Think of the hours that the kind soul must have passed, lonely in the street, listening to the din and merriment within my apartments, the clinking of the glasses, the laughing, the choruses, and the cheering.
When my affair with Lord George happened, and it became necessary to me, for the reasons I have stated, to be out of the way; now, thought I, is the time to make my peace with my good mother: she will never refuse me an asylum now that I seem in distress.

So sending to her a notice that I was coming, that I had had a duel which had brought me into trouble, and required I should go into hiding, I followed my messenger half-an-hour afterwards: and, I warrant me, there was no want of a good reception, for presently, being introduced into an empty room by the barefooted maid who waited upon Mrs.Barry, the door was opened, and the poor mother flung herself into my arms with a scream, and with transports of joy which I shall not attempt to describe--they are but to be comprehended by women who have held in their arms an only child after a twelve years' absence from him.
The Reverend Mr.Jowls, my mother's director, was the only person to whom the door of her habitation was opened during my sojourn; and he would take no denial.

He mixed for himself a glass of rum-punch, which he seemed in the habit of drinking at my good mother's charge, groaned aloud, and forthwith began reading me a lecture upon the sinfulness of my past courses, and especially of the last horrible action I had been committing.
'Sinful!' said my mother, bristling up when her son was attacked; 'sure we're all sinners; and it's you, Mr.Jowls, who have given me the inexpressible blessing to let me know THAT.

But how else would you have had the poor child behave ?' 'I would have had the gentleman avoid the drink, and the quarrel, and this wicked duel altogether,' answered the clergyman.
But my mother cut him short, by saying such sort of conduct might be very well in a person of his cloth and his birth, but it neither became a Brady nor a Barry.

In fact, she was quite delighted with the thought that I had pinked an English marquis's son in a duel; and so, to console her, I told her of a score more in which I had been engaged, and of some of which I have already informed the reader.
As my late antagonist was in no sort of danger when I spread that report of his perilous situation, there was no particular call that my hiding should be very close.