"Very well; all right," Brand said, briskly: this seemed to be rather a
more cheerful business than cutting one's throat.

"He's at his telegraph-wire all night," Lord Evelyn said, in the hansom.
"Then he lies down for a few hours' sleep on a sofa. Then he goes along
to his rooms in Pimlico for breakfast; but at Atkinson's he generally
stops for awhile on his way, to have his morning drink."

"Oh, is that the sort of person?"

"Don't make any mistake. O'Halloran may be eccentric in his ways of
living, but he is one of the most remarkable men I have ever run
against. His knowledge, his reading--politics, philosophy, everything,
in short--the brilliancy of his talking when he gets excited, even the
extraordinary variety of his personal acquaintance--why, there is
nothing going on that he does not know about."

"But why has this Hibernian genius done nothing at all?"

"Why? You might as well try to kindle a fire with a flash of lightning.
He has more political knowledge and more power of brilliant writing than
half the editors in London put together; but he would ruin any paper in
twenty-four hours. His first object would probably be to frighten his
readers out of their wits by some monstrous paradox; his next to show
them what fools they had been. I don't know how he has been kept on so
long where he is, unless it be that he deals with news only. I believe
he had to be withdrawn from the gallery of the House; he was very
impatient over the prosy members and his remarks about them began to
reach the Speaker's ear too frequently."