By this time little Dr. Toole had stepped into the club, after his wont, as he passed the Phoenix. Sturk was playing draughts with old Arthur Slowe, and Dangerfield, erect and grim, was looking on the game, over his shoulder. Toole and Sturk were more distant and cold in their intercourse of late, though this formality partook of their respective characters. Toole used to throw up his nose, and raise his eyebrows, and make his brother mediciner a particularly stiff, and withal scornful reverence when they met. Sturk, on the other hand, made a short, surly nod —’twas little more — and, without a word, turned on his heel, with a gruff pitch of his shoulder towards Toole.
The fact was, these two gentlemen had been very near exchanging pistol shots, or sword thrusts, only a week or two before; and all about the unconscious gentleman who was smiling in his usual pleasant fashion over the back of Sturk’s chair. So Dangerfield’s little dyspepsy had like to have cured one or other of the village leeches, for ever and a day, of the heart-ache and all other aches that flesh is heir to. For Dangerfield commenced with Toole: and that physician, on the third day of his instalment, found that Sturk had stept in and taken his patient bodily out of his hands.
‘I’ve seen one monkey force open the jaws of his brother, resolutely introduce his fingers, pluck from the sanctuary of his cheek the filbert he had just stowed there for his private nutrition and delight, and crunch and eat it with a stern ecstasy of selfishness, himself; and I fancy that the feelings of the quadrumanous victim, his jaws aching, his pouch outraged, and his bon-bouche in the miscreant’s mouth, a little resembles those of the physician who has suffered so hideous a mortification as that of Toole.
Toole quite forgave Dangerfield. That gentleman gave him to understand that his ministrations were much more to his mind than those of his rival. But — and this was conveyed in strict confidence — this change was put upon him by a — a — in fact a nobleman — Lord Castlemallard — with whom, just now, Dr. Sturk can do a great deal; ‘and you know I can’t quarrel with my lord. It has pained me, I assure you, very much; and to say truth, whoever applied to him to interfere in the matter, was, in my mind, guilty of an impertinence, though, as you see, I can’t resent it.’
‘Whoever applied? ’tis pretty plain,’ repeated Toole, with a vicious sneer. ‘The whispering, undermining — and as stupid as the Hill of Howth. I wish you safe out of his hands, Sir.’
And positively, only for Aunt Becky, who was always spoiling this sort of sport, and who restrained the gallant Toole by a peremptory injunction, there would have been, in Nutter’s unfortunate phrase, ‘wigs on the green,’ next day.
So these gentlemen met on the terms I’ve described: and Nutter’s antipathy also, had waxed stronger and fiercer. And indeed, since Dangerfield’s arrival, and Sturk’s undisguised endeavours to ingratiate himself with Lord Castlemallard, and push him from his stool, they had by consent ceased to speak to one another. When Sturk met Nutter, he, being of superior stature, looked over his head at distant objects: and when Nutter encountered Sturk, the little gentleman’s dark face grew instantaneously darker — first a shade — then another shadow — then the blackness of thunder overspread it; and not only did he speak not a word to Sturk, but seldom opened his lips, while that gentleman remained in the room.
On the other hand, if some feuds grew blacker and fiercer by time, there were others which were Christianly condoned; foremost among which was the mortal quarrel between Nutter and O’Flaherty. On the evening of their memorable meeting on the Fifteen Acres, Puddock dined out, and O’Flaherty was too much exhausted to take any steps toward a better understanding. But on the night following, when the club had their grand supper in King William’s parlour, it was arranged with Nutter that a gentlemanlike reconciliation was to take place; and accordingly, about nine o’clock, at which time Nutter’s arrival was expected, Puddock, with the pomp and gravity becoming such an occasion, accompanied by O’Flaherty, big with his speech, entered the spacious parlour.
When they came in there was a chorus of laughter ringing round, with a clapping of hands, and a Babel of hilarious applause; and Tom Toole was seen in the centre, sitting upon the floor, hugging his knees, with his drawn sword under his arm, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, and a contortion so unspeakably ludicrous upon his queer little face, as was very near causing little Puddock to explode in an unseemly burst of laughter.
Devereux, sitting near the door, luckily saw them as they entered, and announced them in a loud tone —‘Lieutenant Puddock, gentlemen, and Lieutenant Fireworker O’Flaherty.’ For though Gipsy Devereux loved a bit of mischief, he did not relish it when quite so serious, as the Galwegian Fireworker was likely to make any sort of trifling on a point so tender as his recent hostilities on the Fifteen Acres.
Toole bounded to his feet in an instant, adjusting his wig and eyeing the new comers with intense but uneasy solemnity, which produced some suppressed merriment among the company.
It was well for the serenity of the village that O’Flaherty was about to make a little speech — a situation which usually deprived him of half his wits. Still with the suspicion of conscious weakness, he read something affecting himself in the general buzz and countenance of the assembly; and said to Devereux, on purpose loud enough for Toole to hear —‘Ensign Puddock and myself would be proud to know what was the divarting tom-foolery going on about the floor, and for which we arrived unfortunately a little too leet?’
‘Tom-foolery, Sir, is an unpleasant word!’ cried the little doctor, firing up, for he was a game-cock.
‘Tom Toolery he ............