Volume I Part 57 (1/2)
”Impossible, my Lord, after what occurred between us the last time.”
”I don't take it in that way. I suspect he 'll not bear any malice.
Lawyers are not thin-skinned people; they give and take such hard knocks that they lose that nice sense of injury other folks are endowed with. I think you might go.”
”I 'd rather not, my Lord,” said he, shaking his head.
”Try his wife, then.”
”They don't live together. I don't know if they're on speaking terms.”
”So much the better,--she'll know every c.h.i.n.k of his armor, and perhaps tell us where he is vulnerable. Wait a moment. There has been some talk of a picnic on Dalkey Island. It was to be a mere household affair. What if you were to invite her?--making of course the explanation that it was a family party, that no cards had been sent out; in fact, that it was to be so close a thing the world was never to hear of it.”
”I think the bait would be irresistible, particularly when she found out that all her own set and dear friends had been pa.s.sed over.”
”Charge her to secrecy,--of course she'll not keep her word.”
”May I say we 'll come for her? The great mystery will be so perfectly in keeping with one of the household carriages and your Excellency's liveries.”
”Won't that be too strong, Balfour?” said the Viceroy, laughing.
”Nothing is too strong, my Lord, in this country. They take their blunders neat as they do their sherry, and I'm sure that this part of the arrangement will, in the gossip it will give rise to, be about the best of the whole exploit.”
”Take your own way, then; only make no such mistake as you made with the husband. No doc.u.ments, Balfour,--no doc.u.ments, I beg;” and with this warning laughingly given, but by no means so pleasantly taken, his Excellency went off and left him.
CHAPTER XLIII. MR. BALFOUR'S MISSION
Lady Lendrick was dictating to her secretary, Miss Morse, the Annual Report of the ”Benevolent Ballad-Singers' Aid Society,” when her servant announced the arrival of Mr. Cholmondely Balfour. She stopped abruptly short at a pathetic bit of description,--”The aged minstrel, too old for erotic poetry, and yet debarred by the stern rules of a repressive policy from the strains of patriotic song,”--for, be it said parenthetically, Lady Lendrick affected ”Irishry” to a large extent,--and, dismissing Miss Morse to an adjoining room, she desired the servant to introduce Mr. Balfour.
Is it fancy, or am I right in supposing that English officials have a manner specially a.s.sumed for Ireland and the Irish,--a thing like the fur cloak a man wears in Russia, or the snowshoes he puts on in Lapland, not intended for other lat.i.tudes, but admirably adapted for the locality it is made for? I will not insist that this theory of mine is faultless, but I appeal to a candid public of my own countrmen if they have not in their experience seen what may support it. I do not say it is a bad manner,--a presuming manner,--a manner of depreciation towards these it is used to, or a manner indicative of indifference in him who uses it. I simply say that they who employ it keep it as especially for Ireland as they keep their macintosh capes for wet weather, and would no more think of displaying it in England than they would go to her Majesty's levee in a shooting-jacket. Mr. Balfour was not wanting in this manner. Indeed, the Administration of which he formed a humble part were all proficients in it. It was a something between a mock homage and a very jocular familiarity, so that when he arose after a bow, deep and reverential enough for the presence of majesty, he lounged over to a chair and threw himself down with the ease and unconcern of one perfectly at home.
”And how is my Lady? and how are the fourscore and one a.s.sociations for turnkeys' widows and dog-stealers' orphans doing? What 's the last new thing in benevolence? Do tell me, for I 've won five s.h.i.+llings at loo, and want to invest it.”
”You mean you have drawn your quarter's salary, Mr. Balfour.”
”No, by Jove; they don't pay us so liberally. We have the run of our teeth and no more.”
”You forget your tongue, sir; you are unjust.”
”Why, my Lady, you are as quick as Sir William himself; living with that great wit has made you positively dangerous.”
”I have not enjoyed over-much of the opportunity you speak of.”
”Yes, I know that; no fault of yours, though. The world is agreed on that point. I take it he's about the most impossible man to live with the age has yet produced. Sewell has told me such things of him!--things that would be incredible if I had not seen him.”
”I beg pardon for interrupting, but of course you have not come to dilate on the Chief Baron's defects of temper to his wife.”
”No, only incidentally,--parenthetically, as one may say,--just as one knocks over a hare when he's out partridge-shooting.”
”Never mind the hare, then, sir; keep to your partridges.”