It was bound in red and gold, had two handsome silver-gilt clasps and red edges, the writing being exquisitely straight and legible, and without a single blot.
'I have them all except--two--_three_,' murmured the thoughtful Puddock when he had read over the list of ingredients.

These, however, he got from Toole, close at hand, and with a little silver grater and a pretty little agate pocket pestle and mortar--an heirloom derived from poor Aunt Bell--he made a wonderful powder; 'nutmeg and ginger, cinnamon and cloves,' as the song says, and every other stinging product of nature and chemistry which the author of this famous family 'purge for the head' could bring to remembrance; and certainly it _was_ potent.

With this the cartridges were loaded, the ends tied up, and O'Flaherty, placed behind a table on which stood a basin, commenced the serious operation, under Puddock's directions, by introducing a bag at each side of his mouth, which as a man of honour, he was bound to retain there until Puddock had had his morning's tete-a-tete with the barber.
Those who please to consult old domestic receipt-books of the last century, will find the whole process very exactly described therein.
'Be the powers, Sorr, that was the stuff!' said O'Flaherty, discussing the composition afterwards, with an awful shake of his head; 'my chops wor blazing before you could count twenty.' It was martyrdom; but anything was better than the incapacity which threatened, and certainly, by the end of five minutes, his head was something better.

In this satisfactory condition--Jerome being in the back garden brushing his regimentals, and preparing his other properties--he suddenly heard voices close to the door, and gracious powers! one was certainly Magnolia's.
'That born devil, Juddy Carrol,' blazed forth.

O'Flaherty, afterwards, 'pushed open the door; it served me right for not being in my bed-room, and the door locked--though who'd a thought there was such a cruel eediot on airth--bad luck to her--as to show a leedy into a gentleman, with scarcely the half of his clothes on, and undhergoin' a soart iv an operation, I may say.' Happily the table behind which he stood was one of those old-fashioned toilet affairs, with the back part, which was turned toward the door, sheeted over with wood, so that his ungartered stockings and rascally old slippers, were invisible.