The fat and fair Widow Flanagan had, at length, given up shilly-shallying, and yielding to the fervent entreaties of Tom Durfy, had consented to name the happy day. She would have some little ways of her own about it, however, and instead of being married in the country, insisted on the nuptial knot being tied in Dublin. Thither the widow repaired with her swain to complete the stipulated time of residence within some metropolitan parish before the wedding could take place. In the meanwhile they enjoyed all the gaiety the capital presented, the time glided swiftly by, and Tom was within a day of being made a happy man, when, as he was hastening to the lodgings of the fair widow, who was waiting with her bonnet and shawl on to be escorted to the botanical gardens at Glasnevin, he was accosted by an odd-looking person of somewhat sinister aspect.

“I believe I have the honour of addressing Mister Durfy, sir?” Tom answered in the affirmative. “Thomas Durfy, Esquire, I think, sir?”

“Yes.”

“This is for you, sir,” he said, handing Tom a piece of dirty printed paper, and at the same time laying his hand on Tom's shoulder and executing a smirking sort of grin, which he meant to be the pattern of politeness, added, “You'll excuse me, sir, but I arrest you under a warrant from the High Sheriff of the city of Dublin; always sorry, sir, for a gintleman in defficulties, but it's my duty.”

“You're a bailiff, then?” said Tom.

“Sir,” said the bum,

“I meant no offence,” said Tom. “I only meant—”

“I understand, sir—I understand. These little defficulties startles gintlemen at first—you've not been used to arrest, I see, sir?”

“Never in my life did such a thing happen before,” said Tom. “I live generally, thank God, where a bailiff daren't show his face.”

“Ah, sir,” said the bailiff with a grin, “them rustic habits betrays the children o' nature often when they come to town; but we are so fisticated here in the metropolis, that we lay our hands on strangers aisy. But you'd better not stand in the street, sir, or people will understand it's an arrest, sir; and I suppose you wouldn't like the exposure. I can simperise in a gintle-man's feelings, sir. If you walk aisy on, sir, and don't attempt to escape or rescue, I'll keep a gentlemanlike distance.”

Tom walked on in great perplexity for a few steps, not knowing what to do. The hour of his rendezvous had struck; he knew how impatient of neglect the widow always was; he at one moment thought of asking the bailiff to allow him to proceed to her lodgings at once, there boldly to avow what had taken place and ask her to discharge the debt; but this his pride would not allow him to do. As he came to the corner of a street, he got a tap on the elbow from the bailiff, who, with a jerking motion of his thumb and a wink, said in a confidential tone to Tom, “Down this street, sir—that's the way to the pres'n (prison).”

“Prison!” exclaimed Tom, halting involuntarily at the word.

“Shove on, sir—shove on!” hastily repeated the sheriff's officer, urging his orders by a nudge or two on Tom's elbow.

“Don't shove me, sir!” said Tom, rather angrily, “or by G—”

“Aisy, sir—aisy!” said the bailiff; “though I feel for the defficulties of a gintleman, the caption must be made, sir. If you don't like the pris'n, I have a nice little room o' my own, sir, where you can wait, for a small consideration, until you get bail.”

“I'll go there, then,” said Tom. “Go through as private streets as you can.”

“Give me half-a-guinea for my trouble, sir, and I'll ambulate you through lanes every fut o' the way.”

“Very well,” said Tom.

They now struck into a shabby street, and thence wended through stable lanes, filthy alleys, up greasy broken steps, through one close, and down steps in another—threaded dark passages whose debouchures were blocked up with posts to prevent vehicular conveyance, the accumulated dirt of years sensible to the tread from its lumpy unevenness, and the stagnant air rife with pestilence. Tom felt increasing disgust at every step he proceeded, but anything to him appeared better than being seen in the public streets in such company; for, until they got into these labyrinths of nastiness, Tom thought he saw in the looks of every passer-by, as plainly told as if the words were spoken, “There goes a fellow under the care of the bailiff.” In these by-ways, he had not any objection to speak to his companion, and for the first time asked him what he was arrested for.

“At the suit of Mr. M'Kail, sir.”

“Oh! the tailor?” said Tom.

“Yes, sir,” said the bailiff. “And if you would not consider it trifling with the feelings of a gintleman in defficulties, I would make the playful observation, sir, that it's quite in character to be arrested at the suit of a tailor. He! he! he!”

“You're a wag, I see,” said Tom.

“Oh no, sir, only a poetic turn: a small affection I have certainly for Judy Mot, but my rale passion is the muses. We are not far now, sir, from my little bower of repose—which is the name I give my humble abode—small, but snug, sir. You'll see another gintleman there, sir, before you. He is waitin' for bail these three or four days, sir—can't pay as he ought for the 'commodation, but he's a friend o' mine, I may almost say, sir—a litherary gintleman—them litherary gintlemen is always in defficulties mostly. I suppose you're a litherary gintleman, sir—though you're rather ginteely dhressed for one?”

“No,” said Tom, “I am not.”

“I thought you wor, sir, by being acquainted with this other gintleman.”

“An acquaintance of mine!” said Tom, with surprise.

“Yes, sir. In short it was through him I found out where you wor, sir. I have had the wret agen you for some time, but couldn't make you off, till my friend says I must carry a note from him to you.”

“Where is the note?” inquired Tom.

“Not ready yet, sir. It's po'thry he's writin'—something 'pithy' he said, and 'lame' too. I dunna how a thing could be pithy and lame together, but them potes has hard words at command.”

“Then you came away without the note?”

“Yis, sir. As soon as I found out where you wor stopping I ran off directly on Mr. M'Kail's little business. You'll excuse the liberty, sir; but we must all mind our professions; though, indeed, sir, if you b'lieve me, I'd rather nab a rhyme than a gintleman any day; and if I could get on the press I'd quit the shoulder-tapping profession.”

Tom cast an eye of wonder on the bailiff, which the latter comprehended at once; for with habitual nimbleness he could nab a man's thoughts as fast as his person. “I know what you're thinkin', sir—could one of my profession pursue the muses? Don't think, sir, I mane I could write the 'laders' or the pollitik'l articles, but the criminal cases, sir—the robberies and offinces—with the watchhouse cases—together with a little po'thry now and then. I think I could be useful, sir, and do better than some of the chaps that pick up their ha'pence that way. But here's my place, sir—my little bower of repose.”

He knocked at the door of a small tumble-down house in a filthy lane, the one window it presented in front being barred with iron. Some bolts were drawn inside, and though the man who opened the door was forbidding in his aspect, he did not refuse to let Tom in. The portal was hastily closed and bolted after they had entered. The smell of the house was pestilential—the entry dead dark.

“Give me your hand, sir,” said the bailiff, leading Tom forward. They ascended some creaking stairs, and the bailiff, fumbling for some time with a key at a door, unlocked it and shoved it open, and then led in his captive. Tom saw a shabby-genteel sort of person, whose back was towards him, directing a letter.

“Ah, Goggins!” said the writer, “you're come back in the nick of time. I have finished now, and you may take the letter to Mister Durfy.”

“You may give it to him yourself, sir,” replied Goggins, “for here he is.”

“Indeed!” said the writer, turning round.

“What!” exclaimed Tom Durfy, in surprise; “James Reddy!”

“Even so,” said James, with a sentimental air:

Literature is a bad trade, my dear Tom!—'tis an ungrateful world—men of the highest aspirations may lie in gaol for all the world cares; not that you come within the pale of the worthless ones; this is good-natured of you to come and see a friend in trouble. You deserve, my dear Tom, that you should have been uppermost in my thoughts; for here is a note I have just written to you, enclosing a copy of verses to you on your marriage—in short, it is an epithalamium.”

“That's what I told you, sir,” said Goggins to Tom.

“May the divil burn you and your epithalamium!” said Tom Durfy, stamping round the little room.

James Reddy stared in wonder, and Goggins roared, laughing.

“A pretty compliment you've paid me, Mister Reddy, this fine morning,” said Tom; “you tell a bailiff where I live, that you may send your infernal verses to me, and you get me arrested.”

“Oh, murder!” exclaimed James. “I'm very sorry, my dear Tom; but, at the same time, 't is a capital incident! How it would work up in a farce!”

“How funny it is!” said Tom in a rage, eyeing James as if he could have eaten him. “Bad luck to all poetry and poetasters! By the 'tarnal war, I wish every poet, from Homer down, was put into a mortar and pounded to death!”

James poured forth expressions of sorrow for the mischance; and extremely ludicrous it was to see one man making apologies for trying to pay his friend a compliment; his friend swearing at him for his civility, and the bailiff grinning at them both.

In this triangular dilemma we will leave them for the present.