“EDWINS!” cries the unhappy organist, starting to his feet with a wild reel.  “Th’ pride of’suncle’sheart!  I see ’m now, in’sh’fectionatemanhood, with whalebone ribs, made ’f alpaca, andyetsoyoung.  ‘Help me!’ hiccries; ‘PENDRAGON’sash’nate’n me!’ hiccries—­and I go!”

While uttering this extraordinary burst of feeling, he has advanced towards the door in a kind of demoniac can-can, and, at its close, abruptly darts into the street and frantically makes off.

“The cross of the holy fathers!” ejaculates the woman, momentarily bewildered by this sudden termination of the scene.  Then a new expression comes swiftly over her face, and she adds, in a different tone, “Odether-nodether, but it’s coonin’ as a fox he is, and it’s off he’s gone again widout payin’ me the schore!  Sure, but I’ll follow him, if it’s to the wurruld’s ind, and see f’hat he is and where he is.”

Thus it happens that she reaches Bumsteadville almost as soon as the Ritualistic organist, and, following him to his boarding-house, encounters Mr. Tracey CLEWS upon the steps.

“Well, now!” calls that gentleman, as she looks inquiringly at him, “who do you want?”

“Him as just passed in, your Honor.”

“Mr. Bumstead?”

“Ah.  Where does he play the organ?”

“In St. Cow’s Church, down yonder.  Mass at seven o’clock, and he’ll be there in half an hour.”

“It’s there I’ll be, thin,” mumbles the woman; “and bad luck to it that I didn’t know before; whin I came to ax him for me schore, and might have gone home widout a cint but for a good lad named Eddy who gave me a sthamp.—­The same Eddy, I’m thinkin’, that I’ve heard him mutter about in his shlape at my shebang in town, whin he came there on political business.”

After a start and a pause, Mr. CLEWS repeats his information concerning the Ritualistic church, and then cautiously follows the woman as she goes thither.

Unconscious of the remarkable female figure intently watching him from under a corner of the gallery, and occasionally shaking a fist at him, Mr. Bumstead attends to the musical part of the service with as much artistic accuracy as a hasty head-bath and a glass of soda-water are capable of securing.  The worshippers are too busy with risings, kneelings, bowings, and miscellaneous devout gymnastics, to heed his casual imperfections, and his headache makes him fiercely indifferent to what any one else may think.

Coming out of the athletic edifice, Mr. CLEWS comes upon the woman again, who seems excited.

“Well?” he says.

“Sure he saw me in time to shlip out of a back dure,” she returns, savagely; “but it’s shtrait to his boording-house I’m going afther him, the spalpeen.”

Again Mr. Tracey CLEWS follows her; but this time he allows her to go up to Mr. BUMSTEAD’S room, while he turns into his own apartment where his breakfast awaits him.  “I can make a chalk mark for the trail I’ve struck to-day,” he says; and then thoughtfully attacks the meal upon the table.[2]