heard him bawling out to Gregory in the passage, and presently he rushed
into the supper-room, where Mr. and Mrs. Perkins and myself were, and
as the waiter was announcing "Mr. Mulligan," "THE Mulligan of
Ballymulligan, ye blackguard!" roared he, and stalked into the
apartment, "apologoizing," as he said, for introducing himself.

Mr. and Mrs. Perkins did not perhaps wish to be seen in this room, which
was for the present only lighted by a couple of candles; but HE was not
at all abashed by the circumstance, and grasping them both warmly by
the hands, he instantly made himself at home. "As friends of my dear
and talented friend Mick," so he is pleased to call me, "I'm deloighted,
madam, to be made known to ye. Don't consider me in the light of a mere
acquaintance! As for you, my dear madam, you put me so much in moind
of my own blessed mother, now resoiding at Ballymulligan Castle, that I
begin to love ye at first soight." At which speech Mr. Perkins getting
rather alarmed, asked the Mulligan whether he would take some wine, or
go up stairs.

"Faix," says Mulligan "it's never too soon for good dhrink." And
(although he smelt very much of whiskey already) he drank a tumbler of
wine "to the improvement of an acqueentence which comminces in a manner
so deloightful."

"Let's go up stairs, Mulligan," says I, and led the noble Irishman to
the upper apartments, which were in a profound gloom, the candles not
being yet illuminated, and where we surprised Miss Fanny, seated in the
twilight at the piano, timidly trying the tunes of the polka which she
danced so exquisitely that evening. She did not perceive the stranger at
first; but how she started when the Mulligan loomed upon her.