Just as this demonstration subsided, the hall door opened
wide--and indeed was left so--while our friend Loftus, in a wonderful
tattered old silk coat, that looked quite indescribable by moonlight,
the torn linings hanging down in loops inside the skirts, pale and
discoloured, like the shreds of banners in a cathedral; his shirt loose
at the neck, his breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and a gigantic,
misshapen, and mouldy pair of slippers clinging and clattering about his
feet, came down the steps, his light, round little eyes and queer, quiet
face peering at them into the shade, and a smokified volume of divinity
tucked under his arm, with his finger between the leaves to keep the
place.
When Devereux saw him approaching, the whole thing--mission, service,
man, and all--struck him in so absurd a point of view, that he burst out
into an explosion of laughter, which only grew more vehement and
uproarious the more earnestly and imploringly Toole tried to quiet him,
pointing up with both hands, and all his fingers extended, to the
windows of the sleeping townsfolk, and making horrible grimaces, shrugs,
and ogles.
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