Well, I need go no further; I mentioned these, and might mention fifty other wounds, to show you that they were no trifles, and I can take my davy there was not one of the series that took a week to heal.
I’m happy to tell you that I was quite sufficiently well to avail myself of Mrs. Molloy’s invitation to drink tea, go to the play, and return to supper with her agreeable party. I need not tell you that if I had had as many holes in my body as a colander, and was bleeding at every pore, I would have contrived, cost what it might, to drag myself to the side of the beautiful Theodora, although it was only to expire at her feet.
The hour named for assembling at the hospitable lodgings of the Molloys was half-past five. I dressed myself with uncommon care. We sported wonderful high and voluminous white cravats in those days, which had a good deal the effect of modern poultices. We wore besides under-waistcoats of coloured satin, pantaloons and pumps, and blue coats with brass buttons gilt.
I was glad as I looked at myself in the glass, and brushed up my hair above my forehead into a “topping,” as Mr. Bassegio called that conical triumph of the decorative art, to think that I looked a little pale.
Mundy had called on me the day after this extraction, not knowing a word of the matter, and wondering why I did not look in at the billiard-rooms. I made a rather painful effort, for I was lying on my face, to get into a more natural position, which I did with a slight groan.
“Wounded!” says he.
“Slightly,” said I, “that is, they say it won’t be dangerous.”
“Oh! oh!” says he, smiling faintly down at me as I lay on my bed, with a look at once stern and knowing. “Gunshot, eh?”
I had told him on purpose, for I knew that he was intimately acquainted with the Molloys, and I wished Theodora to hear that I was wounded; for a man hurt in an affair of honour (and what but that could she suppose?) is the most interesting patient that can come under the steel of the faculty or the cognisance of the fair.
“Gunshot,” I acquiesced; for a carbine’s as good a “gun” as a pistol any day; and about the “shot,” at any rate, there could be no mistake.
“Shivering an’ a daisy, as you say?” he inquired. “Looking into a barrel? Ten paces, eh?”
“I’ll not deny the distance was about that,” said I. “We were both slightly wounded, and—that’s all. I won’t talk about it; we are under terms not to tell on one another; and ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies. Are you asked to the Molloys’ tea-party to go to the playhouse on ⸻ next, and back again to supper?
“Yes,” says Mundy, “and I mean to go; that’s as fine a black-eyed, piquey-cheeked, bouncing grenadier of a—”
“Stop!” said I, making a bounce to sit up, for my blood was boiling; but I was not equal to that change of posture yet. “If you mean Miss Theodora Molloy—” I began.
“Oh! oh! So it is there the wind sits,” says he, and he laughed, “I meant old Mother Molloy, of course; don’t be uneasy, my dear fellow.”
We parted, notwithstanding, very good friends, and I was glad to hear that he was just going to pay them a visit in their apartments on Ormond Quay, and I knew he could not keep my little secret long from that agreeable family.
The better part of the week had passed, as you are aware, since this visit of Mundy’s, and I was now on the point of setting out to enjoy the delightful evening I had been dreaming of for so long.
When my toilet was completed, I practised sitting down and standing up, which I did, perhaps, a little stiffly; still the movement was quite feasible, and I trusted to the inspiration of Theodora’s presence to make it graceful.
When all was ready I took my opera-hat and got into the hackney-coach, with a great coat-of-arms, as big as a signboard, emblazoned on each door. Some judge or Lord Mayor, or other magnifico, seemed to have owned every one of them, fifty years before, and turned them adrift to batter about the town ever since. I sat down alone in my glory. It was a roomy place. Three could easily sit at a side. I wish you felt the jolting, and bobbing, and bumping. I was in no condition to enjoy it just then, and on second thought, I readjusted my pose. I kneeled down; such, for sufficient reasons, was the attitude I preferred, with my elbows on the cushion. There was room enough for changes of the sort: it was as big as a pew, a very uneasy one, you may suppose: the noise of it was enough to deafen a cannoneer for an hour after. If all the old iron and broken glass in Dublin was being tossed by madmen in frying-pans like pancakes, it could not exceed the ring and clatter and batter of that musical enclosure. They were all alike; there was no use in fretting; I wanted to be at Ormond Quay to the minute, not to lose one moment of Theodora’s company, possibly to arrive first of the lot and have her all to myself before anyone else should come in to bother us.
Unfortunately, my coachman was something the worse for liquor, and delayed me considerably by tumbling out of the box, which he did three times: once on his back, once on his face, and last on his knees and elbows. He had to be helped up on to the box every time, and his hat, whip, and other appurtenances collected and restored by some charitable blackguards of his acquaintance, while I, compelled
