, and dennets were constantly arriving and departing. Members
of Daly's with their green coats and buff waistcoats, whiskered dragoons
and plumed aides-de-camp, were all mixed up together, while on the open
balcony an indiscriminate herd of loungers telegraphed the conversation
from the drawing-room to the street, and thus all the _bons mots_, all
the jests, all the witticisms that went forward within doors, found
also a laughing auditory without; for it is a remarkable feature of this
singular country, that there is no turn of expression whose raillery
is too delicate, no repartee whose keenness is too fine, for the
appreciation of the poorest and meanest creature that walks the street.
Poor Paddy, if the more substantial favours of fortune be not your lot,
nature has linked you by a strong sympathy with tastes, habits, and
usages which, by some singular intuition, you seem thoroughly to
comprehend. One cannot dwell long among them without feeling this, and
witnessing how generally, how almost universally, poverty of condition
and wealth of intellect go hand in hand together; and, as it is only
over the bleak and barren surface of some fern-clad heath the wildfire
flashes through the gloom of night, so it would seem the more brilliant
firework of fancy would need a soil of poverty and privation to produce
it.

But, at length, to come back, the Rooneys now were installed as the
great people of the capital. Many of the _ancien regime_, who held out
sturdily before, and who looked upon the worthy attorney in the light
of a usurper, now gave in their allegiance, and regarded him as the true
monarch. What his great prototype effected by terror, he brought about
by turtle; and, if Napoleon consolidated his empire and propped his
throne by the bayonets of the grand army, so did Mr. Rooney establish
his claims to power by the more satisfactory arguments which,
appealing not only to the head, but to the stomach, convince while they
conciliate. You might criticise his courtesy, but you could not condemn
his claret. You might dislike his manners, but you could not deny
yourself his mutton. Besides, after all, matters took pretty much the
same turn in Paris as in Dublin; public opinion ran strong in both
cases. The mass of the world consists of those who receive benefits, and
he who confers them deserves to be respected. We certainly thought so;
and among those of darker hue who frequented Mr. Rooney's table, three
red-coats might