"Hark'ee! Mr. Barney," said Tom, incautiously removing his thumb, and letting a crimson stream "incarnadine the multitudinous" lather that plastered his throat,--"this may be all very well with your master, but you don't humbug _me_, sir:--tell me instantly what have you done with the clothes?" This abrupt transition from "lively to severe" certainly took Maguire by surprise, and he seemed for an instant as much disconcerted as it is possible to disconcert an Irish gentleman's gentleman. "Me? is it meself, then, that's the ghost to your honour's thinking?" said he, after a moment's pause, and with a slight shade of indignation in his tones: "is it I would stale the master's things,--and what would I do with them?" "That you best know:--what your purpose is I can't guess, for I don't think you mean to 'stale' them, as you call it; but that you are concerned in their disappearance, I am satisfied. Confound this blood!--give me a towel, Barney." Maguire acquitted himself of the commission. "As I've a sowl, your honour," said he solemnly, "little it is meself knows of the matter: and after what I seen--" "What you've seen! Why, what _have_ you seen?--Barney, I don't want to inquire into your flirtations; but don't suppose you can palm off your saucer eyes and gig-lamps upon me!" "Then, as sure as your honour's standing there I saw him: and why wouldn't I, when Miss _Pauline_ was to the fore as well as meself, and--" "Get along with your nonsense,--leave the room, sir!" "But the master?" said Barney imploringly; "and without a breeches?--sure he'll be catching cowld!--" "Take that, rascal!" replied Ingoldsby, throwing a pair of pantaloons at, rather than to, him: "but don't suppose, sir, you shall carry on your tricks here with impunity; recollect there is such a thing as a treadmill, and that my father is a county magistrate." Barney's eye flashed fire,--he stood erect, and was about to speak; but, mastering himself, not without an effort, he took up the garment, and left the room as perpendicular as a Quaker. * * * * * "Ingoldsby," said Charles Seaforth, after breakfast, "this is now past a joke; to-day is the last of my stay; for, notwithstanding the ties which detain me, common decency obliges me to visit home after so long an absence. I shall come to an immediate explanation with your father on the subject nearest my heart, and depart while I have a change of dress left. On his answer will my return depend! In the meantime tell me candidly,--I ask it in all seriousness, and as a friend,--am I not a dupe to your well-known propensity to hoaxing? have you not a hand in--" "No, by heaven! Seaforth; I see what you mean: on my honour, I am as much mystified as yourself; and if your servant--" "Not he:--if there be a trick, he at least is not privy to it." "If there _be_ a trick? Why, Charles, do you think--"