his daughter, and make statements to her not altogether consistent
with strict truth. On one day a bailiff was about to lead him to
prison, he wrote, "unless the--to you insignificant--sum of three
pound five can be forthcoming to liberate a poor man's gray hairs from
jail." And the good-natured Lady Mirabel dispatched the money
necessary for her father's liberation, with a caution to him to be
more economical for the future. On a second occasion the captain met
with a frightful accident, and broke a plate-glass window in the
Strand, for which the proprietor of the shop held him liable. The
money was forthcoming on this time too, to repair her papa's disaster,
and was carried down by Lady Mirabel's servant to the slip-shod
messenger and aid-de-camp of the captain, who brought the letter
announcing his mishap. If the servant had followed the captain's
aid-de-camp who carried the remittance, he would have seen that
gentleman, a person of Costigan's country too (for have we not said,
that however poor an Irish gentleman is, he always has a poorer Irish
gentleman to run on his errands and transact his pecuniary affairs?)
call a cab from the nearest stand, and rattle down to the Roscius's
Head, Harlequin-yard, Drury-lane, where the captain was indeed in
pawn, and for several glasses containing rum and water, or other
spirituous refreshment, of which he and his staff had partaken. On a
third melancholy occasion he wrote that he was attacked by illness,
and wanted money to pay the physician whom he was compelled to call
in; and this time Lady Mirabel, alarmed about her father's safety, and
perhaps reproaching herself that she had of late lost sight of her
father, called for her carriage and drove to Shepherd's Inn, at the
gate of which she alighted, whence she found the way to her father's
chambers, "No. 4, third floor, name of Podmore over the door," the
porteress said, with many courtesies, pointing toward the door of the
house into which the affectionate daughter entered, and mounted the