"Great news, boys," said he; "who do you think was at my house, when I got home, but M'Garry, with his head bandaged up, and his whole body, as he declares, bearing black and blue testimony to the merciless attack of the bold O'Grady, against whom he swears he'll bring an action for assault and battery. Now, boys, I thought it would be great fun to have him here to dinner--it's as good as a play to hear him describe the thrashing--so I asked him to come. He said he was not in a fit state to dine out; but I egged him on by saying that a sight of him in his present plight would excite sympathy for him, and stir up public feeling against O'Grady, and that all would tell in the action, as most likely some of the present company might be on the jury, and would be the better able to judge how far he was entitled to damages, from witnessing the severity of the injury he had received. So he's coming; and mind, you must all be deeply affected at his sufferings, and impressed with the _powerful_ description he gives of the same." "Very scientific, of course," said old Growling. "Extensively so," returned Murphy; "he laid on the Latin _heavy_." "Yes--the fool!" growled the doctor: "he can't help sporting it even on me. I went into his shop one day, and asked for some opium wine, and he could not resist calling it _vinum opii_ as he handed it to me." "We'll make him a martyr!" cried Durfy. "We'll make him dhrunk!" said Jack Horan, "and that will be better. He brags that he never was what he calls 'inebriated' in his life; and it will be great fun to send him home on a door, with a note to his wife, who is proud of his propriety." As they spoke, M'Garry entered, his head freshly bound up, to look as genteel as possible amongst the gentlemen with whom he was to have the honour of dining. His wife had suggested a pink ribbon, but M'Garry, while he acknowledged his wife's superior taste, said black would look more professional. The odd fellows to whom he had now committed himself, crowded round him, and, in the most exaggerated phrases, implied the high sense they entertained of _his_ wrongs and O'Grady's aggression. "Unprovoked attack!" cried one. "Savage ruffian!" ejaculated another. "What atrocity!" said a third. "What dignified composure!" added a fourth, in an audible whisper, meant for M'Garry's ear. "Gentlemen!" said the apothecary, flurried at the extreme attention of which he became the object; "I beg to assure you I am deeply--that is--this proof of--of--of--of symptoms--gentlemen--I mean sympathy, gentlemen--in short, I really----" "The fact is," said Growling, "I see Mr. M'Garry is rather shaken in nerve--whether from loss of blood or----" "I have lost a quantity of blood, doctor," said M'Garry; "much vascular, to say nothing of extra-vasated." "Which, I'll state in my case," said Murphy.