As soon as O'Connor had made some little way from the scene of his sudden and agitating¹ interview with Miss Ashwoode, he slackened his pace, and with slow steps began to retrace² his way toward the city. So listless and interrupted was his progress, that the sun had descended³, and twilight⁴ was fast melting into darkness before he reached that point in the road at which diverged⁵ the sequestered⁶ path which he had followed. As he approached the spot, he observed a small man, with a pipe in his mouth, and his person arranged in an attitude of ease and graceful⁷ negligence⁸, admirably calculated to exhibit the symmetry and perfection of his bodily proportions. This man had planted himself in the middle of the road, so as completely to command the pass, and, as our reader need scarcely be informed, was no other than Larry Toole—the important personage to whom we have already introduced him.

 

As O'Connor approached, Larry advanced, with a slow and dignified⁹ motion, to receive him: and removing his pipe from his mouth with a nonchalant air, he compressed the lighted contents of the bowl with his finger, and then deposited the utensil¹⁰ in his coat pocket, at the same time, executing, in a very becoming manner, his most courtly bow. Somewhat surprised, and by no means pleasantly, at an interruption of so unlooked-for a kind, O'Connor observed, impatiently, "I have neither time nor temper, friend, to suffer delay or listen to foolery;" and observing that Larry was preparing to follow him, he added

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