“It’s something awful about Denis--and Mrs. Maccabe’s niece. He has married her, and she has been his wife for months,” explained his mother with streaming eyes. George could not restrain a low whistle. “It was only discovered yesterday, and Mrs. Maccabe is going to tell his father, and don’t _you_ agree with me, that we might wait a little, and think it over.” “No, mother, Mrs. Maccabe is right,” returned her son with decision; “there must be no delay; he should be told at once, and the marriage openly acknowledged.” “You are right, sir,” said Mrs. Maccabe approvingly, “and now I’ll not detain you longer, ma’am, if you will show me the road to the Major’s study.” “I’ll go with you,” volunteered George gallantly, resolved that the butcher’s widow should not bear the brunt of the fray alone and unprotected. Mrs. Malone was helpless. She stood with her handkerchief to her mouth, and watched them go into the study, saw them close the door, and then rushed back, and buried her head among the sofa cushions, poor coward! The study was next to the drawing-room, and at first there was the steady humming sound of Mrs. Maccabe’s voice, then a roar from the Major, then George spoke, then roar upon roar, like a starving Bengal tiger who sees food. The Major could not realize the truth at first. He pushed back his chair, thereby capsizing Boozle, who was sleeping comfortably in the paper basket on all the unpaid bills. He gasped, his face became the colour of a boiled beetroot. “Eh? What? What?” he shouted, and then he rose and figuratively fell upon Mrs. Maccabe, for “a lying, thieving, scheming old harridan, who had ruined his innocent son--an infernal old fosthooke, who had made the match.” “And what would I get, av you please?” drawing herself up with an air of superb enquiry. “For why would I marry me niece, a decent girl, to an idle, drunken scutt, that never earned six-pence, a low-minded rapscallion, heir to nothing but debt and his father’s bad name? A fine thing to tell Bridget Maccabe----” and she looked about her, as if in search of the ox tail. In vain the Major stormed; here his bellowing and bullying was as water on a rock. To borrow a word from the intrepid widow, she “bested him,” as she subsequently boasted--cowed him, silenced him, yea even him. George was scarcely able to get in one syllable between such a war of words, and two such champions. It was Greek meeting Greek with a vengeance. The Major assumed an attitude of ferocious antagonism that would have struck terror into the heart of a less valiant opponent, and the battle raged. At last there was a lull; the man was worn down by the woman’s vigorous eloquence, and Mrs. Maccabe calmly stated her ultimatum. “The girl should be decently married, as soon as possible, before the priest, and before the Rev. Mr. Mahon, too, if they liked, and Denis Malone should take his wife home. If he passed the medical, he might get something to do.”