One Of Them

“Not so pleasant, that,” said Heathcote, languidly.

“Pleasant! it’s the devil!” said O’Shea, violently; “for you hear the pen scratching away up in the reporters’ gallery, and you know it will be all over Europe next morning.”

“Then why submit to all this?” asked Heathcote, more eagerly.

“Just as I said awhile ago; because you might chance upon a good card, and ‘brag’ on it for something worth while. It’s all luck.”

“Your picture of political life is not fascinating,” said Heathcote, coldly.

“After all, do you know, I like it,” resumed O’Shea. “As long as you ‘ve a seat in the House, there’s no saying when you might n’t be wanted; and then, when the session’s over, and you go down to the country, you are the terror of all the fellows that never sat in Parliament. If they say a word about public matters, you put them down at once with a cool ‘I assure you, sir, that’s not the view we take of it in the House.’”

“I ‘d say, ‘What’s that to me?’”

“No, you would n’t, – not a bit of it; or, if you did, nobody would mind you, and for this reason, – it’s the real place, after all. Why do you pay Storr and Mortimer more than another jeweller? Just because you’re sure of the article. There now, that’s how it is!”

“There’s some one knocking at the door, I think,” said Heathcote; but at the same instant Joe’s head appeared inside, with a request to be admitted. “‘T is the telegraph,” said he, presenting a packet.

“I have asked for a small thing in Jamaica, some ten or twelve hundred a year,” whispered O’Shea to his friend. “I suppose this is the reply.” And at the same time he threw the portentous envelope carelessly on the table.

Either Heathcote felt no interest in the subject, or deemed it proper to seem as indifferent as his host, for he never took any further notice of the matter, but smoked away as before.

“You need n’t wait,” said O’Shea to Joe, who still lingered at the door. “That fellow is bursting with curiosity now,” said he, as the man retired; “he ‘d give a year’s wages to know what was inside that envelope.”

“Indeed!” sighed out Heathcote, in a tone that showed how little he sympathized with such eagerness.

If O’Shea was piqued at this cool show of indifference, he resolved to surpass it by appearing to forget the theme altogether; and, pushing the bottle across the table, he said, “Did I ever tell you how it was I first took to politics?”

“No, I think not,” said Heathoote, listlessly.

“Well, it was a chance, and a mere chance; this is the way it happened. Though I was bred to the Bar, I never did much at the law; some say that an agreeable man, with a lively turn in conversation, plenty of anecdote, and a rich fancy, is never a favorite with the attorneys; the rascals always think that such a man will never make a lawyer, and though they ‘ll listen to his good stories by the hour in the Hall, devil a brief they ‘ll give him, nor so much as a ‘declaration.’ Well, for about five years I walked about in wig and gown, joking and quizzing and humbugging all the fellows that were getting business, and taking a circuit now and again, but all to no good; and at last I thought I ‘d give it up, and so my friends advised me, saying, ‘Get something under the Government, Gorman; a snug place with a few hundreds a year, and be sure take anything that ‘s offered you to begin with.’

“Now there was a room in Dublin Castle – it’s the second down the corridor off the private stairs – that used to be called the Poker-room. It may be so still, for anything I know, and for this reason: it was there all the people expecting places or appointments were accustomed to wait. It was a fine, airy, comfortable room, with a good carpet, easy-chairs, and always an excellent fire; and here used to meet every day of their lives the same twenty or five-and-twenty people, one occasionally dropping off, and another coming in, but so imperceptibly and gradually that the gathering at last grew to be a sort of club, where they sat from about eleven till dark every day, chatting pleasantly over public and private events. It was thus found necessary to give it a kind of organization, and so we named for President the oldest, – that is, the longest expectant of place, – who, by virtue of his station, occupied the seat next the fire, and alone, of all the members, possessed the privilege of poking it. The poker was his badge of office; and the last act of his official life, whenever promotion separated him from us, was to hand the poker to his successor, with a solemn dignity of manner and a few parting words.

I verily believe that most of us got to be so fond of the club that it was the very reverse of a pleasure when we had to leave it to become, maybe, a Police Inspector at Skibbereen, Postmaster at Tory Island, or a Gauger at Innismagee; and so we jogged on, from one Viceroy to another, very happy and contented. Well, it was the time of a great Marquis, – I won’t say who, but he was the fast friend of O’Connell, – and we all of us thought that there would be plenty of fine things given away, and the poker-room was crammed, and I was the President, having ascended the throne two years and a half before. It was somewhere early in March; a cold raw day it was. I had scarcely entered the club, than a messenger bawled out, ‘Gorman O’Shea, – Mr. Gorman O’Shea.’ ‘Here he is,’ said I. ‘Wanted in the Chief Secretary’s office,’ said he, ‘immediately.’ I gave a knowing wink to the company around the fire, and left the room. Three mortal hours did I stand in the ante-room below, seeing crowds pass in and out before I was called in; and then, as I entered, saw a little wizened, sharp-faced man standing with his back to the fire paring his nails. He never so much as looked at me, but said in a careless, muttering sort of way, —

“‘You’re the gentleman who wishes to go as resident magistrate to Oackatoro, ain’t you?’

“‘Well, indeed, sir, I’m not quite sure,’ I began.

“‘Oh yes, you are,’ broke he in. ‘I know all about you. Your name has been favorably mentioned to the office. You are Mr. O’Gorman – ’

“‘Mr. Gorman O’Shea,’ said I, proudly.

“‘The same thing, Gorman O’Shea. I remember it now. Your appointment will be made out: five hundred a year, and a retiring pension after six years; house, and an allowance for monkeys.’

“‘A what?’ asked I.

“‘The place is much infested with a large species of oorang-outang, and the governor gives so much per head for destroying them. Mr. Simpson, in the office, will give you full information. You are to be at your post by the 1st of August.’

“‘Might I make bold to ask where Whackatory is?’

“‘Oackatoro, sir,’ said he, proudly, ‘is the capital of Fighi. I trust I need not say where that is.’

“‘By no means,’ said I, modestly; and, muttering my thanks for the advancement, I backed out, almost deranged to think that I did n’t know where I was going.

“‘Where is it? What is it? How much is it, O’Shea?’ cried thirty ardent voices, as I entered the club.

“‘It’s five hundred a year,’ said I, ‘without counting the monkeys. It’s a magistrate’s place; but may a gooseberry skin make a nightcap for me if I know where the devil it is!’

“‘But you have accepted!’ cried they out, all together.

“‘I have,’ said I. ‘I’m to be at Fighi, wherever that is, by the 1st of August. And now,’ said I, turning to the fire, and taking up the poker, ‘there is nothing for me to do but resign this sacred symbol of my office into the hands of my successor.’

“Where’s O’Dowd?’ shouted out the crowd. And they awoke out of a pleasant sleep a little old fellow that never missed his day for two years at the club.

“‘Gentlemen,’ said I, in a voice trembling with feeling, ‘the hour is come when my destiny is to separate me from you forever; an hour that is equally full of the past and the future, and has even no small share of present emotions. If ever there were a human institution devised to cement together the hearts and affections of men, to bind them into one indissoluble mass, and blend their instincts into identity, it is the club we have here. Here we stand, like the departed spirits at the Styx, waiting for the bark of Charon to ferry us over. To what, however? Is it to some blessed elysium of a Poor Law Commissioner’s place, or is it to some unknown fate in a distant land, with five hundred a year and an allowance for monkeys? That’s the question, there’s the rub! as Hamlet says.’ After dilating at large on this, I turned to O’Dowd. ‘To your hands,’ said I, ‘I commit this venerable relic: keep it, guard it, honor it, and preserve it. Remember,’ said I, ‘that when you stir those coals it is the symbol of keeping alive in the heart the sparks of an undying hope; that though they may wet the slack and water the cinders of our nature, the fire within us will still survive, red, glowing, and generous. Is n’t that as fine, as great, glorious, and free, I ask you?’

“‘Who is that fellow that’s talking there, with a voice like Lablache?’ asked a big man at the door; and then, as the answer was whispered in his ear, he said, ‘Send him out here to me.’

“Out I went, and found myself face to face with O’Connell.

“‘I want a man to stand for Drogheda to-morrow; the gentleman I expected cannot arrive there possibly before three. Will you address the electors, and speak till he comes? If he isn’t there by half-past three, you shall be returned!’

“‘Done!’ said I. And by five o’clock on the following evening Gorman O’Shea was at the top of the poll and declared Member for Drogheda! That was, I may say, the first lift I ever got from Fortune. May I never!” exclaimed O’Shea, half angrily, – “may I never, if he’s not asleep – and snoring! These Saxons beat the world for stupidity.”

The Member now suddenly bethought him that it would be a favorable moment to read his telegram, and so he tore open the envelope, and held it to the light. It was headed as usual, and addressed in full, showing that no parsimony defrauded him of his full title. The body of the despatch was, however, brief enough, and contained only one word, “Bosh!” It was clear, bold, and unmistakably “Bosh!” Could insolence go further than that? To send such a message a thousand miles, at the cost of one pound fourteen and sixpence!

“What the deuce? you’ve nearly upset the table!” cried Heathcote, waking suddenly up, as O’Shea with a passionate gesture had thrown one of the decanters into the other’s lap.

“I was asleep, like yourself, I suppose,” said the Member, roughly. “I must say, we are neither of us the very liveliest company.”

“It was that yarn of yours about attacking monkeys with a poker, or some stuff of that kind, set me off,” yawned Heathcote, drearily. “I had not felt the least sleepy till then.”

“Here, let us fill our glasses, and drink to the jolly time that is coming for us,” said O’Shea, with all his native recklessness.

“With all my heart; but I wish I could guess from what quarter it’s coming,” said Heathcote, despondingly.

If neither felt much disposed to converse, they each drank deeply; and although scarcely more than a word or two would pass between them, they sat thus, hour after hour, till it was long past midnight.

It was after a long silence between them that Heathcote said: “I never tried so hard in my life to get drunk, without success. I find it won’t do, though; I’m just as clearheaded and as low-spirited as when I started.”

“Bosh!” muttered O’Shea, half dreamily.

“It’s no such thing!” retorted Heathcote. “At any ordinary time one bottle of that strong Burgundy would have gone to my head; and see, now I don’t feel it.”

“Maybe you ‘re fretting about something. It’s perhaps a weight on your heart – ”

“That’s it!” sighed out the other, as though the very avowal were an inexpressible relief to him.