“Can you guess what this means, Grog? Has it any reference to the marriage scheme?” “No; this is another match altogether,” said Grog, sententiously; “and this here Dunn--I know about him, though I never seen him--is the swellest cove going. _You_ ain't fit to deal with _him_--you ain't!” added he, contemptuously. “If you go and talk to that fellow alone, I know how 't will be.” “Come, come, I'm no flat” Grog's look--one of intense derision--stopped him, and after stammering and blushing deeply, he was silent. “You think, because you have a turn of speed among cripples, that you 're fast,” said Grog, with one of his least amiable grins, “but I tell you that except among things of your own breeding, you'd never save a distance. Lord love ye! it never makes a fellow sharp to be 'done;' that's one of the greatest mistakes people ever make. It makes him suspicious,--it keeps him on the look-out, as the sailors say; but what's the use of being on the look-out if you haven't got good eyes? It's the go-ahead makes a man nowadays, and the cautious chaps have none of that. No, no; don't you go rashly and trust yourself alone with Dunn. You 'll have to consider well over this,--you 'll have to turn it over carefully in your mind. I 'd not wonder,” said he, after a pause, “but you 'll have to take _me_ with you!” CHAPTER XIII. A MESSAGE FROM JACK “He's come at last, Bella,” said Kellett, as, tired and weary, he entered the little cottage one night after dark. “I waited till I saw him come out of the station at West-land Row, and drive off to his house.” “Did he see you, papa?--did he speak to you?” asked she, eagerly. “See _me_--speak to _me!_ It's little he was thinking of me, darling! with Lord Glengariff shaking one of his hands, and Sir Samuel Downie squeezing the other, and a dozen more crying out, 'Welcome home, Mr. Bunn! it is happy we are to see you looking so well; we were afraid you were forgetting poor Ireland and not coming back to us!' And by that time the carmen took up the chorus, and began cheering and hurrahing, 'Long life and more power to Davenport Dunn!' I give you my word, you 'd have thought it was Daniel O'Connell, or at least a new Lord-Lieutenant, if you saw the uproar and excitement there was about him.” “And he--how did he take it?” asked she. “Just as cool as if he had a born right to it all. 'Thank you very much,--most kind of you,' he muttered, with a little smile and a wave of his hand, as much as to say, 'There now, that'll do. Don't you see that I'm travelling _incog._, and don't want any more homage?'” “Oh, no, papa,--not that,--it was rather like humility--”