“That fellow’s disposed to put a quarrel on me,” said I to myself; “let him; if he don’t, maybe I’ll put one upon him.”
I dare say I looked a little bit surly, for Mrs. Molloy plucked me by the coat, and said: “Sit down at the table, here, beside me, and take a hot cup of tay, and a cut o’ that pittaytee-cake; and may I never! but ye look as if ye saw your tailor’s ghost with a bill in his fingers. Sit down now, I tell you,” and the imperious old lady pulled me down on the chair with a souse. “And here’s for you; that’s stingo; drink it, my child; and cream in it that will make you as fat as a pig.”
I think in her youth Mrs. Molloy must have been very nearly as strong as Juggy Hanlon: I felt perfectly helpless in the hands of either. In deep dudgeon I swallowed lumps of potato-cake and gulped down tea, talking rather vaguely with old Mrs. Molloy, and watching Theodora and The O’Kelly of Ballynamuck with the corner of my eye.
“I see how it is, my poor little fellow,” says Mrs. Molloy, with a kind wink at me, “but don’t bother you head about him. Mickey Kelly there,” and she winked at me again, and jogged her elbow in the direction of The O’Kelly, “can’t come to the playhouse tonight; he’s going to Killcock to sell a mare, and he’s the boy that can do it. So Theodora’ll have no one to look after her but yourself and them officers, and I leave her among you, and I think I know who’ll be foremost. We leave that dear girl, me and Molloy there, just to do whatever she likes best herself. What time of day is it, Molloy?”
Old Molloy obediently grasped the seals of his huge silver watch, and hauled it, with several tugs, from the recesses of his fob.
“Why then, it’s time the coaches was at the door,” says Mrs. Molloy, in a tone of brisk alarm, having heard his report. “Ring the bell, some o’ yez, like darlin’s. Where’s that Juggy Hanlon? Don’t be affeard, Mr. Dooley,” she interpolated to me, with a momentary playfulness, “she shan’t lay a finger on you. Call two coaches, Juggy, and don’t be while ye’d be lookin’ about ye—mind. Run in and get ready, Theo, my child.” And she added more vehemently to her helpmate, “Shake them crumbs off your small-clothes, Mr. Molloy, and, for dacency’s sake, will ye wipe that butter off your chin.”
So issuing her orders in hot haste, Mrs. Molloy fussed, and wheezed, and bustled about. Mundy was arranging his curls, and smiling blandly at his handsome features in the looking-glass; and Lieutenant Kramm was entertaining old Molloy with terrific anecdotes of his sporting and military life; and The O’Kelly was taking his leave with all the fascination and gallantry that belonged to his courtly manners. From the window I saw him get into a battered gig, and drive off at a hideous pace, pretty much at the mercy of a mad-looking horse, in a westerly direction. That red-faced thief made me very uneasy; and you may be sure it wasn’t altogether about his neck I was anxious.
Well, he was gone; that was one comfort. I shook myself up, and strutted from one window to another, and Mrs. Molloy’s words and looks of encouragement came back, and I began to think if a little beast like that chooses to pin himself to a girl’s apron-string, what is she to do? I dare say she hated the old whisky-faced rascal as much as I did; and didn’t she give me a smile over her shoulder as she left the room!
My spirits rose. I was glad to observe that Mundy, who was six feet high and wore a red coat—decisive odds—was not in the running; and Kramm was directing his attentions chiefly to the old people. The opportunity would, after all, prove as fortunate as my wildest hopes had painted it.
In a few minutes more we were rolling and rattling away to the theatre. Mrs. Molloy distinguished Kramm and Mundy by placing herself under their escort, and starting first, with a tipsy coachman and a horse that had a morbid jerk in one of its legs, and seemed at every fifth step to be on the point of pitching, with a curtsey, on its head. Away they went in full fig, merrily, in this conveyance; Mrs. Molloy, as proud as a peacock to take her seat in the box next his Excellency, the Lord Lift’nant! I, old Molloy, and the lovely Theodora, whom I keep to the last, as children do their best bit, followed in our jingling, thundering, rolling coach, and in a few minutes down slammed the steps in front of the box-entrance, and I had the happiness of giving my arm to the beautiful girl I had never ceased thinking of since I saw her for the first time, in the barouche, outside the pickle-shop on Stephen’s Green. Can I ever forget it!
Here we are now, all in our glory, under the blaze of the lamps. Mrs. Molloy’s turban, or, as she persisted in calling that sort of coiffure, to her dying day, her “turbot,” was the finest thing in green, yellow, and pink that night in the playhouse, with a big pin—I suppose they were precious stones—stuck in the front of it; her dress was
