Out went the candles--the curtains flapped high in air, and lashed the ceiling--the door banged with a hideous crash--papers, and who knows what beside, went spinning, hurry-scurry round the room; and Toole's wig was very near taking wing from his head.
'Hey--hey--hey! holloo!' cried the doctor, out of breath, and with his artificial ringlets frisking about his chops and eyes.
'Out, sorcerer--temptation, begone--avaunt, Mephistopheles--cauldron, away!' thundered the captain; and sure enough, from the open window, through the icy sleet, whirled the jovial bowl; and the jingle of the china was heard faint through the tempest.
Toole was swearing, in the whirlwind and darkness, like a trooper.
'Thank Heaven! 'tis gone,' continued Devereux; 'I'm safe--no thanks to you, though; and, hark ye, doctor, I'm best alone; leave me--leave me, pray--and pray forgive me.' The doctor groped and stumbled out of the room, growling all the while, and the door slammed behind him with a crash like a cannon.
'The fellow's brain's disordered--_delirium tremens_, and jump out of that cursed window, I wouldn't wonder,' muttered the doctor, adjusting his wig on the lobby, and then calling rather mildly over the banisters, he brought up Mrs.Irons with a candle, and found his cloak, hat, and cane; and with a mysterious look beckoned that matron to follow him, and in the hall, winking up towards the ceiling at the spot where Devereux might at the moment be presumed to be standing-- 'I say, has he been feverish or queer, or--eh ?--any way humorsome or out of the way ?' And then--'See now, you may as well have an eye after him, and if you remark anything strange, don't fail to let me know--d'ye see?
and for the present you had better get him to shut his window and light his candles.' And so the doctor, wrapped in his mantle, plunged into the hurricane and darkness; and was sensible, with a throb of angry regret, of a whiff of punch rising from the footpath, as he turned the corner of the steps.
An hour later, Devereux being alone, called to Mrs.Irons, and receiving her with a courteous gravity, he said-- 'Madam, will you be so good as to lend me your Bible ?' Devereux was prosecuting his reformation, which, as the reader sees, had set in rather tempestuously, but was now settling in serenity and calm.
Mrs.Irons only said-- 'My---- ?' and then paused, doubting her ears.
'Your _Bible_, if you please, Madam.' 'Oh ?--oh! my Bible?
I--to be sure, captain, jewel,' and she peeped at his face, and loitered for a while at the door, for she had unpleasant misgivings about him, and did not know what to make of his request, so utterly without parallel.

She'd have fiddled at the door some time longer, speculating about his sanity, but that Devereux turned full upon her with a proud stare, and rising, he made her a slight bow, and said: 'I _thank_ you, Madam,' with a sharp courtesy, that said: 'avaunt, and quit my sight!' so sternly, though politely, that she vanished on the instant; and down stairs she marvelled with Juggy Byrne, 'what the puck the captain could want of a Bible! Upon my conscience it sounds well.
It's what he's not right in his head, I'm afeared.

A Bible!'-- and an aerial voice seemed to say, 'a pistol,' and another, 'a coffin,'-- 'An' I'm sure I wish that quare little Lieutenant Puddock id come up and keep him company.

I dunno' what's come over him.' And they tumbled about the rattletraps under the cupboard, and rummaged the drawers in search of the sacred volume.

For though Juggy said there was no such thing, and never had been in her time, Mrs.Irons put her down with asperity.