I heard a whisper close to me, from one whose opinion I valued, and value
still--a scholar and a poet, one who had tasted poverty, and slander, and a
prison, for The Good Cause:
"Fine talk: but it's 'all in his day's work.' Will he dare to say that
to-morrow to the ladies at the West-end?"
No--I should not. I knew it; and at that instant I felt myself a liar,
and stopped short--my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I fumbled
at my papers--clutched the water-tumbler--tried to go on--stopped short
again--caught up my hat, and rushed from the room, amid peals of astonished
laughter.
It was some months after this that, fancying the storm blown over, I
summoned up courage enough to attend a political meeting of our party; but
even there my Nemesis met full face. After some sanguinary speech, I really
forgot from whom, and, if I recollected, God forbid that I should tell now,
I dared to controvert, mildly enough, Heaven knows, some especially frantic
assertion or other. But before I could get out three sentences, O'Flynn
flew at me with a coarse invective, hounded on, by-the-by, by one who,
calling himself a gentleman, might have been expected to know better.
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