One Of Them

“Is it Yes or No?” asked O’Shea, eagerly, and almost choking himself with the effort to speak.

“That’s pretty much how you take it. You see, my uncle is one of those formal old fellows trained in official life, and who have a horror of doing anything against the traditions of a department – ”

“Well, well, well! but can’t he say whether he ‘ll give me something or not?”

“So he does say it, but you interrupt me at every moment. When you have read through his letter, you ‘ll be able to appreciate the difficulties of his position, and also decide on what you think most conducive to your own interests.”

O’Shea groaned heavily, as he placed the remainder of the duck on his plate.

“What of your duel? How did it go off?”

“Beautifully.”

“Did your man behave well?”

“Beautifully.”

“Was he hit?”

A shake of the head.

“Was the Frenchman wounded?”

“Here – flesh wound – nothing serious.”

“That’s all right. I’ll leave you now, to finish your lunch in quiet. You ‘ll find me on the Pincian when you stroll out.”

“Look here! Don’t go! Wait a bit! I want you to tell me in one word, – can I get anything or not?”

The intense earnestness of his face as he spoke would have made any further tantalizing such a cruelty that Agincourt answered frankly, “Yes, old fellow, they ‘ve made you a Boundary Commissioner; I forget where, but you’re to have a thousand a year, and some allowances besides.”

“This is n’t a joke? You ‘re telling me truth?” asked he, trembling all over with anxiety.

“On honor,” said Agincourt, giving his hand.

“You ‘re a trump, then; upon my conscience, you ‘re a trump. Here I am now, close upon eight-and-thirty, – I don’t look it by five years, but I am, – and after sitting for four sessions in Parliament, not a man did I ever find would do me a hand’s turn, but it ‘s to a brat of a boy I owe the only bit of good fortune of my whole life. That’s what I call hard, – very hard.”

“I don’t perceive that it’s very complimentary to myself, either,” said Agincourt, struggling to keep down a laugh. But O’Shea was far too full of his own cares to have any thought for another’s, and he went on muttering below his breath about national injustice and Saxon jealousy.

“You ‘ll accept this, then? Shall I say so?”

“I believe you will! I’d like to see myself refuse a thousand a-year and pickings.”

“I suspect I know what you have in your mind, too. I ‘ll wager a pony that I guess it. You ‘re planning to marry that pretty widow, and carry her out with you.”

O’Shea grew crimson over face and forehead, and stared at the other almost defiantly, without speaking.

“Ain’t I right?” asked Agincourt, somewhat disconcerted by the look that was bent upon him.

“You are not right; you were never more wrong in your life.”

“May be so; but you ‘ll find it a hard task to persuade me so.”

“I don’t want to persuade you of anything; but this I know, that you ‘ve started a subject there that I won’t talk on with you or any one else. Do you mind me now? I ‘m willing enough to owe you the berth you offered me, but not upon conditions; do you perceive – no conditions.”

This was not a very intelligible speech, but Agincourt could detect the drift of the speaker, and caught him cordially by the hand, and said, “If I ever utter a word that offends you, I pledge my honor it will be through inadvertence, and not intention.”

“That will do. I ‘m your debtor, now, and without misgivings. I want to see young Heathcote as soon as I can. Would I find him at home now?”

“I ‘ll get him over here to dine with us. We ‘ll have a jolly evening together, and drink a boundless success to the Boundary Commissioner. If I don’t mistake, too, there ‘s another good fellow here would like to be one of us.”

“Another! who can he be?”

“Here he comes to answer for himself.” And, as he spoke, Quackinboss lounged into the room, with his hands deep in his trousers-pockets, and his hat on his head.

“Well, sir, I hope I see you in good health,” said he to Agincourt. “You’ve grown a bit since we met last, and you ain’t so washy-lookin’ as you used to be.”

“Thanks. I ‘m all right in health, and very glad to see you, besides. Is not my friend here an old acquaintance of yours, – the O’Shea?”

“The O’Shea,” said Quackinboss, slowly, laying great stress upon the definite article.

“The O’Shea! Yes, sir.”

“You may remember that we met at Lucca some time back,” said O’Shea, who felt that the moment was embarrassing and unpleasant.

“Yes, sir. ‘The Shaver’ recollects you,” said he, in a slow, drawling tone; “and if I ain’t mortal mistaken, there’s a little matter of account unsettled between us.”

“I ‘m not aware of any dealings between us,” said O’Shea, haughtily.

“Well, sir, I am, and that comes pretty much to the same thing. You came over to Lucca one day to see young Layton, and you saw me, and we had a talk together about miscellaneous matters, and we didn’t quite agree, and we parted with the understandin’ that we ‘d go over the figures again, and make the total all right. I hope, sir, you are with me in all this?”

“Perfectly. I remember it all now. I went over to settle a difference I had had with Layton, and you, with that amiable readiness for a fight that distinguishes your countrymen, proposed a little row on your own account; something – I forget what it was now – interfered with each of us at the time, but we agreed to let it stand over and open for a future occasion.”

“You talk like a printed book, sir. It’s a downright treat to hear you. Go on,” said the Colonel, seriously.

“It’s my turn now,” broke in Agincourt, warmly, “and I must say, I expected both more good sense and more generosity from either of you than to make the first moment of a friendly meeting the occasion of remembering an old grudge. You ‘ll not leave this room till you have shaken hands, and become – what you are well capable of being – good friends to each other.”

“I have no grudge against the Colonel,” said O’Shea, frankly.

“Well, sir,” said Quackinboss, slowly, “I’m thinkin’ Mr. Agincourt is right. As John Randolf of Roanoke said, ‘The men who are ready to settle matters with the pistol are seldom slow to set them right on persuasion.’ Here ‘s my hand, sir.”

“You ‘ll both dine with me to-day, I hope,” said Agincourt. “My friend here,” added he, taking O’Shea’s arm, “has just received a Government appointment, and we are bound to ‘wet his commission’ for him in some good claret.”

They accepted the hospitable proposal readily, and now, at perfect ease together, and without one embarrassing thought to disturb their intercourse, they sat chatting away pleasantly for some time, when suddenly Quackinboss started up, saying, “Darn me a pale pink, if I haven’t forgot all that I came about. Here ‘s how it was.” And as he spoke, he took Agincourt to one side and whispered eagerly in his ear.

“But they know it all, my dear Colonel,” broke in Agincourt. “Charles Heathcote has had the whole story in a long letter from Layton. I was with him this morning when the post arrived, and I read the letter myself; and, so far from entertaining any of the doubts you fear, they are only impatient to see dear Clara once more and make her ‘One of Them.’”

“Well, sir, I ‘m proud to know it,” said the Colonel, “not only because it was my own readin’ of ‘em, but whenever I hear anything good or generous, I feel as if – bein’ a human crittur myself – I came in for some of the credit of it. The doubt was never mine, sir. It was my friend, Mr. Harvey Winthrop, that thought how, perhaps, there might be a scruple, or a hesitation, or a sort of backwardness about knowin’ a gal with such a dreadful story tacked to her. ‘In Eu-rôpe, sir,’ says he, ‘they won’t have them sort of things; they ain’t like our people, who are noways displeased at a bit of notoriety.