‘I am just reading the answer,’ said Joe. ‘It is very brief: here it is:—
“ ‘If ‘No Surrender’—who has been a newsvender in your establishment since you yourself rose from that employ to the editor’s chair—will call at this office any morning after distributing his eight copies of your daily issue, we promise to give him such a kicking as he has never experienced during his literary career. TERRY O’TOOLE.’ ”
‘And these are the amenities of journalism,’ cried Kearney.
‘For the matter of that, you might exclaim at the quack doctor of a fair, and ask, Is this the dignity of medicine?’ said Joe. ‘There’s a head and a tail to every walk in life: even the law has a Chief-Justice at one end and a Jack Ketch at the other.’
‘Well, I sincerely wish that those blackguards would first kick and then shoot each other.’
‘They’ll do nothing of the kind! It’s just as likely that they wrote the whole correspondence at the same table and with the same jug of punch between them.’
‘If so, I don’t envy you your career or your comrades.’
‘It’s a lottery with big prizes in the wheel all the same! I could tell you the names of great swells, Master Dick, who have made very proud places for themselves in England by what you call “journalism.” In France it is the one road to eminence. Cannot you imagine, besides, what capital fun it is to be able to talk to scores of people you were never introduced to? to tell them an infinity of things on public matters, or now and then about themselves; and in so many moods as you have tempers, to warn them, scold, compassionate, correct, console, or abuse them? to tell them not to be over-confident or bumptious, or purse-proud—’
‘And who are you, may I ask, who presume to do all this?’
‘That’s as it may be. We are occasionally Guizot, Thiers, Prévot Paradol, Lytton, Disraeli, or Joe Atlee.’
‘Modest, at all events.’
‘And why not say what I feel—not what I have done, but what is in me to do? Can’t you understand this: it would never occur to me that I could vault over a five-bar gate if I had been born a cripple? but the conscious possession of a little pliant muscularity might well tempt me to try it.’
‘And get a cropper for your pains.’
‘Be it so. Better the cropper than pass one’s life looking over the top rail and envying the fellow that had cleared it; but what’s this? here’s a letter here: it got in amongst the newspapers. I say, Dick, do you stand this sort of thing?’ said he, as he read the address.
‘Stand what sort of thing?’ asked the other, half angrily.
‘Why, to be addressed in this fashion? The Honourable Richard Kearney, Trinity College, Dublin.’
‘It is from my sister,’ said Kearney, as he took the letter impatiently from his hand; ‘and I can only tell you, if she had addressed me otherwise, I’d not have opened her letter.’
‘But come now, old fellow, don’t lose temper about it. You have a right to this designation, or you have not—’
‘I’ll spare all your eloquence by simply saying, that I do not look on you as a Committee of Privilege, and I’m not going to plead before you. Besides,’ added he, ‘it’s only a few minutes ago you asked me to credit you for something you have not shown yourself to be, but that you intended and felt that the world should see you were, one of these days.’
‘So, then, you really mean to bring your claim before the Lords?’
Kearney, if he heard, did not heed this question, but went on to read his letter. ‘Here’s a surprise!’ cried he. ‘I was telling you, the other day, about a certain cousin of mine we were expecting from Italy.’
‘The daughter of that swindler, the mock prince?’
‘The man’s character I’ll not stand up for, but his rank and title are alike indisputable,’ said Kearney haughtily.
‘With all my heart. We have soared into a high atmosphere all this day, and I hope my respiration will get used to it in time. Read away!’
It was not till after a considerable interval that Kearney had recovered composure enough to read, and when he did so it was with a brow furrowed with irritation:—
‘KILGOBBIN.
‘My dear Dick—We had just sat down to tea last night, and papa was fidgeting about the length of time his letter to Italy had remained unacknowledged, when a sharp ring at the house-door startled us. We had been hearing a good deal of searches for arms lately in the neighbourhood, and we looked very blankly at each other for a moment. We neither of us said so, but I feel sure our thoughts were on the same track, and that we believed Captain Rock, or the head-centre, or whatever be his latest title, had honoured us with a call. Old Mathew seemed of the same mind too, for he appeared at the door with that venerable blunderbuss we have so often played with, and which, if it had any evil thoughts in its head, I must have been tried for a murder years ago, for I know it was loaded since I was a child, but that the lock has for the same space of time not been on speaking terms with the barrel. While, then, thus confirmed in our suspicions of mischief by Mat’s warlike aspect, we both rose from the table, the door opened, and a young girl rushed in, and fell—actually threw herself into papa’s arms. It was Nina herself, who had come all the way from Rome alone, that is, without any one she knew, and made her way to us here, without any other guidance than her own good wits.
‘I cannot tell you how delighted we are with her. She is the loveliest girl I ever saw, so gentle, so nicely mannered, so soft-voiced, and so winning—I feel myself like a peasant beside her. The least thing she says—her laugh, her slightest gesture, the way she moves about the room, with a sort of swinging grace, which I thought affected at first, but now I see is quite natural—is only another of her many fascinations.
‘I fancied for a while that her features were almost too beautifully regular for expression, and that even when she smiled and showed her lovely teeth, her eyes got no increase of brightness; but, as I talked more with her, and learned to know her better, I saw that those eyes have meanings of softness and depths in them of wonderful power, and, stranger than all, an archness that shows she has plenty of humour.
‘Her English is charming, but slightly foreign; and when she is at a loss for a word, there is just that much of difficulty in finding it which gives a heightened expression to her beautifully calm face, and makes it lovely. You may see how she has fascinated me, for I could go on raving about her for hours.
‘She is very anxious to see you, and asks me over and over again, Shall you like her? I was almost candid enough to say “too well.” I mean that you could not help falling in love with her, my dear Dick, and she is so much above us in style, in habit, and doubtless in ambition, that such would be only madness. When she saw your photo she smiled, and said, “Is he not superb?—I mean proud?” I owned you were, and then she added, “I hope he will like me.” I am not perhaps discreet if I tell you she does not like the portrait of your chum, Atlee. She says “he is very good-looking, very clever, very witty, but isn’t he false?” and this she says over and over again. I told her I believed not; that I had never seen him myself, but that I knew that you liked him greatly, and felt to him as a brother. She only shook her head, and said, “Badate bene a quel che dico. I mean,” said she, “I’m right, but he’s very nice for all that!” If I tell you this, Dick, it is just because I cannot get it out of my head, and I will keep saying over and over to myself—“If Joe Atlee be what she suspects, why does she call him very nice for all that?” I said you intended to ask him down here next vacation, and she gave the drollest little laugh in the world—and does she not look lovely when she shows those small pearly teeth? Heaven help you, poor Dick, when you see her! but, if I were you, I should leave Master Joe behind me, for she smiles as she looks at his likeness in a way