• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 415 0

buy a new overcoat, disinterring an intact but quaint garment in which he said he was married to his first wife. (I had never heard of anyone having been married in an overcoat.) Father Fahrt, being of continental origin, understood everything perfectly and did not need advice on any matter. He did not disguise his emotion at the prospect of meeting the Holy Father in person and referred to this, not as a possibility but as something which had already been arranged. For all I knew, he had invoked the mysterious apparatus of his Order, from which even the Pope was not immune.

On the late evening of the seventh the two travellers, looking very spruce, were at their accustomed station in the kitchen, savouring refreshment from the crock and looking very pleased. For once Annie showed a slight strain of excitement.

–Could I make you hang sangwiches for the journey? she asked.

–God Almighty, woman, Mr Collopy said in genuine astonishment, do you think we are going to the zoo? Or Leopardstown races?

–Well, you might be hungry.

–Yes, Mr Collopy said rather heavily, that could happen. But there is one well-known remedy for hunger. Know what that is? A damn good dinner. Sirloin, roast potatoes, asparagus, Savoy cabbage and any God’s amount of celery sauce. With, beforehand, of course, a plate of hot mushroom soup served with French rolls. With a bottle of claret, the chateau class, beside each plate. Am I right, Father Fahrt?

–Collopy, I don’t find that meal very homogeneous.

–Maybe so. But is it nourishing?

–Well, it would scarcely kill you.

–Damn sure it never killed me when the mother was alive. Lord save us—there was a woman that could bake a farl of wheaten bread! Put a slobber of honey on that and you had a banquet, man.

–The only creatures who eat sensibly, Father Fahrt said, are the animals. Nearly all humans over-eat and kill themselves with food.

–Except in the slums, of course, Mr Collopy corrected.

–Ah yes, Father Fahrt said sadly. The curse there is cheap drink and worse—methylated spirits. God pity them.

–In a way they have more than we have, they have constitutions of cast iron.

–Yes, but acid is the enemy of iron. I believe some of those poor people buy a lot of hair oil. Not for their heads, of course. They drink it.

–Yes. That reminds me, Father. Hand me your glass. This isn’t hair oil I have here.

While he busied himself with the libations, there was a knock. I hurried to the door and admitted Mr Hanafin.

–Well, Fathers above, Tie beamed as he saw the pair at the range.

–Evening, Hanafin, Mr Collopy said. Sit down there for a minute. Annie, get a glass for Mr Hanafin.

–So we’re off tonight to cross the briny ocean?

–Yes, Mr Hanafin, Father Fahrt said. We have important business to attend to on the mainland.

–Yes, Mr Hanafin, I added, and you have just four minutes to finish that drink. I am in charge of this timetable. We all leave for Westland Row station in four minutes.

My voice was peremptory, stern.

–I must say, gentlemen, Mr Hanafin said, that I never seen ye looking better. Ye are very spruce. I never seen you, Mr Collopy, with a better colour up.

–That is my blood pressure, Mr Collopy replied facetiously.

I was strict with my four-minute time-limit. When it was up we embarked on the task of getting Mr Collopy into his ancient tight overcoat. That completed, Mr Hanafin and I half-assisted, half-dragged him out to the cab and succeeded, Father Fahrt assisting from the far door, in hoisting him into the cab’s back. The springs wheezed as he collapsed backwards on to the seat. Soon after the aged Marius broke into a leisurely trot and in fifteen minutes we pulled up outside Westland Row station. There is a long flight of steps from street level to the platform.

–Everybody wait here till I come back, I said.

I climbed the stairs and approached a porter standing beside the almost empty boat train.

–Listen here, I said, there’s a very heavy man below in a cab that wouldn’t be able for those stairs on his own. If you get another man to come down with you and give us a hand, there’s a