‘Bye-bye, then, till Friday morning,’ said he, as he turned towards his desk, and began arranging a mass of papers before him. ‘Here’s a jolly mess with a vengeance,’ muttered Kearney, as he descended the stair. ‘The Viceroy’s private secretary to be domesticated with a “head-centre” and an escaped convict. There’s not even the doubtful comfort of being able to make my family assist me through the difficulty.’ CHAPTER XXXIII PLMNUDDM CASTLE, NORTH WALES Among the articles of that wardrobe of Cecil Walpole’s of which Atlee had possessed himself so unceremoniously, there was a very gorgeous blue dress-coat, with the royal button and a lining of sky-blue silk, which formed the appropriate costume of the gentlemen of the viceregal household. This, with a waistcoat to match, Atlee had carried off with him in the indiscriminating haste of a last moment, and although thoroughly understanding that he could not avail himself of a costume so distinctively the mark of a condition, yet, by one of the contrarieties of his strange nature, in which the desire for an assumption of any kind was a passion, he had tried on that coat fully a dozen times, and while admiring how well it became him, and how perfectly it seemed to suit his face and figure, he had dramatised to himself the part of an aide-de-camp in waiting, rehearsing the little speeches in which he presented this or that imaginary person to his Excellency, and coining the small money of epigram in which he related the news of the day. ‘How I should cut out those dreary subalterns with their mess-room drolleries, how I should shame those tiresome cornets, whose only glitter is on their sabretaches!’ muttered he, as he surveyed himself in his courtly attire. ‘It is all nonsense to say that the dress a man wears can only impress the surrounders. It is on himself, on his own nature and temper, his mind, his faculties, his very ambition, there is a transformation effected; and I, Joe Atlee, feel myself, as I move about in this costume, a very different man from that humble creature in grey tweed, whose very coat reminds him he is a “cad,” and who has but to look in the glass to read his condition.’ On the morning he learned that Lady Maude would join him that day at dinner, Atlee conceived the idea of appearing in this costume. It was not only that she knew nothing of the Irish Court and its habits, but she made an almost ostentatious show of her indifference to all about it, and in the few questions she asked, the tone of interrogation might have suited Africa as much as Ireland. It was true, she was evidently puzzled to know what place or condition Atlee occupied; his name was not familiar to her, and yet he seemed to know everything and everybody, enjoyed a large share of his Excellency’s confidence, and appeared conversant with every detail placed before him.