tyle, and comes
better from wires,' said the captain, as they were putting on their
overcoats in the hall. 'You must know the family. "Deeds not words" would
serve for their motto. She hates writing, and doesn't much love talking.
Pat 'll lengthen her sentences for her. She's fond of Adiante, and she
sympathises with her brother Edward made a grandfather through the
instrumentality of that foreign hooknose; and Patrick must turn the two
dagger sentiments to a sort of love-knot and there's the task he'll have
to work out in his letter to Miss Caroline. It's fun about Colonel Arthur
not going. He's to meet the burning Miss Mattock, who has gold on her
crown and a lot on her treasury, Phil, my boy! but I'm bound in honour
not to propose it. And a nice girl, a prize; afresh healthy girl; and
brains: the very girl! But she's jotted down for the Adisters, if Colonel
Arthur can look lower than his nose and wag his tongue a bit. She's one
to be a mother of stout ones that won't run up big doctors' bills or ask
assistance in growing. Her name's plain Jane, and she 's a girl to breed
conquerors; and the same you may say of her brother John, who 's a mighty
fit man, good at most things, though he counts his fortune in millions,
which I've heard is lighter for a beggar to perform than in pounds, but
he can count seven, and beat any of us easy by showing them millions! We
might do something for them at home with a million or two, Phil. It all
came from the wedding of a railway contractor, who sprang from the
wedding of a spade and a clod--and probably called himself Mattock at his
birth, no shame to him.'

'You're for the city,' said Philip, after they had walked down the
street.

'Not I,' said Con. 'Let them play Vesuvius down there. I've got another
in me: and I can't stop their eruption, and they wouldn't relish mine. I
know a little of Dick Martin, who called on the people to resist, and
housed the man Liffey after his firing the shot, and I'm off to Peter
M'Christy, his brother-in-law. I'll see Distell too. I must know if it
signifies the trigger, or I'm agitated about nothing. Dr. Forbery'll be
able to tell how far they mean going for a patriotic song.

"For we march in ranks to the laurelled banks,
On the bright horizon shining,
Though the fields between run red on the green,
And many a wife goes pining."

Will you come, Phil?'

'I 'm under orders.'

'You won't engage yourself by coming.