remember my age, Thomas.”
“How can I when you yourself do not?” asked the poet, slyly. “Brummell, pass the butter. If it’s stronger than you are, shout for help.”
“You wrong the article,” said the Beau, handing over the desired plate. “It’s quiescence is most amiable.”
“That reminds me,” Moore remarked thoughtfully, “of a scheme I have for increasing the volume of the milk given by the cow.”
“Volume?” repeated Sheridan. “D’ ye mean the way the tale is presented to the public?”
“Well, if you let the bovine offspring remain too adjacent it’s bound in calf the lacteal fluid would be,” replied Moore.
“Faith, the animal should be brought to book for that,” returned Sheridan.
“She ’d probably turn pale at the thought and kick over the cream,” retorted Moore.
“Dear me!” cried Bessie, “what brilliant gentlemen, are they not, Mr. Brummell?”
“Yes, Mistress Dyke,” answered the Beau, “they are not.”
Bessie laughed at the unexpected termination of the Beau’s remark.
“A couple of silly punsters, ’pon my honor,” sighed the exquisite, nibbling his bread daintily.
“I think, Sherry,” said Moore, “after that rebuke we had better be less witty. I ’ll tell my story later on. The bill of fare includes chicken, gentlemen.”
“Oh, Tom,” said Bessie, shocked, “how can you fib so?”
“In the shell, Bessie, in the shell,” explained the host, holding up an egg. “Cold and hard, but so young it would melt in your mouth. Then comes bread-and-butter and tea.”
“My favorite dish, believe me,” declared Brummell.
“Then comes tea and bread-and-butter. Next, some cups and saucers and knives and forks.”
“D’ye think we are ostriches?” demanded Sheridan.
“Then comes the best of all, gentlemen, the dessert.”
“And what may that be, Tommy?”
“Well, it may be custard pudding—”
“Ah!” said Brummell in an approving tone.
“But it is n’t,” continued Moore. “It is something even sweeter and softer.”
“Don’t arouse my curiosity further,” pleaded Sheridan.
“Well, then, we are to have kisses for dessert.”
Sheridan and the Beau applauded noisily while Bessie blushed in a most becoming manner.
“How is the dessert to be served, Tommy?”
“I kiss Bessie,” said Moore, exultantly. “Then comes your turn, Sherry.”
“Ah!” said that gentleman, smacking his lips in anticipation.
“Then comes your turn, Sherry. You kiss Brummell.”
The wit gave an exclamation of disappointment, while the rest of the party laughed heartily.
“Really, Tom,” said the Beau, “this egg is delicious.”
“Sure it is,” replied his host. “We raised that one on the bottle, didn’t we, Bessie?”
Meanwhile he had helped himself to another, and cracking the shell, turned away with an exclamation of disgust.
“Oh, Lord!” he exclaimed, holding his nose. “Bessie, I knew I ought to have hurried home with that egg if I wanted to eat it. Faith, it is too much a chicken to be an egg, and too much egg to be a chicken. Buster, accept this with my compliments.”
Buster obediently carried away the cause of the trouble and stowed it outside on a corner of the window-sill, reserving it for use as ammunition at some future time.
“I never drank such tea, Mistress Bessie,” said Sheridan, passing his cup to be refilled. “Really you are an enchantress.”
“She enchanted me years ago,” said Moore.
“I suited him to a tee the first time I saw him,” said Bessie, laughing.
“A pun is the lowest form of humor,” said Moore, severely.
“And therefore at the bottom of all true wit,” said Sheridan, coming to his hostess’s defence like the gallant old Irishman he was.
“It seems to me you two are very thick,” said Moore, critically. “I ’ll have you to understand, Richard Brinsley, that I am not to be treated with contempt.”
“I think Irish whisky would be what I should treat you with, Tommy.”
“A happy thought,” cried the poet. “Buster, the Dew of Heaven.”
“Some ’un just knocked, Mr. Moore,” said the boy.
“Then open the door, you gossoon.”
Buster did so, and Lord Brooking stepped quickly into the room.