“I’m having a friend,” explained Mr. McQuirk, “laid up with a broken leg, and he sent me after it. He’s a devil for songs and poetry when he can’t get out to drink.”
“We have not,” replied the young woman, with unconcealed contempt. “But there is a new song out that begins this way:
And while the firelight flickers we’ll be comfortable there.”
There will be no profit in following Mr. “Tiger” McQuirk through his further vagaries of that day until he comes to stand knocking at the door of Annie Maria Doyle. The goddess Eastre, it seems, had guided his footsteps aright at last.
“Is that you now, Jimmy McQuirk?” she cried, smiling through the opened door (Annie Maria had never accepted the “Tiger”). “Well, whatever!”
“Come out in the hall,” said Mr. McQuirk. “I want to ask yer opinion of the weather—on the level.”
“Are you crazy, sure?” said Annie Maria.
“I am,” said the “Tiger.” “They’ve been telling me all day there was spring in the air. Were they liars? Or am I?”
“Dear me!” said Annie Maria—“haven’t you noticed it? I can almost smell the violets. And the green grass. Of course, there ain’t any yet—it’s just a kind of feeling, you know.”
“That’s what I’m getting at,” said Mr. McQuirk.
[155]
