n he saw she was for
battering all the servants and using worse talk than the sailors I
heard in Bristol? It would not be me they were after, those men
running. It would be her. And small power to them, but they were no
good at it. I am for taking a stool in my hand--"

"Whist!" said I. "In England they would not be hitting great ladies
with stools. Let us hearken to the brawl. She is fighting them
finely."

For I had seen that Paddy spoke truth. The noble lady was engaged in
battling with servants who had been in pursuit of her when she was in
pursuit of Paddy. Never had I seen even my own father so drunk as she
was then. But the heart-rending thing was the humble protests of the
servants. "Your ladyship! Oh, your ladyship!"--as they came up one by
one, or two by two, obeying orders of the Earl, to be incontinently
boxed on the ears by a member of a profligate aristocracy. Probably
any one of them was strong enough to throw the beldame out at a
window. But such was not the manner of the time. One would think they
would retreat upon the Earl and ask to be dismissed from his service.
But this also was not the manner of the time. No; they marched up
heroically and took their cuffs on the head and cried: "Oh, your
ladyship! Please, your ladyship!" They were only pretenders in their
attacks; all they could do was to wait until she was tired, and then
humbly escort her to where she belonged, meanwhile pulling gently at
her arms.

"She was after recognizing you then?" said I to Paddy.

"Indeed and she was," said he. He had dropped into a chair and was
looking as if he needed a doctor to cure him of exhaustion. "She would
be after having eyes like a sea-gull. And Jem Bottles was all for
declaring that my disguise was complete, bad luck to the little man."

"Your disguise complete?" said I. "You couldn't disguise yourself
unless you stood your head in a barrel. What talk is this?"

"Sure an' I looked no more like myself than I looked like a wild man
with eight rows of teeth in his head," said Paddy mournfully. "My own
mother would have been after taking me for a horse. 'Tis that old
creature with her evil eye who would be seeing me when all the others
were blind as bats. I could have walked down the big street in Cork
without a man knowing me."

"That you could at any time," said I. The Countess had for some
moments ceased to hammer on my door. "Hearken! I think they are
managing her."

Either Hoity-Toity had lost he