O'Gorman

“ O'Gorman sprang to his feet, and, drawing the parasol from the breast of his coat, tendered it, and his arm, to the young lady, saying, with the greatest exultation, "Hoaxed, by jingo! alas! poor Sweeny. Come, Miss Kate, your brother is so taken up with Miss O'Donnell, that he can't attend to any thing, or any body. Never mind your mother; she can't bawl out at us, you know; and if she attempted to scold, she'd be voted out. I've got Sharpe's gig—come, jump up, and we'll have such a day! ”

“ Surely, I thought, this must be the home of good-tempered men, and this O'Gorman is the happiest-looking bloke I've seen in years. He was over six feet, strongly built, active, and, like Raynor, his chum, had that sunny nature that nothing ever seems to put out. They welcomed me warmly, and, after a little talk, told me it was too late to go out to my fancy for a block that day, but I could stop there over-night and go out next day. Meanwhile I could come up into the bush and watch the men chop scrub. ”

“ Mr O’Gorman, as you have the happy knack of making the best of every thing, I believe you are the person best qualified in this company to make the most of the matter, and we must rely on your ingenuity.”
“Thank you, ma’am. That is as much as to say, ‘Bob, as you have treated us to broken meat, and lost the knives and forks, you will please to carve!’ Well, nabocklish, this isn’t a round table, like Prince Arthur’s, for it’s little more than half round, and we have old Howth at the head, and old Neptune at the foot of it ”

“ You two are like cats and dogs when you get together; yet you're the two cleverest people in the service. According to your story, Mr. O'Gorman, there's an important crisis approaching, and we'd all like to be able to render a good account of ourselves."
Agatha Lord may have lacked something of Nan's experience, but this speech proved her a fair diplomat. It dispersed the gathering storm and during the rest of that afternoon the three counseled together in perfect harmony, O'Gorman confiding to his associates such information as would enable them to act with him intelligently. ”

“ He smiled largely. "Habari gani? Kusema Kiswahili? Nothing doing, eh? Now I suppose that if I attempt to pantomime my most elemental need you'll surely misconstrue my intentions? Presumably the primitive life conduces to as cynical a view of other people's motives as does civilization? Is that so?"
The steady smile deepened, but the eyes did not quaver.
"However, we'd better introduce ourselves. I'm Professor John P. O'Gorman of the American Museum of Natural History, very much—obviously—at your service! ”

“ Josie answered with assurance. "I tell you, mister, I can sell anything from a baby's rattle to a tombstone. You can ask the girls who run the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop here in Dorfield. Ever hear of them?"
"Sure!"
"Well, I have a letter here from Miss Josie O'Gorman, who is chief cook and bottle washer 'round there and she will tell you that I am a winner. I tell you Mrs. Danny Dexter and Miss O'Gorman think old Sally Blossom is a peacherino." ”

“ So she sent a code telegram to O'Gorman, who left it on his desk long enough for me to decipher and read it. I don't know what the assistant chief will do about it, for I left Washington an hour later and came straight to you. What I do know is that I'm in time to spike Miss Josie's guns, which will give me a great deal of pleasure. She doesn't know I'm your daughter, any more than O'Gorman does, so if the girl sees me here she'll imagine I'm on Government business. But I want to keep out of her way for a time. Do you know the girl, Dad?"
"Yes," he said.
"She's rather clever." ”

“ It will be fun, after working for the Government so long, to work against it. There's a certain red-headed imp in this neighborhood who is the daughter of our assistant chief, John O'Gorman. Her name is Josie O'Gorman and she's in training for the same profession of which I'm an ornament. I won't sneer at her, for she's clever, in a way, but I'd like to show O'Gorman that Nan Shelley—that's my name in Washington—is a little more clever than his pet. This Josie O'Gorman is staying with the Hathaway family. ”

“ And that is what they have been doing."
"Then you can arrest him for this act?"
"I can," said O'Gorman, "but I'll be hanged if I will, Josie. Cragg is an idealist; the cause to which he has devoted his life and fortune with a steadfast loyalty that is worthy of respect, is doomed to failure. The man's every thought is concentrated on his futile scheme and to oppose him at this juncture would drive him mad. He isn't doing any real harm to our country and even England won't suffer much through his conspiracy. ”

“ Josie regretted her job. Life was becoming complicated, what with trying to organize a force of canvassers for household necessities and jewel novelties when every moment of her waking hours must be spent trying to find out the true inwardness of the affair concerning Peter and Polly and their demented mother. Her boss was trusting her, so she must make good. And had she not, as Josie O'Gorman, highly recommended Miss Sally Blossom? ”

“ He was, on the contrary, a man of peaceful disposition, and of few words,—also a rare circumstance, considering that his name was Larry O’Gorman.
There were some good traits in the Irishman’s character. Perhaps we have given the best. In comparison with the Frenchman, he might be described as an angel; and, compared with the other wretches on the raft, he was, perhaps, the least bad: for the word best could not, with propriety, be applied to anyone of that motley crew. ”

“ This is a clever idea of that O’Gorman girl’s, to run this shop. Are you sure she is so dull?” asked the man.
“Sure! She has a fish eye and a face like a dumpling.” “O’Gorman had too, and he wasn’t dull,” said Mr. Markle with some doubt in his tone.
“Oh, trust me, Felix, to know when a woman has sense. I don’t believe she even has any humor.”
Josie smothered a giggle and drew her little revolver from her pocket. The interlopers were pushing open the door of her bedroom and without further ceremony switched on the light. ”

“ He might as well look for help to the stars. He would call at O'Hanlon's to-day and ask was there any news.
He found Mr. Gorman, head clerk to O'Hanlon, leaning against his favourite shutter with his hands in his trousers' pockets, placidly regarding through the window a tattered, battered, and wholly miserable-looking man of between sixty and seventy, who was playing "The Young May Moon," atrociously out of tune and out of time, on a penny tin whistle.
"Well," said O'Brien, briskly to Gorman, "any news?" ”

“ There were choruses of old river chanteys while the men waited for the sleds. A devil-may-care spirit had taken possession of the crew. Latisan began to feel like the brigand chief of bravos.
He was jubilantly informed by one enthusiast that they were all in luck—that Larry O’Gorman, the woods poet, had picked that crew as his own for that season on the river.
The songs of Larry O’Gorman are sung from the Mirimichi to the Megantic. He is analyst as well as bard. He makes it a point—and he still lives and sings—to attach himself only to forces which can inspire his lyre. ”

“ He found a slot had been cut in each tire just large enough for a twenty-dollar gold piece to be slipped in.
“I wish I could get hold of Josie O’Gorman. She’s got sense to burn. I’ll run there as fast as I can but, before I go, I’ll hide the treasure.” He carefully lifted the bag into the car and covered it with the old cushions and horse hair that had been pulled from them.
Closing the door carefully and sticking the hasp back into the holes from which he had drawn it, he began to run down the alley. ”

“ Mary Louise literally danced into the shop. Ever since Danny returned her feet seemed to have wings.
"I didn't know how miserable I had been until I had my present happiness with which to compare my former sorrow," she had told Josie O'Gorman shortly after Danny got back.
"You were too busy to be altogether unhappy," spake the wise Josie. "Being poor enough to have to make one's living is not so bad as it is cracked up to be. ”

“ That is nonsense. I know for certain she has the children with her in Chicago. I heard from her only last week. Here is the letter," he declared, slapping his pocket. "As for starving and ill treating the children, Dink has had a generous check from me every week. They have had money enough to live on the fat of the land."
"Well, then, this Dink must have feathered her own nest with it. Would you mind, Miss O'Gorman, telling Mr. Hunt what you know of my children?"
And then Josie told in as few words as possible all she knew of Polly and Peter and of the whereabouts of Dink. ”

“ When I am at home I go talk things over with the chief of police or one of my partners and I seem mighty far off just now with a big thing on hand and no one to go to. I'm not cry-babying, but just want to gas along on the subject for a while. I have a kind of idea you can help me a lot."
"Well, cut loose," commanded Miss Chisholm. "By the way, my name is Alice—Alice Chisholm."
"All right, Alice Chisholm. Mine is Josie O'Gorman, but I'd better be Sally Blossom for a while yet." ”

“ Cried Pat O'Byrne, "It's not a fight, for any dacent man,
Four mortial hours we've struggled—an' I'm all in a sweat!"
Said Gorman "Pon me sowl, I got no chance to kill ye yet!"
"The fight has been protracted, and divil a thing is done,
I vote we go and tell her", said O'Byrne, "that it's no fun,
To fight, as we've been fighting. Tib's Eve might come, and go,
We'd still be found here fooling her donkeys thro' the snow." ”

“ Then he gave a little beckoning signal and the girl turned to slip on a light coat, for the nights were chill on the mountain. Afterward she unfastened her outside door and joined the detective, who passed an arm around her and led her to one of the benches on the bluff.
The new moon was dim, but a sprinkling of stars lit the sky. The man and girl were far enough from the Lodge not to be overheard.
"It's good to see you again, Josie," said O'Gorman, as they seated themselves on the bench. "How do you like being a sleuth?" ”

“ They were badly spelled and written in a labored handwriting but Josie felt that Mike was a worthy fellow. Reading character by means of chirography had been one of Detective O'Gorman's hobbies and Josie had taken up the science to some extent. As Josie perused these epistles she gathered that Mike had been Margery Dubois's dancing partner. Evidently they had been on the vaudeville stage together.
"Not love letters at all," Josie decided. "When he says he misses her so much, can't get along without her, he means he wants her to act with him again." ”

“ Great-hearted O'Gorman had helped this lame dog over the stile, but the dog's heart was not in the right place, and, as my reader will see in the sequel, he soon went lame again. * * *
In the rear room of a somewhat luxurious range of offices in a building on Broadway, facing the City Hall, four men [Pg 102] were engaged in discussing what was evidently an exciting topic. The door of the main office bore the sign "Edwin James, Counselor-at-Law and Register in Bankruptcy." He was one of the four. He had failed lamentably in his efforts to secure a practice. ”

“ It's impossible for anyone to see the light from the house."
The girl held her notebook behind the flap of his coat, where the lamp shed its white rays upon it, and slowly read the text of the letter. O'Gorman sat silent for some time after she had finished reading.
"In all my speculations concerning the Hathaway case," he said to his daughter, "I never guessed this as the true solution of the man's extraordinary actions. But now, realizing that Hathaway is a gentleman to the core, I understand he could not have acted in any other way." ”

“ Lord John Russell stated in the House, "I am told that one party among the Repealers are anxious for a separation from England." This is his solitary proof, nor does it appear that he was not himself the informant of the minister. But the positive proofs at the other side are numerous and incontestable. I select a few. On the 13th of July Mr. O'Gorman, in presence of Mr. O'Connell, said: "In order that there shall be no misconception on the subject, as far as I am concerned, I say, at once, I am no advocate for physical force. As a member of the Association I am bound by its laws. ”

“ His father, Patrick Mahon, had taken part in the rebellious movements of 1798. His mother was the daughter of James O'Gorman of Ennis. Educated at a small clerical school in Dublin, and afterwards at Trinity College, where he matriculated in 1819 and graduated M.A. in 1826, The O'Gorman Mahon had barely attained his majority when in 1821, upon his father's death, he became a J.P. for co. Clare. A boldness of demeanour, rare in those days among Roman catholics, combined with a singularly handsome face and imposing stature to attract attention to him as a young man. ”

“ Rafe mumbled in accents of the deepest gloom, "but you can put down a bet he meant something."
"He did," declared Tip O'Gorman, "and I'm telling you two straight, flat and final, you ain't fit to play checkers with a blind man. It makes a feller ashamed to do business with you, you're so thumb-handed, tumble-footed foolish. At the time the note was written from Walton's the girl was at Prescott's. ”

“ The fact is, Miss Dingus has more sense in her heels than her head, and her heart was left out entirely when she was made. She hopes, however, that she will finally become Mrs. Chester Hunt, because otherwise she would not have kept these children with her at all. She has fooled you and you have fooled her. In both cases I am reminded of the old story in the fairy book called 'The Biter Bit.'"
Chester Hunt bowed his head. "You are right, Miss Josie Larson, alias Miss O'Gorman, alias Miss Sherlock Holmes. I am bit and stung alike. I thought at least I could depend on Cousin Dink. ”