"I think so, sir," said I, brightening up, and at the same time stealing an illustration from my old legal practices. "In Mrs. Davis's court there are no precedents."
"Exactly, Con; hit the nail on the very head, my boy!"
"It will not be a very difficult game, sir, if the guests are like the mistress."
"So they are, for the most part; now and then you'll have a military and naval officer at table, and you'll be obliged to look out sharp, and not let them detect you; but with the skippers of merchantmen, dockyard people, storekeepers, male and female, I fancy you can hold your own."
"Why, sir, I hope they'll be satisfied with the qualification that contented my former titled masters," said I, with a knowing twinkle of the eye he seemed to relish prodigiously, and an assumed tone of voice that suited well the part I was to play.
"Come down below, now, and we 'll write your characters for you;" and so he beckoned the others to accompany him to the cabin, whither I followed them.
An animated debate ensued as to the number and nature of the certificates I ought to possess, some being of opinion that I should have those of every kind and degree; others alleging that my age forbade the likelihood of my having served in more than two or three situations.
"What say you to this, lads?" said Pike, reading from a rough and much-corrected draft before him:--
The bearer, Cornelius Cregan, has lived in my service ten months as a page; he is scrupulously honest, active, and intelligent, well acquainted with the duties of his station, and competent to discharge them in the first families. I now dismiss him at his own request. Cecilia Mendleshaw.
"Gad! I'd rather make him start as what they call in his own country a 'Tay-boy,'" said Carrington,--"one of those bits of tarnished gold-lace and gaiters seen about the outskirts of Dublin."
"Your honor is right, sir," said I, glad to show myself above any absurd vanity on the score of my early beginning; "a 'Tay-boy' on the Rathmines road, able to drive a jaunting-car and wait at table."
"That's the mark, I believe," said Pike. "Suppose, then, we say: 'Con Cregan has served me twelve months, waited at table, and taken care of a horse and car.'"
"Ah, sir!" said I, "sure an Irish gentleman with a 'Tay-boy' would be finer spoken than that. It would be: 'I certify that Cornelius Cregan, who served in my establishment as under-butler, and occasionally assisting the coachman, is a most respectable servant, well-mannered and respectful, having always lived in high situations, and with the most distinguished individuals.'"