One Of Them

“We said, two fifty,” replied O’Shea, in his silkiest of tones.

“Be it so,” muttered Heathcote; “I gave two hundred for the chestnut horse at Tattersall’s.”

“He was dear, – too dear,” was the dry reply.

“Esterhazy called him the best horse he ever bred.”

“He shall have him this morning for a hundred and twenty.”

“Well, well,” burst in Heathcote, “we are not here to dispute about that. I handed you, as well as I remember, eighty, and two hundred and thirty Naps.”

“More than that, I think,” said O’Shea, thoughtfully, and as if laboring to recollect clearly.

“I’m certain I’m correct,” said Heathcote, haughtily. “I made no other payments than these two, – eighty and two hundred and thirty.”

“What a memory I have, to be sure!” said O’Shea, laughingly. “I remember now, it was a rouleau of fifty that I paid away to Layton was running in my head.”

Heathcote’s lip curled superciliously, but it was only for a second, and his features were calm as before. “Two thirty and eighty make three hundred and ten, and three fifty – ”

“Two fifty for the trap!” broke in O’Shea.

“Ah! to be sure, two fifty, make altogether five hundred and sixty Naps, leaving, let me see – ninety-four – sixty-one – one hundred and twelve – ”

“A severe night that was. You never won a game!” chimed in O’Shea.

“ – One hundred and twelve and seventy, making three hundred and thirty-seven in all. Am I right?”

“Correct as Cocker, only you have forgotten your walk against time, from the fish-pond to the ranger’s lodge. What was it, – ten Naps, or twenty?”

“Neither. It was five, and I paid it!” was the curt answer.

“Ain’t I the stupidest dog that ever sat for a borough?” said O’Shea, bursting out into one of his boisterous laughs. “Do you know, I’d have been quite willing to have bet you a cool hundred about that?”

“And you ‘d have lost,” said Heathcote, dryly.

“Not a doubt of it, and deserved it too,” said he, merrily.

“I have brought you here one hundred and fifty,” said Heathcote, laying down three rouleaux on the table, “and, for the remainder, my note at three months. I hope that may not prove inconvenient?”

“Inconvenient, my boy! never say the word. Not to mention that fortune may take a turn one of these days, and all this California find its way back to its own diggings.”

“I don’t mean to play any more.”

“Not play any more! Do you mean to say that, because you have been once repulsed, you ‘ll never charge again? Is that your soldier’s pluck?”

“There is no question here of my soldier’s pluck. I only said I ‘d not play billiards.”

“May I ask you one thing? How can you possibly expect to attain excellence in any pursuit, great or small, when you are so easily abashed?”

“May I take the same liberty with you, and ask how can it possibly concern any one but myself that I have taken this resolution?”

“There you have me! a hazard and no mistake! I may be your match at billiards; but when it comes to repartee, you are the better man, Heathcote.”

Coarse as the flattery was, it was not unpleasing. Indeed, in its very coarseness there was a sort of mock sincerity, just as the stroke of a heavy hand on your shoulder is occasionally taken for good fellowship, though you wince under the blow. Now Heathcote was not only gratified by his own smartness, but after a moment or two he felt half sorry he had been so “severe on the poor fellow.” He had over-shotted his gun, and there was really no necessity to rake him so heavily; and so, with a sort of blundering bashfulness, he said, —

“You ‘re not offended; you ‘re not angry with me?”

“Offended! angry! nothing of the kind. I believe I am a peppery sort of fellow, – at least, down in the West there they say as much of me; but once a man is my friend, – once that I feel all straight and fair between us, – he may bowl me over ten times a day, and I ‘ll never resent it.”

There was a pause after this, and Heathcote found his position painfully awkward. He did not fancy exactly to repudiate the friendship thus assumed, and he certainly did not like to put his name to the bond; and so he walked to the window and looked out with that half-hopeless vacuity bashful men are prone to.

“What’s the weather going to do?” said he, carelessly. “More rain?”

“Of course, more rain! Amongst all the humbugs of the day, do you know of one equal to the humbug of the Italian climate? Where’s the blue sky they rave about?”

“Not there, certainly,” said Heathcote, laughing, as he looked up at the leaden-colored canopy that lowered above them.

“My father used to say,” said O’Shea, “that it was all a mistake to talk about the damp climate of Ireland; the real grievance was, that when it rained it always rained dirty water!”

The conceit amused Heathcote, and he laughed again.

“There it comes now, and with a will too!” And at the same instant, with a rushing sound like hail, the rain poured down with such intensity as to shut out the hills directly in front of the windows.

“You ‘re caught this time, Heathcote. Make the best of it, like a man, and resign yourself to eat a mutton-chop here with me at four o’clock; and if it clears in the evening, I ‘ll canter back with you.”

“No, no, the weather will take up; this is only a shower. They ‘ll expect me back to dinner, besides. Confound it, how it does come down!”

“Oh, faith!” said O’Shea, half mournfully, “I don’t wonder that you are less afraid of the rain than a bad dinner.”

“No, it’s not that, – nothing of the kind,” broke in Heathcote, hurriedly; “at another time I should be delighted! Who ever saw such rain as that!”

“Look at the river too. See how it is swollen already.”

“Ah! I never thought of the mountain torrents,” said Heathcote, suddenly.

“They ‘ll be coming down like regular cataracts by this time. I defy any one to cross at Borgo even now. Take my advice, Heathcote, and reconcile yourself to old Pan’s cookery for to-day.”

“What time do you dine?”

“What time will suit you? Shall we say four or five?”

“Four, if you’ll permit me. Four will do capitally.”

“That’s all right And now I ‘ll just step down to Panini myself, and give him a hint about some Burgundy he has got in the cellar.”

Like most men yielding to necessity, Heathcote felt discontented and irritated, and no sooner was he alone than he began to regret his having accepted the invitation. What signified a wetting? He was on horseback, to be sure, but he was well mounted, and it was only twelve miles, – an hour or an hour and a quarter’s sharp canter; and as to the torrents, up to the girths, perhaps, or a little beyond, – it could scarcely come to swimming. Thus he argued with himself as he walked to and fro, and chafed and fretted as he went. It was in this irritated state O’Shea found him when he came back.

“We ‘re all right. They ‘ve got a brace of woodcock below stairs, and some Pistoja mutton; and as I have forbidden oil and all the grease-pots, we ‘ll manage to get a morsel to eat.”

“I was just thinking how stupid I was to – to – to put you to all this inconvenience,” said he, hastily changing a rudeness into an apology.

“Isn’t it a real blessing for me to catch you?” cried O’Shea. “Imagine me shut up here by myself all day, no one to speak to, nothing to do, nothing to read but that old volume of the ‘Wandering Jew,’ that I begin to know by heart, or, worse again, that speech of mine on the Italian question, that whenever I ‘ve nearly finished it the villains are sure to do something or other that destroys all my predictions and ruins my argument. What would have become of me to-day if you had n’t dropped in?”

Heathcote apparently did not feel called upon to answer this inquiry, but walked the room moodily, with his hands in his pockets.

O’Shea gave a little faint sigh, – such a sigh as a weary pedestrian may give, as, turning the angle of the way, he sees seven miles of straight road before him, without bend or curve. It was now eleven o’clock, and five dreary hours were to be passed before dinner-time.

Oh, my good reader, has it been amongst your life’s experiences to have submitted to an ordeal of this kind, – to be caged up of a wet day with an unwilling guest, whom you are called on to amuse, but know not how to interest; to feel that you are bound to employ his thoughts, with the sad consciousness that in every pause of the conversation he is cursing his hard fate at being in your company; to know that you must deploy all the resources of your agreeability without even a chance of success, your very efforts to amuse constituting in themselves a boredom? It is as great a test of temper as of talent. Poor O’Shea, one cannot but pity you! To be sure, you are not without little aids to pass time, in the shape of cards, dice, and such-like. I am not quite sure that a travelling roulette-table is not somewhere amongst your effects. But of what use are they all now? None would think of a lecture on anatomy to a man who had just suffered amputation.

No, no! play must not be thought of, – it must be most sparingly alluded to even in conversation, – and so what remains? O’Shea was not without reminiscences, and he “went into them like a man.” He told scenes of early Trinity College life; gave sketches of his contemporaries, one or two of them now risen to eminence; he gave anecdotes of Gray’s Inn, where he had eaten his terms; of Templar life, its jollities and its gravities; of his theatrical experiences, when he wrote the “Drama” for two weekly periodicals; of his like employ when he reported prize-fights, boat-races, and pigeon-matches for “Bell’s Life.” He then gave a sketch of his entrance into public life, with a picture of an Irish election, dashed off spiritedly and boldly; but all he could obtain from his phlegmatic listener was a faint smile at times, and a low muttering sound, that resolved itself into, “What snobs!”

At last he was in the House, dealing with great names and great events, which he ingeniously blended up with Bellamy’s and the oyster suppers below stairs; but it was no use, – they, too, were snobs! It was all snobbery everywhere. Freshmen, Templars, Pugilists, Scullers, County Electors, and House of Commons celebrities, – all snobs!

O’Shea then tried the Turf, – disparagingly, as a great moralist ought. They were, as he said, a “bad lot;” but he knew them well, and they “could n’t hurt him.” He had a variety of curious stories about racing knaveries, and could clear up several mysterious circumstances, which all the penetration of the “Ring” had never succeeded in solving. Heathcote, however, was unappeasable; and these, too, – trainers, jockeys, judges, and gentlemen, – they were all snobs!

It was only two o’clock, and there were two more mortal hours to get through before dinner. With a bright inspiration he bethought him of bitter beer. Oh, Bass! ambrosia of the barrack-room, thou nectar of the do-nothings in this life, how gracefully dost thou deepen dulness into drowsiness, making stupidity but semi-conscious! What a bond of union art thou between those who have talked themselves out, and would without thy consoling froth, become mutually odious! Instead of the torment of suggestiveness which other drinks inspire, how gloriously lethargic are all thy influences, how mind-quelling, and how muddling!

There is, besides, a vague notion prevalent with your beer-drinker, that there is some secret of health in his indulgence, – that he is undergoing a sort of tonic regimen, something to make him more equal to the ascent of Mont Blanc, or the defeat of the Zouaves, and he grows in self-esteem as he sips. It is not the boastful sentiment begotten of champagne, or the defiant courage of port, but a dogged, resolute, resistant spirit, stout in its nature and bitter to the last!

And thus they sipped, and smoked, and said little to each other, and the hours stole over, and the wintry day darkened apace, and, at last, out of a drowsy nap over the fire, the waiter awoke them, to say dinner was on the table.

“You were asleep!” said O’Shea, to his companion.

“Yes, ‘twas your snoring set me off!” replied Heathcote, stretching himself, as he walked to the window. “Raining just as hard as ever!”

“Come along,” said the other, gayly. “Let us see what old Fan has done for us.”

CHAPTER XXI. MR. O’SHEA UPON POLITICS, AND THINGS IN GENERAL

It was a most appetizing little dinner that was now set before the O’Shea and Charles Heathcote. The trout from Castellano and the mutton from Pistoja were each admirable; and a brace of woodcocks, shot in the first snowstorm on the Carrara mountains, were served in a fashion that showed the cook had benefited by English teachings.

“There are worse places than this, after all!” said O’Shea, as he sat at one side of the fire, Heathcote opposite, and a small table liberally covered with decanters between them.

“Wonderful Burgundy this,” said Heathcote, gazing at his glass in the light. “What does he call it?”

“He calls it Lafitte. These fellows think all red wines come from the Bordeaux country. Here it is, – marked seven francs.”

“Cheap at double the price. My governor will take every bottle of it.”

“Not before I leave, I hope,” said O’Shea, laughing. “I trust he ‘ll respect what they call vested interests.”

“Oh, by the way,” said the other, indolently, “you are going?”

“Yes. Our party are getting uneasy, and I am constantly receiving letters pressing me to return to England.”

“Want you in the House, perhaps?” said Heathcote, as he puffed his cigar in lazy enjoyment.

“Just so. You see, a parliamentary session is a sort of campaign in which every arm of warfare is needed. You want your great guns for the grand battles, your dashing cavalry charges for emergencies, and your light skirmishers to annoy the enemy and disconcert his advance.”

“And which are you?” asked the other, in a tone of bantering indifference.

“Well, I ‘m what you might call a mounted rifleman, – a dash of the dragoon with a spice of the sharpshooter.”

“Sharp enough, I take it,” muttered Heathcote, who bethought him of the billiard-table, and the wonderful “hazards” O’Shea used to accomplish.

“You understand,” resumed the Member, confidentially, “I don’t come out on the Budget, or Reform, or things of that kind; but I lie by till I hear some one make a blunder or a mistake, no matter how insignificant, and then I ‘m down on him, generally with an anecdote – something he reminds me of – and for which I ‘m sure to have the laugh against him. It’s so easy, besides, to make them laugh; the worst jokes are always successful in the House of Commons.”

“Dull fellows, I suppose?” chimed in Heathcote.

“No, indeed; not that. Go down with six or eight of them to supper, and you’ll say you never met pleasanter company. ‘T is being caged up there all together, saying the same things over and over, that’s what destroys them.”

“It must be a bore, I take it?” sighed out Heathcote.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said O’Shea, as, in a voice of deepest confidence, he leaned over the table and spoke, – “I ‘ll tell you what it is. Did you ever play the game called Brag, with very little money in your pocket?”

Heathcote nodded what might mean assent or the opposite.

“That’s what Parliament is,” resumed O’Shea. “You sit there, night after night, year after year, wondering within yourself, ‘Would it be safe for me to play this hand? Shall I venture now?’ You know well that if you do back your luck and lose, that it’s all up with you forever, so that it’s really a mighty serious thing to risk it. At last, maybe, you take courage. You think you ‘ve got the cards; it’s half-past two o’clock; the House is thin, and every one is tired and sleepy. Up you get on your legs to speak. You’re not well down again, till a fellow from the back benches, you thought sound asleep, gets up and tears all you said to tatters, – destroys your facts, scatters your inferences, and maybe laughs at your figures of speech.”

“Not so pleasant, that,” said Heathcote, languidly.

“Pleasant! it’s the devil!” said O’Shea, violently; “for you hear the pen scratching away up in the reporters’ gallery, and you know it will be all over Europe next morning.”

“Then why submit to all this?” asked Heathcote, more eagerly.

“Just as I said awhile ago; because you might chance upon a good card, and ‘brag’ on it for something worth while. It’s all luck.”

“Your picture of political life is not fascinating,” said Heathcote, coldly.

“After all, do you know, I like it,” resumed O’Shea. “As long as you ‘ve a seat in the House, there’s no saying when you might n’t be wanted; and then, when the session’s over, and you go down to the country, you are the terror of all the fellows that never sat in Parliament. If they say a word about public matters, you put them down at once with a cool ‘I assure you, sir, that’s not the view we take of it in the House.’”

“I ‘d say, ‘What’s that to me?’”

“No, you would n’t, – not a bit of it; or, if you did, nobody would mind you, and for this reason, – it’s the real place, after all. Why do you pay Storr and Mortimer more than another jeweller? Just because you’re sure of the article. There now, that’s how it is!”

“There’s some one knocking at the door, I think,” said Heathcote; but at the same instant Joe’s head appeared inside, with a request to be admitted. “‘T is the telegraph,” said he, presenting a packet.

“I have asked for a small thing in Jamaica, some ten or twelve hundred a year,” whispered O’Shea to his friend. “I suppose this is the reply.” And at the same time he threw the portentous envelope carelessly on the table.

Either Heathcote felt no interest in the subject, or deemed it proper to seem as indifferent as his host, for he never took any further notice of the matter, but smoked away as before.

“You need n’t wait,” said O’Shea to Joe, who still lingered at the door. “That fellow is bursting with curiosity now,” said he, as the man retired; “he ‘d give a year’s wages to know what was inside that envelope.”

“Indeed!” sighed out Heathcote, in a tone that showed how little he sympathized with such eagerness.

If O’Shea was piqued at this cool show of indifference, he resolved to surpass it by appearing to forget the theme altogether; and, pushing the bottle across the table, he said, “Did I ever tell you how it was I first took to politics?”

“No, I think not,” said Heathoote, listlessly.

“Well, it was a chance, and a mere chance; this is the way it happened. Though I was bred to the Bar, I never did much at the law; some say that an agreeable man, with a lively turn in conversation, plenty of anecdote, and a rich fancy, is never a favorite with the attorneys; the rascals always think that such a man will never make a lawyer, and though they ‘ll listen to his good stories by the hour in the Hall, devil a brief they ‘ll give him, nor so much as a ‘declaration.’ Well, for about five years I walked about in wig and gown, joking and quizzing and humbugging all the fellows that were getting business, and taking a circuit now and again, but all to no good; and at last I thought I ‘d give it up, and so my friends advised me, saying, ‘Get something under the Government, Gorman; a snug place with a few hundreds a year, and be sure take anything that ‘s offered you to begin with.’

“Now there was a room in Dublin Castle – it’s the second down the corridor off the private stairs – that used to be called the Poker-room. It may be so still, for anything I know, and for this reason: it was there all the people expecting places or appointments were accustomed to wait. It was a fine, airy, comfortable room, with a good carpet, easy-chairs, and always an excellent fire; and here used to meet every day of their lives the same twenty or five-and-twenty people, one occasionally dropping off, and another coming in, but so imperceptibly and gradually that the gathering at last grew to be a sort of club, where they sat from about eleven till dark every day, chatting pleasantly over public and private events. It was thus found necessary to give it a kind of organization, and so we named for President the oldest, – that is, the longest expectant of place, – who, by virtue of his station, occupied the seat next the fire, and alone, of all the members, possessed the privilege of poking it. The poker was his badge of office; and the last act of his official life, whenever promotion separated him from us, was to hand the poker to his successor, with a solemn dignity of manner and a few parting words.

I verily believe that most of us got to be so fond of the club that it was the very reverse of a pleasure when we had to leave it to become, maybe, a Police Inspector at Skibbereen, Postmaster at Tory Island, or a Gauger at Innismagee; and so we jogged on, from one Viceroy to another, very happy and contented. Well, it was the time of a great Marquis, – I won’t say who, but he was the fast friend of O’Connell, – and we all of us thought that there would be plenty of fine things given away, and the poker-room was crammed, and I was the President, having ascended the throne two years and a half before. It was somewhere early in March; a cold raw day it was. I had scarcely entered the club, than a messenger bawled out, ‘Gorman O’Shea, – Mr. Gorman O’Shea.’ ‘Here he is,’ said I. ‘Wanted in the Chief Secretary’s office,’ said he, ‘immediately.’ I gave a knowing wink to the company around the fire, and left the room. Three mortal hours did I stand in the ante-room below, seeing crowds pass in and out before I was called in; and then, as I entered, saw a little wizened, sharp-faced man standing with his back to the fire paring his nails. He never so much as looked at me, but said in a careless, muttering sort of way, —

“‘You’re the gentleman who wishes to go as resident magistrate to Oackatoro, ain’t you?’

“‘Well, indeed, sir, I’m not quite sure,’ I began.

“‘Oh yes, you are,’ broke he in. ‘I know all about you. Your name has been favorably mentioned to the office. You are Mr. O’Gorman – ’

“‘Mr. Gorman O’Shea,’ said I, proudly.

“‘The same thing, Gorman O’Shea. I remember it now. Your appointment will be made out: five hundred a year, and a retiring pension after six years; house, and an allowance for monkeys.’

“‘A what?’ asked I.

“‘The place is much infested with a large species of oorang-outang, and the governor gives so much per head for destroying them. Mr. Simpson, in the office, will give you full information. You are to be at your post by the 1st of August.’

“‘Might I make bold to ask where Whackatory is?’

“‘Oackatoro, sir,’ said he, proudly, ‘is the capital of Fighi. I trust I need not say where that is.’

“‘By no means,’ said I, modestly; and, muttering my thanks for the advancement, I backed out, almost deranged to think that I did n’t know where I was going.

“‘Where is it? What is it? How much is it, O’Shea?’ cried thirty ardent voices, as I entered the club.

“‘It’s five hundred a year,’ said I, ‘without counting the monkeys. It’s a magistrate’s place; but may a gooseberry skin make a nightcap for me if I know where the devil it is!’

“‘But you have accepted!’ cried they out, all together.

“‘I have,’ said I. ‘I’m to be at Fighi, wherever that is, by the 1st of August. And now,’ said I, turning to the fire, and taking up the poker, ‘there is nothing for me to do but resign this sacred symbol of my office into the hands of my successor.’

“Where’s O’Dowd?’ shouted out the crowd. And they awoke out of a pleasant sleep a little old fellow that never missed his day for two years at the club.

“‘Gentlemen,’ said I, in a voice trembling with feeling, ‘the hour is come when my destiny is to separate me from you forever; an hour that is equally full of the past and the future, and has even no small share of present emotions. If ever there were a human institution devised to cement together the hearts and affections of men, to bind them into one indissoluble mass, and blend their instincts into identity, it is the club we have here. Here we stand, like the departed spirits at the Styx, waiting for the bark of Charon to ferry us over. To what, however? Is it to some blessed elysium of a Poor Law Commissioner’s place, or is it to some unknown fate in a distant land, with five hundred a year and an allowance for monkeys? That’s the question, there’s the rub! as Hamlet says.’ After dilating at large on this, I turned to O’Dowd. ‘To your hands,’ said I, ‘I commit this venerable relic: keep it, guard it, honor it, and preserve it. Remember,’ said I, ‘that when you stir those coals it is the symbol of keeping alive in the heart the sparks of an undying hope; that though they may wet the slack and water the cinders of our nature, the fire within us will still survive, red, glowing, and generous. Is n’t that as fine, as great, glorious, and free, I ask you?’