Sturk stood, with his face and figure mottled over with the shadows of the moving leaves and the withered ones dropping about him, his hands in his pockets, and a crown-piece--I believe it was his last available coin just then--shut up fast and tight in his cold fingers, with his heart in his mouth, and whistling a little to show his unconcern.
'Well,' said Sturk, 'he won't, of course ?' Cluffe shook his head.
'Very good--I'll manage it another way,' said Sturk, confidently.
'Good-night;' and Sturk walked off briskly towards the turnpike.
'He might have said "thank you," I think,' Cluffe said, looking after him with a haughty leer--'mixing myself up in his plaguy affairs, and asking favours of fellows like Nutter.' But just then, having reached the corner next the Phoenix, Sturk hesitated, and Cluffe, thinking he might possibly turn back and ask him for money, turned on his heel, and, like a prudent fellow, trudged rapidly off to his lodgings.
Toole and O'Flaherty were standing in the doorway of the Phoenix, observing the brief and secret meeting under the elm.
'That's Sturk,' said Toole.
O'Flaherty grunted acquiescence.
Toole watched attentively till the gentlemen separated, and then glancing on O'Flaherty from the corner of his eye, with a knowing smile, 'tipped him the wink,' as the phrase went in those days.
'An affair of honour ?' said O'Flaherty, squaring himself.

He smelt powder in everything.
'More like an affair of _dishonour_,' said Toole, buttoning his coat.
'He's been "kiting" all over the town.

Nutter can distrain for his rent to-morrow, and Cluffe called him outside the bar to speak with him; put that and that together, Sir.' And home went Toole.
Sturk, indeed, had no plan, and was just then incapable of forming any.
He changed his route, not knowing why, and posted over the bridge, and a good way along the Inchicore road, and then turned about and strode back again and over the bridge, without stopping, and on towards Dublin; and suddenly the moon shone out, and he recollected how late it was growing, and so turned about and walked homeward.
As he passed by the row of houses looking across the road towards the river, from Mr.Irons's hall-door step a well-known voice accosted him-- 'A thweet night, doctor--the moon tho thilver bright--the air tho thoft!' It was little Puddock, whose hand and face were raised toward the sweet regent of the sky.
'Mighty fine night,' said Sturk, and he paused for a second.

It was Puddock's way to be more than commonly friendly and polite with any man who owed him money; and Sturk, who thought, perhaps rightly, that the world of late had been looking cold and black upon him, felt, in a sort of way, thankful for the greeting and its cordial tone.
'A night like this,' pursued the little lieutenant, 'my dear Sir, brings us under the marble balconies of the palace of the Capulets, and sets us repeating "On such a night sat Dido on the wild seabanks"-- you remember--"and with a willow wand, waved her love back to Carthage,"-- or places us upon the haunted platform, where buried Denmark revisits the glimpses of the moon.

My dear doctor, 'tis wonderful--isn't it--how much of our enjoyment of Nature we owe to Shakespeare--'twould be a changed world with us, doctor, if Shakespeare had not written--' Then there was a little pause, Sturk standing still.
'God be wi' ye, lieutenant,' said he, suddenly taking his hand.