LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2681, 9 November 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

ME WALKER'S LUGGAGE

Mrs O’Leary was a buxom well-preserved widow of forty-five when Hooker J. Walker, in the month of July, arrived at the Dublin Bay Hotel, in Bray. She had married the late Mr O’Leary for money, not that he had been a remarkably wealthy man, but he was reputed ‘ comfortable,’ and he could offer a homo and the management of a thriving- place of entertainment for man and beast to anyone of the female persuasion who might find favor in his eyes. At the time when Mr O’Leary commenced to lay siege to the heart of Miss Brady, the maiden was in her thirty-ninth year. She confessed to twenty-eight. Her father kept a small grocery store in Bray, the chief to wn of the County Wicklow, and for several months in the year a favorite seaside resort for the good people of Dublin and elsewhere.

It was in the winter season, when Bray is deserted and dull, that Mr O’Leary first evinced those tokens of admiration which were soon to blossom into full-blown first love ; for, although Mr O’Leary was in his fifty-seventh year, he had never, so far at least as his best friends could remember, given anybody j ust cause to believe that he was in possession of a heart. All his faculties had been centred in the accumulation of money. He was very young, about twenty-two, when his father died, leaving Mm sole proprietor of the Dublin Bay Tavern, a small public-house in the main street. By careful attention to business, and judicious adulteration of beer and spirits, he had contrived, hy the time his forty-fifth birthday came round, to amass a sum of JJISOO, which sum lay to his credit in the Bray branch of the National Bank. Thou a brilliant idea seized hold of him. He would sell the tavern, and purchase or build an hotel of reasonable dimensions on the Esplanade. He would not attempt to rival the hotels in existence, hut would devote himself to the conduct of a place for the fleecing of second-class tourists. Accordingly he purchased a piece of ground from the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway Company, and built a moderate-sized hotel, containing about a dozen bedrooms. He sold the public-house, and put the proceeds into the new undertaking. The Dublin Bay Hotel, as he christened it, flourished under the management of Mr O’Leary. People wondered he didn’t marry.

£ A good sensible woman, if you’ll excuse the liberty, William, would be a power of service to you in the hotel,’ remarked his only surviving relative, a maiden aunt. But William O’Leary remained single until fifty-seven, when suddenly the flame of love was kindled within his breast. He had known Miss Brady for several years, having dealt with her respected father for groceries, &c. Miss Brady, as before stated, married for money. It had always been her ambition to manage a ‘ big house of business,’ and many a covetous glance had she from time to time directed towards the Bay Hotel. To her credit be it spoken, she had, never attempted to wheedle or throw sheep's eyes at Mr William O’Leary, but when he proposed she accepted, without a word of protest or a hint at procrastination. The union was a happy one, and no one followed the mortal remains of the late Mr O’Leary to their last resting place, pix years after the wedding, with more tokens of grief than the widow—not even the departed hotel-keeper’s maiden aunt, who was cut off with a paltry legacy of fifty pounds. Mr O’Leary by his will devised all his real and personal estate, save and except the legacy of fifty pounds to the maiden aunt, to his surviving partner, and when the proper time for deep material and mental mourning had elapsed, the widow began to look about her for another suitable husband. She determined that, as she had done so well by marrying for money in the first instance, she would marry for money again if possible; but a slight dash of the real genuine amativeness would not be amiss, provided it was supplemented by a balance at the banker’s.

Daring her six years of widowhood she had never come across the right man. She could boast of several proposals, but none of the proposers could guarantee a sufficiency, in lira O’Leary’s eyes, of love and money. Therefore, when Hooker J. Walker’s luggage- was deposited in the Dublin Bay Hotel, the heart of the proprietress was still an unconquered citadel. Hooker . J. Walker was evidently of American origin. He had that, peculiar lank appearance which characterises many of the sons' of the State, and his nasal twang afford a strong contrast to the plethora of Hibernian brogue which could be distinguished within the walls of the widow’s establishment.

‘ Begor, Yankee or no Yankee, he’s a raal gintleman. He gev me a bran new half-crown for leadin’ a hand with the luggage,’ said Matty Connolly, the headwaiter at the Dublin Bay Hotel, to his mistress, who was usually to be found seated inside the bar ; £ an’, be the same token, ma’am,’ he said, ‘ 1 was to have a dhrink at his expense; and not to be too presumin’ on the gintleman’s kindness, ma’am. I’ll just take a large bottle of stout, if you plaise, ma’am, though I think a little warm brandy would be hetther for me; hut I’ll laive it to yourself, Mrs O’Leary, ma’am.’ Mr Connolly, in addition to his duties as head-waiter, also acted as a sort of general supervisor and adviser. He looked after the servants, the affairs of the kitchen, the buying of coals and provisions, the suggesting to tourists of pleasant drives in the neighborhood and the consequent hiring of outside cars ; he saw that the billiard-marker didn’t swallow too much drink or pocket too largo a share of the billiard-room receipts ; and lie was Mrs O’Leary’s mentor on all matters of a commercial or domestic nature. It was be who usually .discovered that want of pence which puzzled the landlady’s suitors, and he warned his mistress against many a mesalliance with poverty. It was hinted in many quarters that Mr Connolly had designs himself on the hand and heart of the worthy widow; hut if such were the case, he had not up to the time of Hooker J. Walker’s [arrival given the widow herself any cause to believe that such wa,s the case.

Hooker J. "Walker seemed to take a fancy to the head-waiter, and often asked him to join him in a friendly flip of grog; or an equally friendly bottle of stout, and Connolly Boomed to take a reciprocal fancy to the new visitor.

‘Be herrin’s, ma'am,’ said he one evening to Mrs O’Leary, ‘ hut that Mr Walker is the dasentest fellow that ever sot foot in this shanty !’

‘ Matthew,’ said Mrs O’Leary, interrupting, ‘ I think you’re not quite sober tonight, and I’d feel obliged if you’d not address me in such a fameeliar manner,’ ‘ Oh, begor, Mrs O’Leary, it isn’t meself that would insult you, ma’am, in the laste ; and sure if I have an small dhrop too much in me, it isn’t my fault; and 'pon mo song, ma’am, but it’s a hard day’s work I’m afther putting over me, and all in your inthorost too. ma’am; hut sure, if you’ll allow me, ma’am, I’d like to tell you about the decency of Mr Walker to-day, and sure it's you that ho thinks is the fine com-' fortabla-lookin’ woman.’

‘ Now really, Connolly, I cannot permit you to speak to me in such a way as this. You must learn to know your place, or we can’t get on together. lam always ready to acknowledge your attention to the business, but you are really forgettin’ yourself altogether lately. If you have anything particular to tell me about Mr Walker, of course, you’re welcome to tell it,’, continued the widow, who had secretly begun to cherish a tenderness for Mr Walker, and was flattered to hear that ho considered her a fine woman.

‘ Faith, you take me so quare lattherly,’ said the waiter, ‘ that I’m 'beo-Inuin’ to lose a great deal of confidence in you, ma’am ; but as I mod the remark about Mr Walker, I’ll toll you what happened to-day. Ho asked me to brush his coat for him, and when I helped him’ on with it blow me if he didn’t dive his hand into his waistcoat pocket, ma’am, and slip a half-sov. into me fist. Oh, the divvlo a lie I’m tellin’ you ma’am.’ ‘Begor, sir, save I, hut I’m ashamed to take your money for such a trifling job. Shuro, if I had helped you over a fit of the d.t.’s you couldn’t show more spent than tins.’ ‘ I always like to reward merit, Mr Connolly,

says he—he always calls me Mr Connolly] ma’am; not like some of the d d up-j upstarts that come here, with their Matty and Mat— ‘ an’ I can see you do your duty fair and square to your misthress—a nice charmin’ lady, Mr Connolly—and plaise your customers at the same time. Besides, money is no object to me. I’ve made my pile at the diggin’s,’ says he, ‘ and maybe ’twould open your eyes if you only knew how much of the hard stuff is lyin’ in this house’—whatever ho meant he that, ma’am, I’m sure I duuno from Adam. ‘ Give my respects to your good lady, Mr Connolly,’ says he, as 1 was laving- the room, ‘ and tell her how plased I am with the attintion I resave here. I'm a retiring sort of man,’ says ho, ‘and I haven’t the courage to spake much mcself to the ladies.’ To he continued.