DUBLIN.

No sooner had I arrived in Dublin than my first care was to present myself to Dr. Mooney, by whom I was received in the most cordial manner. In fact, in my utter ignorance of such persons, I had imagined a college fellow to be a character necessarily severe and unbending; and as the only two very great people I had ever seen in my life were the Archbishop of Tuam and the chief-baron when on circuit, I pictured to myself that a university fellow was, in all probability, a cross between the two, and feared him accordingly.

The doctor read over my uncle’s letter attentively, invited me to partake of his breakfast, and then entered upon something like an account of the life before me; for which Sir Harry Boyle had, however, in some degree prepared me.

“Your uncle, I find, wishes you to live in college,—perhaps it is better, too,—so that I must look out for chambers for you. Let me see: it will be rather difficult, just now, to find them.” Here he fell for some moments into a musing fit, and merely muttered a few broken sentences, as: “To be sure, if other chambers could be had—but then—and after all, perhaps, as he is young—besides, Frank will certainly be expelled before long, and then he will have them all to himself. I say, O’Malley, I believe I must quarter you for the present with a rather wild companion; but as your uncle says you’re a prudent fellow,”—here he smiled very much, as if my uncle had not said any such thing,—“why, you must only take the better care of yourself until we can make some better arrangement. My pupil, Frank Webber, is at this moment in want of a ‘chum,’ as the phrase is,—his last three having only been domesticated with him for as many weeks; so that until we find you a more quiet resting-place, you may take up your abode with him.”

During breakfast, the doctor proceeded to inform me that my destined companion was a young man of excellent family and good fortune who, with very considerable talents and acquirements, preferred a life of rackety and careless dissipation to prospects of great success in public life, which his connection and family might have secured for him. That he had been originally entered at Oxford, which he was obliged to leave; then tried Cambridge, from which he escaped expulsion by being rusticated,—that is, having incurred a sentence of temporary banishment; and lastly, was endeavoring, with what he himself believed to be a total reformation, to stumble on to a degree in the “silent sister.”

“This is his third year,” said the doctor, “and he is only a freshman, having lost every examination, with abilities enough to sweep the university of its prizes. But come over now, and I’ll present you to him.”

I followed him down-stairs, across the court to an angle of the old square where, up the first floor left, to use the college direction, stood the name of Mr. Webber, a large No. 2 being conspicuously painted in the middle of the door and not over it, as is usually the custom. As we reached the spot, the observations of my companion were lost to me in the tremendous noise and uproar that resounded from within. It seemed as if a number of people were fighting pretty much as a banditti in a melodrama do, with considerable more of confusion than requisite; a fiddle and a French horn also lent their assistance to shouts and cries which, to say the best, were not exactly the aids to study I expected in such a place.

Three times was the bell pulled with a vigor that threatened its downfall, when at last, as the jingle of it rose above all other noises, suddenly all became hushed and still; a momentary pause succeeded, and the door was opened by a very respectable looking servant who, recognizing the doctor, at once introduced us into the apartment where Mr. Webber was sitting.

In a large and very handsomely furnished room, where Brussels carpeting and softly cushioned sofas contrasted strangely with the meagre and comfortless chambers of the doctor, sat a young man at a small breakfast-table beside the fire. He was attired in a silk dressing-gown and black velvet slippers, and supported his forehead upon a hand of most lady-like whiteness, whose fingers were absolutely covered with rings of great beauty and price. His long silky brown hair fell in rich profusion upon the back of his neck and over his arm, and the whole air and attitude was one which a painter might have copied. So intent was he upon the volume before him that he never raised his head at our approach, but continued to read aloud, totally unaware of our presence.

“Dr. Mooney, sir,” said the servant.

“Ton dapamey bominos, prosephe, crione Agamemnon” repeated the student, in an ecstasy, and not paying the slightest attention to the announcement.

“Dr. Mooney, sir,” repeated the servant, in a louder tone, while the doctor looked around on every side for an explanation of the late uproar, with a face of the most puzzled astonishment.

“Be dakiown para thina dolekoskion enkos” said Mr. Webber, finishing a cup of coffee at a draught.

“Well, Webber, hard at work I see,” said the doctor.

“Ah, Doctor, I beg pardon! Have you been long here?” said the most soft and insinuating voice, while the speaker passed his taper fingers across his brow, as if to dissipate the traces of deep thought and study.

While the doctor presented me to my future companion, I could perceive, in the restless and searching look he threw around, that the fracas he had so lately heard was still an unexplained and vexata questio in his mind.

“May I offer you a cup of coffee, Mr. O’Malley?” said the youth, with an air of almost timid bashfulness. “The doctor, I know, breakfasts at a very early hour.”

“I say, Webber,” said the doctor, who could no longer restrain his curiosity, “what an awful row I heard here as I came up to the door. I thought Bedlam was broke loose. What could it have been?”

“Ah, you heard it too, sir,” said Mr. Webber, smiling most benignly.

“Hear it? To be sure I did. O’Malley and I could not hear ourselves talking with the uproar.”

“Yes, indeed, it is very provoking; but then, what’s to be done? One can’t complain, under the circumstances.”

“Why, what do you mean?” said Mooney, anxiously.

“Nothing, sir; nothing. I’d much rather you’d not ask me; for after all, I’ll change my chambers.”

“But why? Explain this at once. I insist upon it.”

“Can I depend upon the discretion of your young friend?” said Mr. Webber, gravely.

“Perfectly,” said the doctor, now wound up to the greatest anxiety to learn a secret.

“And you’ll promise not to mention the thing except among your friends?”

“I do,” said the doctor.

“Well, then,” said he, in a low and confident whisper, “it’s the dean.”

“The dean!” said Mooney, with a start. “The dean! Why, how can it be the dean?”

“Too true,” said Mr. Webber, making a sign of drinking,—“too true, Doctor. And then, the moment he is so, he begins smashing the furniture. Never was anything heard like it. As for me, as I am now become a reading man, I must go elsewhere.”

Now, it so chanced that the worthy dean, who albeit a man of most abstemious habits, possessed a nose which, in color and development, was a most unfortunate witness to call to character, and as Mooney heard Webber narrate circumstantially the frightful excesses of the great functionary, I saw that something like conviction was stealing over him.

“You’ll, of course, never speak of this except to your most intimate friends,” said Webber.

“Of course not,” said the doctor, as he shook his hand warmly, and prepared to leave the room. “O’Malley, I leave you here,” said he; “Webber and you can talk over your arrangements.”

Webber followed the doctor to the door, whispered something in his ear, to which the other replied, “Very well, I will write; but if your father sends the money, I must insist—” The rest was lost in protestations and professions of the most fervent kind, amidst which the door was shut, and Mr. Webber returned to the room.

Short as was the interspace from the door without to the room within, it was still ample enough to effect a very thorough and remarkable change in the whole external appearance of Mr. Frank Webber; for scarcely had the oaken panel shut out the doctor, when he appeared no longer the shy, timid, and silvery-toned gentleman of five minutes before, but dashing boldly forward, he seized a key-bugle that lay hid beneath a sofa-cushion and blew a tremendous blast.

“Come forth, ye demons of the lower world,” said he, drawing a cloth from a large table, and discovering the figures of three young men coiled up beneath. “Come forth, and fear not, most timorous freshmen that ye are,” said he, unlocking a pantry, and liberating two others. “Gentlemen, let me introduce to your acquaintance Mr. O’Malley. My chum, gentlemen. Mr. O’Malley, that is Harry Nesbitt, who has been in college since the days of old Perpendicular, and numbers more cautions than any man who ever had his name on the books. Here is my particular friend, Cecil Cavendish, the only man who could ever devil kidneys. Captain Power, Mr. O’Malley, a dashing dragoon, as you see; aide-de-camp to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, and love-maker-general to Merrion Square West. These,” said he, pointing to the late denizens of the pantry, “are jibs whose names are neither known to the proctor nor the police-office; but with due regard to their education and morals, we don’t despair.”

“By no means,” said Power; “but come, let us resume our game.” At these words he took a folio atlas of maps from a small table, and displayed beneath a pack of cards, dealt as if for whist. The two gentlemen to whom I was introduced by name returned to their places; the unknown two put on their boxing gloves, and all resumed the hilarity which Dr. Mooney’s advent had so suddenly interrupted.

“Where’s Moore?” said Webber, as he once more seated himself at his breakfast.

“Making a spatch-cock, sir,” said the servant.

At the same instant, a little, dapper, jovial-looking personage appeared with the dish in question.

“Mr. O’Malley, Mr. Moore, the gentleman who, by repeated remonstrances to the board, has succeeded in getting eatable food for the inhabitants of this penitentiary, and has the honored reputation of reforming the commons of college.”

“Anything to Godfrey O’Malley, may I ask, sir?” said Moore.

“His nephew,” I replied.

“Which of you winged the gentleman the other day for not passing the decanter, or something of that sort?”

“If you mean the affair with Mr. Bodkin, it was I.”

“Glorious, that; begad, I thought you were one of us. I say, Power, it was he pinked Bodkin.”

“Ah, indeed,” said Power, not turning his head from his game, “a pretty shot, I heard,—two by honors,—and hit him fairly,—the odd trick. Hammersley mentioned the thing to me.”

“Oh, is he in town?” said I.

“No; he sailed for Portsmouth yesterday. He is to join the llth—game. I say, Webber, you’ve lost the rubber.”

“Double or quit, and a dinner at Dunleary,” said Webber. “We must show O’Malley,—confound the Mister!—something of the place.”

“Agreed.”

The whist was resumed; the boxers, now refreshed by a leg of the spatch-cock, returned to their gloves; Mr. Moore took up his violin; Mr. Webber his French horn; and I was left the only unemployed man in the company.

“I say, Power, you’d better bring the drag over here for us; we can all go down together.”

“I must inform you,” said Cavendish, “that, thanks to your philanthropic efforts of last night, the passage from Grafton Street to Stephen’s Green is impracticable.” A tremendous roar of laughter followed this announcement; and though at the time the cause was unknown to me, I may as well mention it here, as I subsequently learned it from my companions.

Among the many peculiar tastes which distinguished Mr. Francis Webber was an extraordinary fancy for street-begging. He had, over and over, won large sums upon his success in that difficult walk; and so perfect were his disguises,—both of dress, voice, and manner,—that he actually at one time succeeded in obtaining charity from his very opponent in the wager. He wrote ballads with the greatest facility, and sang them with infinite pathos and humor; and the old woman at the corner of College Green was certain of an audience when the severity of the night would leave all other minstrelsy deserted. As these feats of jonglerie usually terminated in a row, it was a most amusing part of the transaction to see the singer’s part taken by the mob against the college men, who, growing impatient to carry him off to supper somewhere, would invariably be obliged to have a fight for the booty.

Now it chanced that a few evenings before, Mr. Webber was returning with a pocket well lined with copper from a musical reunion he had held at the corner of York Street, when the idea struck him to stop at the end of Grafton Street, where a huge stone grating at that time exhibited—perhaps it exhibits still—the descent to one of the great main sewers of the city.

The light was shining brightly from a pastrycook’s shop, and showed the large bars of stone between which the muddy water was rushing rapidly down and plashing in the torrent that ran boisterously several feet beneath.

To stop in the street of any crowded city is, under any circumstances, an invitation to others to do likewise which is rarely unaccepted; but when in addition to this you stand fixedly in one spot and regard with stern intensity any object near you, the chances are ten to one that you have several companions in your curiosity before a minute expires.

Now, Webber, who had at first stood still without any peculiar thought in view, no sooner perceived that he was joined by others than the idea of making something out of it immediately occurred to him.

“What is it, agra?” inquired an old woman, very much in his own style of dress, pulling at the hood of his cloak. “And can’t you see for yourself, darling?” replied he, sharply, as he knelt down and looked most intensely at the sewer.

“Are ye long there, avick?” inquired he of an imaginary individual below, and then waiting as if for a reply, said,

“Two hours! Blessed Virgin, he’s two hours in the drain!”

By this time the crowd had reached entirely across the street, and the crushing and squeezing to get near the important spot was awful.

“Where did he come from?” “Who is he?” “How did he get there?” were questions on every side; and various surmises were afloat till Webber, rising from his knees, said, in a mysterious whisper, to those nearest him, “He’s made his escape to-night out o’ Newgate by the big drain, and lost his way; he was looking for the Liffey, and took the wrong turn.”

To an Irish mob what appeal could equal this? A culprit at any time has his claim upon their sympathy; but let him be caught in the very act of cheating the authorities and evading the law, and his popularity knows no bounds. Webber knew this well, and as the mob thickened around him sustained an imaginary conversation that Savage Landor might have envied, imparting now and then such hints concerning the runaway as raised their interest to the highest pitch, and fifty different versions were related on all sides,—of the crime he was guilty of, the sentence that was passed on him, and the day he was to suffer.

“Do you see the light, dear?” said Webber, as some ingeniously benevolent individual had lowered down a candle with a string,—“do ye see the light? Oh, he’s fainted, the creature!” A cry of horror burst forth from the crowd at these words, followed by a universal shout of, “Break open the street.”

Pickaxes, shovels, spades, and crowbars seemed absolutely the walking accompaniments of the crowd, so suddenly did they appear upon the field of action; and the work of exhumation was begun with a vigor that speedily covered nearly half of the street with mud and paving-stones. Parties relieved each other at the task, and ere half an hour a hole capable of containing a mail-coach was yawning in one of the most frequented thoroughfares of Dublin. Meanwhile, as no appearance of the culprit could be had, dreadful conjectures as to his fate began to gain ground. By this time the authorities had received intimation of what was going forward, and attempted to disperse the crowd; but Webber, who still continued to conduct the prosecution, called on them to resist the police and save the poor creature. And now began a most terrific fray: the stones, forming a ready weapon, were hurled at the unprepared constables, who on their side fought manfully, but against superior numbers; so that at last it was only by the aid of a military force the mob could be dispersed, and a riot which had assumed a very serious character got under. Meanwhile Webber had reached his chambers, changed his costume, and was relating over a supper-table the narrative of his philanthropy to a very admiring circle of his friends.

Such was my chum, Frank Webber; and as this was the first anecdote I had heard of him, I relate it here that my readers may be in possession of the grounds upon which my opinion of that celebrated character was founded, while yet our acquaintance was in its infancy.