But the deuce of it was,that when the answers to the invitations came back,everybody accepted!Here was a pretty quandary.How they were to get twenty into their dining-room was a calculation which poor Timmins could not solve at all;and he paced up and down the little room in dismay.
"Pooh!"said Rosa with a laugh."Your sister Blanche looked very well in one of my dresses last year;and you know how stout she is.
We will find some means to accommodate them all,depend upon it."Mrs.John Rowdy's note to dear Rosa,accepting the latter's invitation,was a very gracious and kind one;and Mrs.Fitz showed it to her husband when he came back from chambers.But there was another note which had arrived for him by this time from Mr.Rowdy--or rather from the firm;and to the effect that Mr.F.Timmins had overdrawn his account 28L.18s.6d.,and was requested to pay that sum to his obedient servants,Stumpy,Rowdy and Co.
......
And Timmins did not like to tell his wife that the contending parties in the Lough Foyle and Lough Corrib Railroad had come to a settlement,and that the fifteen guineas a day had consequently determined."I have had seven days of it,though,"he thought;"and that will be enough to pay for the desk,the dinner,and the glasses,and make all right with Stumpy and Rowdy."