aths, O'Grady
ran to the door, and shouted for his pistols, and anon returned to the
chamber to vent every abusive epithet which could be showered on man and
woman. The prodigious uproar soon brought the whole house to the spot;
Mrs. O'Grady and the two spare girls amongst the first; Mat, and the
cook, and the scullion, and all the housemaids in rapid succession; and
Scatterbrain himself at last; O'Grady all the time foaming at the mouth,
stamping up and down the room, shaking his fist at Furlong, and, after a
volley of names impossible to remember or print, always concluding with
the phrase, "Wait till I get my pistols!"

"Gusty, dear," said his trembling wife, "what is it all about?"

He glared upon her with his flashing eyes, and said, "Fine education
you give your children, ma'am. Where have you brought up your daughters
to go to, eh?"

"To church, my dear," said Mrs. O'Grady, meekly; for she being a Roman
Catholic, O'Grady was very jealous of his daughters being reared staunch
Protestants, and she, poor simple woman, thought that was the drift of
his question.

"Church, my eye, woman!--Church, indeed!--'faith, she ought to have
gone there before she came where I found her. Thunderan'ouns, where are
my pistols?"

"Where _has_ she gone to, my love?" asked the wife in a tremor.

"To the divil, ma'am. Is that all you know about it?" said O'Grady.
"And you wish to know where she is?"

"Yes, love," said his wife.

"Then look under that bed, ma'am, and you'll see her without
spectacles."

Mrs. O'Grady now gave a scream, and the girls and the housemaids joined
in the chorus. Augusta bellowed from under the bed, "Mamma! mamma!
indeed it's all Ratty--I never did it."

At this moment, to help the confusion, a fresh appearance made its way
into the room; it was that of the Dowager O'Grady--arrayed in all the
bygone finery of faded full-dress, and the tin chimney-pot on her head.
"What is all this about?" she exclaimed, with an air of authority;
"though my weathercock tells me the wind is nor'west, I did not expect
such a storm. Is any one killed?"

"No," said O'Grady; "but somebody will be soon. Where are my pistols?
Blood and fire! will nobody bring me my pistols?"

"Here they are, sir," said Handy Andy, running in.

O'Grady made a rush for the pistols, but his mother and his wife threw
themselves before him, and Scatterbrain shoved Andy outside the room.

"Confound you, you numscull! would you give pistols