confidence in his own success which supplied the place of auspicious omens. He embarked at Cork, to go by long sea to London, and was driven into Deal, where Julius Cesar once landed before him, and with the same resolution to see and conquer.3 It was early in the morning; having been very sea-sick, he was impatient, as soon as he got into the inn, for his breakfast: he was shown into a room where three ladies were waiting to go by the stage; his air of easy confidence was the best possible introduction.
'Would any of the company choose eggs?' said the waiter.
'I never touch an egg for my share,' said O'Mooney, carelessly; he knew that it was supposed to be an Irish custom to eat eggs at breakfast; and when the malicious waiter afterwards set a plate full of eggs in salt upon the table, our hero magnanimously abstained from them; he even laughed heartily at a story told by one of the ladies of an Hibernian at Buxton, who declared that 'no English hen ever laid a fresh egg.'
O'Mooney got through breakfast much to his own satisfaction, and to that of the ladies, whom he had taken a proper occasion to call the three graces,4 and whom he had informed that he was an old baronet of an English family, and that his name was Sir John Bull. The youngest of the graces civilly observed, 'that whatever else he might he, she should never have taken him for an old baronet.' The lady who made this speech was pretty, but O'Mooney had penetration enough to discover, in the course of the conversation, that she and her companions were far from being divinities; his three graces were a greengrocer's wife, a tallow chandler's widow, and a milliner. When he found that these ladies were likely to be his companions if he were to travel
3. The Roman expeditionary force that invaded how he 'came, saw, and conquered.' Britain in 55 B.C.E. landed in the southeast in the 4. A flowery compliment: in classical mythology vicinity of the modem-day port of Deal. A later vic-the three graces are sister goddesses who bestow tory in Asia Minor occasioned Caesar's boast about beauty and charm.
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THE IRISH INCOGNITO / 231
in the coach, he changed his plan, and ordered a post-chaise and four.
O'Mooney was not in danger of making any vulgar Irish blunders in paying his bill at an inn. No landlord or waiter could have suspected him, especially as he always left them to settle the matter first, and then looked over the bill and money with a careless gentility, saying, 'Very right,' or, 'Very well, sir'; wisely calculating, that it was better to lose a few shillings on the road, than to lose a hundred pounds by the risk of Hibernian miscalculation.
Whilst the chaise was getting ready he went to the custom-house to look after his baggage. He found a red- hot countryman of his own there, roaring about four and fourpence, and fighting the battle of his trunks, in which he was ready to make affidavit there was not, nor never had been, any thing contraband; and when the custom-house officer replied by pulling out of one of them a piece of Irish poplin, the Hibernian fell immediately upon the Union, which he swore was Disunion, as the custom-house officers managed it. Sir John Bull appeared to much advantage all this time, maintaining a dignified silence; from his quiet appearance and deportment, the custom-house officers took it for granted that he was an Englishman. He was in no hurry; he begged that gentleman's business might be settled first; he would wait the officer's leisure, and as he spoke he played so dexterously with half-a-guinea between his fingers, as to make it visible only where he wished. The custom-house officer was his humble servant immediately; but the Hibernian would have been his enemy, if he had not conciliated him by observing, 'that even Englishmen must allow there was something very like a bull in professing to make a complete identification of the two kingdoms, whilst, at the same time, certain regulations continued in full force to divide the countries by art, even more than the British channel does by nature.'
Sir John talked so plausibly, and, above all, so candidly and coolly on Irish and English politics, that the custom-house officer conversed with him for a quarter of an hour without guessing of what country he was, till in an unlucky moment Phelim's heart got the better of his head. Joining in the praises bestowed by all parties on the conduct of a distinguished patriot of his country, he, in the height of his enthusiasm, inadvertently called him the Speaker.
'The S-peaker!' said the officer. 'Yes, the Speaker?our Speaker' cried Phelim, with exultation.5 He was not aware how he had betrayed himself, till the officer smiled and said?
'Sir, I really never should have found out that you were an Irishman but from the manner in which you named your countryman, who is as highly thought of by all parties in this country as in yours: your enthusiasm does honour to your heart.'
'And to my head, I'm sure,' said our hero, laughing with the best grace imaginable. 'Well, I am glad you have found me out in this manner, though I lose the eighth part of a bet of a hundred guineas by it.'
He explained the wager, and begged the custom-house officer to keep his secret, which he promised to do faithfully, and assured him, 'that he should be happy to do any thing in his power to serve him.' Whilst he was uttering these last words, there came in a snug, but soft-looking Englishman, who opining from the words 'happy to do any thing in my power to serve you,' that O'Mooney was a friend of the custom-house officer's, and encouraged by
5. John Foster, Baron Oriel, the last man to serve as speaker in the Irish House of Commons, before its abolition by the Act of Union in 1801.
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23 2 / MARIA EDGEWORTH
something affable and good-natured in our hero's countenance, crept up to him, and whispered a request?'Could you tell a body, sir, how to get out of the custom-house a very valuable box of Sevre china that has been laying in the custom-house three weeks, and which I was commissioned to get out if I could, and bring up to town for a lady.'
As a lady was in the case, O'Mooney's gallantry instantly made his good- nature effective. The box of Sevre china was produced, and opened only as a matter of form, and only as a matter of curiosity its contents were examined?a beautiful set of Sevre china and a pendule, said to have belonged to M. Egalite!6 'These things must be intended,' said Phelim, 'for some lady of superior taste or fortune.'
As Phelim was a proficient in the Socratic art of putting judicious interrogatories, he was soon happily master of the principal points it concerned him to know: he learnt that the lady was rich?a spinster?of full age?at her own disposal?living with a single female companion at Blackheath7?furnishing a house there in a superior style?had two carriages?her Christian name Mary?her surname Sharperson.
O'Mooney, by the blessing of God, it shall soon be, thought Phelim. He politely offered the Englishman a place in his chaise for himself and Sevre china, as it was for a lady, and would run great hazard in the stage, which besides was full. Mr. Queasy, for that was our soft Englishman's name, was astonished by our hero's condescension
