"Well, Jack, I intended to mystify others; but, by Jove! it has ended in
mystifying myself. Who the devil are you? What are you?"

"If I don't mistake me, you are the man to answer that question
yourself. You presented me not alone to your friends, but to your
Prince; and it is but fair to infer that you knew what you were about."

He stared at me steadily without speaking. I saw the state of confusion
and embarrassment from which he suffered, and I actually revelled in the
difficulty in which I had placed him. I perceived all the advantage of
my position, and resolved to profit by it.

"One thing is quite evident," said I, calmly and collectedly, like a man
who weighed all his words, and spoke with deep deliberation,--"one
thing is quite evident, you could scarcely have presumed to take such
a liberty with your Prince as to present to him, and place at the same
table with him, a man whom you picked up from the streets,--one whose
very station marked him for an outcast, whose exterior showed his
destitution. This, I conclude, you could not have dared to do; and yet
it is in the direct conviction that such was my position yesterday, I
sit here now, trying to reconcile such inconsistency, and asking myself
which of us two is in the wrong."

"My good friend," said O'Kelly, with a deliberation fully the equal of
my own, and in a way that, I must confess, somewhat abashed me,--"my
good friend, do not embarrass yourself by any anxieties for me. I
am quite able and ready to account for my actions to any who deem
themselves eligible to question them."

"From which number," said I, interrupting, "you would, of course, infer
that I am to be excluded?"

"By no means," said he, "if you can satisfy me to the contrary. I shall
hold myself as responsible to you as to any one of those gentlemen who
have just left us, if you will merely show me sufficient cause."

"As how, for instance?" asked I.

"Simply by declaring yourself the rightful possessor of a station and
rank in life for which your habits and manners plainly show you to be
fitted. Let me be convinced that you have not derogated from this by any
act unworthy of a man of honor--"

"Stop, sir," said I. "By what right do you dare to put me on my trial?
Of your own free will you presumed to ask for my companionship. You
extended to me an equality which, if not sincere, was an insult."

"Egad! if you be really a gentleman, your reasons are all good ones,"
said O'Kelly.