First of all, O'Halloran was simply festive. He talked much about my adventure and criticised it from various points of view, and gayly rallied me about the lost "gyerrul."
From a consideration of me circumstances, he wandered gradually away to his own. He lamented his present position in Quebec, which place he found insufferably dull.
"I'd lave it at wanst," he said, "if I wern't deteened here by the cleems of jewty. But I foind it dull beyond all exprission. Me only occupeetion is to walk about the sthraits and throy to preserve the attichood of shuparior baying, But I'm getting overwarrun an' toired out, an' I'm longing for the toime when I can bid ajoo to the counthry with its Injins an' Canajians."
"I don't see what you can find to amuse yourself with," said I, sympathetically.
"Oh," said he, "I have veerious pushoots. I've got me books, an' I foind imploymint an' amusemint with thim."
And now he began to enlarge on the theme of books, and he went on in this way till he became eloquent, enthusiastic, and glorious. He quaffed the limpid and transparent liquid, and its insinuating influences inspired him every moment to nobler flights of fancy, of rhetoric, and of eloquence. He began to grow learned. He discoursed about the Attic drama; the campaigns of Hannibal; the manners and customs of the Parthians; the doctrines of Zoroaster; the wars of Hercalius and Chosroes; the Comneni; the Paleologi; the writings of Snorro Sturlesson; the round towers of Ireland; the Phoenician origins of the Irish people proved by Illustrations from Plautus, and a hundred other things of a similar character.
"And what are you engaged upon now?" I asked, at length, as I found myself fairly lost amid the multiplicity of subjects which he brought forward.
"Engeeged upon?" he exclaimed, "well--a little of iviry thing, but this dee I've been busy with a rayconsthruction of the scholastic thaories rilitiv to the jureetion of the diluge of Juceelion. Have ye ivir persued the thraitises of the Chubingen school about the Noachic diluge?"
"No."
"Well, ye'll find it moighty foine an' insthructive raidin'. But in addition to this, I've been investigarin' the subject of maydyayvil jools."
"Jools?" I repeated, in an imbecile way.
"Yis, jools," said O'Halloran, "the orjil, ye know, the weeger of battle."
"Oh, yes," said I, as light burst in upon me; "duels, I understand."
"But the chafe subject that I'm engeeged upon is a very different one,"
he resumed, talking another swallow of the oft-replenished draught.
"It's a thraitise of moine which I ixplict to upsit the thaories of the miserable Saxon schaymers that desthort the pleen facts of antiquetee to shoot their own narrow an' disthortid comprayhinsions.
An' I till ye what--whin my thraitise is published, it'll make a chumult among thim that'll convulse the litherary wurruld."
"What is your treatise about?" I asked, dreamily, for I only half comprehended him, or rather, I didn't comprehend him at all.
"Oh," said he, "its a foine subject intoirely. It's a thraitise rilitiv' to the Aydipodayan Ipopaya."
"What's that?" I asked. "The what?--"
"The Aydipodayan Ipopaya," said O'Halloran.
"The Aydipodayan Ipopaya?" I repeated, in a misty, foggy, and utterly woe-be-gone manner.
"Tis," said he, "an' I'd like to have your opinion about that same,"
saying which, he once more filled his oft-replenished tumbler.
It was too much. The conversation was getting beyond my depth. I had followed him in a vague and misty way thus far, but this Aydipodayan Ipopaya was an obstacle which I could not in any way surmount. I halted short, full in front of that insurmountable obstacle. So far from surmounting it, I couldn't even pretend to have the smallest idea what it was. I could not get over it, and therefore began to think of a general retreat.
I rose to my feet.
"Ye're not going yit?" he said.
"Yes, but I am," said I.
"Why, sure it's airly enough," said he.
"Yes," said I, "it's early enough, but it's early the wrong way. It's now," said I, taking out my watch, "just twenty minutes of four. I must be off--really."
"Well," said O'Halloran, "I'm sorry ye're going, but you know best what you must do."
"And I'm sorrier," said I, "for I've spent a most delightful evening."
"Sure an' I'm glad to hear ye say that. And ye'll come again, won't ye?"
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure."
"Come to-morrow night thin," said he.
"I shall be only too happy," said I; and with these words I took my departure.
I went home, and went to bed at once. But I lay awake, a prey to many thoughts. Those thoughts did not refer to O'Halloran, or to his Aydipodayan Ipopaya. On the contrary, they referred altogether to the ladies, and to the manner in which they had heard my narrative.
What was the meaning of that?
And my speculations on this passed on even into my dreams, and thus carried me away into
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING.--APPEARANCE OF JACK RANDOLPH.--A NEW COMPLICATION.--THE THREE ORANGES.--DESPERATE EFFORTS Of THE JUGGLER.
--HOW TO MAKE FULL, AMPLE, COMPLETE, AND MOST SATISFACTORY EXPLANATIONS.--MISS PHILLIPS!--THE WIDOW!!--NUMBER THREE!!!--LOUIE RAPIDLY RISING INTO GREATER PROMINENCE ON THE MENTAL AND SENTIMENTAL HORIZON OF JACK RANDOLPH.
"Well, old chap," cried Jack, as he burst into my room on the following morning, "what the mischief were you doing with yourself all last night? Come, out with it. No humbug. I was here at twelve, lighted up, and smoked till--yes--I'll be hanged if it wasn't half-past two. And you didn't come. What do you mean, my good fellow, by that sort of thing?"
"Oh," said I, meekly, "I was passing the evening with a friend."
"The evening! The night you mean."
"Well, it was rather late," said I. "The fact is, we got talking, and I was telling him about my adventure on the ice. We had been at the concert first, and then I went with him to his quarters. By-the-way, why weren't you there?"
In this dexterous way I parried Jack's question, for I did not feel inclined just yet to return his confidence. I am by nature, as the reader must by this time have seen, uncommonly reticent and reserved, and I wasn't going to pour out my story and my feelings to Jack, who would probably go and tell it everywhere before the close of the day.
"The concert!" cried Jack, contemptuously--"the concert! My dear boy, are you mad? What's a concert to me or I to a concert? A concert? My dear fellow, what kind of an idea have you formed of me, if you think that I am capable of taking part in any festive scene when my soul is crushed under such an accumulated burden of fuss and bother?"
"What, are you bothered still? Haven't you begun to see your way through the woods?"
"See my way?" cried Jack. "Why, it's getting worse and worse--"