Tom Moore Part 26

"Are you sure of thot?"

"W'y h'are you so suspicious, Mrs. Malone? 'Ave _you_ missed one?"

"Niver you mind prying into the secrets of me toilet. I 'll have you to understand--"

At this moment a ragged towel, soaking wet as the result of its immersion in the pail, sailed over the top of the screen and landed with a gurgling squash, fair and square on the back of the landlady's neck, dampening her collar and best cap so thoroughly that the starched linen immediately subsided into floppy limpness.

"Merciful powers!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Malone, jumping a foot at least.

"Phwat 's thot?"

Buster fled downstairs fearful of impending ma.s.sacre, while Moore behind the screen began giving an imitation of a man in the throes of an ice-cold bath, bursting into musicless song punctuated with exclamations of discomfort and shivery comments on his condition.

"She is far from the land,"

he shouted, slopping the water from pitcher to pail and back again, adding sotto voce, "But not from the landlady, worse luck--Oh! I 'll die of the cold! I know I will. Oh, mother, it's a cake of ice your beloved Thomas is fast becoming.

"Where her young hero sleeps,

--Only her young hero is freezing instead of sleeping. Help! Help!

Whew-w-w! Murder, murder, I 'm dying of the chill!"

Mrs. Malone in speechless rage had unwound the wet towel from around her neck.

"You divil!" she remarked, with the calmness of despair. "You red-handed rapscallion. You 've spiled me best Sunday Get-Up-and-Go-to-Early-Morning-Ma.s.s-Cap. Oh, you haythen!--you turk!

Hanging is too good for the likes of you."

Moore, bawling and singing at the top of his lungs, heard nothing of the landlady's desperation.

"And lovers around her are sighing, But coldly she turns--

Faith, the dear girl must have been taking a cold bath herself, I 'm thinking. Oh, murder! No! For, if that were so, how could the lovers be around her? No, indeed, no lady decent enough for Tom Moore to immortalize in song would be guilty of such immodesty, I am sure.

"But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, For her heart in his grave is lying.

A beautiful sentiment, Mr. Moore."

"Oh, where is that soap?" and then again bursting into song, he warbled:

"Where _is_ that soap?

_Where_ is _that_ soap?

Oh, _where_ in Blazes _is_ that so-o-o-ap?

Buster, you devil, bring me the soap."

"I 'll do nuthing of the kind," replied Mrs. Malone, ferociously.

"You won't?"

"Not I."

"In half a jiffy I 'll come out there and give you the leathering you deserve for insubordination."

"Oh!" cried the landlady. "And me here, Bridget Malone."

"What?" exclaimed Moore, as though suspecting her presence for the first time. "Are _you_ there, Mrs. Malone? Whew! but this water is cold."

His head, with hair, wet and tousled, sticking up every which way, appeared above the top of the screen, being elevated just enough to keep his shirt band out of sight, thus preventing the betrayal of his subterfuge to the landlady.

"How do you do, Mrs. Malone?" said he, courteously.

"I 'm sopping wet, thanks to you."

"So am I, Mrs. Malone. We are twins in that respect. Me teeth are chattering as you can see-e-e-e!"

"I 'll have thot rint now, you blaggard."

"Shall I come and give it to you, Mrs. Malone? Oh, Lord, it is freezing to death I am."

"I hope you are; when you die you 'll git a change," answered Mrs.

Malone, sitting down by the table, decisively.

"Are you going to stay?" asked Moore.

"I 'll sit right here till I git me rint, Tom Moore."

"You will, eh?"

"Thot I will, you water t'rowing spalpeen."

"I said come back when I am dressed, did n't I? Well, I 'm _not_ dressed, am I?"

"How should I know?" observed Mrs. Malone, loudly, meanwhile mopping her neck with her handkerchief.

"Well," responded the poet, "you _will_ know, if you don't get out of here mighty quick, I can tell you. I 'll not be turned into a lump of ice for any old lady, Irish or no Irish. Whe-ee! Oh-h-h! G-r-r-r-h!

When I get into the market the price of ice will drop a penny a pound."

"I wants me rint," reiterated the landlady, quite unconcerned as to her lodger's personal temperature.

"Do you think I have it in the tub with me?" demanded Moore, growing desperate.

"I 've no doubt you have as much of it there as anywhere," replied Mrs.

Malone, unconsciously hitting the nail on the head.

"I 'll give you till I count twenty to quit the premises."

"Twenty or twenty t'ousand is just the same to me, Mr. Moore."

"Then you have no head for figures, Mrs. Malone?"