"I beg your pardon, ma'am," interposed a fat little woman, with a choleric red face and a tremulous underlip,--she was an authoress in the provincial papers, and occasionally invented her English as well as her incidents,--"it was the Derry mail he went by. Archy M'Clure trod on his toe, and asked pardon for it, just to get him into conversation; but he seemed very much dejected, and wouldn't interlocute."
"Very strange indeed!" rejoined the lady of the shade, "because I had my information from Williams, the guard of the coach."
"And both were wrong," interposed Paul Dempsey, triumphantly.
"It's not very polite to tell us so, Mr. Dempsey," said the thin old lady, bridling.
"Perhaps the politeness may equal the voracity," said the fat lady, who was almost boiling over with wrath.
"This Gwynne wasn't all right, depend upon it," interposed a certain little man in powder; "I have my own suspicions about him."
"Well, now, Mr. Dunlop, what's your opinion? I'd like to hear it."
"What does Mrs. M'Caudlish say?" rejoined the little gentleman, turning to the authoress,--for in the boarding-house they both presided judicially in all domestic inquisitions regarding conduct and character,--"what does Mrs. M'Caudlish say?"
"I prefer letting Mr. Dunlop expose himself before me."
"The case is doubtful--dark--mysterious," said Dunlop, with a solemn pause after each word.
"The more beyond my conjunctions," said the lady. "You remember what the young gentleman says in the Latin poet, 'Sum Davy, non sum Euripides.'"
"I 'll tell you my opinion, then," said Mr. Dunlop, who was evidently mollified by the classical allusion; and with firm and solemn gesture he crossed over to where she sat, and whispered a few words in her ear.
A slight scream, and a long-drawn "Oh!" was all the answer.
"Upon my soul, I believe so," said Mr. Dunlop, thrusting both hands into the furthest depths of his coat-pockets; "nay, more, I'll maintain it!"
"I know what you are driving at," said Dempsey, laughing; "you think he's the gauger that went off with Mrs. Murdoch of Ballyquirk--"
"Mr. Dempsey! Mr. Dempsey! the ladies, sir! the ladies!" called out two or three reproving voices from the male portion of the assembly; while, as if to corroborate the justice of the appeal, the thin lady drew her shade down two inches lower, and Mr. Dunlop's face became what painters call "of a warm tint."