13784	----	Proofreading Team. MR. DOOLEY IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN By FINLEY PETER DUNNE [Illustration: Decoration: SCIRE QVOD SCIENDVM] Boston Small, Maynard & Company 1899 _Copyright, 1898, 1899, by the Chicago Journal Copyright, 1899, by Robert Howard Russell Copyright, 1899, by Small, Maynard & Company_ _Entered at Stationers' Hall_ _First Edition (10,000 copies) October, 1899 Second Edition (10,000 copies) October, 1899 Third Edition (10,000 copies) October, 1899 Before Publication_ _Press of George H. Ellis, Boston, U.S.A._ TO SIR GEORGE NEWNES, BART. MESSRS. GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS LIMITED AND OTHER PUBLISHERS WHO, UNINVITED, PRESENTED MR. DOOLEY TO A PART OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC PREFACE. The author may excuse the presentation of these sketches to the public on the ground that, if he did not publish some of them, somebody would, and, if he did not publish the others, nobody would. He has taken the liberty to dedicate the book to certain enterprising gentlemen in London who have displayed their devotion to a sentiment now widely prevailing in the Music Halls by republishing an American book without solicitation on the author's part. At the same time he begs to reserve _in petto_ a second dedication to the people of Archey Road, whose secluded gayety he has attempted to discover to the world. With the sketches that come properly under the title "Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen" are printed a number that do not. It has seemed impossible to a man who is not a Frenchman, and who is, therefore, tremendously excited over the case, to avoid discussion of the Jabberwocky of the Rennes court-martial as it is reported in America and England. Mr. Dooley cannot lag behind his fellow Anglo-Saxons in this matter. It is sincerely to be hoped that his small contribution to the literature of the subject will at last open the eyes of France to the necessity of conducting her trials, parliamentary sessions, revolutions, and other debates in a language more generally understood in New York and London. F.P.D. DUBLIN, August 30, 1899. CONTENTS. PAGE EXPANSION 3 A HERO WHO WORKED OVERTIME 8 RUDYARD KIPLING 13 LORD CHARLES BERESFORD 18 HANGING ALDERMEN 23 THE GRIP 30 LEXOW 35 THEIR EXCELLENCIES, THE POLICE 41 SHAUGHNESSY 45 TIMES PAST 50 THE SKIRTS OF CHANCE 56 WHEN THE TRUST IS AT WORK 61 A BRAND FROM THE BURNING 66 A WINTER NIGHT 72 THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 76 THE TRAGEDY OF THE AGITATOR 82 BOYNE WATER AND BAD BLOOD 85 THE FREEDOM PICNIC 92 THE IDLE APPRENTICE 96 THE O'BRIENS FOREVER 101 A CANDIDATE'S PILLORY 107 THE DAY AFTER THE VICTORY 113 A VISIT TO JEKYL ISLAND 119 SLAVIN CONTRA WAGNER 125 GRAND OPERA 130 THE CHURCH FAIR 135 THE WANDERERS 139 MAKING A CABINET 143 OLD AGE 149 THE DIVIDED SKIRT 154 A BIT OF HISTORY 158 THE RULING CLASS 165 THE OPTIMIST 170 PROSPERITY 175 THE GREAT HOT SPELL 180 KEEPING LENT 185 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD 190 THE SOFT SPOT 196 THE IRISHMAN ABROAD 202 THE SERENADE 206 THE HAY FLEET 210 THE PERFORMANCES OF LIEUTENANT HOBSON 216 THE DECLINE OF NATIONAL FEELING 222 "CYRANO DE BERGERAC" 228 THE UNION OF TWO GREAT FORTUNES 234 THE DREYFUS CASE: I. 240 II. 249 III. 259 IV. 268 V. 276 Mr. DOOLEY: In the Hearts of His Countrymen EXPANSION. "Whin we plant what Hogan calls th' starry banner iv Freedom in th' Ph'lippeens," said Mr. Dooley, "an' give th' sacred blessin' iv liberty to the poor, down-trodden people iv thim unfortunate isles,--dam thim!--we'll larn thim a lesson." "Sure," said Mr. Hennessy, sadly, "we have a thing or two to larn oursilves." "But it isn't f'r thim to larn us," said Mr. Dooley. "'Tis not f'r thim wretched an' degraded crathers, without a mind or a shirt iv their own, f'r to give lessons in politeness an' liberty to a nation that mannyfacthers more dhressed beef than anny other imperyal nation in th' wurruld. We say to thim: 'Naygurs,' we say, 'poor, dissolute, uncovered wretches,' says we, 'whin th' crool hand iv Spain forged man'cles f'r ye'er limbs, as Hogan says, who was it crossed th' say an' sthruck off th' comealongs? We did,--by dad, we did. An' now, ye mis'rable, childish-minded apes, we propose f'r to larn ye th' uses iv liberty. In ivry city in this unfair land we will erect school-houses an' packin' houses an' houses iv correction; an' we'll larn ye our language, because 'tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours. An' we'll give ye clothes, if ye pay f'r thim; an', if ye don't, ye can go without. An', whin ye're hungry, ye can go to th' morgue--we mane th' resth'rant--an' ate a good square meal iv ar-rmy beef. An' we'll sind th' gr-reat Gin'ral Eagan over f'r to larn ye etiquette, an' Andhrew Carnegie to larn ye pathriteism with blow-holes into it, an' Gin'ral Alger to larn ye to hould onto a job; an', whin ye've become edycated an' have all th' blessin's iv civilization that we don't want, that 'll count ye one. We can't give ye anny votes, because we haven't more thin enough to go round now; but we'll threat ye th' way a father shud threat his childher if we have to break ivry bone in ye'er bodies. So come to our ar-rms,' says we. "But, glory be, 'tis more like a rasslin' match than a father's embrace. Up gets this little monkey iv an' Aggynaldoo, an' says he, 'Not for us,' he says. 'We thank ye kindly; but we believe,' he says, 'in pathronizin' home industhries,' he says. 'An,' he says, 'I have on hand,' he says, 'an' f'r sale,' he says, 'a very superyor brand iv home-made liberty, like ye'er mother used to make,' he says. ''Tis a long way fr'm ye'er plant to here,' he says, 'an' be th' time a cargo iv liberty,' he says, 'got out here an' was handled be th' middlemen,' he says, 'it might spoil,' he says. 'We don't want anny col' storage or embalmed liberty,' he says. 'What we want an' what th' ol' reliable house iv Aggynaldoo,' he says, 'supplies to th' thrade,' he says, 'is fr-esh liberty r-right off th' far-rm,' he says. 'I can't do annything with ye'er proposition,' he says. 'I can't give up,' he says, 'th' rights f'r which f'r five years I've fought an' bled ivry wan I cud reach,' he says. 'Onless,' he says, 'ye'd feel like buyin' out th' whole business,' he says. 'I'm a pathrite,' he says; 'but I'm no bigot,' he says. "An' there it stands, Hinnissy, with th' indulgent parent kneelin' on th' stomach iv his adopted child, while a dillygation fr'm Boston bastes him with an umbrella. There it stands, an' how will it come out I dinnaw. I'm not much iv an expansionist mesilf. F'r th' las' tin years I've been thryin' to decide whether 'twud be good policy an' thrue to me thraditions to make this here bar two or three feet longer, an' manny's th' night I've laid awake tryin' to puzzle it out. But I don't know what to do with th' Ph'lippeens anny more thin I did las' summer, befure I heerd tell iv thim. We can't give thim to anny wan without makin' th' wan that gets thim feel th' way Doherty felt to Clancy whin Clancy med a frindly call an' give Doherty's childher th' measles. We can't sell thim, we can't ate thim, an' we can't throw thim into th' alley whin no wan is lookin'. An' 'twud be a disgrace f'r to lave befure we've pounded these frindless an' ongrateful people into insinsibility. So I suppose, Hinnissy, we'll have to stay an' do th' best we can, an' lave Andhrew Carnegie secede fr'm th' Union. They'se wan consolation; an' that is, if th' American people can govern thimsilves, they can govern annything that walks." "An' what 'd ye do with Aggy--what-d'ye-call-him?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Well," Mr. Dooley replied, with brightening eyes, "I know what they'd do with him in this ward. They'd give that pathrite what he asks, an' thin they'd throw him down an' take it away fr'm him." A HERO WHO WORKED OVERTIME. "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "it looks now as if they was nawthin' left f'r me young frind Aggynaldoo to do but time. Like as not a year fr'm now he'll be in jail, like Napoleon, th' impror iv th' Fr-rinch, was in his day, an' Mike, th' Burglar, an' other pathrites. That's what comes iv bein' a pathrite too long. 'Tis a good job, whin they'se nawthin' else to do; but 'tis not th' thing to wurruk overtime at. 'Tis a sort iv out-iv-dure spoort that ye shud engage in durin' th' summer vacation; but, whin a man carries it on durin' business hours, people begin to get down on him, an' afther a while they're ready to hang him to get him out iv th' way. As Hogan says, 'Th' las' thing that happens to a pathrite he's a scoundhrel.' "Las' summer there wasn't a warmer pathrite annywhere in our imperyal dominions thin this same Aggynaldoo. I was with him mesilf. Says I: 'They'se a good coon,' I says. 'He'll help us f'r to make th' Ph'lippeens indepindint on us f'r support,' I says; 'an', whin th' blessin's iv civilization has been extinded to his beloved counthry, an',' I says, 'they put up intarnal rivinue offices an' post-offices,' I says, 'we'll give him a good job as a letter-carrier,' I says, 'where he won't have annything to do,' I says, 'but walk,' I says. "An' so th' consul at Ding Dong, th' man that r-runs that end iv th' war, he says to Aggynaldoo: 'Go,' he says, 'where glory waits ye,' he says. 'Go an' sthrike a blow,' he says, 'f'r ye'er counthry,' he says. 'Go,' he says. 'I'll stay, but you go,' he says. 'They's nawthin' in stayin', an' ye might get hold iv a tyrannical watch or a pocket book down beyant,' he says. An' off wint th' brave pathrite to do his jooty. He done it, too. Whin Cousin George was pastin' th' former hated Castiles, who was it stood on th' shore shootin' his bow-an-arrow into th' sky but Aggynaldoo? Whin me frind Gin'ral Merritt was ladin' a gallant charge again blank catredges, who was it ranged his noble ar-rmy iv pathrites behind him f'r to see that no wan attackted him fr'm th' sea but Aggynaldoo? He was a good man thin,--a good noisy man. "Th' throuble was he didn't know whin to knock off. He didn't hear th' wurruk bell callin' him to come in fr'm playin' ball an' get down to business. Says me Cousin George: "Aggynaldoo, me buck,' he says, 'th' war is over,' he says, 'an' we've settled down to th' ol' game,' he says. 'They're no more heroes. All iv thim has gone to wurruk f'r th' magazines. They're no more pathrites,' he says. 'They've got jobs as gov'nors or ar-re lookin' f'r thim or annything else,' he says. 'All th' prom'nint saviors iv their counthry,' he says, 'but mesilf,' he says, 'is busy preparin' their definse,' he says. 'I have no definse,' he says; 'but I'm where they can't reach me,' he says. 'Th' spoort is all out iv th' job; an', if ye don't come in an' jine th' tilin masses iv wage-wurrukers,' he says, 'ye won't even have th' credit iv bein' licked in a gloryous victhry,' he says. 'So to th' woodpile with ye!' he says; 'f'r ye can't go on cillybratin' th' Foorth iv July without bein' took up f'r disordherly conduct,' he says. "An' Aggynaldoo doesn't undherstand it. An' he gathers his Archery Club ar-round him, an' says he: 'Fellow-pathrites,' he says, 'we've been betrayed,' he says. 'We've been sold out without,' he says, 'gettin' th' usual commission,' he says. 'We're still heroes,' he says; 'an' our pitchers is in th' pa-apers,' he says. 'Go in,' he says, 'an' sthrike a blow at th' gay deceivers,' he says. 'I'll sell ye'er lives dearly,' he says. An' th' Archery Club wint in. Th' pathrites wint up again a band iv Kansas sojers, that was wanst heroes befure they larned th' hay-foot-sthraw-foot, an' is now arnin' th' wages iv a good harvest hand all th' year ar-round, an' 'd rather fight than ate th' ar-rmy beef, an' ye know what happened. Some iv th' poor divvles iv heroes is liberated fr'm th' cares iv life; an' th' r-rest iv thim is up in threes, an' wishin' they was home, smokin' a good see-gar with mother. "An' all this because Aggynaldoo didn't hear th' whistle blow. He thought th' boom was still on in th' hero business. If he'd come in, ye'd be hearin' that James Haitch Aggynaldoo 'd been appointed foorth-class postmasther at Hootchey-Kootchey; but now th' nex' ye know iv him 'll be on th' blotther at th' polis station: 'James Haitch Aggynaldoo, alias Pompydoor Jim, charged with carryin' concealed weepins an' ray-sistin' an officer.' Pathriteism always dies when ye establish a polis foorce." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "I'm kind iv sorry f'r th' la-ads with th' bows an' arrows. Maybe they think they're pathrites." "Divvle th' bit iv difference it makes what they think, so long as we don't think so," said Mr. Dooley. "It's what Father Kelly calls a case iv mayhem et chew 'em. That's Latin, Hinnissy; an' it manes what's wan man's food is another man's pizen." RUDYARD KIPLING. "I think," said Mr. Dooley, "th' finest pothry in th' wurruld is wrote be that frind iv young Hogan's, a man be th' name iv Roodyard Kipling. I see his pomes in th' pa-aper, Hinnissy; an' they're all right. They're all right, thim pomes. They was wan about scraggin' Danny Deever that done me a wurruld iv good. They was a la-ad I wanst knew be th' name iv Deever, an' like as not he was th' same man. He owed me money. Thin there was wan that I see mintioned in th' war news wanst in a while,--th' less we f'rget, th' more we raymimber. That was a hot pome an' a good wan. What I like about Kipling is that his pomes is right off th' bat, like me con-versations with you, me boy. He's a minyit-man, a r-ready pote that sleeps like th' dhriver iv thruck 9, with his poetic pants in his boots beside his bed, an' him r-ready to jump out an' slide down th' pole th' minyit th' alarm sounds. "He's not such a pote as Tim Scanlan, that hasn't done annything since th' siege iv Lim'rick; an' that was two hundherd year befure he was bor-rn. He's prisident iv th' Pome Supply Company,--fr-resh pothry delivered ivry day at ye'er dure. Is there an accident in a grain illyvator? Ye pick up ye'er mornin' pa-aper, an' they'se a pome about it be Roodyard Kipling. Do ye hear iv a manhole cover bein' blown up? Roodyard is there with his r-ready pen. ''Tis written iv Cashum-Cadi an' th' book iv th' gr-reat Gazelle that a manhole cover in anger is tin degrees worse thin hell.' He writes in all dialects an' anny language, plain an' fancy pothry, pothry f'r young an' old, pothry be weight or linyar measuremint, pothry f'r small parties iv eight or tin a specialty. What's the raysult, Hinnissy? Most potes I despise. But Roodyard Kipling's pothry is aisy. Ye can skip through it while ye're atin' breakfuss an' get a c'rrect idee iv th' current news iv th' day,--who won th' futball game, how Sharkey is thrainin' f'r th' fight, an' how manny votes th' pro-hybitionist got f'r gov'nor iv th' State iv Texas. No col' storage pothry f'r Kipling. Ivrything fr-resh an' up to date. All lays laid this mornin'. "Hogan was in to-day readin' Kipling's Fridah afthernoon pome, an' 'tis a good pome. He calls it 'Th' Thruce iv th' Bear.' This is th' way it happened: Roodyard Kipling had just finished his mornin' batch iv pothry f'r th' home-thrade, an' had et his dinner, an' was thinkin' iv r-runnin' out in th' counthry f'r a breath iv fr-resh air, whin in come a tillygram sayin' that th' Czar iv Rooshia had sint out a circular letther sayin' ivrybody in th' wurruld ought to get together an' stop makin' war an' live a quite an' dull life. Now Kipling don't like the czar. Him an' th' czar fell out about something, an' they don't speak. So says Roodyard Kipling to himsilf, he says: 'I'll take a crack at that fellow,' he says. 'I'll do him up,' he says. An' so he writes a pome to show that th' czar's letter's not on th' square. Kipling's like me, Hinnissy. When I want to say annything lib-lous, I stick it on to me Uncle Mike. So be Roodyard Kipling. He doesn't come r-right out, an' say, 'Nick, ye're a liar!' but he tells about what th' czar done to a man he knowed be th' name iv Muttons. Muttons, it seems, Hinnissy, was wanst a hunter; an' he wint out to take a shot at th' czar, who was dhressed up as a bear. Well, Muttons r-run him down, an' was about to plug him, whin th' czar says, 'Hol' on,' he says,--'hol' on there,' he says. 'Don't shoot,' he says. 'Let's talk this over,' he says. An' Muttons, bein' a foolish man, waited till th' czar come near him; an' thin th' czar feinted with his left, an' put in a right hook an' pulled off Muttons's face. I tell ye 'tis so. He jus' hauled it off th' way ye'd haul off a porous plasther,--raked off th' whole iv Muttons's fr-ront ilivation. 'I like ye'er face,' he says, an' took it. An' all this time, an' 'twas fifty year ago, Muttons hasn't had a face to shave. Ne'er a one. So he goes ar-round exhibitin' th' recent site, an' warnin' people that, whin they ar-re shootin' bears, they must see that their gun is kept loaded an' their face is nailed on securely. If ye iver see a bear that looks like a man, shoot him on th' spot, or, betther still, r-run up an alley. Ye must niver lose that face, Hinnissy. "I showed th' pome to Father Kelly," continued Mr. Dooley. "What did he say?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "He said," Mr. Dooley replied, "that I cud write as good a wan mesilf; an' he took th' stub iv a pencil, an' wrote this. Lemme see--Ah! here it is:-- 'Whin he shows as seekin' frindship with paws that're thrust in thine, That is th' time iv pearl, that is th' thruce iv th' line. 'Collarless, coatless, hatless, askin' a dhrink at th' bar, Me Uncle Mike, the Fenyan, he tells it near and far, 'Over an' over th' story: 'Beware iv th' gran' flimflam, There is no thruce with Gazabo, th' line that looks like a lamb.' "That's a good pome, too," said Mr. Dooley; "an' I'm goin' to sind it to th' nex' meetin' iv th' Anglo-Saxon 'liance." LORD CHARLES BERESFORD. "I see be th' pa-apers," said Mr. Dooley, "that Lord Char-les Beresford is in our mist, as Hogan says." "An' who th' divvle's he?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "He's a Watherford man," said Mr. Dooley. "I knowed his father well,--a markess be thrade, an' a fine man. Char-les wint to sea early; but he's now in th' plastherin' business,--cemintin' th' 'liance iv th' United States an' England. I'll thank ye to laugh at me joke, Mr. Hinnissy, an' not be standin' there lookin' like a Chinny-man in a sthreet-car." "I don't know what ye mean," said Mr. Hennessy, softly. "Lord Charles Beresford is a sort iv advance agent iv th' White Man's Burden Thrajeedy Company,--two little Evas, four hundherd millyon Topsies, six hundherd millyon Uncle Toms. He's billin' the' counthry f'r th' threeyumphial tour iv th' Monsther Aggregation. Nawthin' can stop it. Blood is thicker than wather; an' together, ar-rm in ar-rm, we'll spread th' light iv civilization fr'm wan end iv th' wurruld to th' other, no matther what you an' Schwartzmeister say, Hinnissy. "Be hivins, I like th' way me kinsmen acrost th' sea, as th' pa-apers say, threat us. 'Ye whelps,' says Lord Char-les Beresford an' Roodyard Kipling an' Tiddy Rosenfelt an' th' other Anglo-Saxons. 'Foolish an' frivolous people, cheap but thrue-hearted an' insincere cousins,' they says. ''Tis little ye know about annything. Ye ar-re a disgrace to humanity. Ye love th' dollar betther thin ye love annything but two dollars. Ye ar-re savage, but inthrestin'. Ye misname our titles. Ye use th' crool Krag-Jorgensen instead iv th' ca'm an' penethratin' Lee-Metford. Ye kiss ye'er heroes, an' give thim wurruk to do. We smash in their hats, an' illivate thim to th' peerage. Ye have desthroyed our language. Ye ar-re rapidly convartin' our ancesthral palaces into dwellin'-houses. Ye'er morals are loose, ye'er dhrinks ar-re enervatin' but pleasant, an' ye talk through ye'er noses. Ye ar-re mussy at th' table, an' ye have no religion. But ye ar-re whelps iv th' ol' line. Those iv ye that ar-re not our brothers-in-law we welcome as brothers. Ye annoy us so much ye must be mimbers iv our own fam'ly. Th' same people that is washed occasionally be th' Mississippi as it rowls majistic along th' imperyal States iv Oheeho an' Duluth, wathrin' th' fertyle plains iv Wyoming an' Mattsachusetts, is to be found airnin' a livin' on th' short but far more dirtier Thames. We have th' same lithrachoor. Ye r-read our Shakspere so we can't undherstand it; an' we r-read ye'er aspirin' authors, Poe an' Lowell an' Ol' Sleuth th' Detective. We ar-re not onfamilyar with ye'er inthrestin' histhry. We ar-re as pr-roud as ye are iv th' achievements iv Gin'ral Shafter an' Gin'ral Coxey. Ye'er ambass'dures have always been kindly received; an', whether they taught us how to dhraw to a busted flush or wept on our collars or recited original pothry to us, we had a brotherly feelin' for thim that med us say, "Poor fellows, they're doin' th' best they can." 'So,' says they, 'come to our ar-ams, an' together we'll go out an' conquer th' wurruld.' "An' we're goin' to do it, Hinnissy. Th' rayciption that this here sintimint has rayceived fr'm ivry wan that has a son in colledge is almost tumulchuse. We feel like a long-lost brother that's been settin' outside in th' cold f'r a week, an' is now ast in to supper--an' sarched at th' dure f'r deadly weepins. We'll have to set up sthraight an' mind our manners. No tuckin' our napkins down our throats or dhrinkin' out iv th' saucer or kickin' our boots off undher the table. No reachin' f'r annything, but 'Mah, will ye kindly pass th' Ph'lippeens?' or 'No, thank ye, pah, help ye'ersilf first.' "An' will we stay in? Faith, I dinnaw. We feel kindly to each other; but it looks to me like, th' first up in th' mornin', th' first away with th' valu'bles." "I'll niver come in," protested Mr. Hennessy, stoutly. "No more ye will, ye rebelyous omadhon," said Mr. Dooley. "An' 'twas thinkin' iv you an' th' likes iv you an' Schwartzmeister an' th' likes iv him that med me wondher. If th' 'liance got into a war with Garmany, an' some wan was to start a rough-an'-tumble in Ireland about iliction time, I wondher wud th' cimint hold!" HANGING ALDERMEN. Chicago is always on the point of hanging some one and quartering him and boiling him in hot pitch, and assuring him that he has lost the respect of all honorable men. Rumors of a characteristic agitation had come faintly up Archey Road, and Mr. Hennessy had heard of it. "I hear they're goin' to hang th' aldhermen," he said. "If they thry it on Willum J. O'Brien, they'd betther bombard him first. I'd hate to be th' man that 'd be called to roll with him to his doom. He cud lick th' whole Civic Featheration." "I believe ye," said Mr. Dooley. "He's a powerful man. But I hear there is, as ye say, what th' pa-apers 'd call a movement on fut f'r to dec'rate Chris'mas threes with aldhermen, an' 'tis wan that ought to be encouraged. Nawthin' cud be happyer, as Hogan says, thin th' thought iv cillybratin' th' season be sthringin' up some iv th' fathers iv th' city where th' childher cud see thim. But I'm afraid, Hinnissy, that you an' me won't see it. 'Twill all be over soon, an' Willum J. O'Brien 'll go by with his head just as near his shoulders as iver. 'Tis har-rd to hang an aldherman, annyhow. Ye'd have to suspind most iv thim be th' waist. "Man an' boy, I've been in this town forty year an' more; an' divvle th' aldherman have I see hanged yet, though I've sthrained th' eyes out iv me head watchin' f'r wan iv thim to be histed anny pleasant mornin'. They've been goin' to hang thim wan week an' presintin' thim with a dimon' star th' next iver since th' year iv th' big wind, an' there's jus' as manny iv thim an' jus' as big robbers as iver there was. "An' why shud they hang thim, Hinnissy? Why shud they? I'm an honest man mesilf, as men go. Ye might have ye'er watch, if ye had wan, on that bar f'r a year, an' I'd niver touch it. It wudden't be worth me while. I'm an honest man. I pay me taxes, whin Tim Ryan isn't assessor with Grogan's boy on th' books. I do me jooty; an' I believe in th' polis foorce, though not in polismen. That's diff'rent. But honest as I am, between you an' me, if I was an aldherman, I wudden't say, be hivins, I think I'd stand firm; but--well, if some wan come to me an' said, 'Dooley, here's fifty thousan' dollars f'r ye'er vote to betray th' sacred inthrests iv Chicago,' I'd go to Father Kelly an' ask th' prayers iv th' congregation. "'Tis not, Hinnissy, that this man Yerkuss goes up to an aldherman an' says out sthraight, 'Here, Bill, take this bundle, an' be an infamious scoundhrel.' That's th' way th' man in Mitchigan Avnoo sees it, but 'tis not sthraight. D'ye mind Dochney that was wanst aldherman here? Ye don't. Well, I do. He ran a little conthractin' business down be Halsted Sthreet 'Twas him built th' big shed f'r th' ice comp'ny. He was a fine man an' a sthrong wan. He begun his political career be lickin' a plasthrer be th' name iv Egan, a man that had th' County Clare thrip an' was thought to be th' akel iv anny man in town. Fr'm that he growed till he bate near ivry man he knew, an' become very pop'lar, so that he was sint to th' council. Now Dochney was an honest an' sober man whin he wint in; but wan day a man come up to him, an' says he, 'Ye know that ordhnance Schwartz inthrajooced?' 'I do,' says Dochney, 'an I'm again it. 'Tis a swindle,' he says. "Well,' says th' la-ad, 'they'se five thousan' in it f'r ye,' he says. They had to pry Dochney off iv him. Th' nex' day a man he knowed well come to Dochney, an' says he, 'That's a fine ordhnance iv Schwartz.' 'It is, like hell,' says Dochney. ''Tis a plain swindle,' he says. ''Tis a good thing f'r th' comp'nies,' says this man; 'but look what they've done f'r th' city,' he says, 'an think,' he says, 'iv th' widdies an' orphans,' he says, 'that has their har-rd-earned coin invisted,' he says. An' a tear rolled down his cheek. 'I'm an orphan mesilf,' says Dochney; 'an' as f'r th' widdies, anny healthy widdy with sthreet-car stock ought to be ashamed iv hersilf if she's a widdy long,' he says. An' th' man wint away. "Now Dochney thought he'd put th' five thousan' out iv his mind, but he hadn't. He'd on'y laid it by, an' ivry time he closed his eyes he thought iv it. 'Twas a shame to give th' comp'nies what they wanted, but th' five thousan' was a lot iv money. 'Twud lift th' morgedge. 'Twud clane up th' notes on th' new conthract. 'Twud buy a new dhress f'r Mrs. Dochney. He begun to feel sorrowful f'r th' widdies an' orphans. 'Poor things!' says he to himsilf, says he. 'Poor things, how they must suffer!' he says; 'an' I need th' money. Th' sthreet-car comp'nies is robbers,' he says; 'but 'tis thrue they've built up th' city,' he says, 'an th' money 'd come in handy,' he says. 'No wan 'd be hurted, annyhow,' he says; 'an', sure, it ain't a bribe f'r to take money f'r doin' something ye want to do, annyhow,' he says. 'Five thousan' widdies an' orphans,' he says; an' he wint to sleep. "That was th' way he felt whin he wint down to see ol' Simpson to renew his notes, an' Simpson settled it. 'Dochney,' he says, 'I wisht ye'd pay up,' he says. 'I need th' money,' he says. 'I'm afraid th' council won't pass th' Schwartz ordhnance,' he says; 'an' it manes much to me,' he says. 'Be th' way,' he says, 'how're ye goin' to vote on that ordhnance?' he says. 'I dinnaw,' says Dochney. 'Well,' says Simpson (Dochney tol' me this himsilf), 'whin ye find out, come an' see me about th' notes,' he says. An' Dochney wint to th' meetin'; an', whin his name was called, he hollered 'Aye,' so loud a chunk iv plaster fell out iv th' ceilin' an' stove in th' head iv a rayform aldherman." "Did they hang him?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Faith, they did not," said Mr. Dooley. "He begun missin' his jooty at wanst. Aldhermen always do that after th' first few weeks. 'Ye got ye'er money,' says Father Kelly; 'an' much good may it do ye,' he says. 'Well,' says Dochney, 'I'd be a long time prayin' mesilf into five thousan',' he says. An' he become leader in th' council. Th' las' ordhnance he inthrojooced was wan establishin' a license f'r churches, an' compellin' thim to keep their fr-ront dure closed an' th' blinds drawn on Sundah. He was expelled fr'm th' St. Vincent de Pauls, an' ilicted a director iv a bank th' same day. "Now, Hinnissy, that there man niver knowed he was bribed--th' first time. Th' second time he knew. He ast f'r it. An' I wudden't hang Dochney. I wudden't if I was sthrong enough. But some day I'm goin' to let me temper r-run away with me, an' get a comity together, an' go out an' hang ivry dam widdy an' orphan between th' rollin' mills an' th' foundlin's' home. If it wasn't f'r thim raypechious crathers, they'd be no boodle annywhere." "Well, don't forget Simpson," said Mr. Hennessy. "I won't," said Mr. Dooley, "I won't." THE GRIP. Mr. Dooley was discovered making a seasonable beverage, consisting of one part syrup, two parts quinine, and fifteen parts strong waters. "What's the matter?" asked Mr. McKenna. "I have th' lah gr-rip," said Mr. Dooley, blowing his nose and wiping his eyes. "Bad cess to it! Oh, me poor back! I feels as if a dhray had run over it. Did ye iver have it? Ye did not? Well, ye're lucky. Ye're a lucky man. "I wint to McGuire's wake las' week. They gave him a dacint sind-off. No porther. An' himsilf looked natural, as fine a corpse as iver Gavin layed out. Gavin tould me so himsilf. He was as proud iv McGuire as if he owned him. Fetched half th' town in to look at him, an' give ivry wan iv thim cards. He near frightened ol' man Dugan into a faint. 'Misther Dugan, how old a-are ye?' 'Sivinty-five, thanks be,' says Dugan. 'Thin,' says Gavin, 'take wan iv me cards,' he says. 'I hope ye'll not forget me,' he says. "'Twas there I got th' lah grip. Lastewise, it is me opinion iv it, though th' docthor said I swallowed a bug. It don't seem right, Jawn, f'r th' McGuires is a clane fam'ly; but th' docthor said a bug got into me system. 'What sort iv bug?' says I. 'A lah grip bug,' he says. 'Ye have Mickrobes in ye'er lungs,' he says. 'What's thim?' says I. 'Thim's th' lah grip bugs,' says he. 'Ye took wan in, an' warmed it,' he says; 'an' it has growed an' multiplied till ye'er system does be full iv' thim,' he says, 'millions iv thim,' he says, 'marchin' an' counthermarchin' through ye.' 'Glory be to the saints!' says I. 'Had I better swallow some insect powdher?' I says. 'Some iv thim in me head has a fallin' out, an' is throwin' bricks.' 'Foolish man,' says he. 'Go to bed,' he says, 'an' lave thim alone,' he says, 'Whin they find who they're in,' he says, 'they'll quit ye.' "So I wint to bed, an' waited while th' Mickrobes had fun with me. Mondah all iv thim was quite but thim in me stummick. They stayed up late dhrinkin' an' carousin' an' dancin' jigs till wurruds come up between th' Kerry Mickrobes an' thim fr'm Wexford; an' th' whole party wint over to me left lung, where they cud get th' air, an' had it out. Th' nex' day th' little Mickrobes made a toboggan slide iv me spine; an' manetime some Mickrobes that was wurkin' f'r th' tilliphone comp'ny got it in their heads that me legs was poles, an' put on their spikes an' climbed all night long. "They was tired out th' nex' day till about five o'clock, whin thim that was in me head begin flushin' out th' rooms; an' I knew there was goin' to be doin's in th' top flat. What did thim Mickrobes do but invite all th' other Mickrobes in f'r th' ev'nin'. They all come. Oh, by gar, they was not wan iv them stayed away. At six o'clock they begin to move fr'm me shins to me throat. They come in platoons an' squads an' dhroves. Some iv thirn brought along brass bands, an' more thin wan hundherd thousand iv thim dhruv through me pipes on dhrays. A throlley line was started up me back, an' ivry car run into a wagon-load iv scrap iron at th' base iv me skull. "Th' Mickrobes in me head must 've done thimsilves proud. Ivry few minyits th' kids 'd be sint out with th' can, an' I'd say to mesilf: 'There they go, carryin' th' thrade to Schwartzmeister's because I'm sick an' can't wait on thim.' I was daffy, Jawn, d'ye mind. Th' likes iv me fillin' a pitcher f'r a little boy-bug! Such dhreams! An' they had a game iv forty-fives; an' there was wan Mickrobe that larned to play th' game in th' County Tipp'rary, where 'tis played on stone, an' ivry time he led thrumps he'd like to knock me head off. 'Whose thrick is that?' says th' Tipp'rary Mickrobe. ''Tis mine,' says th' red-headed Mickrobe fr'm th' County Roscommon. They tipped over th' chairs an' tables: an', in less time thin it takes to tell, th' whole party was at it. They'd been a hurlin' game in th' back iv me skull, an' th' young folks was dancin' breakdowns an' havin' leppin' matches in me forehead; but they all stopped to mix in. Oh, 'twas a grand shindig--tin millions iv men, women, an' childher rowlin' on th' flure, hands an' feet goin', ice-picks an' hurlin' sticks, clubs, brickbats, an' beer kags flyin' in th' air! How manny iv thim was kilt I niver knew; f'r I wint as daft as a hen, an' dhreamt iv organizin' a Mickrobe Campaign Club that 'd sweep th' prim'ries, an' maybe go acrost an' free Ireland. Whin I woke up, me legs was as weak as a day old baby's, an' me poor head impty as a cobbler's purse. I want no more iv thim. Give me anny bug fr'm a cockroach to an aygle save an' excipt thim West iv Ireland Fenians, th' Mickrobes." LEXOW. "This here wave iv rayform," said Mr. Dooley, "this here wave iv rayform, Jawn, mind ye, that's sweepin' over th' counthry, mind ye, now, Jawn, is raisin' th' divvle, I see be th' pa-apers. I've seen waves iv rayform before, Jawn. Whin th' people iv this counthry gets wurruked up, there's no stoppin' thim. They'll not dhraw breath until ivry man that took a dollar iv a bribe is sent down th' r-road. Thim that takes two goes on th' comity iv th' wave iv rayform. "It sthruck th' r-road las' week. Darcey, th' new polisman on th' bate, comes in here ivry night f'r to study spellin' an' figgers. I think they'll throw him down, whin he goes to be examined. Wan iv th' wild la-ads down be th' slough hit him with a brick wanst, an' he ain't been able to do fractions since. Thin he's got inflammathry rheumatism enough to burn a barn, an' he can't turn a page without makin' ye think he's goin' to lose a thumb. He's got wife an' childher, an' he's on in years; but he's a polisman, an' he's got to be rayformed. I tell him all I can. He didn't know where St. Pethersburg was till I tould him it was th' capital iv Sweden. They'll not give him th' boots on that there question. Ye bet ye'er life they won't, Jawn. "I seen th' aldherman go by yisterdah; an' he'd shook his dimon 'stud, an' he looked as poor as a dhrayman. He's rayformed. Th' little Dutchman that was ilicted to th' legislachure says he will stay home. Says I, 'Why?' Says he, 'There's nawthin' in it.' He's rayformed. Th' wather inspictor, that used to take a dhrink an' a seegar an' report me two pipes less thin I have, turned me in las' week f'r a garden hose an' a ploonge bath. He's rayformed. Th' wave iv rayform has sthruck, an' we're all goin' around now with rubbers on. "They've organized th' Ar-rchey Road Lexow Sodality, an' 'tis th' wan institootion that Father Kelly up west iv th' bridge 'll duck his head to. All th' best citizens is in it. Th' best citizens is thim that th' statue iv limitations was made f'r. Barrister Hogan tol' me--an' a dacint man, but give to dhrink--that, whin a man cud hide behind th' statue iv limitations, he was all r-right. I niver seen it. Is that th' wan on th' lake front? No, tubby sure, tubby sure. No wan 'd hide behind that. "Th' Ar-rchey Road Lexow Sodality is composed iv none but square men. They all have th' coin, Jawn. A man that's broke can't be square. He's got too much to do payin' taxes. If I had a million, divvle th' step would I step to confession. I'd make th' soggarth come an' confess to me. They say that th' sthreets iv Hivin was paved with goold. I'll bet ye tin to wan that with all th' square men that goes there ivry year they have ilecloth down now." "Oh, go on," said Mr. McKenna. "I was goin' to tell ye about th' Lexow Sodality. Well, th' chairman iv it is Doherty, th' retired plumber. He sold me a house an' lot wanst, an' skinned me out iv wan hundherd dollars. He got th' house an' lot back an' a morgedge. But did ye iver notice th' scar on his nose? I was r-rough in thim days. Ol' Mike Hogan is another mimber. Ye know him. They say he hires constables be th' day f'r to serve five days' notices. Manny's th' time I see th' little furniture out on th' sthreet, an' th' good woman rockin' her baby under th' open sky. Hogan's tinants. Ol' Dinnis Higgins is another wan. An' Brannigan, th' real estate dealer. He was in th' assissors' office. May Gawd forgive him! An' Clancy, that was bail-bondman at Twelfth Sthreet. "They appointed comities, an' they held a meetin'. I wint there. So did some iv th' others. 'Twas at Finucane's, an' th' hall was crowded. All th' sodality made speeches. Doherty made a great wan. Th' air was reekin' with corruption, says he. Th' polis foorce was rotten to th' core. Th' rights iv property was threatened. What, says he, was we goin' to do about it? "Danny Gallagher got up, as good a lad as iver put that in his face to desthroy his intelligence, as Shakspere says. 'Gintlemen,' says he, 'wan wurrud befure we lave,' he says. 'I've listened to th' speeches here to-night with satisfaction,' he says. 'I'm proud to see th' rayform wave have sthruck th' road,' he says. 'Th' rascals must be dhriven fr'm th' high places,' he says. 'I see befure me in a chair a gintleman who wud steal a red-hot stove an' freeze th' lid befure he got home. On me right is th' gintleman who advanced th' wave iv rayform tin years ago be puttin' Mrs. Geohegan out on th' sthreet in a snowstorm whin she was roarin' with a cough. Mrs. Geohegan have rayformed, peace be with her undher th' dhrifts iv Calv'ry! I am greeted be th' smile iv me ol' frind Higgins. We are ol' frinds, Dinnis, now, ain't we? D'ye mind th' calls I made on ye, with th' stamps undher me arms, whin I wurruked in th' post-office? I've thought iv thim whin th' lockstep was goin' in to dinner, an' prayed f'r th' day whin I might see ye again. An' you, Misther Brannigan, who knows about vacant lots, an' you Misther Clancy, th' frind iv th' dhrunk an' disordherly, we're proud to have ye here. 'Tis be such as ye that th' polisman who dhrinks on th' sly, an' th' saloon-keeper that keeps open f'r th' la-ads an' th' newsboys that shoots craps, 'll be brought to justice. Down with crime! says I. Fellow-citizens, I thank ye kindly. Th' meetin' is adjourned siney dee; an' I app'int Missers Dooley, O'Brien, Casey, Pug Slattery, an' mesilf to lade out th' Lexow Sodality be th' nose.'" Mr. McKenna arose sleepily, and walked toward the door. "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley. "Yes," responded Mr. McKenna. "Niver steal a dure-mat," said Mr. Dooley. "If ye do, ye'll be invistigated, hanged, an' maybe rayformed. Steal a bank, me boy, steal a bank." THEIR EXCELLENCIES, THE POLICE. "Ye'll be goin' home early to-night, Jawn dear," said Mr. Dooley to Mr. McKenna. "And for why?" said that gentleman, tilting lazily back in the chair. "Because gin'ral ordher number wan is out," said Mr. Dooley, "directin' th' polis to stop ivry man catched out afther midnight an' make thim give a satisfacthry account iv thimsilves or run thim off to jail. Iv coorse, ye'll be pinched, f'r ye won't dare say where ye come fr'm; an' 'tis twinty-eight to wan, the odds again an Orangeman at a wake, that ye'll not know where ye're goin'." "Tut, tut," said Mr. McKenna, indifferently. "Ye may tut-tut till ye lay an egg," said Mr. Dooley, severely, "ye ol' hen; but 'tis so. I read it in th' pa-papers yesterdah afthernoon that Brinnan--'tis queer how thim Germans all get to be polismen, they're bright men, th' Germans, I don't think--Brinnan says, says he, that th' city do be overrun with burglars an' highwaymen, so he ordhers th' polis to stick up ivry pedesthreen they meet afther closin' time. 'Tis good for him he named th' hour, f'r 'tis few pedesthreens save an' except th' little kids with panneckers that most iv th' polis meet befure midnight. Look at there table, will ye? 'An ax done it,' says ye? No, faith, but th' fist iv a Kerry polisman they put on this here bate last week. He done it ladin' thrumps. 'Thank Gawd," says I, 'ye didn't have a good hand,' I says, 'or I might have to call in th' wreckin' wagon.' Thim Kerry men shud be made to play forty-fives with boxin'-gloves on. "I read about th' ordher, but it slipped me min' las' night. I was down at a meetin' iv th' Hugh O'Neills, an' a most intherestin' meetin' it was, Jawn. I'd been niglictful iv me jooty to th' cause iv late, an' I was surprised an' shocked to hear how poor ol' Ireland was sufferin'. Th' rayport fr'm th' Twinty-third Wa-ard, which is in th' County Mayo, showed that th' sthreet clanin' conthract had been give to a Swede be th' name iv Oleson; an' over in th' Nineteenth Wa-ard th' County Watherford is all stirred up because Johnny Powers is filled th' pipe-ya-ard with his own rilitives. I felt dam lonely, an' with raison, too; f'r I was th' on'y man in th' camp that didn't have a job. An' says I, 'Gintlemen,' says I, 'can't I do something f'r Ireland, too?' I says. 'I'd make a gr-reat city threasurer,' says I, 'if ye've th' job handy,' I says; and at that they give me th' laugh, and we tuk up a subscription an' adjourned. "Well, sir, I started up Ar-rchey Road afther th' meetin', forgettin' about Brennan's ordhers, whin a man jumps out fr'm behind a tree near th' gas-house. 'Melia murther!' says I to mesilf. ''Tis a highwayman!' Thin, puttin' on a darin' front an' reachin' f'r me handkerchief, I says, 'Stand back, robber!' I says. 'Stand back, robber!' I says. 'Stand back!' I says. "'Excuse _me_,' says th' la-ad. 'I beg ye'er pardon,' he says. "'Beg th' pardon iv Hiven,' says I, 'f'r stoppin' a desperate man in th' sthreet,' says I; 'f'r in a holy minyit I'll blow off th' head iv ye,' says I, with me hand on th' handkerchief that niver blew nawthin' but this nose iv mine." "'I humbly ask your pardon,' he says, showin' a star; 'but I'm a polisman.' "'Polisman or robber,' says I, 'stand aside!' I says. "'I'm a polisman,' he says, 'an' I'm undher ordhers to be polite with citizens I stop,' he says; 'but, if ye don't duck up that road in half a minyit, ye poy-faced, red-eyed, lop-eared, thick-headed ol' bosthoon,' he says, 'I'll take ye be th' scruff iv th' neck an' thrun ye into th' ga-as-house tank,' he says, 'if I'm coort-martialed f'r it to-morrow.' "Thin I knew he _was_ a polisman; an' I wint away, Jawn." SHAUGHNESSY. "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley in the course of the conversation, "whin ye come to think iv it, th' heroes iv th' wurruld,--an' be thim I mean th' lads that've buckled on th' gloves, an' gone out to do th' best they cud,--they ain't in it with th' quite people nayether you nor me hears tell iv fr'm wan end iv th' year to another." "I believe it," said Mr. McKenna; "for my mother told me so." "Sure," said Mr. Dooley, "I know it is an old story. Th' wurruld's been full iv it fr'm th' beginnin'; an' 'll be full iv it till, as Father Kelly says, th' pay-roll's closed. But I was thinkin' more iv it th' other night thin iver before, whin I wint to see Shaughnessy marry off his on'y daughter. You know Shaughnessy,--a quite man that come into th' road before th' fire. He wurruked f'r Larkin, th' conthractor, f'r near twinty years without skip or break, an' seen th' fam'ly grow up be candle-light. Th' oldest boy was intinded f'r a priest. 'Tis a poor fam'ly that hasn't some wan that's bein' iddycated f'r the priesthood while all th' rest wear thimsilves to skeletons f'r him, an' call him Father Jawn 'r Father Mike whin he comes home wanst a year, light-hearted an' free, to eat with thim. "Shaughnessy's lad wint wrong in his lungs, an' they fought death f'r him f'r five years, sindin' him out to th' Wist an' havin' masses said f'r him; an', poor divvle, he kept comin' back cross an' crool, with th' fire in his cheeks, till wan day he laid down, an' says he: 'Pah,' he says, 'I'm goin' to give up,' he says. 'An' I on'y ask that ye'll have th' mass sung over me be some man besides Father Kelly,' he says. An' he wint, an' Shaughnessy come clumpin' down th' aisle like a man in a thrance. "Well, th' nex' wan was a girl, an' she didn't die; but, th' less said, th' sooner mended. Thin they was Terrence, a big, bould, curly-headed lad that cocked his hat at anny man,--or woman f'r th' matter iv that,--an' that bruk th' back iv a polisman an' swum to th' crib, an' was champeen iv th' South Side at hand ball. An' he wint. Thin th' good woman passed away. An' th' twins they growed to be th' prettiest pair that wint to first communion; an' wan night they was a light in th' window of Shaughnessy's house till three in th' mornin'. I rayminiber it; f'r I had quite a crowd iv Willum Joyce's men in, an' we wondhered at it, an' wint home whin th' lamp in Shaughnessy's window was blown out. "They was th' wan girl left,--Theresa, a big, clean-lookin' child that I see grow up fr'm hello to good avnin'. She thought on'y iv th' ol' man, an' he leaned on her as if she was a crutch. She was out to meet him in th' ev'nin'; an' in th' mornin' he, th' simple ol' man, 'd stop to blow a kiss at her an' wave his dinner-pail, lookin' up an' down th' r-road to see that no wan was watchin' him. "I dinnaw what possessed th' young Donahue, fr'm th' Nineteenth. I niver thought much iv him, a stuck-up, aisy-come la-ad that niver had annything but a civil wurrud, an' is prisident iv th' sodality. But he came in, an' married Theresa Shaughnessy las' Thursdah night. Th' ol' man took on twinty years, but he was as brave as a gin'ral iv th' army. He cracked jokes an' he made speeches; an' he took th' pipes fr'm under th' elbow iv Hogan, th' blindman, an' played 'Th' Wind that shakes th' Barley' till ye'd have wore ye'er leg to a smoke f'r wantin' to dance. Thin he wint to th' dure with th' two iv thim; an' says he, 'Well,' he says, 'Jim, be good to her,' he says, an' shook hands with her through th' carredge window. "Him an' me sat a long time smokin' across th' stove. Fin'lly, says I, 'Well,' I says, 'I must be movin'.' 'What's th' hurry?' says he. 'I've got to go,' says I. 'Wait a moment,' says he. 'Theresa 'll'--He stopped right there f'r a minyit, holdin' to th' back iv th' chair. 'Well,' says he, 'if ye've got to go, ye must,' he says. 'I'll show ye out,' he says. An' he come with me to th' dure, holdin' th' lamp over his head. I looked back at him as I wint by; an' he was settin' be th' stove, with his elbows on his knees an' th' empty pipe between his teeth." TIMES PAST. Mr. McKenna, looking very warm and tired, came in to Mr. Dooley's tavern one night last week, and smote the bar with his fist. "What's the matter with Hogan?" he said. "What Hogan?" asked Mr. Dooley. "Malachy or Matt? Dinnis or Mike? Sarsfield or William Hogan? There's a Hogan f'r ivry block in th' Ar-rchey Road, an' wan to spare. There's nawthin' th' matter with anny iv thim; but, if ye mean Hogan, th' liquor dealer, that r-run f'r aldherman, I'll say to ye he's all right. Mind ye, Jawn, I'm doin' this because ye're me frind; but, by gar, if anny wan else comes in an' asks me that question, I'll kill him, if I have to go to th' bridewell f'r it. I'm no health officer." Having delivered himself of this tirade, Mr. Dooley scrutinized Mr. McKenna sharply, and continued: "Ye've been out ilictin' some man, Jawn, an' ye needn't deny it. I seen it th' minyit ye come in. Ye'er hat's dinted, an' ye have ye'er necktie over ye'er ear; an' I see be ye'er hand ye've hit a Dutchman. Jawn, ye know no more about politics thin a mimber iv this here Civic Featheration. Didn't ye have a beer bottle or an ice-pick? Ayether iv thim is good, though, whin I was a young man an' precint captain an' intherested in th' welfare iv th' counthry, I found a couplin' pin in a stockin' about as handy as annything. "Thim days is over, though, Jawn, an' between us politics don't intherest me no more. They ain't no liveliness in thim. Whin Andy Duggan r-run f'r aldherman against Schwartzmeister, th' big Dutchman,--I was precinct captain then, Jawn,--there was an iliction f'r ye. 'Twas on our precinct they relied to ilict Duggan; f'r the Dutch was sthrong down be th' thrack, an' Schwartzmeister had a band out playin' 'Th' Watch on th' Rhine.' Well, sir, we opened th' polls at six o'clock, an' there was tin Schwartzmeister men there to protect his intherests. At sivin o'clock there was only three, an' wan iv thim was goin' up th' sthreet with Hinnissy kickin' at him. At eight o'clock, be dad,' there was on'y wan; an' he was sittin' on th' roof iv Gavin's blacksmith shop, an' th' la-ads was thryin' to borrow a laddher fr'm th' injine-house f'r to get at him. 'Twas thruck eighteen; an' Hogan, that was captain, wudden't let thim have it. Not ye'er Hogan, Jawn, but th' meanest fireman in Bridgeport. He got kilt aftherwards. He wudden't let th' la-ads have a laddher, an' th' Dutchman stayed up there; an', whin there was nawthin' to do, we wint over an' thrun bricks at him. 'Twas gr-reat sport. "About four in th' afthernoon Schwartzmeister's band come up Ar-rchey Road, playin' 'Th' Watch on th' Rhine.' Whin it got near Gavin's, big Peter Nolan tuk a runnin' jump, an' landed feet first in th' big bass dhrum. Th' man with th' dhrum walloped him over th' head with th' dhrum-stick, an' Dorsey Quinn wint over an' tuk a slide trombone away fr'm the musician an' clubbed th' bass dhrum man with it. Thin we all wint over, an' ye niver see th' like in ye'er born days. Th' las' I see iv th' band it was goin' down th' road towards th' slough with a mob behind it, an' all th' polis foorce fr'm Deerin' Sthreet afther th' mob. Th' la-ads collected th' horns an' th' dhrums, an' that started th' Ar-rchey Road brass band. Little Mike Doyle larned to play 'Th' Rambler fr'm Clare' beautifully on what they call a pickle-e-o befure they sarved a rayplivin writ on him. "We cast twinty-wan hundherd votes f'r Duggan, an' they was on'y five hundherd votes in th' precinct. We'd cast more, but th' tickets give out. They was tin votes in th' box f'r Schwartzmeister whin we counted up; an' I felt that mortified I near died, me bein' precinct captain, an' res-sponsible. 'What 'll we do with thim? Out th' window,' says I. Just thin Dorsey's nanny-goat that died next year put her head through th' dure. 'Monica,' says Dorsey (he had pretty names for all his goats), 'Monica, are ye hungry,' he says, 'ye poor dear?' Th' goat give him a pleadin' look out iv her big brown eyes. 'Can't I make ye up a nice supper?' says Dorsey. 'Do ye like paper?' he says. 'Would ye like to help desthroy a Dutchman,' he says, 'an' perform a sarvice f'r ye'er counthry?' he says. Thin he wint out in th' next room, an' come back with a bottle iv catsup; an' he poured it on th' Schwartzmeister ballots, an' Monica et thim without winkin'. "Well, sir, we ilicted Duggan; an' what come iv it? Th' week before iliction he was in me house ivry night, an' 'twas 'Misther Dooley, this,' an' 'Mr. Dooley, that,' an' 'What 'll ye have, boys?' an' 'Niver mind about th' change.' I niver see hide nor hair iv him f'r a week afther iliction. Thin he come with a plug hat on, an' says he: 'Dooley,' he says, 'give me a shell iv beer,' he says: 'give me a shell iv beer,' he says, layin' down a nickel. 'I suppose ye're on th' sub-scription,' he says. 'What for?' says I. 'F'r to buy me a goold star,' says he. With that I eyes him, an' says I: 'Duggan,' I says, 'I knowed ye whin ye didn't have a coat to ye'er back,' I says, 'an' I 'll buy no star f'r ye,' I says. 'But I'll tell ye what I'll buy f'r ye,' I says. 'I'll buy rayqueem masses f'r th' raypose iv ye'er sowl, if ye don't duck out iv this in a minyit,' Whin I seen him last, he was back dhrivin' a dhray an' atin' his dinner out iv a tin can." THE SKIRTS OF CHANCE. The people of Bridgeport are not solicitous of modern improvements, and Mr. Dooley views with distaste the new and garish. But he consented to install a nickel-in-the-slot machine in his tavern last week, and it was standing on a table when Mr. McKenna came in. It was a machine that looked like a house; and, when you put a nickel in at the top of it, either the door opened and released three other nickels or it did not. Mostly it did not. Mr. Dooley saluted Mr. McKenna with unusual cordiality, and Mr. McKenna inspected the nickel-in-the-slot machine with affectation of much curiosity. "What's this you have here, at all?" said Mr. McKenna. "'Tis an aisy way iv gettin' rich," said Mr. Dooley. "All ye have to do is to dhrop a nickel in th' slot, an' three other nickels come out at th' dure. Ye can play it all afthernoon, an' take a fortune fr'm it if ye'er nickels hould out." "And where do th' nickels come fr'm?" asked Mr. McKenna. "I put thim in," said Mr. Dooley. "Ivry twinty minutes I feed th' masheen a hatful iv nickels, so that whin me frinds dhrop in they won't be dissypinted, d'ye mind. 'Tis a fine invistment for a young man. Little work an' large profits. It rayminds me iv Hogan's big kid an' what he done with his coin. He made a lot iv it in dhrivin' a ca-ar, he did, but he blew it all in again good liquor an' bad women; an', bedad, he was broke half th' time an' borrowin' th' other half. So Hogan gets in Father Kelly fr'm up west iv th' bridge, an' they set in with Dinnis to talk him out iv his spindthrift ways. 'I have plenty to keep mesilf,' says Hogan, he says. 'But,' he says, 'I want ye to save ye'er money,' he says, 'f'r a rainy day.' 'He's right, Dinnis,' says th' soggarth,--'he's right,' he says. 'Ye should save a little in case ye need it,' he says. 'Why don't ye take two dollars,' says th' priest, 'an' invist it ivry month,' says he, 'in somethin',' says he, 'that 'll give ye profits,' says he. 'I'll do it,' says Dinnis,--'I 'll do it,' he says. Well, sir, Hogan was that tickled he give th' good man five bones out iv th' taypot; but, faith, Dinnis was back at his reg'lar game before th' week was out, an', afther a month or two, whin Hogan had to get th' tayspoons out iv soak, he says to th' kid, he says, 'I thought ye was goin' to brace up,' he says, 'an' here ye're burnin' up ye'er money,' he says. 'Didn't ye promise to invist two dollars ivry month?' he says. 'I'm doin' it,' says Dinnis. 'I've kept me wurrud.' 'An' what are ye invistin' it in?' says Hogan. 'In lotthry tickets,' says th' imp'dent kid." While delivering these remarks, Mr. Dooley was peeping over his glasses at Mr. McKenna, who was engaged in a struggle with the machine. He dropped a nickel and it rattled down the slot, but it did not open the door. "Doesn't it open?" said Mr. Dooley. "It does not." "Shake it thin," said Mr. Dooley. "Something must be wrong." Mr. McKenna shook the machine when he inserted the next nickel, but there was no compensatory flow of coins from the door. "Perhaps the money is bad," suggested Mr. Dooley. "It won't open f'r bad money." Thereupon he returned to his newspaper, observing which Mr. McKenna drew from his pocket a nickel attached to a piece of string and dropped it into the slot repeatedly. After a while the door popped open, and Mr. McKenna thrust in his hand expectantly. There was no response, and he turned in great anger to Mr. Dooley. "There ain't any money there," he said. "Ye're right, Jawn," responded Mr. Dooley. "If ye expect to dhraw anny coin fr'm that there masheen, ye may call on some iv ye'er rough frinds down town f'r a brace an' bit an' a jimmy. Jawn, me la-ad, I see th' nickel with th' string before; an', to provide again it, I improved th' masheen. Thim nickels ye dhropped in are all in th' dhrawer iv that there table, an' to-morrow mornin' ye may see me havin' me hair cut be means iv thim. An' I'll tell ye wan thing, Jawn McKenna, an' that's not two things, that if ye think ye can come up here to Ar-rchey Road an' rob an honest man, by gar, ye've made th' mistake iv ye'er life. Goowan, now, before I call a polisman." Mr. McKenna stopped at the door only long enough to shake his fist at the proprietor, who responded with a grin of pure contentment. WHEN THE TRUST IS AT WORK. "Which d'ye think makes th' best fun'ral turnout, th' A-ho-aitches or th' Saint Vincent de Pauls, Jawn?" asked Mr. Dooley. "I don't know," said Mr. McKenna. "Are you thinking of leaving us?" "Faith, I am not," said Mr. Dooley. "Since th' warm weather's come an' th' wind's in th' south, so that I can tell at night that A-armoor an' me ol' frind, Jawn Brinnock, are attindin' to business, I have a grip on life like th' wan ye have on th' shank iv that shell iv malt. Whether 'tis these soft days, with th' childher beginnin' to play barefutted in th' sthreet an' th' good women out to palaver over th' fence without their shawls, or whether 'tis th' wan wurrud Easter Sundah that comes on me, an' jolts me up with th' thoughts iv th' la-ads goin' to mass an' th' blackthorn turnin' green beyant, I dinnaw. But annyhow I'm as gay as a babby an' as fresh as a lark. I am so. "I was on'y thinkin'. Ol' Gran'pah Grogan died las' Mondah,--as good a man as e'er counted his beads or passed th' plate. A thrue man. Choosdah a Connock man up back iv th' dumps laid down th' shovel. Misther Grogan had a grand notice in th' pa-apers: 'Grogan, at his late risidence, 279 A-archoor Avnoo, Timothy Alexander, beloved husband iv th' late Mary Grogan, father iv Maurice, Michael, Timothy, Edward, James, Peter, Paul, an' Officer Andrew Grogan, iv Cologne Sthreet station, an' iv Mrs. Willum Sarsfield Cassidy, nee Grogan' (which manes that was her name befure she marrid Cassidy, who wurruks down be Haley's packin'-house). 'Fun'ral be carriages fr'm his late risidence to Calv'ry cimithry. Virginia City, Nivada; St. Joseph, Mitchigan; an' Clonmel Tipp'rary pa-apers please copy.' "I didn't see e'er a nee about th' fam'ly iv th' little man back iv th' dumps, though maybe he had wan to set aroun' th' fire in th' dark an' start at th' tap iv a heel on th' dure-step. Mebbe he had a fam'ly, poor things. A fun'ral is great la-arks f'r th' neighbors, an' 'tis not so bad f'r th' corpse. But in these times, Jawn dear, a-ho th' gray hearts left behind an' th' hungry mouths to feed. They done th' best they cud f'r th' Connock man back iv th' dumps,--give him all th' honors, th' A-ho-aitches ma-archin' behind th' hearse an' th' band playin' th' Dead March, 'Twas almost as good a turnout as Grogan had, though th' Saint Vincents had betther hats an' looked more like their fam'lies kept a cow. "But they was two hacks back iv th' pall-bearers. I wondhered what was passin' behind th' faces I seen again their windys. 'Twas well f'r himself, too. Little odds to him, afther th' last screw was twisted be Gavin's ol' yellow hands, whether beef was wan cint or a hundherd dollars th' pound. But there's comin' home as well as goin' out. There's more to a fun'ral thin th' lucks parpitua, an' th' clod iv sullen earth on th' top iv th' crate. Sare a pax vobiscum is there f'r thim that's huddled in th' ol' hack, sthragglin' home in th' dust to th' empty panthry an' th' fireless grate. "Mind ye, Jawn, I've no wurrud to say again thim that sets back in their own house an' lot an' makes th' food iv th' people dear. They're good men, good men. Whin they tilt th' price iv beef to where wan pound iv it costs as much as manny th' man in this Ar-rchey Road 'd wurruk fr'm th' risin' to th' settin' iv th' sun to get, they have no thought iv th' likes iv you an' me. 'Tis aisy come, aisy go with thim; an' ivry cint a pound manes a new art musoom or a new church, to take th' edge off hunger. They're all right, thim la-ads, with their own pork-chops delivered free at th' door. 'Tis, 'Will ye have a new spring dhress, me dear? Willum, ring thim up, an' tell thim to hist th' price iv beef. If we had a few more pitchers an' statoos in th' musoom, 'twud ilivate th' people a sthory or two. Willum, afther this steak 'll be twinty cints a pound.' Oh, they're all right, on'y I was thinkin' iv th' Connock man's fam'ly back iv th' dumps." "For a man that was gay a little while ago, it looks to me as if you'd grown mighty solemn-like," said Mr. McKenna. "Mebbe so," said Mr. Dooley. "Mebbe so. What th' 'ell, annyhow. Mebbe 'tis as bad to take champagne out iv wan man's mouth as round steak out iv another's. Lent is near over. I seen Doherty out shinin' up his pipe that's been behind th' clock since Ash Winsdah. Th' girls 'll be layin' lilies on th' altar in a day or two. Th' spring's come on. Th' grass is growin' good; an', if th' Connock man's children back iv th' dumps can't get meat, they can eat hay." A BRAND FROM THE BURNING. "I see be th' pa-apers," said Mr. Dooley, "that Boss have flew th' coop. 'Tis too bad, too bad. He wa-as a gr-reat man." "Is he dead?" asked Mr. McKenna. "No, faith, worse thin that; he's resigned. He calls th' la-ads about him, an' says he: 'Boys,' he says, 'I'm tired iv politics,' he says. 'I'm goin' to quit it f'r me health,' he says. 'Do ye stay in, an' get ar-rested f'r th' good iv th' party.' Ye see thim mugwumps is afther th' Boss, an' he's gettin' out th' way Hogan got out iv Connock. Wan day he comes over to me fa-ather's house, an' says he, 'Dooley,' he says, 'I'm goin' to lave this hole iv a place,' he says. 'F'r why?' says th' ol' man; 'I thought ye liked it.' 'Faith,' says Hogan, 'I niver liked a blade iv grass in it,' he says. 'I'm sick iv it,' he says. 'I don't want niver to see it no more.' And he wint away. Th' next mornin' th' polis was lookin' f'r him to lock him up f'r stealin' joo'lry in the fair town. Yes, by dad. "'Tis th' way iv th' boss, Jawn. I seen it manny's th' time. There was wanst a boss in th' Sixth Wa-ard, an' his name was Flannagan; an' he came fr'm th' County Clare, but so near th' bordher line that no wan challenged his vote, an' he was let walk down Ar-rchey Road just's though he come fr'm Connock. Well, sir, whin I see him first, he'd th' smell iv Castle Garden on him, an' th' same is no mignonette, d'ye mind; an' he was goin' out with pick an' shovel f'r to dig in th' canal,--a big, shtrappin', black-haired lad, with a neck like a bull's an' covered with a hide as thick as wan's, fr'm thryin' to get a crop iv oats out iv a Clare farm that growed divvle th' thing but nice, big boldhers. "He was de-termined, though, an' th' first man that made a face at him he walloped in th' jaw; an' he'd been on th' canal no more thin a month before he licked ivry man in th' gang but th' section boss, who'd been a Dublin jackeen, an' weighed sixteen stone an' was great with a thrip an' a punch. Wan day they had some wurruds, whin me bold Dublin man sails into Flannagan. Well, sir, they fought fr'm wan o'clock till tin in th' night, an' nayther give up; though Flannagan had th' best iv it, bein' young. 'Why don't ye put him out?' says wan iv th' la-ads. 'Whisht,' says Flannagan. 'I'm waitin' f'r th' moon to come up,' he says, 'so's I can hit him right,' he says, 'an' scientific.' Well, sir, his tone was that fierce th' section boss he dhropped right there iv sheer fright; an' Flannagan was cock iv th' walk. "Afther a while he begun f'r to go out among th' other gangs, lookin' f'r fight; an', whin th' year was over, he was knowed fr'm wan end iv th' canal to th' other as th' man that no wan cud stand befure. He got so pop'lar fr'm lickin' all his frinds that he opened up a liquor store beyant th' bridge, an' wan night he shot some la-ads fr'm th' ya-ards that come over f'r to r-run him. That made him sthronger still. When they got up a prize f'r th' most pop'lar man in th' parish, he loaded th' ballot box an' got th' goold-headed stick, though he was r-runnin' against th' aldherman, an' th' little soggarth thried his best to down him. Thin he give a cock fight in th' liquor shop, an' that atthracted a gang iv bad men; an' he licked thim wan afther another, an' made thim his frinds. An' wan day lo an' behold, whin th' aldherman thried f'r to carry th' prim'ries that 'd niver failed him befure, Flannagan wint down with his gang an' illicted his own dilligate ticket, an' thrun th' aldherman up in th' air! "Thin he was a boss, an' f'r five years he r-run th' ward. He niver wint to th' council, d'ye mind; but, whin he was gin'rous, he give th' aldhermen tin per cint iv what they made. In a convintion, whin anny iv th' candydates passed roun' th' money, 'twas wan thousand dollars f'r Flannagan an' have a nice see-gar with me f'r th' rest iv thim. Wan year fr'm th' day he done th' aldherman he sold th' liquor shop. Thin he built a brick house in th' place iv th' little frame wan he had befure, an' moved in a pianny f'r his daughter. 'Twas about this time he got a dimon as big as ye'er fist, an' begun to dhrive down town behind a fast horse. No wan knowed what he done, but his wife said he was in th' r-rale estate business. D'ye mind, Jawn, that th' r-rale estate business includes near ivrything fr'm vagrancy to manslaughter? "Whativer it was he done, he had money to bur-rn; an' th' little soggarth that wanst despised him, but had a hard time payin' th' debt iv th' church, was glad enough to sit at his table. Wan day without th' wink iv th' eye he moved up in th' avnoo, an' no wan seen him in Bridgeport afther that. 'Twas a month or two later whin a lot iv th' la-ads was thrun into jail f'r a little diviltry they'd done f'r him. A comity iv th' fathers iv th' la-ads wint to see him. He raceived thim in a room as big as wan iv their whole houses, with pitchers on th' walls an' a carpet as deep an' soft as a bog. Th' comity asked him to get th' la-ads out on bail. "'Gintlemen,' he says, 'ye must excuse me,' he says, 'in such matthers.' 'D'ye mane to say,' says Cassidy, th' plumber, 'that ye won't do annything f'r my son?' 'Do annything,' says Flannagan. (I'll say this f'r him: a more darin' man niver drew breath; an', whin his time come to go sthandin' off th' mob an' defindin' his sthone quarry in th' rites iv sivinty-sivin, he faced death without a wink.) 'Do?' he says, risin' an' sthandin' within a fut iv Cassidy's big cane. 'Do?' he says. 'Why,' he says, 'yes,' he says; 'I've subscribed wan thousand dollars,' he says, 'to th' citizen's comity,' he says, 'f'r to prosecute him; an',' he says, 'gintlemen,' he says, 'there's th' dure.' "I seen Cassidy that night, an' he was as white as a ghost. 'What ails ye?' says I. 'Have ye seen th' divvle?' 'Yes,' he says, bendin' his head over th' bar, an' lookin' sivinty years instead iv forty-five." A WINTER NIGHT. Any of the Archey Road cars that got out of the barns at all were pulled by teams of four horses, and the snow hung over the shoulders of the drivers' big bearskin coats like the eaves of an old-fashioned house on the blizzard night. There was hardly a soul in the road from the red bridge, west, when Mr. McKenna got laboriously off the platform of his car and made for the sign of somebody's celebrated Milwaukee beer over Mr. Dooley's tavern. Mr. Dooley, being a man of sentiment, arranges his drinks to conform with the weather. Now anybody who knows anything at all knows that a drop of "J.J." and a whisper (subdued) of hot water and a lump of sugar and lemon peel (if you care for lemon peel) and nutmeg (if you are a "jood ") is a drink calculated to tune a man's heart to the song of the wind slapping a beer-sign upside down and the snow drifting in under the door. Mr. Dooley was drinking this mixture behind his big stove when Mr. McKenna came in. "Bad night, Jawn," said Mr. Dooley. "It is that," said Mr. McKenna. "Blowin' an' storming', yes," said Mr. Dooley. "There hasn' been a can in tonight but wan, an' that was a pop bottle. Is the snow-ploughs out, I dinnaw?" "They are," said Mr. McKenna. "I suppose Doherty is dhrivin'," said Mr. Dooley. "He's a good dhriver. They do say he do be wan iv the best dhrivers on th' road. I've heerd that th' prisident is dead gawn on him. He's me cousin. Ye can't tell much about what a man 'll be fr'm what th' kid is. That there Doherty was th' worst omadhon iv a boy that iver I knowed. He niver cud larn his a-ah-bee, abs. But see what he made iv himsilf! Th' best dhriver on th' road; an', by dad, 'tis not twinty to wan he won't be stharter befure he dies. 'Tis in th' fam'ly to make their names. There niver was anny fam'ly in th' ol' counthry that turned out more priests than th' Dooleys. By gar, I believe we hol' th' champeenship iv th' wurruld. At M'nooth th' profissor that called th' roll got so fr'm namin' th' Dooley la-ads that he came near bein' tur-rned down on th' cha-arge that he was whistlin' at vespers. His mouth, d'ye mind, took that there shape fr'm sayin' 'Dooley,' 'Dooley,' that he'd looked as if he was whistlin'. D'ye mind? Dear, oh dear, 'tis th' divvle's own fam'ly f'r religion." Mr. McKenna was about to make a jeering remark to the effect that the alleged piety of the Dooley family had not penetrated to the Archey Road representative, when a person, evidently of wayfaring habits, entered and asked for alms. Mr. Dooley arose, and, picking a half-dollar from the till, handed it to the visitor with great unconcern. The departure of the wayfarer with profuse thanks was followed by a space of silence. "Well, Jawn," said Mr. Dooley. "What did you give the hobo?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Half a dollar," said Mr. Dooley. "And what for?" "Binivolence," said Mr. Dooley, with a seraphic smile. "Well," said Mr. McKenna, "I should say that was benevolence." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "'tis a bad night out, an' th' poor divvle looked that miserable it brought th' tears to me eyes, an'"-- "But," said Mr. McKenna, "that ain't any reason why you should give half a dollar to every tramp who comes in." "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley, "I know th' ma-an. He spinds all his money at Schneider's, down th' block." "What of that?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Oh, nawthin'," said Mr. Dooley, "on'y I hope Herman won't thry to bite that there coin. If he does"-- THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. "A-ho," said Mr. Dooley, "th' blue an' th' gray, th' blue an' th' gray. Well, sir, Jawn, d'ye know that I see Mulligan marchin' ahead with his soord on his side, an' his horse dancin' an' backin' into th' crowd; an' th' la-ads chowlder arms an' march, march away. Ye shud 've been there. Th' women come down fr'm th' pee-raries with th' childher in their arms, an' 'twas like a sind-off to a picnic. 'Good-by, Mike.' 'Timothy, darlin', don't forget your prayers.' 'Cornalius, if ye do but look out f'r th' little wans, th' big wans 'll not harm ye.' 'Teddy, lad, always wear ye'er Agnus Day.' An', whin th' time come f'r th' thrain to lave, th' girls was up to th' lines; an' 'twas, 'Mike, love, ye'll come back alive, won't ye?' an' 'Pat, there does be a pair iv yarn socks in th' hoomp on ye'er back. Wear thim, lad. They'll be good f'r ye'er poor, dear feet.' An' off they wint. "Well, some come back, an' some did not come back. An' some come back with no rale feet f'r to put yarn socks on thim. Mulligan quit down somewhere in Kentucky; an' th' las' wurruds he was heard to utter was, 'Lay me down, boys, an' save th' flag.' An there was manny th' other that had nawthin' to say but to call f'r a docthor; f'r 'tis on'y, d'ye mind, th' heroes that has somethin' writ down on typewriter f'r to sind to th' newspapers whin they move up. Th' other lads that dies because they cudden't r-run away,--not because they wudden't,--they dies on their backs, an' calls f'r th' docthor or th' priest. It depinds where they're shot. "But, annyhow, no wan iv thim lads come back to holler because he was in th' war or to war again th' men that shot him. They wint to wurruk, carryin' th' hod 'r shovellin' cindhers at th' rollin' mills. Some iv thim took pinsions because they needed thim; but divvle th' wan iv thim ye'll see paradin' up an' down Ar-rchey Road with a blue coat on, wantin' to fight th' war over with Schwartzmeister's bar-tinder that niver heerd iv but wan war, an' that th' rites iv sivinty-sivin. Sare a wan. No, faith. They'd as lave decorate a confeatherate's grave as a thrue pathrite's. All they want is a chanst to go out to th' cimitry; an', faith, who doesn't enjoy that? No wan that's annything iv a spoort. "I know hundherds iv thim. Ye know Pat Doherty, th' little man that lives over be Grove Sthreet. He inlisted three times, by dad, an' had to stand on his toes three times to pass. He was that ager. Well, he looks to weigh about wan hundherd an' twinty pounds; an' he weighs wan fifty be raison iv him havin' enough lead to stock a plumber in his stomach an' his legs. He showed himsilf wanst whin he was feelin' gay. He looks like a sponge. But he ain't. He come in here Thursdah night to take his dhrink in quite; an' says I, 'Did ye march to-day?' 'Faith, no,' he says, 'I can get hot enough runnin' a wheelbarrow without makin' a monkey iv mesilf dancin' around th' sthreets behind a band.' 'But didn't ye go out to decorate th' graves?' says I. 'I hadn't th' price,' says he, 'Th' women wint out with a gyranium to put over Sarsfield, the first born,' he says. "Just thin Morgan O'Toole come in, an' laned over th' ba-ar. He's been a dillygate to ivry town convention iv th' Raypublicans since I dinnaw whin. 'Well,' says he, 'I see they're pilin' it on,' he says. 'On th' dead?' says I, be way iv a joke. 'No,' he says; 'but did ye see they're puttin' up a monnymint over th' rebils out here be Oakwoods?' he says. 'By gar,' he says, ''tis a disgrace to th' mim'ries iv thim devoted dead who died f'r their counthry,' he says. 'If,' he says, 'I cud get ninety-nine men to go out an' blow it up, I'd be th' hundherth,' he says. 'Yes,' says I, 'ye wud,' I says. 'Ye'd be th' last,' I says. "Doherty was movin' up to him. 'What rig'mint?' says he. 'What's that?' says O'Toole. 'Did ye inlist in th' army, brave man?' says Pat. 'I swore him over age,' says I. 'Was ye dhrafted in?' says th' little man. 'No,' says O'Toole. 'Him an' me was in th' same cellar,' says I. 'Did ye iver hear iv Ree-saca, 'r Vicksburg, 'r Lookout Mountain?' th' little man wint on. 'Did anny man iver shoot at ye with annything but a siltzer bottle? Did ye iver have to lay on ye'er stummick with ye'er nose burrid in th' Lord knows what while things was whistlin' over ye that, if they iver stopped whistlin', 'd make ye'er backbone look like a broom? Did ye iver see a man that ye'd slept with th' night before cough, an' go out with his hands ahead iv his face? Did ye iver have to wipe ye'er most intimate frinds off ye'er clothes, whin ye wint home at night? Where was he durin' th' war?' he says. 'He was dhrivin' a grocery wagon f'r Philip Reidy,' says I. 'An' what's he makin' th' roar about?' says th' little man. 'He don't want anny wan to get onto him,' says I. "O'Toole was gone be this time, an' th' little man laned over th' bar. 'Now,' says he, 'what d'ye think iv a gazabo that don't want a monniment put over some wan? Where is this here pole? I think I'll go out an' take a look at it. Where 'd ye say th' la-ad come fr'm? Donaldson? I was there. There was a man in our mess--a Wicklow man be th' name iv Dwyer--that had th' best come-all-ye I iver heerd. It wint like this,' an' he give it to me." THE TRAGEDY OF THE AGITATOR. "Whin ye come up, did ye see Dorgan?" asked Mr. Dooley. "Which Dorgan?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Why, to be sure, Hugh O'Neill Dorgan, him that was sicrety iv Deerin' Shtreet branch number wan hundred an' eight iv th' Ancient Ordher iv Scow Unloaders, him that has th' red lambrequin on his throat, that married th' second time to Dinnihy's aunt an' we give a shivaree to him. Hivins on earth, don't ye know him?" "I don't," said Mr. McKenna; "and, if I know him, I haven't seen him." "Thin ye missed a sight," said Mr. Dooley. "He's ragin' an' tearin'. He have been a great union man. He'd sthrike on th' moment's provocation. I seen him wanst, whin some scow unloaders sthruck in Lemont or some other distant place, put on his coat, lay down his shovel, an' go out, be hivins, alone. Well, his son goes an' jines th' Sivinth Rig'mint; an', by gar, th' ol' man, not knowin' about th' army, he's that proud that he sthruts up an' down th' sthreet with his thumb in th' vest iv him an' give his son a new shovel, for they was wurrukin' together on th' scow 'Odelia Ann.' Well, whin th' sthrike come along, iv coorse th' scow unloaders quits; an' Dorgan an' th' la-ad goes out together, because they're dhrawin' good wages an' th' crick do be full iv men r-ready f'r to take their places. "Well, Dorgan had th' divvle's own time paradin' up an' down an' sindin' out ordhers to sthrike to ivry man he knowed of till th' la-ad comes over las' Choosdah avenin', dhressed in his rigimintals with a gun as long as a clothes-pole over his shoulder. 'Hughey,' said th' father, 'you look very gran' to-night,' he says. 'Whose fun'ral ar-re ye goin' to at this hour?' 'None but thim I makes mesilf,' says he. 'What d'ye mean?' says th' ol' man. 'I'm goin' over f'r to stand guard in th' thracks,' says th' la-ad. Well, with that th' ol' man leaps up. 'Polisman,' he says. 'Polisman,' he says. 'Copper,' he says. 'Twas on'y be Mrs. Dorgan comin' in an' quitein' th' ol' man with a chair that hostilities was averted--as th' pa-apers says--right there an' thin. "Well, sir, will ye believe me, whin Dorgan wint over with th' mimbers iv' th' union that night f'r to bur-rn something, there was me brave Hughey thrampin' up an' down like a polisman on bate. Dorgan goes up an' shakes his fist at him, an' th' la-ad gives him a jab with his bayonet that makes th' poor ol' man roar like a bull. 'In th' name iv th' people iv th' State iv Illinys,' he says, 'disperse,' he says, 'ye riter,' he says; 'an', if ye don't go home,' he says, 'ye ol' omadhon,' he says, 'I'll have ye thrun into jail,' he says. "Dorgan haven't got over it yet. It dhruv him to a sick-bed." BOYNE WATER AND BAD BLOOD. "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley to Mr. McKenna, "what did th' Orangeys do to-day?" "They had a procession," said Mr. McKenna. "Was it much, I dinnaw?" "Not much." "That's good," said Mr. Dooley. "That's good. They don't seem to be gettin' anny sthronger, praise be! Divvle th' sthraw do I care f'r thim. They niver harmed hair nor head iv me; an' they ain't likely to, ayether, so long as th' R-road keeps th' way it is. Faith, 'twud be a fine pot iv porridge th' like iv thim 'd ate if they come up into Ar-rchey Road. I'm an ol' man, Jawn,--though not so ol' at that,--but I'd give tin years iv me life to see an Orange procession west on Ar-rchey Road with th' right flank restin' on Halsthed Sthreet. It 'd rest there. Th' Lord knows it wud. "Jawn, I have no dislike to th' Orangeys. Nawthin' again thim. I'd not raise me hand to thim, I wud not, though me cousin Tim was kilt be wan iv thim dhroppin' a bolt on his skull in th' ship-yards in Belfast. 'Twas lucky f'r that there Orangey he spoke first. Me cousin Tim had a ship-ax in his hand that'd 've evened things up f'r at laste wan iv th' poor pikemen that Sarsfield had along with him. But I've nawthin' again thim at that but th' wan that kilt Tim. I'd like to meet that lad in some quite place like th' Clan-na-Gael picnic on th' fifteenth iv August, some place where we'd have fair play. "Jawn, live an' let live is me motto. On'y I say this here, that 'tis a black disgrace to Chicago f'r to let th' likes iv thim thrapze about th' sthreets with their cheap ol' flags an' ribbons. Oh dear, oh dear, if Pathrick's Day on'y come some year on' th' twelfth day iv July! Where 'd they be, where 'd they be? "D'ye know things is goin' to th' dogs in this town, Jawn, avick? Sure they are, faith. I mind th' time well whin an Orangey 'd as lave go through hell in a celluloid suit as march in this here town on the twelfth iv July. I raymimber wanst they was a man be th' name iv Morgan Dempsey,--a first cousin iv thim Dempseys that lives in Cologne Sthreet,--an' he was a Roscommon man, too, an' wan iv th' cutest divvles that iver breathed th' breath iv life. "Well, whin th' day come f'r th' Orangeys to cillybrate th' time whin King Willum--may th' divvle hould him!--got a stand-off,--an' 'twas no betther, Jawn, f'r th' Irish'd 've skinned him alive if th' poor ol' gaby iv an English king hadn't ducked--What's that? Don't I know it? I have a book at home written be an impartial historyan, Pathrick Clancy Duffy, to prove it. What was I sayin'? Whin' th' twelfth day iv July come around an' th' Orangeys got ready to cillybrate th' day King Willum, with all his Gatlin' guns an' cannon, just barely sthud off Sarsfield an' his men that had on'y pikes an' brickbats an' billyard cues, th' good people was infuryated. I dinnaw who was th' mayor in thim days. He was niver ilicted again. But, annyhow, he give it out that th' Orangeys' procission must not be hurted. An' all th' newspapers asked th' good people to be quite, an' it was announced at high mass an' low mass that annywan that sthruck a blow 'd be excommunicated. "Well, ye know how it is whin modheration is counselled, Jawn. Modheration is another name f'r murdheration. So they put two platoons iv polismen in front iv th' Orangeys an' three behind, an' a double column alongside; an' away they wint. "No wan intherfered with thim; an' that didn't plaze Morgan Dempsey, who 'd served his time a calker in a ship-yard. Bein' iv a injaneyous disposition, he made up his mind f'r to do something to show that pathrietism wasn't dead in this counthry. So he got up in a hallway in Washington Sthreet, an' waited. Th' procission come with th' polismen in front an' behind an' along th' sides, an' th' German Band, thryin' to keep wan eye on the house-tops on both sides iv th' sthreet, an' to read th' music iv c Lillibullero' an' 'Croppies lie down' an' 'Boyne Wather' with th' other. Th' Orangeys didn't look up. They kept their eyes pointed sthraight ahead, I'll say that f'r thim. They're murdherin' vilyans; but they're Irish, iv a sort. "Whin they come by Dempsey, he pokes his head out iv th' dure; an' says he, 'Th' 'ell with all th' Prowtestant bishops.' Now that same over in Derry 'd have had all th' tilin's in town flyin'; but th' Orangeys 'd been warned not to fight, an' they wint sthraight on, on'y they sung 'Lillibullero.' Did ye niver hear it? It goes _(singing)_ 'Ho! Brother Teigue, dost hear in th' degree?' "Th' Lord f'rgive me f'r singin' it, Jawn. See if there's anny wan near th' dure. "Well, whin they got through, Dempsey puts his hands to his mouth, an' yells, 'Th' 'ell with King Willum.' That was more thin th' Orangeys cud stand. They halted as wan man, an' roared out, 'Th' 'ell with th' pope.' 'What's that?' says th' captain iv th' polis foorce. He was a man be th' name of Murphy, an' he was blue with rage f'r havin' to lead th' Orangeys. 'Ma-arch on, Brass Money,' says th' Orange marshal. Murphy pulled him fr'm his horse; an' they wint at it, club an' club. Be that time th' whole iv th' line was ingaged. Ivry copper belted an Orangey; an' a sergeant named Donahue wint through a whole lodge, armed on'y, Jawn, with a clarinet an' wan cymbal. He did so. An' Morgan Dempsey, th' cute divvle, he sthood by, an' encouraged both sides. F'r, next to an Orangey, he likes to see a polisman kilt. That ended wan Orangey parade. "Not that I think it was right. I suppose they ought to be left walk about, an' I'm a fair man. If th' blackest iv thim wint by now, I'd not raise me hand"-- "Hello," says Mr. McKenna, "here goes Killen, the Armagh man. They say he digs with his left foot." "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley, eagerly, "if ye run up on th' roof, ye'll find th' bricks loose in th' top row iv th' chimbley. Ye might hand him a few." THE FREEDOM PICNIC. "There's wan thing about th' Irish iv this town," said Mr. Dooley. "The police?" said Mr. McKenna. "No," said the philosopher. "But they give picnics that does bate all. Be hivins, if Ireland cud be freed be a picnic, it 'd not on'y be free to-day, but an impire, begorra, with Tim Haley, th' Banthry man, evictin' Lord Salisbury fr'm his houldin'. 'Twud that. "Jawn, th' la-ads have got th' thrick iv freein' Ireland down to a sinsible basis. In th' ol' days they wint over with dinnymite bumbs in their pockets, an' ayether got their rowlers on thim in Cork an' blew thimsilves up or was arristed in Queenstown f'r disordherly conduct. 'Twas a divvle iv a risky job to be a pathrite in thim days, an' none but those that had no wan dipindint on thim cud affoord it. But what was th' use? Ireland wint on bein' th' same opprissed green oil it had always been, an' th' on'y difference th' rivolutions made was ye sa-aw new faces on th' bridges an' th' Wolfe Tones passed another set iv resolutions. "'Tis different now. Whin we wants to smash th' Sassenach an' restore th' land iv th' birth iv some iv us to her thrue place among th' nations, we gives a picnic. 'Tis a dam sight asier thin goin' over with a slug iv joynt powder an' blowin' up a polis station with no wan in it. It costs less; an', whin 'tis done, a man can lep aboord a sthreet ca-ar, an' come to his family an' sleep it off. "I wint out last Choosdah, an' I suppose I must 've freed as much as eight counties in Ireland. All th' la-ads was there. Th' first ma-an I see was Dorgan, the sanyor guarjeen in the Wolfe Tone Lithry Society. He's th' la-ad that have made th' Prince iv Wales thrimble in his moccasins. I heerd him wanst makin' a speech that near injooced me to take a bumb in me hand an' blow up Westminsther Cathedral. 'A-re ye,' he says, 'men, or a-re ye slaves?' he says. 'Will ye,' he says, 'set idly by,' he says, 'while th' Sassenach,' he says, 'has th' counthry iv Immitt an' O'Connell,' he says, 'an' Jawn Im Smyth,' he says, 'undher his heel?' he says. 'Arouse,' he says, 'slaves an' despots!' he says. 'Clear th' way!' he says. 'Cowards an' thraitors!' he says. 'Faugh-a-ballagh!' he says. He had th' beer privilege at th' picnic, Jawn. "Hinnissy, th' plumber, who blew wan iv his fingers off with a bumb intinded f'r some iv th' archytecture iv Liverpool, had th' conthract f'r runnin' th' knock-th'-babby-down-an'-get-a-nice-seegar jint. F'r th' good iv th' cause I knocked th' babby down, Jawn, an' I on'y wish th' Queen iv England 'r th' Prince iv Wales cud be injooced to smoke wan iv th' seegars. Ye might as well go again a Roman candle. Th' wan I got was made iv baled hay, an' 'twas rumored about th' pa-ark that Hinnissy was wurrukin' off his surplus stock iv bumbs on th' pathrites. His cousin Darcey had th' shootin' gallery privilege, an' he done a business th' like iv which was niver knowed be puttin' up th' figure iv an Irish polisman f'r th' la-ads to shoot at. 'Twas bad in th' end though, f'r a gang iv Tipp'rary lads come along behind th' tent an' begun thrown stones at th' copper. Wan stone hit a Limerick man, an' th' cry 'butthermilk' wint around; an' be hivins, if it hadn't been that th' chief iv polis, th' wise la-ad, sint none but German polismen to th' picnic, there 'd not been a man left to tell th' tale." "What's that all got to do with freeing Ireland?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Well, 'tis no worse off thin it was befure, annyhow," said Mr. Dooley. THE IDLE APPRENTICE. "They hanged a man to-day," said Mr. Dooley. "They did so," said Mr. McKenna. "Did he die game?" "They say he did." "Well, he did," said Mr. Dooley. "I read it all in th' pa-apers. He died as game as if he was wan iv th' Christyan martyrs instead iv a thief that 'd hit his man wan crack too much. Saint or murdherer, 'tis little difference whin death comes up face front. "I read th' story iv this man through, Jawn; an', barrin' th' hangin', 'tis th' story iv tin thousan' like him. D'ye raymimber th' Carey kid? Ye do. Well, I knowed his grandfather; an' a dacinter ol' man niver wint to his jooty wanst a month. Whin he come over to live down be th' slip, 'twas as good a place as iver ye see. Th' honest men an' honest women wint as they pleased, an' laid hands on no wan. His boy Jim was as straight as th' r-roads in Kildare, but he took to dhrink; an', whin Jack Carey was born, he was a thramp on th' sthreets an' th' good woman was wurrukin' down-town, scrubbin' away at th' flures in th' city hall, where Dennehy got her. "Be that time around th' slip was rough-an'-tumble. It was dhrink an' fight ivry night an' all day Sundah. Th' little la-ads come together under sidewalks, an' rushed th' can over to Burke's on th' corner an' listened to what th' big lads tol' thim. Th' first instruction that Jack Carey had was how to take a man's pocket handkerchief without his feelin' it, an' th' nex' he had was larnin' how to get over th' fence iv th' Reform School at Halsted Sthreet in his stockin' feet. "He was a thief at tin year, an' th' polis 'd run f'r him if he'd showed his head. At twelve they sint him to th' bridewell f'r breakin' into a freight car. He come out, up to anny game. I see him whin he was a lad hardly to me waist stand on th' roof iv Finucane's Hall an' throw bricks at th' polisman. "He hated th' polis, an' good reason he had f'r it. They pulled him out iv bed be night to search him. If he turned a corner, they ran him f'r blocks down th' sthreet. Whin he got older, they begun shootin' at him; an' it wasn't manny years befure he begun to shoot back. He was right enough whin he was in here. I cud conthrol him. But manny th' night whin he had his full iv liquor I've see him go out with his gun in his outside pocket; an' thin I'd hear shot after shot down th' sthreet, an' I'd know him an' his ol' inimy Clancy 'd met an' was exchangin' compliments. He put wan man on th' polis pension fund with a bullet through his thigh. "They got him afther a while. He'd kept undher cover f'r months, livin' in freight cars an' hidin' undher viadocks with th' pistol in his hand. Wan night he come out, an' broke into Schwartzmeister's place. He sneaked through th' alley with th' German man's damper in his arms, an' Clancy leaped on him fr'm th' fence. Th' kid was tough, but Clancy played fut-ball with th' Finerty's on Sundah, an' was tougher; an', whin th' men on th' other beats come up, Carey was hammered so they had to carry him to th' station an' nurse him f'r trile. "He wint over th' road, an' come back gray an' stooped, I was afraid iv th' boy with his black eyes; an' wan night he see me watchin' him, an' he says: 'Ye needn't be afraid,' he says. 'I won't hurt ye. Ye're not Clancy,' he says, "I tol' Clancy about it, but he was a brave man; an' says he: ''Tis wan an' wan, an' a thief again an' honest man. If he gets me, he must get me quick.' Th' nex' night about dusk he come saunterin' up th' sthreet, swingin' his club an' jokin with his frind, whin some wan shouted, 'Look out, Clancy.' He was not quick enough. He died face forward, with his hands on his belt; an' befure all th' wurruld Jack Carey come across th' sthreet, an' put another ball in his head. "They got him within twinty yards iv me store. He was down in th' shadow iv th' house, an' they was shootin' at him fr'm roofs an' behind barns. Whin he see it was all up, he come out with his eyes closed, firin' straight ahead; an' they filled him so full iv lead he broke th' hub iv th' pathrol wagon takin' him to th' morgue." "It served him right," said Mr. McKenna. "Who?" said Mr. Dooley. "Carey or Clancy?" THE O'BRIENS FOREVER. "I think, by dad," said Mr. Dooley, "that Hinnissy's crazy." "I always thought so," said Mr. McKenna, amiably. "But what's he been doin' of late?" "Well, I took him down to see th' good la-ads havin' fun with th' opprissors iv th' people at th' Colliseem,' said Mr. Dooley. "I had no ticket, an' he had none. Th' frinds iv honest money had give thim all to Jawn P. Hopkins's la-ads. They're frinds iv honest money, whin they'se no other in sight. But I'd like to see anny goold-bug or opprissor iv th' people keep th' likes iv me an' Hinnissy out iv a convintion. We braced up to wan iv th' dures, an' a man stopped Hinnissy. 'Who ar-re ye?' he says. "I am a Dimmycrat,' says Hinnissy. 'Is ye'er name Hill?' says th' la-ad. 'It is not,' says Hinnissy. 'I tol' ye I'm a Dimmycrat; an',' he says, 'I'll have no man call me out iv me name.' Hinnissy was f'r rollin' him on th' flure there an' thin f'r an insult, but I flagged a polisman. 'Is ye'er name Sullivan?' says I. 'It is,' says he. 'Roscommon?' says I, fr'm th' way he spoke. 'Sure ye're right,' he says. 'Me name's Dooley,' I says. 'Here,' say he to th' dure-keeper, 'don't stand in th' way iv th' sinitor iv th' State iv Mitchigan,' he says. 'Lave him an' his frind go in,' he says. I minded afther I was good to him whin Simon O'Donnell was chief iv polis, may he rest in peace! "Hinnissy an' me got a seat be some dhroll ol' boys fr'm out in Iaway. Afther a man be th' name iv Martin, a sergeant-iv-arms, had addhressed th' meetin' twinty or thirty times,--I kep no count iv him,--th' chairman inthrojooced th' dillygates to nommynate th' big men. It wint all right with Hinnissy for a little while till a man got up an' shook his fist at th' chairman. 'What's that? what's that?' says Hinnissy. 'What's that?' he says. 'Hurroo, hurroo,' he says, lammin' th' man fr'm Iaway with his goold-headed cane. 'What ails ye, man alive?' says I. 'Why,' he says, 'they've nommynated Billy,' he says. 'Billy who?' says I. 'Why, Willum J. O'Brien,' he says. "'A sthrong man,' says he, addhressin' th' man fr'm Iaway. 'I shud say he was,' says th' man. 'Th' sthrongest man that iver come down th' road,' says Hinnissy. 'Why,' he says, 'I see that man put up an' eight iv beer with wan hand,' he says, 'holdin' it be th' rim,' he says. 'None sthronger,' he says. 'But will he carry Illinye?' says th' lad fr'm Iaway. 'Will he carry Illinye?' says Hinnissy. 'Why, man alive,' he says, 'I've see him carry a prim'ry in th' sixth precint,' he says. 'Is that enough f'r ye?' he says. 'He's a good speaker,' says th' Iaway man. 'He is that,' says Hinnissy; 'an' he was wan iv th' best waltzers that flung a foot at th' County Dimocracy picnic,' he says. 'But will he make a good fight?' says th' man. 'Will he?' says Hinnissy. 'Will he make a good fight?' he says. 'Dooley,' he says, 'this here Dimmycrat wants to know if Bill 'll make a good fight. Why,' he says, 'if he iver gets to Washington an' wan iv th' opprissors iv th' people goes again him, give him Jackson Park or a clothes closet, gun or soord, ice-pick or billyard cue, chair or stove leg, an' Bill 'll make him climb a tree,' he says. 'I'd like to see wan iv thim supreme justices again Bill O'Brien on an income tax or anny other ord-nance,' he says. 'He'd go in an' lame thim with th' Revised Statutes.' 'I presume,' says th' lad, 'that ye'er fr'm Omaha.' 'I'll tear ye'er hair out,' says Hinnissy.' "'Ye idjit,' says I, whin I had him in th' sthreet, 'it wasn't Bill O'Brien was nommynated,' says I. 'What ar-re ye talkin' about?' says he. 'I seen him on th' flure,' he says. 'He had th' sinitor iv Missoury be th' throat whin ye took me away,' he says. "I left him there; but he come into th' place at six o'clock, an' borrid a paper an' pencil. Thin he wint back, an' sat down an' wrote. 'What ar-re ye doin' there?' says I. 'I've wrote a sketch iv th' nominee f'r th' Stock-yards Sun,' he says. 'Listen to it. Willum J. O'Brien,' he says, 'was born in th' County iv Mayo forty years ago,' he says. 'He received a limited education, his parents even thin designin' him f'r th' Prisidincy. Bein' unable to complete a coorse at th' rayform school, he wint to wurruk; but soon, tired iv this, he started a saloon. Fr'm thince he dhrifted into politics, an' become noted as th' boy welter-weight iv th' South Branch. He was ilicted aldherman at a time whin comparatively nawthin' was doin' in th' council. Subsequent he become a sinitor, an' later enthered into partnership with th' Hon. Jawn Powers in th' retail liquor traffic. Mr. O'Brien is a fine built man, an' can lick anny wan iv his age west iv th' river, give 'r take tin pounds, color no bar. His heart bets up close to th' ribs iv th' common people, an' he would make opprissors iv th' poor wish they'd died early if ye give him a chance with a beer bottle. How's that?' says Hinnissy. "'Worse,' says I. 'Foolish man,' says I. 'Don't ye know that it ain't our Bill that's been nommynated?' I says. 'This is a Nebraska man,' I says. 'Well,' he says, 'if 'tis Bill O'Brien, he'd win easy. But,' he says, 'if 'tis not,' he says, ''tis wan iv th' fam'ly,' he says. 'I'll change this here novel an' make it a sketch iv th' cousin iv th' candydate,' he says. An' he wint on with his wurruk." A CANDIDATE'S PILLORY. "What's this counthry comin' to, annyhow, that a man that's out f'r to be Prisident has to set up on a high chair an' be questioned on his record be a lot iv la-ads that hasn't had annything to do since th' carpetbeatin' season's ended? "said Mr. Dooley. "Ye'd think Big Bill was r-runnin' f'r chief ex-icutive iv th' Clan-na-Gael. First along comes a comity iv th' Sons iv Rest. 'Major,' says they, 'we're insthructed be th' organization to ascertain ye'er views on th' important, we may say all-important, question iv havin' wire matthresses put on th' benches in th' parks. Are we,' they says, 'goin' f'r to have to wear lumps on our backs into all eternity,' they says, 'an' have our slumbers broke be th' hot fut iv th' polisman?' they says. 'We demand an answer,' they says, 'or, be this an' be that, we won't do a thing to ye.' Well, maybe Bill has been down to th' corner playin' a game iv spoil-five with his old frind Coalsack, an' has paid no attintion to th' Sons iv Rest. 'Well,' he says, 'gintlemen, I'm in favor iv doin' ivrything in reason f'r th' hoboes,' he says. 'Th' protection iv th' home hobo again th' pauper can trade iv Europe,' he says, 'has been wan iv th' principal wurruks iv me life,' he says; an' he gives thim each a hand out, an' bows thim to th' dure. "In comes a dillygation fr'm th' Union iv Amalgamated Pantsmakers; an' says th' chairman, 'Major,' he says, 'we have a complaint to make again thim pants iv ye'ers,' he says. 'What's th' matter with th' pants?' says th' future Prisident. 'I thought they looked all right,' he says. 'I paid four dollars f'r thim in Bucyrus las' year,' he says. 'They have no union label on thim,' says th' chairman. 'Do you know, sir,' he says, 'that thim pants riprisints th' oppression iv women an' childher?' he says. 'D'ye know that ivry thread in thim seams means a tear an' sigh?' says he. 'D'ye know that ivry time ye put on thim pants ye take a pair off some down-throdden workman?' he says. 'Glory be!' says Big Bill: 'is that thrue? Thin what am I to do?' he says in alarm. 'Do?' says th' chairman. 'Wear pants that riprisints honest toil fairly compinsated,' he says. 'Wear pants that 'll say to th' wurruld that Bill McKinley's legs are fair legs;' he says, 'that they may bow at th' knees, but they niver bow to th' opprissor,' he says; 'that niver did they wrap thimsilves in bags that bore th' curse iv monno-poly an' greed,' he says. 'An' where can I get thim?' says th' major, 'Fr'm me,' says th' frind iv labor, pullin' out a tape. 'Will ye have wan or two hip pockets?' he says. "An' so it goes. Ivry day a rayporther comes to th' house with a list iv questions. 'What are ye'er views on th' issue iv eatin' custard pie with a sponge? Do ye believe in side-combs? If called upon to veto a bill f'r all mimbers iv th' Supreme Coort to wear hoop-skirts, wud ye veto it or wudden't ye? If so, why? If not, why not? If a batted ball goes out iv th' line afther strikin' th' player's hands, is it fair or who? Have ye that tired feelin'? What is your opinion iv a hereafther? Where did you get that hat? If a man has eight dollars an' spends twelve iv it, what will th' poor man do? An' why an' where an' how much?' "Thin, if he don't answer, ivry wan says he's a thrimmer, an' ought to be runnin' a sthreet-car an' not thryin' to poke his ondecided face into th' White House. I mind wanst, whin me frind O'Brien was a candydate f'r aldherman, a comity iv tax-payers waited on him f'r to get his views on th' issues iv th' day. Big Casey, th' housemover, was th' chairman; an' he says, says he, 'Misther O'Brien,' he says, 'we are desirous,' he says, 'iv larnin' where ye stand on th' tariff, th' currency question, pensions, an' th' intherstate commerce act,' he says, with a wave iv his hand. 'Well,' says O'Brien, he says, 'th' issue on which I'm appealin' to th' free an' intilligent suffrages of Ar-rchey Road an' th' assistance iv Deerin' Sthreet Station,' he says, 'is whether little Mike Kelly will have th' bridge or not,' he says. 'On that I stand,' he says. 'As f'r th' minor issues,' he says, 'I may have me opinions on thim an' I may not. Anny information I possess I'll keep tucked away in this large an' commodjous mind cage, an' not be dealin' it out to th' likes iv ye, as though I was a comity iv th' Civic Featheration,' he says. 'Moreover,' he says, 'I'd like to know, you, Casey, what business have you got comin' roun' to my house and pryin' into my domestic affairs,' he says. ''Tis th' intherstate commerce act now, but th' nex' thing 'll be where I got th' pianny,' he says; 'an', f'r fear ye may not stop where ye are, here goes to mount ye.' An' he climbed th' big man, an' rolled him. Well, sir will ye believe me, ivry man on th' comity but wan voted f'r him. Casey was still in bed iliction day. "I met Tom Dorsey afther th' comity called. 'Well,' says I, 'I heerd ye was up to O'Brien's questionin' him on th' issues iv th' day,' I says. 'We was,' says he. 'Was his answers satisfacthry?' says I. 'Perfectly so,' he says. 'Whin th' comity left, we were all convinced that he was th' strongest man that cud be nommynated,' he says." THE DAY AFTER THE VICTORY. "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley, "didn't we give it to thim?" "Give it to who?" asked Mr. McKenna. "To th' Dimmycrats," said Mr. Dooley. "Go on," said Mr. McKenna. "You're a Democrat yourself." "Me?" said Mr. Dooley, "not on your life. Not in wan hundherd thousand years. Me a Dimmycrat? I shud say not, Jawn, me buck. I'm the hottest kind iv a Raypublican, me an' Maloney. I suppose they ain't two such Raypublicans annywhere. How can anny wan be annything else? Who was it that saved the Union, Jawn? Who was it? Who are th' frinds iv th' Irish? Who protecks th' poor wurrukin'man so that he'll have to go on wurrukin'? We do, Jawn. We Raypublicans, by dad. "They ain't a Dimmycrat fr'm wan end iv th' road to th' other. I just was over makin' a visit on Docherty, an' he'd took down th' picture iv Jackson an' Cleveland an' put up wan iv Grant an' Lincoln. Willum Joyce have come out f'r McKinley f'r Prisident, an' th' polisman on th' beat told me las' night that th' left'nant told him that 'twas time f'r a change. Th' Dimmycrats had rooned th' counthry with their free trade an' their foreign policy an' their I dinnaw what, an' 'twas high time an honest man got a crack at a down-town precinct with a faro bank or two in it. Th' polisman agreed with him that Cleveland have raised th' divvle with th' Constitootion; an', by gar, he's right, too. He's right, Jawn. He have a boy in th' wather office. "Ye mind Maloney, th' la-ad with th' game eye? He tends a bridge over be Goose Island way, but he was down here iliction day. Two weeks before iliction day he was again Winter. 'He's no good,' he says. 'He's a Boohemian,' he says. 'An' whin they come to ilictin' Boohemians f'r mayor,' he says, 'I'll go back to me ol' thrade iv shovellin' mud,' he says. 'Besides,' says he, 'if this here Winter wint in,' he says, 'ye cudden't stand acrost La Salle Street an' hand him a peach on a window pole, he'd be that stuck up,' he says. "Some wan must 've spoke to him; f'r, whin he come in th' next time, he says, 'They'se no use talkin',' he says, 'that there Dutchman is sthrong,' he says. 'I thought he was a Boolgahrian,' says I. 'No,' says he, 'he's a German man,' says he. 'An' th' Germans is with him to th' bitther end,' he says. 'D'ye know,' he says, 'I believe he'll give th' little bald-headed duck a run f'r his money,' he says. 'Thim Germans stand together,' he says. 'They're th' most clannish people on earth,' he says. 'I'm goin' over to th' Wolfe Tones to see what th' la-ads think about it.' Sundah night he come an' give a ca-ard f'r Winter to ivry man in th' place. 'He'll sweep th' town like a whirlwind,' he says. 'They can't beat him.' 'Who?' says I. 'Winter, iv coorse.' 'Is he a nice man?' says I. 'Wan iv th' finest men on earth,' he says. 'A spoort, too,' he says. 'An' liberal.' "He was in here iliction day, an' I had Hinnissy's kid runnin' fr'm th' station with rayturns. Maloney was talkin' to th' crowd an' buyin' dhrinks. 'Ye'd be surprised,' says he, 'to know what a nice fellow this here Winter is,' he says. 'Ye'd niver take him f'r a German,' he says. 'He have no more accint thin mesilf.' The kid come in, an' says he, 'Th' loot says tin precincts show Swift have a majority as big as what th' Raypublicans got las' fall.' 'That's bad,' says I. 'Not at all,' says Maloney. 'Thim's th' down-town wa-ards,' he says. 'Wait till ye hear fr'm th' Germans,' he says. Th' nex' booletin said Swift was gainin', an' had tin thousand majority. 'Niver mind,' says Maloney. 'Th' Germans 'll wipe that out,' he says. Thin we heerd it was twinty thousand f'r Swift. 'Glory be,' says Maloney, 'th' Germans is slow comin' in,' he says. 'Maybe,' says I, 'they forgot to vote,' says I. 'Maybe they're havin' a schootzenfist,' I says, 'an' are out killin' clay pigeons instid iv attendin' to business,' I says. Just thin th' loot come in. 'Well,' says he, ''tis quite a Waterloo,' says he. 'F'r who?' says I. 'Oh,' he says, 'Swift got it be forty thousand.' "Maloney wiped his face, and took off his hat an' swabbed it inside. Thin says he: 'D'ye raymimber me meetin' ye down-town a week ago on Dorney's place, loot?' he says. 'Yes,' says th' loot. 'D'ye mind what I said thin?' he says, 'I don't call it just now,' says the loot. 'Well, I just come fr'm a meetin' iv th' Swift Marchin' Club, an' I niver seen so much enthusyasm; an' I says to ye, I says: 'Loot,' I says, 'Swift 'll bate him aisy,' I says. 'I knew he would fr'm th' beginnin'. Ye take an' put up a good broad liberal man like George B., a man that has frinds an' knows how to be a good fellow, an' run him again a Boohemian gazabo who gives ivry man th' marble heart an' 'd turn down his own brother, an' anny fool cud tell who 'd win. They'll be some chance f'r a man with Swift over there; but, if this here Winter wint in, ye cudden't stand acrost La Salle Sthreet an' hand him a peach on th' end iv a window pole,' he says. "Will he lose his job? Not much, Jawn. That la-ad 'll be swingin' bridges an' throwin' away th' crust iv his pie whin you an' me are atin' ha-ard coal. He will that. But what do I care? Machs nix aus, Jawn; an' that being translated manes, 'What th' 'ell.'" A VISIT TO JEKYL ISLAND. "I'd like to been there," said Mr. Dooley. "Where's that?" Mr. Hennessy asked. "At Shekel Island," said Mr. Dooley, "seein' me frind Mack an' me frind Tom Reed meetin' be th' sad sea waves. "Ye see, Mack was down there with Mark Hanna. He was tired out with expandin', an' anxiety f'r fear me frind Alger 'd raysign; an' says Hanna, he says, 'Come down,' he says, 'with me,' he says, 'to Shekel Island,' he says. ''Tis th' home iv rayfinemint an' riches,' he says, 'where us millyionaires rest fr'm takin' care iv th' counthry,' he says. 'There in th' shade iv th' coupon threes,' he says, 'we watch th' sea waves, an' wondher,' he says, 'whin th' goold that's in thim can be exthracted,' he says. 'They'se nawthin' to break th' silence,' he says, 'but th' roarin' iv th' ocean,' he says; 'an' that sounds nat'ral,' he says, 'because 'tis almost like th' sound iv th' stock exchange,' he says. 'A man,' he says, 'that has th' ticker eye,' he says, 'or th' coupon thumb,' he says, 'is cured in no time,' he says. 'Come,' he says, 'fly with me,' he says. 'They'se nawthin' to keep ye here,' he says. 'Ivry wan iv th' cab'net, includin' th' Sicrety iv War, 'll stick to his place,' he says, 'like a man,' he says. "An' Mack wint with him. He was settin' on th' beach in a goold chair, surrounded be millyionaires, with th' prisident iv a bank fannin' him an' th' threeasurer iv a dimon' mine poorin' his dhrink; an', though he was feelin' well, they was something on his mind. 'What ails ye?' ast Hanna. 'I was thinkin',' says Mack, 'how pleasant 'twud be if me ol' frind Tom Reed was here,' he says. ''Twud be Paradise if he was here,' he says, whin, lo an' behold, who shud come acrost th' dimon'-studded beach, wadin' through th' bank-notes that 'd been dropped be th' good farmers iv Shekel Island, but Tom Reed. "Well, sir, to see th' affection that those two great men showed at th' encounther 'd dhraw tears fr'm th' eyes iv a hear-rt iv sthone. 'Tom,' says Mack, in faltherin' accints, 'where have ye been? F'r days an' days I've skinned yon blue horizon f'r anny sign iv ye,' he says. 'An' ye come not,' he says. 'I didn't think I cud miss ye so,' he says. 'Embrace me,' he says, 'if ye ar-re not ar-rmed,' he says. 'Mack,' says me frind Tom Reed, with tears in his eyes, 'this,' he says, 'is th' happiest moment iv me life,' he says. 'I cudden't,' he says, 'I cudden't stay in Wash'nton,' he says, 'with you so far away,' he says, 'where I cudden't watch ye,' he says. 'Ye're th' on'y man in th' wurruld I care f'r,' he says, 'but mesilf.' he says. 'An',' he says, 'I'd fall weepin' on ye'er shoulder this minyit,' he says; 'but I don't want to be disrayspectful be turnin' me back on Misther Hanna,' he says. "'Well,' says Mack, 'sit down,' he says. 'Rockyfeller,' he says, 'tell Morgan f'r to fetch up a kag iv sherry wine,' he says. 'Tom,' he says, 'we've been frinds f'r years,' he says. 'We have,' says Tom. 'We've concealed it fr'm th' vulgar an' pryin' public,' he says; 'but in our hear-rts we've been frinds, barrin' th' naygur dillygates at th' convintion,' he says. ''Twas a mere incident,' says Mack. 'We've been frinds,' he says; 'an' I've always wanted,' he says, 'to do something f'r ye,' he says. 'Th' time has come,' he says, 'whin I can realize me wish,' he says. 'I offer ye,' he says, 'th' Prisidincy, to succeed me,' he says. 'No, no,' he says, 'I'll not be rayfused,' he says. 'I'm tired iv it,' he says. ''Twas foorced on me be foolish frinds,' he says; 'but I'm not th' man f'r th' place,' he says. 'I haven't dhrawn a comfortable breath, not to speak iv salary, since I wint in,' he says. "Th' speaker iv th' house burrid his face in his hands, an' sobs shook him partly f'r manny minyits. Thin he raised his head, an' says he, 'Mack,' he says, 'I can't take it,' he says. ''Tis most gin'rous iv ye,' he says, 'but me hear-rt fails me,' he says. 'What is it to be Prisident?' says he. 'Th' White House,' he says, 'is a prison,' he says, 'to which a man is condimned,' he says, 'f'r fine wurruk at th' polls,' he says. 'Th' life iv a Prisident is slavery,' he says. 'If I was to take th' job,' he says, 'I'd be tortured day an' night,' he says, 'be th' fear iv assassination,' he says. 'Think,' he says, 'iv some arnychist shootin' thirteen-inch shells at me,' he says, 'an' maybe,' he says, 'dentin' me,' he says. 'No,' he says, 'I have a good job where I am,' he says. 'All I've got to do,' he says, 'is to set up at th' desk,' he says, 'an' not recall th' names iv th' gintlemen on th' flure, an' me jooty's done,' he says. 'I thank ye kindly, Willum; but I cannot accept ye'er gin'rous offer,' he says. 'Go back to th' cell,' he says, 'an' slave like a convict,' he says. 'I will not rob me frind,' he says, 'iv such an honor. But,' he says, 'tell me whin ye thought iv throwin' up th' job, an' lavin' me br-reak into this hateful prison,' he says. 'About th' year two thousan' an' eight, dear frind,' says Mack. 'No, no,' says Tom Reed. 'I cannot accept it,' he says, pressin' Mack's hand. ''Tis too much,' he says, 'an' too long,' he says. "'I lave ye,' he says, 'but I'll call on ye,' he says. 'Take,' he says, 'this little silver-mounted bottle iv broomo-caffeen,' he says, 'an' think iv me,' he says. 'I will,' says Mack. 'Ar-ren't ye tired iv ye'er long journey?' he says. 'Wudden't ye like to take a bath in th' shark pond before ye go?' he says. An' so they backed away fr'm each other, th' tears rollin' down their cheeks. Frindship, Hinnissy, is a sacred thing." "It is," said Mr. Hennessy, "if they are; but I don't b'lieve wan wurrud ye tol' me." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "if they ain't both frinds, wan iv thim is. An', annyhow, I'm glad to know Tom Reed ain't thryin' to break into jail." SLAVIN CONTRA WAGNER. "Ol' man Donahue bought Molly a pianny las' week," Mr. Dooley said in the course of his conversation with Mr. McKenna. "She'd been takin' lessons fr'm a Dutchman down th' sthreet, an' they say she can play as aisy with her hands crossed as she can with wan finger. She's been whalin' away iver since, an' Donahue is dhrinkin' again. "Ye see th' other night some iv th' la-ads wint over f'r to see whether they cud smash his table in a frindly game iv forty-fives. I don't know what possessed Donahue. He niver asked his frinds into the parlor befure. They used to set in th' dining-room; an', whin Mrs. Donahue coughed at iliven o'clock, they'd toddle out th' side dure with their hats in their hands. But this here night, whether 'twas that Donahue had taken on a dhrink or two too much or not, he asked thim all in th' front room, where Mrs. Donahue was settin' with Molly. 'I've brought me frinds,' he says, 'f'r to hear Molly take a fall out iv th' music-box,' he says. 'Let me have ye'er hat, Mike,' he says. 'Ye'll not feel it whin ye get out,' he says. "At anny other time Mrs. Donahue 'd give him th' marble heart. But they wasn't a man in th' party that had a pianny to his name, an' she knew they'd be throuble whin they wint home an' tould about it. ''Tis a mel-odjious insthrument,' says she. 'I cud sit here be the hour an' listen to Bootoven and Choochooski,' she says. "'What did thim write?' says Cassidy. 'Chunes,' says Donahue, 'chunes: Molly,' he says, 'fetch 'er th' wallop to make th' gintlemen feel good,' he says. 'What 'll it be, la-ads?' 'D'ye know "Down be th' Tan-yard Side"?' says Slavin. 'No,' says Molly. 'It goes like this,' says Slavin. 'A-ah, din yadden, yooden a-yadden, arrah yadden ay-a.' 'I dinnaw it,' says th' girl. ''Tis a low chune, annyhow,' says Mrs. Donahue. 'Misther Slavin ividintly thinks he's at a polis picnic,' she says. 'I'll have no come-all-ye's in this house,' she says. 'Molly, give us a few ba-ars fr'm Wagner.' 'What Wagner's that?' says Flannagan. 'No wan ye know,' says Donahue; 'he's a German musician.' 'Thim Germans is hot people f'r music,' says Cassidy. 'I knowed wan that cud play th' "Wacht am Rhine" on a pair iv cymbals,' he says, 'Whisht!' says Donahue. 'Give th' girl a chanst.' "Slavin tol' me about it. He says he niver heerd th' like in his born days. He says she fetched th' pianny two or three wallops that made Cassidy jump out iv his chair, an' Cassidy has charge iv th' steam whistle at th' quarry at that. She wint at it as though she had a gredge at it. First 'twas wan hand an' thin th' other, thin both hands, knuckles down; an' it looked, says Slavin, as if she was goin' to leap into th' middle iv it with both feet, whin Donahue jumps up. 'Hol' on!' he says. 'That's not a rented pianny, ye daft girl,' he says. 'Why, pap-pah,' says Molly, 'what d'ye mean?' she says. 'That's Wagner,' she says. ''Tis th' music iv th' future,' she says. 'Yes,' says Donahue, 'but I don't want me hell on earth. I can wait f'r it,' he says, 'with th' kind permission iv Mrs. Donahue,' he says. 'Play us th' "Wicklow Mountaineer,"' he says, 'an' threat th' masheen kindly,' he says, 'She'll play no "Wicklow Mountaineer,"' says Mrs. Donahue. 'If ye want to hear that kind iv chune, ye can go down to Finucane's Hall,' she says, 'an' call in Crowley, th' blind piper,' she says. 'Molly,' she says, 'give us wan iv thim Choochooski things,' she said. 'They're so ginteel.' "With that Donahue rose up. 'Come on,' says he. 'This is no place f'r us,' he says. Slavin, with th' politeness iv a man who's gettin' even, turns at th' dure. I'm sorry I can't remain,' he says. 'I think th' wurruld an' all iv Choochooski,' he says. 'Me brother used to play his chunes,' he says,--'me brother Mike, that run th' grip ca-ar,' he says. 'But there's wan thing missin' fr'm Molly's playing', he says. 'And what may that be?' says Mrs. Donahue. 'An ax,' says Slavin, backin' out. "So Donahue has took to dhrink." GRAND OPERA. "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley, "'tis a gr-reat thing to be a polisman. Me frind Doheny, what used to be at Deerin' Sthreet, have got on th' crossin' an' they've planted him down be th' Audjitooroom. He was up here las' week, an' says he, 'Run in, an' look at th' op'ra,' says he. 'Run in, an' take a flash iv it,' he says. ''Tis gr-reat,' he says. So I takes Duggan, an' we goes down together. "Well, Doheny does be gr-reat paper with thim. He was standin' be th' dure, with white gloves over his hands; an', whin we come, he give th' office to th' la-ad on th' gate, an' says th' la-ad, 'Sure thing,' he says. 'Sure thing,' an' in we goes. They was a lot iv Gazoorios there, some iv thim settin' in seats an' some iv thim in bur-rd cages up above, an' more standin'. Thim standin' was th' la-ads that Doheny rushed in. Ye niver see such a lot iv thim,--Cassidy, O'Regan, Hogan, Mulcahey, Shay, Mullaney, Mullvihill, an' th' eight O'Neills,--all sint through be Doheny without cridintials. Sure, it looked like a meetin' iv th' Wolf Tones. It did that. "Th' op'ra was on whin we wint in, an' they was whalin' away in Eyetallian. Duggan listened; an' says he, 'What's the man sayin'?' he says. 'I dinnaw,' I says. 'He's talkin' Chinese, an',' says I, 'they're goin' to sind him to th' laundhry,' says I. 'Look,' I says. 'They're puttin' him in th' clothes-basket,' I says. 'If they do,' says he, 'he'll niver come back,' he says, 'or else he'll have another name,' he says. 'Let's buy a scoor ca-ard,' says he. So he bought wan, an' was r-readin' it an' lookin' over th' top iv it at th' women in th' boxes, an' wondhrin' why some wan didn't tell thim their dhresses was slippin' down, whin over comes Cassidy, and says he, 'What's th' news in th' Sixth?' 'Nawthin,' says Duggan. 'Will O'Brien win?' says Cassidy. 'They can't beat him,' says Duggan. 'I dinnaw,' says Cassidy. 'Come over here, an' I'll tell ye,' says Duggan. Dinny Shay an' Hogan an' Mullaney jined us, an' we wint an' set on the steps. "'Can Winter beat Swift?' says Shay. 'I'd like to know,' says Hogan. 'I don't know who to vote f'r,' he says; 'an' Mike is in th' wather office,' he says. ''Tis a cinch Hinky 'll win out in th' First,' says Mullaney. 'He have a sthrong man again him,' says Hogan. 'Gleason have wan or two lodgin'-houses.' 'Three,' says Shay; 'but Hinkey knows all th' lodgers,' he says. ''Twas a mane thing th' main guy done with Callaghan,' says Hogan. 'What's that?' says Shay. 'Thrun him off th' bridge,' says Hogan, 'because he come fr'm Kerry,' he says. 'I don't believe wan wurrud iv it,' says Mullaney. 'They're more Kerry men on bridges thin anny other counties,' he says. 'What has bet Hopkins,' he says, 'is his frindship fr'm th' Mayo men,' he says. 'Th' Mayo men is great f'r carryin' prim'ries, afther they're over,' he says. 'But did anny wan iver hear iv thim doin' anny good whin th' votes was bein' cast?' 'I knowed wan that did,' says Cassidy, as black as ye'er boot. 'His name was Cassidy,' he says; 'an' he done some good,' he says, 'be privintin' a man be th' name iv Mullaney,' he says, 'fr'm bein' a dilligate.' 'Ye had th' polis with ye,' says Mullaney. 'Ye was supported be th' fire departmint,' says Cassidy. "'Let's change th' subject,' says Duggan, 'What show has Dorsey got in th' Twinty-ninth? 'None at all,' says wan iv th' O'Neills who 'd come over. 'He have th' Civic Featheration again him.' 'Who cares f'r th' Civic Featheration?' says Mulcahey. 'They don't vote,' he says. 'What 'll kill Dorsey,' he says, 'is his bein' an Apee-a.' 'He's no Apee-a,' says Mike O'Neill. 'I wint to th' Brothers' school with him,' he says. 'Whiniver a man comes up that can't be downed anny way, he's called an Apee-a,' he says. 'He's no more an Apee-a thin ye are,' he says. 'D'ye mean to call me that?' says Mulcahey. 'Come out, an' have a dhrink,' I says; an' we wint down. "Well, Jawn, we had wan iv th' liveliest political argumints ye iver see without so much as a blow bein' sthruck. Evenly matched, d'ye mind, with a chair f'r ivry man. An' th' bar-tinder was a frind iv mine. I knowed him whin he was with Schwartzmeister. A good la-ad,--a good lad." "But what about th' opera?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Th' op'ra wus gr-reat," said Mr. Dooley; "but I think Mulcahey was right. Dorsey can't win." THE CHURCH FAIR. "Wanst I knew a man," said Mr. Dooley, laying down his newspaper, "be th' name iv Burke, that come fr'm somewhere around Derry, though he was no Presbyteryan. He was iv th' right sort. Well, he was feelin' how-come-ye-so, an' he dhrifted over to where we was holdin' a fair. They was a band outside, an' he thought it was a grand openin'. So he come in with a cigar in th' side iv his mouth an' his hat hangin' onto his ear. It was th' last night iv th' fair, an' ivrything was wide open; f'r th' priest had gone home, an' we wanted f'r to break th' record. This Burke was f'r lavin' whin he see where he was; but we run him again th' shootin' gallery, where ye got twinty-five cints, a quarther iv a dollar, f'r ivry time ye rang th' bell. Th' ol' gun we had was crooked as a ram's horn, but it must 've fitted into Burke's squint; f'r he made that there bell ring as if he was a conducthor iv a grip-car roundin' a curve. He had th' shootin' gallery on its last legs whin we run him again th' wheel iv fortune. He broke it. Thin we thried him on th' grab-bag. They was four goold watches an' anny quantity iv brickbats an' chunks iv coal in th' bag. He had four dives, an' got a watch each time. He took a chanst on ivrything; an' he won a foldin'-bed, a doll that cud talk like an old gate, a pianny, a lamp-shade, a Life iv St. Aloysius, a pair iv shoes, a baseball bat, an ice-cream freezer, an' th' pomes iv Mike Scanlan. "Th' comity was disthracted. Here was a man that 'd break th' fair, an' do it with th' best iv humor; f'r he come fr'm another parish. So we held a private session. 'What 'll we do?' says Dorgan, th' chairman. They was a man be th' name iv Flaherty, a good man thin an' a betther now; f'r he's dead, may he rest in peace! An' Flaherty says: 'We've got to take th' bull be th' horns,' he says. 'If ye lave him to me,' he says, 'I'll fix him,' he says. "So he injooced this man Burke to come down back iv th' shootin' gallery, an' says he to Burke, 'Ye're lucky to-night.' 'Not so very,' says Burke. ''Twud be a shame to lave ye get away with all ye won,' says Flaherty. ''Twill be a great inconvanience,' says Burke. 'I'll have to hire two or three dhrays,' he says; 'an' 'tis late.' 'Well,' says Flaherty, 'I'm appinted be th' parish to cut th' ca-ards with ye,' he says, 'whether ye're to give back what ye won or take what's left.' ''Tis fair,' says Burke; 'an', whoiver wins, 'tis f'r a good cause.' An' he puts th' watches an' th' money on th' table. "'High man,' says Flaherty. 'High man,' says Burke. Flaherty cut th' king iv spades. Burke, th' robber, cut th' ace iv hearts. He was reachin' out f'r th' money, whin Flaherty put his hands over it. 'Wud ye take it?' says he. 'I wud,' says Burke. 'Wud ye rob th' church?' says Flaherty. 'I wud,' says Burke. 'Thin,' says Flaherty, scoopin' it in, 'ye're a heretic; an' they'se nawthin' comin' to ye.' "Burke looked at him, an' he looked at th' comity; an' he says, 'Gintlemen, if iver ye come over in th' Sixth Ward, dhrop in an' see me,' he says. 'I'll thry an' make it plisint f'r ye,' he says. An' he wint away. "Th' story got out, an' th' good man heerd iv it. He was mighty mad about it; an' th' nex' sermon he preached was on th' evils iv gamblin', but he asked Flaherty f'r to take up th' colliction." THE WANDERERS. "Poor la-ads, poor la-ads," said Mr. Dooley, putting aside his newspaper and rubbing his glasses. "'Tis a hard lot theirs, thim that go down into th' sea in ships, as Shakespeare says. Ye niver see a storm on th' ocean? Iv coorse ye didn't. How cud ye, ye that was born away fr'm home? But I have, Jawn. May th' saints save me fr'm another! I come over in th' bowels iv a big crazy balloon iv a propeller, like wan iv thim ye see hooked up to Dempsey's dock, loaded with lumber an' slabs an' Swedes. We watched th' little ol' island fadin' away behind us, with th' sun sthrikin' th' white house-tops iv Queenstown an' lightin' up th' chimbleys iv Martin Hogan's liquor store. Not wan iv us but had left near all we loved behind, an' sare a chance that we'd iver spoon th' stirabout out iv th' pot above th' ol' peat fire again. Yes, by dad, there was wan,--a lad fr'm th' County Roscommon. Divvle th' tear he shed. But, whin we had parted fr'm land, he turns to me, an' says, 'Well, we're on our way,' he says. 'We are that,' says I. 'No chanst f'r thim to turn around an' go back,' he says. 'Divvle th' fut,' says I. 'Thin,' he says, raisin' his voice, 'to 'ell with th' Prince iv Wales,' he says. 'To 'ell with him,' he says. "An' that was th' last we see of sky or sun f'r six days. That night come up th' divvle's own storm. Th' waves tore an' walloped th' ol' boat, an' th' wind howled, an' ye cud hear th' machinery snortin' beyant. Murther, but I was sick. Wan time th' ship 'd be settin' on its tail, another it 'd be standin' on its head, thin rollin' over cow-like on th' side; an' ivry time it lurched me stummick lurched with it, an' I was tore an' rint an' racked till, if death come, it 'd found me willin'. An' th' Roscommon man,--glory be, but he was disthressed. He set on th' flure, with his hands on his belt an' his face as white as stone, an' rocked to an' fro. 'Ahoo,' he says, 'ahoo, but me insides has torn loose,' he says, 'an' are tumblin' around,' he says. 'Say a pather an' avy,' says I, I was that mad f'r th' big bosthoon f'r his blatherin'. 'Say a pather an' avy,' I says; f'r ye're near to death's dure, avick.' 'Am I?' says he, raising up. 'Thin,' he says, 'to 'ell with the whole rile fam'ly,' he says. Oh, he was a rebel! "Through th' storm there was a babby cryin'. 'Twas a little wan, no more thin a year ol'; an' 'twas owned be a Tipp'rary man who come fr'm near Clonmel, a poor, weak, scarey-lookin' little divvle that lost his wife, an' see th' bailiff walk off with th' cow, an' thin see him come back again with th' process servers. An' so he was comin' over with th' babby, an' bein' mother an' father to it. He'd rock it be th' hour on his knees, an' talk nonsense to it, an' sing it songs, 'Aha, 'twas there I met a maiden,' an' 'Th' Wicklow Mountaineer,' an' 'Th' Rambler fr'm Clare,' an' 'O'Donnel Aboo,' croonin' thim in th' little babby's ears, an' payin' no attintion to th' poorin' thunder above his head, day an' night, day an' night, poor soul. An' th' babby cryin' out his heart, an' him settin' there with his eyes as red as his hair, an' makin' no kick, poor soul. "But wan day th' ship settled down steady, an' ragin' stummicks with it; an' th' Roscommon man shakes himself, an' says, 'To 'ell with th' Prince iv Wales an' th' Dook iv Edinboroo,' an' goes out. An' near all th' steerage followed; f'r th' storm had done its worst, an' gone on to throuble those that come afther, an' may th' divvle go with it. 'Twill be rest f'r that little Tipp'rary man; f'r th' waves was r-runnin' low an' peaceful, an' th' babby have sthopped cryin'. "He had been settin' on a stool, but he come over to me. 'Th' storm,' says I, 'is over. 'Twas wild while it lasted,' says I. 'Ye may say so,' says he. 'Well, please Gawd,' says I, 'that it left none worse off thin us.' 'It blew ill f'r some an' aise f'r others,' says he. 'Th' babby is gone.' "An' so it was, Jawn, f'r all his rockin' an' singin'. An' in th' avnin' they burried it over th' side into th' sea. An' th' little man see thim do it." MAKING A CABINET. "I suppose, Jawn," said Mr. Dooley, "ye do be afther a governmint job. Is it council to Athlone or what, I dinnaw?" "I haven't picked out the place yet," said Mr. McKenna. "Bill wrote me the day after election about it. He says: 'John,' he says, 'take anything you want that's not nailed to the wall,' he says. He heard of my good work in the Twenty-ninth. We rolled up eight votes in Carey's precinct, and had five of them counted; and that's more of a miracle than carrying New York by three hundred thousand." "It is so," said Mr. Dooley. "It is f'r a fact. Ye must 've give the clerks an' judges morphine, an' ye desarve great credit. Ye ought to have a place; an' I think ye'll get wan, if there's enough to go round among th' Irish Raypublicans. 'Tis curious what an effect an iliction has on th' Irish Raypublican vote. In October an Irish Raypublican's so rare people point him out on th' sthreet, an' women carry their babies to see him. But th' day afther iliction, glory be, ye run into thim ivrywhere,--on th' sthreet-car, in the sthreet, in saloons principally, an' at th' meetin's iv th' Raypublican Comity. I've seen as manny iv them as twinty in here to-day, an' ivry wan iv thim fit to run anny job in th' governmint, fr'm directin' th' Departmint iv State to carryin' ashes out an' dumpin thim in th' white lot. "They can't all have jobs, but they've got to be attinded to first; an', whin Mack's got through with thim, he can turn in an' make up that cabinet iv his. Thin he'll have throuble iv his own, th' poor man, on'y comin' into fifty thousand a year and rint free. If 'twas wan iv th' customs iv th' great raypublic iv ours, Jawn, f'r to appoint th' most competent men f'r th' places, he'd have a mighty small lot f'r to pick fr'm. But, seein' that on'y thim is iligible that are unfit, he has th' divvle's own time selectin'. F'r Sicrety iv State, if he follows all iv what Casey calls recent precidints, he's limited to ayether a jack-leg counthry lawyer, that has set around Washington f'r twinty years, pickin' up a dollar or two be runnin' errands f'r a foreign imbassy, or a judge that doesn't know whether th' city of Booloogne-sure-Mere, where Tynan was pinched, is in Boolgahria or th' County Cavan. F'r Sicrety iv th' Threasury he has a choice iv three kinds iv proud and incompetent fi-nanceers. He can ayether take a bank prisident, that 'll see that his little bank an' its frinds doesn't get th' worst iv it, or a man that cudden't maintain th' par'ty iv a counthry dhry-good store long enough to stand off th' sheriff, or a broken-down Congressman, that is full iv red liquor half the year, an' has remorse settin' on his chest th' other half. "On'y wan class is iligible f'r Attorney-gin'ral. To fill that job, a man's got to be a first-class thrust lawyer. If he ain't, th' Lord knows what 'll happen. Be mistake he might prosecute a thrust some day, an' th' whole counthry 'll be rooned. He must be a man competint f'r to avoid such pitfalls an' snares, so 'tis th' rule f'r to have him hang on to his job with th' thrust afther he gets to Washington. This keeps him in touch with th' business intherests. "F'r Sicrety iv War, th' most like wan is some good prisident iv a sthreet-car company. 'Tis exthraordinney how a man learns to manage military affairs be auditin' thrip sheets an' rentin' signs in a sthreet-car to chewin' gum imporyums. If Gin'ral Washington iv sacred mimory 'd been under a good sthreet-car Sicrety iv War, he'd 've wore a bell punch to ring up ivry time he killed a Hessian. He wud so, an' they'd 've kep' tab on him, an', if he thried to wurruk a brother-in-law on thim, they'd give him his time. "F'r th' Navy Departmint ye want a Southern Congressman fr'm th' cotton belt. A man that iver see salt wather outside iv a pork bar'l 'd be disqualified f'r th' place. He must live so far fr'm th' sea that he don't know a capstan bar fr'm a sheet anchor. That puts him in th' proper position to inspect armor plate f'r th' imminent Carnegie, an' insthruct admirals that's been cruisin' an' fightin' an' dhrinkin' mint juleps f'r thirty years. He must know th' difference bechune silo an' insilage, how to wean a bull calf, an' th' best way to cure a spavin. If he has that information, he is fixed f'r th' job. "Whin he wants a good Postmaster-gin-'ral, take ye'er ol' law partner f'r awhile, an', be th' time he's larned to stick stamps, hist him out, an' put in a school-teacher fr'm a part iv th' counthry where people communicate with each other through a conch. Th' Sicrety iv th' Interior is an important man. If possible, he ought to come fr'm Maine or Florida. At anny rate, he must be a resident iv an Atlantic seacoast town, an' niver been west iv Cohoes. If he gets th' idee there are anny white people in Ann Arbor or Columbus, he loses his job. "Th' last place on th' list is Sicrety iv Agriculture. A good, lively business man that was born in th' First Ward an' moved to th' Twinty-foorth after th' fire is best suited to this office. Thin he'll have no prejudices against sindin' a farmer cactus seeds whin he's on'y lookin' f'r wheat, an' he will have a proper understandin' iv th' importance iv an' early Agricultural Bureau rayport to th' bucket-shops. "No Prisident can go far away that follows Cleveland's cabinet appintmints, although it may be hard f'r Mack, bein' new at th' business, to select th' right man f'r th' wrong place. But I'm sure he'll be advised be his frinds, an' fr'm th' lists iv candydates I've seen he'll have no throuble in findin' timber." OLD AGE. "Skatin'," said Mr. Dooley, "was intinded f'r th' young an' gay. 'Tis not f'r th' likes iv me, now that age has crept into me bones an' whitened th' head iv me. Divvle take th' rheumatics! An' to think iv me twinty years ago cuttin' capers like a bally dancer, whin th' Desplaines backed up an' th' pee-raires was covered with ice fr'm th' mills to Riverside. Manny's th' time I done th' thrick, Jawn, me an' th' others; but now I break me back broachin' a kag iv beer, an' th' height iv me daily exercise is to wind th' clock befure turnin' in, an' count up th' cash." "You haven't been trying to skate?" Mr. McKenna asked in tones of alarm. "Not me," said Mr. Dooley. "Not me, but Hinnissy have. Hinnissy, th' gay young man; Hinnissy, th' high-hearted, divvle-may-care sphread-th'-light,--Hinnissy's been skatin' again. May th' Lord give that man sinse befure he dies! An' he needs it right away. He ain't got long to live, if me cousin, Misther Justice Dooley, don't appoint a garjeen f'r him. "I had no more thought whin I wint over with him that th' silly goat 'd thry his pranks thin I have iv flyin' over this here bar mesilf. Hinnissy is--let me see how ol' Hinnissy is. He was a good foot taller thin me th' St. John's night whin th' comet was in th' sky. Let me see, let me see! Jawn Dorgan was marrid to th' widdy Casey (her that was Dora O'Brien) in th' spring iv fifty-two, an' Mike Callahan wint to Austhreelia in th' winter iv sixty. Hinnissy's oldest brother was too old to inlist in th' army. Six an' thirty is thirty-six. Twict thirty-six is sivinty-two, less eight is sixty-four, an' nine, carry wan,--let me see. Well, Hinnissy is ol' enough to know betther. "We wint to th' pond together, an' passed th' time iv day with our frinds an' watched th' boys an' girls playin' shinny an' sky-larkin' hand in hand. They come separate, Jawn; but they go home together, thim young wans. I see be his face Spoort Hinnissy was growin' excited. 'Sure,' says he, 'there's nawthin' like it,' he says. 'Martin,' he says, 'I'll challenge ye to race,' he says. 'So ye will,' says I. 'So ye will,' I says. 'Will ye do it?' says he. 'Hinnissy,' says I, 'come home,' I says, 'an' don't disgrace ye'er gray hairs befure th' whole parish,' says I. 'I'll have ye to know,' says he, 'that 'tis not long since I cud cut a double eight with anny wan in Bridgeport,' he says. "At that Tom Gallagher's young fly-be-night joined in; an' says he, 'Misther Hinnissy,' he says, 'if ye'll go on,' he says, 'I'll fetch ye a pair iv skates.' 'Bring thim along,' says Hinnissy. An' he put thim on. Well, Jawn, he sthud up an' made wan step, an' wan iv his feet wint that way an' wan this; an' he thrun his hands in th' air, an' come down on his back. I give him th' merry laugh. He wint clear daft, an' thried to sthruggle to his feet; an', th' more he thried, th' more th' skates wint fr'm undher him, till he looked f'r all th' wurruld like wan iv thim little squirrels that goes roun' on th' wheel in Schneider's burrud store. "Gallagher's lad picked him up an' sthud him on his feet; an' says he, politely, 'Come on,' he says, 'go roun' with me.' Mind ye, he took him out to th' middle iv th' pond, Hinnissy movin' like a bridge horse on a slippery thrack; an' th' lad shook him off, an' skated away. 'Come back!' says Hinnissy. 'Come back!' he says. 'Tom, I'll flay ye alive whin I catch ye on th' sthreet! Come here, like a good boy, an' help me off. Dooley,' he roars to me, 'ain't ye goin' to do annything?' he says. 'Ne'er a thing,' says I, 'but go home.' 'But how 'm I goin' to cross?' he says. 'Go down on ye'er knees an' crawl,' says I. 'Foolish man!' I says. An' he done it, Jawn. It took him tin minyits to get down in sections, but he done it. An' I sthud there, an' waited f'r him while he crawled wan block over th' ice, mutterin' prayers at ivry fut. "I wint home with him aftherwards; an' what d'ye think he said? 'Martin,' says he, 'I've been a sinful man in me time; but I niver had th' like iv that f'r a pinance,' he says. 'Think iv doin' th' stations iv th' cross on th' ice,' he says. 'Hinnissy,' I says, 'they'se no crime in th' catalogue akel to bein' old,' I says. 'Th' nearest thing to it,' I says, 'is bein' a fool,' I says; 'an' ye're both,' I says." THE DIVIDED SKIRT. "Jawn," said Mr. Dooley, "did ye iver hear th' puzzle whin a woman's not a woman?" "Faith, I have," said Mr. McKenna. "When I was a kid, I knew the answer." "Ye didn't know this answer," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin is a woman not a woman? 'Twas give to me las' Satthurdah night be young Callaghan, th' sthreet-car man that have all th' latest jokes that does be out. Whin is a woman not a woman? mind ye. Whin's she's on a bicycle, by dad. Yes, yes. Whin she's on a bicycle, Jawn. D'ye know Molly Donahue?" "I know her father," said Mr. McKenna. "Well, well, the dacint man sint his daughter Molly to have a convint schoolin'; an' she larned to pass th' butther in Frinch an' to paint all th' chiny dishes in th' cubb'rd, so that, whin Donahue come home wan night an' et his supper, he ate a green paint ha-arp along with his cabbage, an' they had to sind f'r Docthor Hinnissy f'r to pump th' a-art work out iv him. So they did. But Donahue, bein' a quite man, niver minded that, but let her go on with her do-se-does an' bought her a bicycle. All th' bicycles th' poor man had himsilf whin he was her age was th' dhray he used to dhrive f'r Comiskey; but he says, 'Tis all th' thing,' he says. 'Let th' poor child go her way,' he says to his wife, he says. 'Honoria,' he says, 'she'll get over it.' "No wan knowed she had th' bicycle, because she wint out afther dark an' practised on it down be th' dump. But las' Friday ev'nin', lo an' behold, whin th' r-road was crowded with people fr'm th' brick-yards an' th' gas-house an' th' mills, who shud come ridin' along be th' thracks, bumpin' an' holdin' on, but Molly Donahue? An' dhressed! How d'ye suppose she was dhressed? In pa-ants, Jawn avick. In pa-ants. Oh, th' shame iv it! Ivry wan on th' sthreet stopped f'r to yell. Little Julia Dorgan called out, 'Who stole Molly's dhress?' Ol' man Murphy was settin' asleep on his stoop. He heerd th' noise, an' woke up an' set his bull tarrier Lydia Pinkham on her. Malachi Dorsey, vice-prisident iv th' St. Aloysius Society, was comin' out iv th' German's, an' see her. He put his hands to his face, an' wint back to th' house. "But she wint bumpin' on, Jawn, till she come up be th' house. Father Kelly was standin' out in front, an' ol' man Donahue was layin' down th' law to him about th' tariff, whin along come th' poor foolish girl with all th' kids in Bridgeport afther her. Donahue turned white. 'Say a pather an' avy quick,' he says to the priest. Thin he called out to his wife. 'Honoria,' he says, 'bring a bar'l,' he says. 'Molly has come away without annything on,' he says, 'but Sarsfield's pa-ants.' Thin he turned on his daughter. 'May th' Lord forgive ye, Molly Donahue,' he says, 'this night!' he says. 'Child, where is ye'er dhress?' 'Tut, tut!' says th' good man. 'Molly,' he says, 'ye look well on that there bicycle,' he says. 'But 'tis th' first time I ever knowed ye was bow-legged,' he says, says th' soggarth aroon. "Well, sir, she wint into th' house as if she'd been shot fr'm a gun, an' th' nex' mornin' I see Doheny's express wagon haulin' th' bicycle away." "Didn't Father Kelly do anything about it?" asked Mr. McKenna. "No," replied Mr. Dooley. "There was some expicted she'd be read fr'm th' altar at high mass, but she wasn't." A BIT OF HISTORY. Mr. McKenna found Mr. Dooley standing at the end of his bargain counter with the glasses on the tip of his nose. He was in deep contemplation of a pile of green paper which he was thumbing over. "Jawn," said he, as Mr. McKenna walked over and looked on curiously, "d'ye know a good man that I cud thrust to remodel th' shop?" "And what's got into you?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Im goin' to have two large mirrors put on th' side an' wan below. Thin I'm goin' to have th' ceilin' painted green, an' a bull-yard table put in th' back room. 'Twill be a place to par'lyze ye whin it is through with." "And what 'll pay for it?" asked Mr. McKenna, in blank amazement. "This," said Mr. Dooley, whacking the pile before him. "Here's twinty thousand dollars iv th' bonds iv th' raypublic. They bear inthrest at twinty-five per cint; an' they're signed be Xavier O'Malley, Pagan O'Leary (th' wicked man), an' O'Brien, th' threeasurer. Me cousin Mike put thim up with me f'r a loan iv five. He wurruked in th' threeasurer's office; an', whin th' polis broke up th' Irish rivolution, he put on his coat an' stuck a month's bond issue in his pocket. 'They'll come in handy wan day,' he says; for he was a philosopher, if he did take a dhrop too much. Whin he give me th' bonds, he says, says he, 'Hol' to thim,' he says, 'an' some time or other they'll make a rich man iv ye.' Jawn, I feel th' time has come. Cleveland's on th' rampage; an', if Ireland ain't a raypublic befure a month, I'll give ye these here documents f'r what I paid on thim. I have me information fr'm Hinnissy, an' Hinnissy have it fr'm Willum Joyce, an' ye know how close Joyce is to Finerty. Hinnissy was in last night. 'Well,' says I, 'what's th' news?' I says. 'News?' says he. 'They'se on'y wan thing talked about,' he says. 'We're goin' to have a war with England,' he says. 'An' th' whole Irish army has inlisted,' he says. 'Has Finerty gone in?' says I. 'He has,' he says. 'Thin,' says I, ''tis all off with th' Sassenach. We'll run thim fr'm th' face iv th' earth,' I says. ''Tis th' prisint intintion iv mesilf to hire a good big tug an' put a hook into Ireland, an' tow it over th' big dhrink, an' anchor it ayether in th' harbor iv New York or in th' lake. "D'ye know, Jawn, 'twas Cleveland that definded th' Fenians whin they was took up f'r invadin' Canada. 'Twas so. He was not much in thim days,--a kid iv a lawyer, like Doheny's youngest, with a lot iv hair an' a long coat an' a hungry look. Whin th' Fenians come back fr'm Canada in a boat an' landed in th' city iv Buf-falo, New York, they was all run in; an' sare a lawyer cud they get to defind thim till this here Cleveland come up, an' says he: 'I'll take th' job,' he says. 'I'll go in an' do th' best I can f'r ye.' Me uncle Mike was along with thim, an' he looked Cleveland over; an' says he: 'Ye'll do th' best ye can f'r us,' he says, 'will ye?' he says. 'Well,' he says, 'I'll take no chances,' he says. 'Sind f'r th' desk sergeant,' he says. 'I'm goin' to plead guilty an' turn informer,' he says. 'Tis lucky f'r Cleveland me uncle died befure he r-run f'r President. He'd 've had wan vote less. "I'll niver forget th' night me uncle Mike come back fr'm Canada. Ye know he was wan iv th' most des'prit Fenians that iver lived; an', whin th' movement begun, he had to thread on no wan's shadow befure he was off f'r th' battle. Ivry wan in town knew he was goin'; an' he wint away with a thrunk full iv bottles an' all th' good wishes iv th' neighborhood, more be reason iv th' fact that he was a boistherous man whin he was th' worse f'r wear, with a bad habit iv throwin' bricks through his neighbors' windys. We cud see him as th' thrain moved out, walkin' up an' down th' aisle, askin' iv there was anny Englishman in th' car that 'd like to go out on th' platform an' rowl off with him. "Well, he got up in New York an' met a lot iv other des'prite men like himsilf, an' they wint across th' bordher singin' songs an' carryin' on, an' all th' militia iv New York was undher ar-rms; f'r it 'd been just like thim to turn round an' do their fightin' in New York. 'Twas little me uncle Mike cared where he fought. "But, be hook or crook, they got to where th' other Fenians was, an' jined th' army. They come fr'm far an' near; an' they were young an' old, poor lads, some iv thim bent on sthrikin' th' blow that 'd break th' back iv British tyranny an' some jus' crazed f'r fightin'. They had big guns an' little guns an' soord canes an' pitchforks an' scythes, an' wan or two men had come over armed with baseball bats. They had more gin'rals thin ye cud find in a Raypublican West Town convintion, an' ivry private was at laste a colonel. They made me uncle Mike a brigadier gin'ral. 'That 'll do f'r a time,' says he; 'but, whin th' fun begins, I'll pull Dorney off his horse, an' be a major gin'ral,' he says. An' he'd 've done it, too, on'y they was no fightin'. "They marched on, an' th' British run away fr'm thim; an', be hivins, me uncle Mike cud niver get a shot at a redcoat, though he searched high an' low f'r wan. Thin a big rain-storm come, an' they was no tents to protect thim; an' they set aroun', shiverin' an' swearin'. Me uncle Mike was a bit iv a politician; an' he organized a meetin' iv th' lads that had come over with him, an' sint a comity to wait on th' major gin'ral. 'Dorney,' says me uncle Mike, f'r he was chairman iv th' comity, 'Dorney,' he says, 'me an' me associated warriors wants to know,' he says. 'What d'ye mane?' says Dorney. 'Ye brought us up here,' says me uncle Mike, 'to fight the British,' he says. 'If ye think,' he says, 'that we come over,' he says, 'to engage in a six days' go-as-you-please walkin' match,' he says, 'ye'd betther go an' have ye'er head looked into,' he says. 'Have ye anny British around here? Have ye e'er a Sassenach concealed about ye'er clothes?' he says. 'We can't do annything if they won't stand f'r us,' says Dorney. 'Thin,' says me uncle Mike, 'I wash me hands iv th' whole invasion,' he says. 'I'll throuble ye f'r me voucher,' he says. 'I'm goin back to a counthry where they grow men that 'll stand up an' fight back,' he says; an' he an' his la-ads wint over to Buf-falo, an' was locked up f'r rivolution. "Me uncle Mike come home on th' bumpers iv a freight car, which is th' way most rivolutioners come home, excipt thim that comes home in th' baggage car in crates. 'Uncle Mike,' says I to him, 'what's war like, annyhow?' 'Well,' says he, 'in some rayspicts it is like missin' th' last car,' he says; 'an' in other rayspicts 'tis like gettin' gay in front iv a polis station,' he says. An', by dad, whin I come to think what they call wars nowadays, I believe me uncle Mike was right. 'Twas different whin I was a lad. They had wars in thim days that was wars." THE RULING CLASS. "I see be th' pa-apers," said Mr. Dooley, "that arnychy's torch do be lifted, an' what it means I dinnaw; but this here I know, Jawn, that all arnychists is inimies iv governmint, an' all iv thim ought to be hung f'r th' first offence an' bathed f'r th' second. Who are they, annyhow, but foreigners, an' what right have they to be holdin' torchlight procissions in this land iv th' free an' home iv th' brave? Did ye iver see an American or an Irishman an arnychist? No, an' ye niver will. Whin an Irishman thinks th' way iv thim la-ads, he goes on th' polis force an' dhraws his eighty-three-thirty-three f'r throwin' lodgin'-house bums into th' pathrol wagon. An' there ye a-are. "I niver knowed but th' wan arnychist, an' he was th' divvle an' all f'r slaughtherin' th' rich. He was a Boolgahrian man that lived down be Cologne Sthreet, acrost th' river; but he come over to Bridgeport whin he did have his skates on him, f'r th' liftenant over there was again arnychists, an' 'twas little our own Jawnny Shea cared f'r thim so long as they didn't bother him. Well, sir, this here man's name was Owsky or something iv that sort, but I always called him Casey be way iv a joke. He had whiskers on him like thim on a cokynut, an' I heerd he swore an oath niver to get shaved till he killed a man that wore a stove-pipe hat. "Be that as it may, Jawn, he was a most ferocious man. Manny's th' time I've heerd him lecture to little Matt Doolan asleep like a log behind th' stove. What a-are we comin' to?' he'd say. 'What a-are we comin' to?' D'ye mind, Jawn, that's th' way he always began. 'Th' poor do be gettin' richer,' says he, 'an' th' rich poorer,' says he. 'Th' governmint,' says he, 'is in th' hands iv th' monno-polists,' he says, 'an' they're crushin' th' life out iv th' prolotoorios.' A prolotoorio, Jawn, is th' same thing as a hobo. 'Look at th' Willum Haitch Vanderbilts,' says he, 'an' th' Gools an' th' Astors,' says he, 'an' thin look at us,' he says, 'groun' down,' he says, 'till we cries f'r bread on th' sthreet,' he says; 'an' they give us a stone,' he says. 'Dooley,' he says, 'fetch in a tub iv beer, an' lave th' collar off,' he says. "Doolan 'd wake up with a start, an' applaud at that. He was a little tailor-man that wurruked in a panthry down town, an' I seen him weep whin a dog was r-run over be a dhray. Thin Casey 'd call on Doolan f'r to stand his ground an' desthroy th' polis,--'th' onions iv th' monno-polists,' he called thim,--an' Doolan 'd say, 'Hear, hear,' till I thrun thim both out. "I thought me frind Casey 'd be taken up f'r histin' a polisman f'r sure, though, to be fair with him, I niver knowed him to do but wan arnychist thing, and that was to make faces at Willum Joyce because he lived in a two-story an' bay-window brick house. Doolan said that was goin' too far, because Willum Joyce usually had th' price. Wan day Casey disappeared, an' I heerd he was married. He niver showed up f'r a year; an', whin he come in, I hardly knowed him. His whiskers had been filed an' his hair cut, an' he was dhressed up to kill. He wint into th' back room, an' Doolan was asleep there. He woke him, an' made a speech to him that was full iv slaughther and bloodshed. Pretty soon in come a little woman, with a shawl over her head,--a little German lady. Says she, 'Where's me hoosband?' in a German brogue ye cud cut with an ax. 'I don't know ye'er husband, ma'am,' says I. 'What's his name?' She told me, an' I seen she was Casey's wife; 'He's in there,' I says. 'In back,' I says, 'talking to Doolan, th' prolotoorio.' I wint back with her, an' there was Casey whalin' away. 'Ar-re ye men or ar-re ye slaves?' he says to Doolan. 'Julius,' says his wife, 'vat ye doin' there, ye blackgaard,' she says. 'Comin' ze, or be hivens I'll break ye'er jaw,' she says. Well, sir, he turned white, an' come over as meek as a lamb. She grabbed him be th' arm an' led him off, an' 'twas th' last I seen iv him. "Afther a while Doolan woke up, an' says he, 'Where's me frind?' 'Gone,' says I. 'His wife came in, an' hooked him off.' 'Well,' says Doolan, ''tis on'y another victhry iv the rulin' classes,' he says." THE OPTIMIST. "Aho," said Mr. Dooley, drawing a long, deep breath. "Ah-ho, glory be to th' saints!" He was sitting out in front of his liquor shop with Mr. McKenna, their chairs tilted against the door-posts. If it had been hot elsewhere, what had it been in Archey Road? The street-car horses reeled in the dust from the tracks. The drivers, leaning over the dash-boards, flogged the brutes with the viciousness of weakness. The piles of coke in the gas-house yards sent up waves of heat like smoke. Even the little girls playing on the sidewalks were flaming pink in color. But the night saw Archey Road out in all gayety, its flannel shirt open at the breast to the cooling blast and the cries of its children filling the air. It also saw Mr. Dooley luxuriating like a polar bear, and bowing cordially to all who passed. "Glory be to th' saints," he said, "but it's been a thryin' five days. I've been mean enough to commit murdher without th' strength even to kill a fly. I expect to have a fight on me hands; f'r I've insulted half th' road, an' th' on'y thing that saved me was that no wan was sthrong enough to come over th' bar. 'I cud lick ye f'r that, if it was not so hot,' said Dorsey, whin I told him I'd change no bill f'r him. 'Ye cud not,' says I, 'if 'twas cooler,' I says. It's cool enough f'r him now. Look, Jawn dear, an' see if there's an ice-pick undher me chair. "It 'd be more thin th' patience iv Job 'd stand to go through such weather, an' be fit f'r society. They's on'y wan man in all th' wurruld cud do it, an' that man's little Tim Clancy. He wurruks out in th' mills, tin hours a day, runnin' a wheelbarrow loaded with cindhers. He lives down beyant. Wan side iv his house is up again a brewery, an' th' other touches elbows with Twinty-Percint Murphy's flats. A few years back they found out that he didn't own on'y th' front half iv th' lot, an' he can set on his back stoop an' put his feet over th' fince now. He can, faith. Whin he's indures, he breathes up th' chimbley; an' he has a wife an' eight kids. He dhraws wan twinty-five a day--whin he wurruks. "He come in here th' other night to talk over matthers; an' I was stewin' in me shirt, an' sayin' cross things to all th' wurruld fr'm th' tail iv me eye. ''Tis hot,' says I. ''Tis war-rum,' he says. ''Tis dam hot,' says I. 'Well,' he says, ''tis good weather f'r th' crops,' he says. 'Things grows in this weather. I mind wanst,' he says, 'we had days just like these, an' we raised forty bushels iv oats to an acre,' he says. 'Whin Neville, th' landlord, come with wagons to take it off, he was that surprised ye cud iv knocked him down with a sthraw. 'Tis great growin' weather,' he says. An', Jawn, by dad, barrin' where th' brewery horse spilt oats on th' durestep an' th' patches iv grass on th' dump, sare a growin' thing but childher has that little man seen in twinty years. "'Twas hotter whin I seen him nex', an' I said so. ''Tis war-rum,' he says, laughin'. 'By dad, I think th' ice 'll break up in th' river befure mornin',' he says. 'But look how cold it was last winter,' he says. 'Th' crops need weather like this,' he says. I'd like to have hit him with a chair. Sundah night I wint over to see him. He was sittin' out in front, with a babby on each knee. 'Good avnin',' says I. 'Good avnin',' he says. 'This is th' divvle's own weather,' I says. 'I'm suffocatin'.' ''Tis quite a thaw,' he says. 'How's all th' folks?' says I. 'All well, thank ye kindly,' he says. 'save an' except th' wife an' little Eleen,' he says. 'They're not so well,' he says. 'But what can ye expect? They've had th' best iv health all th' year.' 'It must be har-rd wurrukin' at th' mills this weather,' I says. ''Tis war-rum,' he says; 'but ye can't look f'r snow-storms this time iv th' year,' he says. 'Thin,' says he, 'me mind's taken aff th' heat be me wurruk,' he says. 'Dorsey that had th' big cinder-pile--the wan near th' fence--was sun-struck Fridah, an' I've been promoted to his job. 'Tis a most res-sponsible place,' he says; 'an' a man, to fill it rightly an' properly, has no time to think f'r th' crops,' he says. An' I wint away, lavin' him singin' 'On th' Three-tops' to th' kids on his knees. "Well, he comes down th' road tonight afther th' wind had turned, with his old hat on th' back iv his head, whistlin' 'Th' Rambler fr'm Clare' and I stopped to talk with him. 'Glory be,' says I, ''tis pleasant to breathe th' cool air,' says I. 'Ah,' he says, ''tis a rale good avnin',' he says. 'D'ye know,' he says, 'I haven't slept much these nights, f'r wan reason 'r another. But,' he says, 'I'm afraid this here change won't be good f'r th' crops,' he says. 'If we'd had wan or two more war-rum days an' thin a sprinkle iv rain,' he says, 'how they would grow, how they would grow!'" Mr. Dooley sat up in his chair, and looked over at Mr. McKenna. "Jawn," he said, "d'ye know that, whin I think iv th' thoughts that's been in my head f'r a week, I don't dare to look Tim Clancy in th' face." PROSPERITY. "Th' defeat iv Humanity be Prosperity was wan iv th' raysults iv th' iliction," said Mr. Dooley. "What are you talking about?" asked Mr. McKenna, gruffly. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "I thought it was McKinley an' Hobart that won out, but I see now that it's McKinley an' Prosperity. If Bryan had been elected, Humanity would have had a front seat an' a tab. Th' sufferin's iv all th' wurruld would have ended; an' Jawn H. Humanity would be in th' White House, throwin' his feet over th' furniture an' receivin' th' attintions iv diplomats an' pleeniapotentiaries. It was decided otherwise be th' fates, as th' Good Book says. Prosperity is th' bucko now. Barrin' a sthrike at th' stock-yards an' a hold-up here an' there, Prosperity has come leapin' in as if it had jumped fr'm a springboard. Th' mills are opened, th' factories are goin' to go, th' railroads are watherin' stocks, long processions iv workin'men are marchin' fr'm th' pay-car to their peaceful saloons, their wives are takin' in washin' again, th' price iv wheat is goin' up an' down, creditors are beginnin' to sue debtors; an' thus all th' wurruld is merry with th' on'y rational enjoyments iv life. "An' th' stock exchange has opened. That's wan iv th' strongest signs iv prosperity. I min' wanst whin me frind Mike McDonald was controllin' th' city, an' conductin' an exchange down be Clark Sthreet. Th' game had been goin' hard again th' house. They hadn't been a split f'r five deals. Whin ivrybody was on th' queen to win, with th' sivin spot coppered, th' queen won, th' sivin spot lost. Wan lad amused himsilf be callin' th' turn twinty-wan times in succession, an' th' check rack was down to a margin iv eleven whites an' fifty-three cints in change. Mike looked around th' crowd, an' turned down th' box. 'Gintlemen,' says he, 'th' game is closed. Business conditions are such,' he says, 'that I will not be able to cash in ye'er checks,' he says. 'Please go out softly, so's not to disturb th' gintlemen at th' roulette wheel,' he says, 'an' come back afther th' iliction, whin confidence is restored an' prosperity returns to th' channels iv thrade an' industhry,' he says. 'Th' exchange 'll be opened promptly; an' th' usual rule iv chips f'r money an' money f'r chips, fifty on cases an' sivinty-five f'r doubles, a hard-boiled egg an' a dhrink f'r losers, will prevail,' he says. 'Return with th' glad tidings iv renewed commerce, an' thank th' Lord I haven't took ye'er clothes.' His was th' first stock exchange we had. "Yes, Prosperity has come hollerin' an screamin'. To read th' papers, it seems to be a kind iv a vagrancy law. No wan can loaf anny more. Th' end iv vacation has gone f'r manny a happy lad that has spint six months ridin' through th' counthry, dodgin' wurruk, or loafin' under his own vine or hat-three. Prosperity grabs ivry man be th' neck, an' sets him shovellin' slag or coke or runnin' up an' down a ladder with a hod iv mortar. It won't let th' wurruld rest. If Humanity 'd been victoryous, no wan 'd iver have to do a lick again to th' end iv his days. But Prosperity's a horse iv another color. It goes round like a polisman givin' th' hot fut to happy people that are snoozin' in th' sun. 'Get up,' says Prosperity. 'Get up, an' hustle over to th' rollin' mills: there's a man over there wants ye to carry a ton iv coal on ye'er back.' 'But I don't want to wurruk,' says th' lad. 'I'm very comfortable th' way I am.' 'It makes no difference,' says Prosperity. 'Ye've got to do ye'er lick. Wurruk, f'r th' night is comin'. Get out, an' hustle. Wurruk, or ye can't be unhappy; an', if th' wurruld isn't unhappy, they'se no such a thing as Prosperity.' "That's wan thing I can't understand," Mr. Dooley went on. "Th' newspapers is run be a lot iv gazabos that thinks wurruk is th' ambition iv mankind. Most iv th' people I know 'd be happiest layin' on a lounge with a can near by, or stretchin' thimsilves f'r another nap at eight in th' mornin'. But th' papers make it out that there 'd be no sunshine in th' land without you an' me, Hinnissy, was up before daybreak pullin' a sthreet-car or poundin' sand with a shovel. I seen a line, 'Prosperity effects on th' Pinnsylvania Railroad'; an' I read on to find that th' road intinded to make th' men in their shops wurruk tin hours instead iv eight, an' it says 'there's no reasons why they should not wurruk Sundahs iv they choose.' If they choose! An' what chance has a man got that wants to make th' wurruld brighter an' happier be rollin' car-wheels but to miss mass an' be at th' shops?" "We must all work," said Mr. McKenna, sententiously. "Yes," said Mr. Dooley, "or be wurruked." THE GREAT HOT SPELL. It was sultry everywhere, but particularly in Archey Road; for in summer Archey Road is a tunnel for the south-west wind, which refreshes itself at the rolling-mill blasts, and spills its wrath upon the just and the unjust alike. Wherefore Mr. Dooley and Mr. McKenna were both steaming, as they sat at either side of the door of Mr. Dooley's place, with their chairs tilted back against the posts. "Hot," said Mr. McKenna. "Warrum," said Mr. Dooley. "I think this is the hottest September that ever was," said Mr. McKenna. "So ye say," said Mr. Dooley. "An' that's because ye're a young man, a kid. If ye was my age, ye'd know betther. How d'ye do, Mrs. Murphy? Go in, an' fill it ye'ersilf. Ye'll find th' funnel undher th' see-gar case.--Ye'd know betther thin that. Th' Siptimber iv th' year eighteen sixty-eight was so much hotter thin this that, if ye wint fr'm wan to th' other, ye'd take noomoney iv th' lungs,--ye wud so. 'Twas a remarkable summer, takin' it all in all. On th' Foorth iv July they was a fut iv ice in Haley's slough, an' I was near flooded out be th' wather pipe bustin'. A man be th' name iv Maloney froze his hand settin' off a Roman candle near Main Sthreet, an'--Tin cints, please, ma'am. Thank ye kindly. How's th' good man?--As I said, it was a remarkable summer. It rained all August, an' th' boys wint about on rafts; an' a sthreet-car got lost fr'm th' road, an' I dhrove into th' canal, an' all on boord--'Avnin', Mike. Ah-ha, 'twas a great fight. An' Buck got his eye, did he? A good man. "Well, Jawn, along come Siptimber. It begun fairly warrum, wan hundherd or so in th' shade; but no wan minded that. Thin it got hotter an' hotter, an' people begun to complain a little. They was sthrong in thim days,--not like th' joods they raise now,--an' a little heat more or less didn't kill thim. But afther a while it was more thin most iv thim wanted. The sthreet-car thracks got so soft they spread all over th' sthreet, an' th' river run dhry. Afther boilin' f'r five days like a--How are ye, Dempsey? Ye don't tell me? Now th' likes iv him runnin' f'r aldherman! I'd as lave vote f'r th' tillygraph pole. Well, be good to ye'ersilf. Folks all well? Thanks be.--They shut off th' furnaces out at th' mills, an' melted th' iron be puttin' it out in th' sun. Th' puddlers wurruked in iron cases, an' was kept alive be men playin' a hose on thim fr'm th' packin' house refrigerator. Wan iv thim poked his head out to light his pipe, an' he was--Well, well, Timothy, ye are quite a sthranger. Ah, dear oh me, that's too ba-ad, too ba-ad. I'll tell ye what ye do. Ye rub th' hand in half iv a potato, an' say tin pather an' avy's over it ivry day f'r tin days. 'Tis a sure cure. I had wan wanst. Th' kids are thrivin', I dinnaw? That's good. Betther to hear thim yellin' in th' sthreet thin th' sound iv th' docthor's gig at th' dure. "Well, Jawn, things wint fr'm bad to worse. All th' beer in th' house was mulled; an' Mrs. Dinny Hogan--her that was Odelia O'Brien--burned her face atin' ice-crame down be th' Italyan man's place, on Halsthed Sthreet. 'Twas no sthrange sight to see an ice-wagon goin' along th' sthreet on fire--McCarthy! McCarthy! come over here! Sure, ye're gettin' proud, passin' by ye'er ol' frinds. How's thricks in th' Ninth? D'ye think he will? Well, I've heerd that, too; but they was a man in here to-day that says the Boohemians is out f'r him with axes. Good-night. Don't forget th' number. "They was a man be th' name iv Daheny, Jawn, a cousin iv th' wan ye know, that started to walk up th' r-road fr'm th' bridge. Befure he got to Halsthed Sthreet, his shoes was on fire. He turned in an alarm; but th' fire departmint was all down on Mitchigan Avnoo, puttin' out th' lake, an'"--"Putting out what?" demanded Mr. McKenna. "Puttin' out th' lake," replied Mr. Dooley, stolidly. "They was no insurance--A good avnin' to ye, Mrs. Doyle. Ye're goin' over, thin? I was there las' night, an' a finer wake I niver see. They do nawthin' be halves. How was himsilf? As natural as life? Yes, ma'am, rayqueem high mass, be carredges to Calv'ry. "On th' twinty-fifth iv Siptimber a change come. It was very sudden; an', steppin' out iv th' ice-box where I slept in th' mornin', I got a chill. I wint for me flannels, an' stopped to look at th' thermomether. It was four hundherd an' sixty-five." "How much?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Four hundherd an' sixty-five." "Fahrenheit?" "No, it belonged to Dorsey. Ah! well, well, an' here's Cassidy. Come in, frind, an' have a shell iv beer. I've been tellin' Jawnny about th' big thaw iv eighteen sixty-eight. Feel th' wind, man alive. 'Tis turnin' cool, an' we'll sleep to-night." KEEPING LENT. Mr. McKenna had observed Mr. Dooley in the act of spinning a long, thin spoon in a compound which reeked pleasantly and smelt of the humming water of commerce; and he laughed and mocked at the philosopher. "Ah-ha," he said, "that's th' way you keep Lent, is it? Two weeks from Ash Wednesday, and you tanking up." Mr. Dooley went on deliberately to finish the experiment, leisurely dusting the surface with nutmeg and tasting the product before setting down the glass daintily. Then he folded his apron, and lay back in ample luxury while he began: "Jawn, th' holy season iv Lent was sent to us f'r to teach us th' weakness iv th' human flesh. Man proposes, an' th' Lord disposes, as Hinnissy says. "I mind as well as though it was yesterday th' struggle iv me father f'r to keep Lent. He began to talk it a month befure th' time. 'On Ash Winsdah,' he'd say, 'I'll go in f'r a rale season iv fast an' abstinince,' he'd say. An' sure enough, whin Ash Winsdah come round at midnight, he'd take a long dhraw at his pipe an' knock th' ashes out slowly again his heel, an' thin put th' dhudeen up behind th' clock. 'There,' says he, 'there ye stay till Easter morn,' he says. Ash Winsdah he talked iv nawthin but th' pipe. ''Tis exthraordinney how easy it is f'r to lave off,' he says. 'All ye need is will power,' he says. 'I dinnaw that I'll iver put a pipe in me mouth again. 'Tis a bad habit, smokin' is,' he says; 'an' it costs money. A man's betther off without it. I find I dig twict as well,' he says; 'an', as f'r cuttin' turf, they'se not me like in th' parish since I left off th' pipe,' he says. "Well, th' nex' day an' th' nex' day he talked th' same way; but Fridah he was sour, an' looked up at th' clock where th' pipe was. Saturdah me mother, thinkin' to be plazin to him, says: 'Terrence,' she says, 'ye're iver so much betther without th' tobacco,' she says. 'I'm glad to find you don't need it. Ye'll save money,' she says. 'Be quite, woman,' says he. 'Dear, oh dear,' he says, 'I'd like a pull at th' clay,' he says. 'Whin Easter comes, plaze Gawd, I'll smoke mesilf black an' blue in th' face,' he says. "That was th' beginnin' iv th' downfall. Choosdah he was settin' in front iv th' fire with a pipe in his mouth. 'Why, Terrence,' says me mother, 'ye're smokin' again.' 'I'm not,' says he: ''tis a dhry smoke,' he says; ''tisn't lighted,' he says. Wan week afther th' swear-off he came fr'm th' field with th' pipe in his face, an' him puffin' away like a chimney. 'Terrence,' says me mother, 'it isn't Easter morn.' 'Ah-ho,' says he, 'I know it,' he says; 'but,' he says, 'what th' divvle do I care?' he says. 'I wanted f'r to find out whether it had th' masthery over me; an',' he says, 'I've proved that it hasn't,' he says. 'But what's th' good iv swearin' off, if ye don't break it?' he says. 'An' annyhow,' he says, 'I glory in me shame.' "Now, Jawn," Mr. Dooley went on, "I've got what Hogan calls a theery, an' it's this: that what's thrue iv wan man's thrue iv all men. I'm me father's son a'most to th' hour an' day. Put me in th' County Roscommon forty year ago, an' I'd done what he'd done. Put him on th' Ar-rchey Road, an' he'd be deliverin' ye a lecture on th' sin iv thinkin' ye're able to overcome th' pride iv th' flesh, as Father Kelly says. Two weeks ago I looked with contimpt on Hinnissy f'r an' because he'd not even promise to fast an' obstain fr'm croquet durin' Lent. To-night you see me mixin' me toddy without th' shadow iv remorse about me. I'm proud iv it. An' why not? I was histin' in me first wan whin th' soggarth come down fr'm a sick call, an' looked in at me. 'In Lent?' he says, half-laughin' out in thim quare eyes iv his. 'Yes,' said I. 'Well,' he says, 'I'm not authorized to say this be th' propaganda,' he says, 'an' 'tis no part iv th' directions f'r Lent,' he says; 'but,' he says, 'I'll tell ye this, Martin,' he says, 'that they'se more ways than wan iv keepin' th' season,' he says. 'I've knowed thim that starved th' stomach to feast th' evil temper,' he says. 'They'se a little priest down be th' Ninth Ward that niver was known to keep a fast day; but Lent or Christmas tide, day in an' day out, he goes to th' hospital where they put th' people that has th' small-pox. Starvation don't always mean salvation. If it did,' he says, 'they'd have to insure th' pavemint in wan place, an' they'd be money to burn in another. Not,' he says, 'that I want ye to undherstand that I look kindly on th' sin iv'-- "''Tis a cold night out,' says I. "'Well,' he says, th' dear man, 'ye may. On'y,' he says, ''tis Lent.' "'Yes,' says I. "'Well, thin,' he says, 'by ye'er lave I'll take but half a lump iv sugar in mine,' he says." THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. Mr. Dooley and Mr. McKenna sat outside the ample door of the little liquor store, the evening being hot, and wrapped their legs around the chair, and their lips around two especially long and soothing drinks. They talked politics and religion, the people up and down the street, the chances of Murphy, the tinsmith, getting on the force, and a great deal about the weather. A woman in white started Mr. McKenna's nerves. "Glory be, I thought it was a ghost!" said Mr. McKenna, whereupon the conversation drifted to those interesting phenomena. Mr. Dooley asked Mr. McKenna if he had ever seen one. Mr. McKenna replied that he hadn't, and didn't want to. Had Mr. Dooley? "No," said the philosopher, "I niver did; an' it's always been more thin sthrange to me that annywan shud come back afther he'd been stuck in a crate five feet deep, with a ton iv mud upon him. 'Tis onplisint iv thim, annyhow, not to say ongrateful. F'r mesilf, if I was wanst pushed off, an' they'd waked me kindly, an' had a solemn rayqueem high mass f'r me, an' a funeral with Roddey's Hi-beryan band, an' th' A-ho-aitches, I have too much pride to come back f'r an encore. I wud so, Jawn. Whin a man's dead, he ought to make th' best iv a bad job, an' not be thrapsin' around, lookin' f'r throuble among his own kind. "No, I niver see wan, but I know there are such things; f'r twinty years ago all th' road was talkin' about how Flaherty, th' tailor, laid out th' ghost iv Tim O'Grady. O'Grady was a big sthrappin' Connock man, as wide across th' shoulders as a freight car. He was a plastherer be thrade whin wages was high, an' O'Grady was rowlin' in wealth. Ivry Sundah ye'd see him, with his horse an' buggy an' his goold watch an' chain, in front iv th' Sullivans' house, waitin' f'r Mary Ann Sullivan to go f'r a buggy ride with him over to McAllister Place; an' he fin'lly married her, again th' wishes iv Flaherty, who took to histin' in dhrinks, an' missed his jooty, an' was a scandal in th' parish f'r six months. "O'Grady didn't improve with mathrimony, but got to lanin' again th' ol' stuff, an' walkin' up an' down th' sidewalk in his shirt-sleeves, with his thumbs stuck in his vest, an' his little pipe turned upside down; an', whin he see Flaherty, 'twas his custom to run him up an alley, so that th' little tailor man niver had a minyit iv peace. Ivry wan supposed he lived in a three most iv th' time, to be out iv th' way iv O'Grady. "Well, wan day O'Grady he seen Flaherty walkin' down th' sthreet with a pair iv lavender pants f'r Willum Joyce to wear to th' Ogden Grove picnic, an' thried to heave a brick at him. He lost his balance, an' fell fr'm th' scaffoldin' he was wurrukin' on; an' th' last wurruds he said was, 'Did I get him or didn't I?' Mrs. O'Grady said it was th' will iv Gawd; an' he was burrid at Calvary with a funeral iv eighty hacks, an' a great manny people in their own buggies. Dorsey, th' conthractor, was there with his wife. He thought th' wurruld an' all iv O'Grady. "Wan year aftherward Flaherty begun makin' up to Mrs. O'Grady; an' ivry wan in th' parish seen it, an' was glad iv it, an' said it was scandalous. How it iver got out to O'Grady's pew in th' burryin' ground, I'll niver tell ye, an' th' Lord knows; but wan evenin' th' ghost iv O'Grady come back. Flaherty was settin' in th' parlor, smokin' a seegar, with O'Grady's slippers on his feet, whin th' spook come in in th' mos' natural way in the wurruld, kickin' th' dog. 'What ar-re ye doin' here, ye little farryer iv pants?' he says. Mrs. O'Grady was f'r faintin'; but O'Flaherty he says, says he: 'Be quite,' he says, 'I'll dale with him.' Thin to th' ghost: 'Have ye paid th' rint here, ye big ape?' he says. 'What d'ye mane be comin' back, whin th' landlord ain't heerd fr'm ye f'r a year?' he says. Well, O'Grady's ghost was that surprised he cud hardly speak. 'Ye ought to have betther manners thin insultin' th' dead,' he says. 'Ye ought to have betther manners thin to be lavin' ye'er coffin at this hour iv th' night, an' breakin' in on dacint people,' says Flaherty. 'What good does it do to have rayqueem masses f'r th' raypose iv th' like iv you,' he says, 'that doesn't know his place?' he says. "I'm masther iv this house,' says th' ghost. 'Not on ye'er life,' says Flaherty. 'Get out iv here, or I'll make th' ghost iv a ghost out iv ye. I can lick anny dead man that iver lived,' he said. "With that th' ghost iv O'Grady made a pass at him, an' they clinched an' rowled on th' flure. Now a ghost is no aisy mark f'r anny man, an' O'Grady's ghost was as sthrong as a cow. It had Flaherty down on th' flure an' was feedin' him with a book they call th' 'Christyan Martyrs,' whin Mrs. O'Grady put a bottle in Flaherty's hands. 'What's this?' says Flaherty. 'Howly wather,' says Mrs. O'Grady. 'Sprinkle it on him,' says Mrs. O'Grady. 'Woman,' says th' tailor between th' chapter iv th' book, 'this is no time f'r miracles,' he says. An' he give O'Grady's ghost a treminjous wallop on th' head. Now, whether it was th' wather or th' wallop, I'll not tell ye; but, annyhow, th' ghost give wan yell an' disappeared. An' th' very next Sundah, whin Father Kelly wint into th' pulpit at th' gospel, he read th' names iv Roger Kickham Flaherty an' Mary Ann O'Grady." "Did the ghost ever come back?" asked Mr. McKenna. "Niver," said Mr. Dooley. "Wanst was enough. But, mind ye, I'd hate to have been wan iv th' other ghosts th' night O'Grady got home fr'm th' visit to O'Flaherty's. There might be ghosts that cud stand him off with th' gloves, but in a round an' tumble fight he cud lick a St. Patrick's Day procession iv thim." THE SOFT SPOT. "Anny more cyclone news?" Mr. Dooley asked Mr. McKenna, as he came in with a copy of an extra paper in his hand. "Nothing much," Mr. McKenna responded. "This paper says the angel of death has give up riding on the whirlwind." "Tis betther so," said Mr. Dooley: "a bicycle is more satisfactory f'r a steady thing. But, faith, 'tis no jokin' matter. May th' Lord forgive me f'r makin' light iv it! Jawn, whin I read about thim poor people down in St. Looey, sthruck be th' wrath iv Hivin' without more warnin' thin a man gets in a Polock church fight an' swept to their graves be th' hundherds, me heart ached in me. "But they'se always some compinsation in th' likes iv this. To see th' wurruld as it r-runs along in its ordinrey coorse, with ivry man seemin' to be lookin' f'r th' best iv it an' carryin' a little hammer f'r his fellow-suff'rers, ye'd think what Hinnissy calls th' springs iv human sympathy was as dhry in th' breast as a bricklayer's boot in a box iv mortar. But let annything happen like this, an' men ye'd suspect iv goin' round with a cold chisel liftin' name-plates off iv coffins comes to th' front with their lips full iv comfort an' kindliness an', what's more to th' point, their hands full iv coin. "Years ago there used to be a man be th' name iv O'Brien--no relation iv th' sinitor--lived down be th' dumps. He was well off, an' had quit wur-rkin' f'r a living. Well, whether he'd been disappointed in love or just naturally had a kick up to him again th' wurruld I niver knew; but this here ol' la-ad put in his time from morn till night handin' out contimpt an' hathred to all mankind. No wan was harder to rent fr'm. He had some houses near Halsted Sthreet, an' I've see him servin' five days' notices on his tenants whin' th' weather was that cold ye cudden't see th' inside iv th' furnace-rooms at th' mill f'r th' frost on th' window. Of all th' landlords on earth, th' Lord deliver me fr'm an' Irish wan. Whether 'tis that fr'm niver holdin' anny land in th' ol' counthry they put too high a fondness on their places whin they get a lot or two over here, I don't know; but they're quicker with th' constable thin anny others. I've seen men, that 'd divide their last cint with ye pay night, as hard, whin it come to gather in th' rent f'r two rooms in th' rear, as if they was an Irish peer's agents; an' O'Brien had no such start iv binivolence to go on. He niver seemed to pass th' poor-box in church without wantin' to break into it. He charged cint per cint whin Casey, th' plumber, buried his wife an' borrid money f'r th' funeral expenses. I see him wanst chasin' th' agent iv th' Saint Vincent de Pauls down th' road f'r darin' to ask him f'r a contribution. To look at his har-rsh red face, as he sat at his window markin' up his accounts, ye'd know he was hard in th' bit an' heavy in th' hand. An' so he was,--as hard an' heavy as anny man I iver seen in all me born days. "Well, Peter O'Brien had lived on long enough to have th' pious curses iv th' entire parish, whin th' fire broke out, th' second fire iv sivinty-four, whin th' damage was tin or twinty millions iv dollars an' I lost a bull terrier be th' name iv Robert Immitt, r-runnin' afther th' ingines. O'Brien disappeared fr'm th' r-road durin' th' fire,--he had some property on th' South Side,--an' wasn't seen or heerd tell iv f'r a day. Th' nex' mornin' th' rayport come in that he was seen walkin' over th' red bridge with a baby in his arms. 'Glory be!' says I: 'is th' man goin' to add canniballing to his other crimes?' Sure enough, as I sthud in th' dureway, along come O'Brien, with his hands scalded, his eyebrows gone, an' most iv his clothes tore fr'm his back, but silent an' grim as iver, with a mite iv a girl held tight to his breast, an' her fast asleep. "He had a house back iv my place,--he ownded th' fifty feet frontin' on Grove Sthreet, bought it fr'm a man named Grogan,--an' 'twas rinted be a widdy lady be th' name iv Sullivan, wife iv a bricklayer iv th' same name. He was sthridin' into th' Widow Sullivan's house; an' says he, 'Mistress Sullivan,' he says. 'Yes,' says she, in a thremble, knottin' her apron in her hands an' standin' in front iv her own little wans, 'what can I do f'r ye?' she says. 'Th' rent's not due till to-morrow.' 'I very well know that,' he says; 'an' I want ye to take care iv this wan', he says. 'An' I'll pay ye f'r ye'er throuble,' he says. "We niver knew where he got th' child: he niver told annywan. Docthor Casey said he was badly burnt about th' head an' hands. He testified to it in a suit he brought again O'Brien f'r curin' him. F'r th' man O'Brien, instead iv rayformin' like they do in th' play, was a long sight meaner afther he done this wan thing thin iver befure. If he was tight-fisted wanst, he was as close now as calcimine on a rough-finished wall. He put his tinints out in th' cold without mercy, he kicked blind beggars fr'm th' dure, an' on his dyin'-bed he come as near bein' left be raison iv his thryin' to bargain with th' good man f'r th' rayqueems as annywan ye iver see. But he raised th' little girl; an' I sometimes think that, whin they count up th' cash, they'll let O'Brien off with a character f'r that wan thing, though there's some pretty hard tabs again him. "They ain't much point in what I've told ye more thin this,--that beneath ivry man's outside coat there lies some good feelin'. We ain't as bad as we make ourselves out. We've been stringin' ropes across th' sthreet f'r th' people iv Saint Looey f'r thirty years an' handin' thim bricks fr'm th' chimbleys whiniver we got a chance, but we've on'y got wurruds an' loose change f'r thim whin th' hard times comes." "Yes," said Mr. McKenna, "I see even the aldhermen has come to the front, offering relief." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, thoughtfully, "I on'y hope they won't go to Saint Looey to disthri-bute it thimsilves. That would be a long sight worse thin th' cyclone." THE IRISHMAN ABROAD. Mr. Dooley laid down his morning paper, and looked thoughtfully at the chandeliers. "Taaffe," he said musingly,--"Taaffe--where th' divvle? Th' name's familiar." "He lives in the Nineteenth," said Mr. McKenna. "If I remember right, he has a boy on th' force." "Goowan," said Mr. Dooley, "with ye'er nineteenth wa-ards. Th' Taaffe I mane is in Austhria. Where in all, where in all? No: yes, by gar, I have it. A-ha! "But cur-rsed be th' day, Whin Lord Taaffe grew faint-hearted An sthud not n'r cha-arged, But in panic depa-arted." "D'ye mind it,--th' pome by Joyce? No, not Bill Joyce. Joyce, th' Irish pote that wrote th' pome about th' wa-ars whin me people raysisted Cromwell, while yours was carryin' turf on their backs to make fires for th' crool invader, as Finerty says whin th' sub-scriptions r-runs low. 'Tis th' same name, a good ol' Meath name in th' days gone by; an' be th' same token I have in me head that this here Count Taaffe, whether he's an austrich or a canary bur-rd now, is wan iv th' ol' fam'ly. There's manny iv thim in Europe an' all th' wurruld beside. There was Pat McMahon, th' Frinchman, that bate Looey Napoleon; an' O'Donnell, the Spanish juke; an' O'Dhriscoll an' Lynch, who do be th' whole thing down be South America, not to mention Patsy Bolivar. Ye can't go annywhere fr'm Sweden to Boolgahria without findin' a Turk settin' up beside th' king an' dalin' out th' deek with his own hand. Jawn, our people makes poor Irishmen, but good Dutchmen; an', th' more I see iv thim, th' more I says to mesilf that th' rale boney fide Irishman is no more thin a foreigner born away from home. 'Tis so. "Look at thim, Jawn," continued Mr. Dooley, becoming eloquent. "Whin there's battles to be won, who do they sind for? McMahon or Shurdan or Phil Kearney or Colonel Colby. Whin there's books to be wrote, who writes thim but Char-les Lever or Oliver Goldsmith or Willum Carleton? Whin there's speeches to be made, who makes thim but Edmund Burke or Macchew P. Brady? There's not a land on th' face iv th' wurruld but th' wan where an Irishman doesn't stand with his fellow-man, or above thim. Whin th' King iv Siam wants a plisint evenin', who does he sind f'r but a lively Kerry man that can sing a song or play a good hand at spile-five? Whin th' Sultan iv Boolgahria takes tea, 'tis tin to wan th' man across fr'm him is more to home in a caubeen thin in a turban. There's Mac's an' O's in ivry capital iv Europe atin' off silver plates whin their relations is staggerin' under th' creels iv turf in th' Connaught bogs. "Wirra, 'tis hard. Ye'd sa-ay off hand, 'Why don't they do as much for their own counthry?' Light-spoken are thim that suggests th' like iv that. 'Tis asier said than done. Ye can't grow flowers in a granite block, Jawn dear, much less whin th' first shoot 'd be thrampled under foot without pity. 'Tis aisy f'r us over here, with our bellies full, to talk iv th' cowardice iv th' Irish; but what would ye have wan man iv thim do again a rig'mint? 'Tis little fightin' th' lad will want that will have to be up before sunrise to keep th' smoke curlin' fr'm th' chimbley or to patch th' rush roof to keep out th' March rain. No, faith, Jawn, there's no soil in Ireland f'r th' greatness iv th' race; an' there has been none since th' wild geese wint across th' say to France, hangin' like flies to th' side iv th' Fr-rinch ship. 'Tis only f'r women an' childher now, an' thim that can't get away. Will th' good days ever come again? says ye. Who knows!" THE SERENADE. "By dad, if it wasn't f'r that there Molly Donahue," said Mr. Dooley to Mr. McKenna, "half th' life 'd be gone out iv Bridgeport." "What has Molly Donahue been doin'?" asked Mr. McKenna. "She have been causin' Felix Pindergasht to be sint to th' Sisters iv Mercy Hospital with inflammathry rhoomatism. Ye know Felix. He is a musical janius. Before he was tin year old he had me mind disthracted be playin' wan iv thim little mouth organs on th' corner near me bedroom window. Thin he larned to play th' ack-car-jeen, an' cud swing it between his legs an' give an imitation iv th' cathedral bell that 'd make ye dig in ye'er pocket to see iv ye had a dime f'r a seat. Thin he used to sit in his window in his shirt-sleeves, blowin' 'Th' Vale iv Avoca' on a cornet. He was wan whole month before he cud get th' 'shall fade fr'm me heart' right. Half th' neighborhood 'd be out on th' sidewalk yellin' 'Lift it, Felix,--lift an' scatther it. Shall fade fr'm me ha-a-rt,--lift it, ye clumsy piper.' "A few months back th' stupid gawk begun to be attintive to Molly Donahue, an', like th' wild wan she is, she dhrew him on. Did ye iver see th' wan that wudden't? Faith, they're all alike. If it ain't a sthraight stick, it's a crooked wan; an' th' man was niver yet born, if he had a hump on his back as big as coal-scuttle an' had a face like th' back iv a hack, that cudden't get th' wink iv th' eye fr'm some woman. They're all alike, all alike. Not that I've annything again thim: 'tis thim that divides our sorrows an' doubles our joys, an' sews chiny buttons on our pa-ants an' mends our shirts with blue yarn. But they'll lead a man to desthruction an' back again, thim same women. "Well, Felix had no luck coortin' Molly Donahue. Wan night she wasn't in; an' th' nex' night ol' man Donahue come to th' dure, an' says, 'Ye can put in th' coal at th' back dure,' he says, an' near broke th' la-ad's heart. Las' week he pulled himself together, an' wint up th' r-road again. He took his cornet with him in a green bag; an', whin he got in front iv Donahue's house, he outs with th' horn, an' begins to play. Well, sir, at th' first note half th' block was in th' sthreet. Women come fr'm their houses, with their shawls on their heads; an' all th' forty-fives games was broke up be raison iv th' la-ads lavin' f'r to hear the music. Befure Felix had got fairly started f'r to serrynade Molly Donahue, th' crowd was big an' boistherous. He started on th' ol' favor-ite, 'Th' Vale iv Avoca'; an' near ivry man in th' crowd had heerd him practisin' it. He wint along splendid till he come to 'shall fade fr'm me heart,' an' thin he broke, 'Thry again,' says th' crowd; an' he stharted over. He done no betther on th' second whirl. 'Niver say die, Felix,' says th' crowd. "Go afther it. We're all with ye.' At that th' poor, deluded loon tackled it again; an' th' crowd yells: 'Hist it up. There ye go. No, be hivins he fell at th' last jump.' An', by dad, though he thried f'r half an hour, he cud not land th' 'shall fade fr'm me heart.' At th' last break th' light in Molly Donahue's window wint out, an' th' crowd dispersed. Felix was discons'late. 'I had it right befure I come up,' he says, 'but I missed me holt whin th' crowd come. Me heart's broke,' he says. 'Th' cornet's not ye'er insthrument,' says Dorsey. 'Ye shud thry to play th' base dhrum. It's asier.'" "Is that all that's going on?" asked Mr. McKenna. "That an' th' death iv wan iv Hinnissy's goats,--Marguerite. No, no, not that wan. That's Odalia. Th' wan with th' brown spots. That's her. She thried to ate wan iv thim new theayter posthers, an' perished in great ag'ny. They say th' corpse turned red at th' wake, but ye can't believe all ye hear." THE HAY FLEET. Mr. Dooley had been reading about General Shafter's unfortunately abandoned enterprise for capturing Santiago by means of a load of hay, and it filled him with great enthusiasm. Laying down his paper, he said: "By dad, I always said they give me frind Shafter th' worst iv it. If they'd left him do th' job th' way he wanted to do it, he'd 've taken Sandago without losin' an ounce." "How was it he wanted to do it?" Mr. Hennessy asked. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "'twas this way. This is th' way it was. Ol' Cervera's fleet was in th' harbor an' bottled up, as th' man says. Shafter he says to Sampson: 'Look here, me bucko, what th' divvle ar-re ye loafin' ar-round out there f'r,' he says, 'like a dep'ty sheriff at a prize fight?' he says. 'Why don't ye go in, an' smash th' Castiles?' he says. 'I'm doin' well where I am,' says Sampson. 'Th' navy iv th' United States,' he says, 'which is wan iv th' best, if not th' best, in th' wurruld,' he says, 'was not,' he says, 'intinded f'r sthreet fightin',' he says. 'We'll stay here,' he says, 'where we ar-re,' he says, 'until,' he says, 'we can equip th' ships with noomatic tire wheels,' he says, 'an' ball bearin's,' he says. "'Well,' says Shafter, 'if ye won't go in,' he says, 'we'll show ye th' way,' he says. An' he calls on Cap Brice, that was wan iv th' youngest an' tastiest dhressers in th' whole crool an' devastatin' war. 'Cap,' he says, 'is they anny hay in th' camp?' he says. 'Slathers iv it,' says th' cap. 'Onless,' he says, 'th' sojers et it,' he says. 'Th' las' load iv beef that come down fr'm th' undhertakers,' he says, 'was not good,' he says. 'Ayether,' he says, ''twas improperly waked,' he says, 'or,' he says, 'th' pall-bearers was careless,' he says. 'Annyhow,' he says, 'th' sojers won't eat it; an', whin I left, they was lookin' greedily at th' hay,' he says. 'Cap,' says Gin'ral Shafter, 'if anny man ates a wisp, shoot him on th' spot,' he says. 'Those hungry sojers may desthroy me hopes iv victhry,' he says. 'What d'ye mane?' says Cap Brice. 'I mane this,' says Gin'ral Shafter. 'I mane to take yon fortress,' he says. 'I'll sind ye in, Cap,' he says, 'in a ship protected be hay,' he says. 'Her turrets 'll be alfalfa, she'll have three inches iv solid timithy to th' water line, an' wan inch iv th' best clover below th' wather line,' he says. 'Did ye iver see an eight-inch shell pinithrate a bale iv hay?' he says. 'I niver did,' says Cap Brice. 'Maybe that was because I niver see it thried,' he says. 'Be that as it may,' says Gin'ral Shafter, 'ye niver see it done. No more did I,' he says. 'Onless,' he says, 'they shoot pitchforks,' he says, 'they'll niver hur-rt ye,' he says. 'Ye'll be onvincible,' he says. 'Ye'll pro-ceed into th' harbor,' he says, 'behind th' sturdy armor iv projuce,' he says. 'Let ye'er watchword be "Stay on th' far-rm," an' go on to victhry,' he says. 'Gin'ral,' says Cap Brice, 'how can I thank ye f'r th' honor?' he says. ''Tis no wondher th' men call ye their fodder,' he says. 'Twas a joke Cap Brice med at th' time. 'I'll do th' best I can,' he says; 'an', if I die in th' attempt,' he says, 'bury me where the bran-mash 'll wave over me grave,' he says. "An' Gin'ral Shafter he got together his fleet, an' put th' armor on it. 'Twas a formidable sight. They was th' cruiser 'Box Stall,' full armored with sixty-eight bales iv th' finest grade iv chopped feed; th' 'R-red Barn,' a modhern hay battleship, protected be a whole mow iv timothy; an' th' gallant little 'Haycock,' a torpedo boat shootin' deadly missiles iv explosive oats. Th' expedition was delayed be wan iv th' mules sthrollin' down to th' shore an' atin' up th' afther batthry an' par-rt iv th' ram iv th' 'R-red Barn' an', befure repairs was made, Admiral Cervera heerd iv what was goin' on. 'Glory be to the saints,' he says, 'what an injaynious thribe these Yankees is!' says he. 'On'y a few weeks ago they thried to desthroy me be dumpin' a load iv coal on me,' he says; 'an' now,' he says, 'they're goin' to smother me in feed,' he says. 'They'll be rollin' bar'ls iv flour on me fr'm th' heights next,' he says. 'I'd betther get out,' he says. ''Tis far nobler,' he says, 'to purrish on th' ragin' main,' he says, 'thin to die with ye'er lungs full iv hayseed an' ye'er eyes full iv dust,' he says. 'I was born in a large city,' he says; 'an' I don't know th' rules iv th' barn,' he says. An' he wint out, an' took his lickin'. "'Twas too bad Shafter didn't get a chanst at him, but he's give th' tip to th' la-ads that makes th' boats. No more ixpinsive steel an' ir'n, but good ol' grass fr'm th' twinty-acre meadow. Th' ship-yards 'll be moved fr'm th' say, an' laid down in th' neighborhood iv Polo, Illinye, an' all th' Mississippi Valley 'll ring with th' sound iv th' scythe an' th' pitchfork buildin' th' definse iv our counthry's honor. Thank th' Lord, we've winrows an' winrows iv Shafter's armor plate between here an' Dubuque." Mr. Hennessy said good-night. "As me cousin used to say," he remarked, "we're through with wan hell iv a bad year, an' here goes f'r another like it." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "may th' Lord niver sind us a foolisher wan than this!" THE PERFORMANCES OF LIEUTENANT HOBSON. "If I'd been down to th' Audjitooroom th' other night," said Mr. Hennessy, "an' had a chunk iv coal fr'm th' sunk 'Merrimac,' I'd iv handed it to that man Loot Hobson. I wud so. Th' idee iv a hero standin' up befure thousan's iv men with fam'lies an' bein' assaulted be ondacint females. It med me blush down to th' soles iv me feet. If they let this thing go on, be hivins, why do they stop th' hootchy-kootchy?" "Ividinces iv affection is always odjious to an Irishman," said Mr. Dooley, "an' to all reel affectionate people. But me frind Hobson's not to blame. 'Tis th' way th' good Lord has iv makin' us cow'rds continted with our lot that he niver med a brave man yet that wasn't half a fool. I've more sinse an' wisdom in th' back iv me thumb thin all th' heroes in th' wurruld. That's why I ain't a hero. If Hobson had intilligence, he'd be wurrukin' in th' post-office; an', if anny ol' hin thried to kiss him, he'd call f'r th' polis. Bein' young an' foolish, whin me frind Sampson says, 'Is there anny man here that 'll take this ol' coal barge in beyant an' sink it, an' save us th' throuble iv dhrownin' on our way home?' Loot Hobson says, says he: 'Here I am, Cap,' says he. 'I'll take it in,' he says, 'an' seal up th' hated Castiles,' he says, 'so that they can niver get out,' he says. 'But,' he says, 'I'll lave a hole f'r thim to get out whin they want to get out,' he says. An' he tuk some other la-ads,--I f'rget their names,--they wasn't heroes, annyhow, but was wurrukin' be th' day; an' he wint in in his undherclothes, so's not to spoil his suit, an' th' Castiles hurled death an' desthruction on him. An' it niver touched him no more thin it did anny wan else; an' thin they riscued him fr'm himsilf, an' locked him up in th' polis station an' fed him th' best they knew how. An' he wint on a lecther tour, an' here he is. Be hivins, I think he's more iv a hero now thin iver he was. I'd stand up befure a cross-eyed Spanish gunner an' take his shootin' without a mask mesilf; but I'd shy hard if anny ol' heifer come up, an' thried to kiss me. "On th' flure iv th' 'Merrimac,' in his light undherclothes, Loot Hobson was a sthrong, foolish man. On th' stage iv th' Audjitooroom, bein' caressed be women that 'd kiss th' Indyun in front iv a see-gar sthore, if he didn't carry a tommyhawk, he's still foolish, but not sthrong. 'Tis so with all heroes. Napolyeon Bonyparte, th' Impror iv th' Fr-rinch, had manny carryin's on, I've heerd tell; an' ivry man knows that, whin Jawn Sullivan wasn't in th' r-ring, he was no incyclopedja f'r intelligence. No wan thried to kiss him, though. They knew betther. "An' Hobson 'll larn. He's young yet, th' Loot is; an' he's goin' out to th' Ph'lippeens to wurruk f'r Cousin George. Cousin George is no hero, an' 'tisn't on record that anny wan iver thried to scandalize his good name be kissin' him. I'd as lave, if I was a foolish woman, which, thanks be, I'm not, hug a whitehead torpedo as Cousin George. He'll be settin' up on th' roof iv his boat, smokin' a good see-gar, an' wondhrin' how manny iv th' babbies named afther him 'll be in th' pinitinchry be th' time he gets back home. Up comes me br-rave Hobson. 'Who ar-re ye, disturbin' me quite?' says Cousin George. 'I'm a hero,' says th' Loot. 'Ar-re ye, faith?' says Cousin George. 'Well,' he says, 'I can't do annything f'r ye in that line,' he says. 'All th' hero jobs on this boat,' he says, 'is compitintly filled,' he says, 'be mesilf,' he says. 'I like to see th' wurruk well done,' he says, 'so,' he says, 'I don't thrust it to anny wan,' he says. 'With th' aid iv a small boy, who can shovel more love letthers an' pothry overboard thin anny wan I iver see,' he says, 'I'm able to clane up me hero business before noon ivry day,' he says. 'What's ye'er name?' he says. 'Hobson,' says th' loot. 'Niver heerd iv ye, says Cousin George. 'Where 'd ye wurruk last?' 'Why,' says th' Loot, 'I'm th' man that sunk th' ship,' he says; 'an' I've been kissed be hundherds iv women at home,' he says. 'Is that so?' says Cousin George. 'Well, I don't b'lieve in sinkin' me own ship,' he says. 'Whin I'm lookin' f'r a divarsion iv that kind, I sink somebody else's,' he says. ''Tis cheaper. As f'r th' other thing,' he says, 'th' less ye say about that, th' betther,' he says. 'If some iv these beauchious Ph'lippeen belles ar-round here hears,' he says, 'that ye're in that line, they may call on ye to give ye a chaste salute,' he says, 'an',' he says, 'f'rget,' he says, 'to take th' see-gars out iv their mouths,' he says. 'Ye desthroyed a lot iv coal, ye tell me,' he says. 'Do ye,' he says, 'go downstairs now, an' shovel up a ton or two iv it,' he says. 'Afther which,' he says, 'ye can roll a kag iv beer into me bedroom,' he says; 'f'r 'tis dhry wurruk settin' up here watchin' ixpansion ixpand,' he says. "That's what Cousin George 'll say to th' Loot. An', whin th' Loot comes back, he won't be a hero anny more; an', if anny woman thries to kiss him, he'll climb a three. Cousin George 'll make a man iv him. 'Tis kicks, not kisses, that makes men iv heroes." "Well, mebbe ye're r-right," said Mr. Hennessy. "He's nawthin' but a kid, annyhow,--no oldher thin me oldest boy; an' I know what a fool he'd be if anny wan ast him to be more iv a fool thin he is. Hobson 'll be famous, no matther what foolish things he does." "I dinnaw," said Mr. Dooley. "It was headed f'r him; but I'm afraid, as th' bull-yard players 'd say, fame's been kissed off." THE DECLINE OF NATIONAL FEELING. "What ar-re ye goin' to do Patrick's Day?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Patrick's Day?" said Mr. Dooley. "Patrick's Day? It seems to me I've heard th' name befure. Oh, ye mane th' day th' low Irish that hasn't anny votes cillybrates th' birth iv their naytional saint, who was a Fr-rinchman." "Ye know what I mane," said Mr. Hennessy, with rising wrath. "Don't ye get gay with me now." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "I may cillybrate it an' I may not. I'm thinkin' iv savin' me enthusyasm f'r th' queen's birthday, whiniver it is that that blessid holiday comes ar-round. Ye see, Hinnissy, Patrick's Day is out iv fashion now. A few years ago ye'd see the Prisident iv th' United States marchin' down Pinnsylvanya Avnoo, with the green scarf iv th' Ancient Ordher on his shoulders an' a shamrock in his hat. Now what is Mack doin'? He's settin' in his parlor, writin' letthers to th' queen, be hivins, askin' afther her health. He was fr'm th' north iv Ireland two years ago, an' not so far north ayether,--just far enough north f'r to be on good terms with Derry an' not far enough to be bad frinds with Limerick. He was raised on butthermilk an' haggis, an' he dhrank his Irish nate with a dash iv orange bitthers in it. He's been movin' steadily north since; an', if he keeps on movin', he'll go r-round th' globe, an' bring up somewhere in th' south iv England. "An' Hinnery Cabin Lodge! I used to think that Hinnery would niver die contint till he'd took th' Prince iv Wales be th' hair iv th' head,--an' 'tis little th' poor man's got,--an' dhrag him fr'm th' tower iv London to Kilmainham Jail, an' hand him over to th' tindher mercies, as Hogan says, iv Michael Davitt. Thim was th' days whin ye'd hear Hinnery in th' Sinit, spreadin' fear to th' hear-rts iv th' British aristocracy. 'Gintlemen,' he says, 'an' fellow-sinitors, th' time has come,' he says, 'whin th' eagle burrud iv freedom,' he says, 'lavin',' he says, 'its home in th' mountains,' he says, 'an' circlin',' he says, 'undher th' jool 'd hivin,' he says, 'fr'm where,' he says, 'th' Passamaquoddy rushes into Lake Erastus K. Ropes,' he says, 'to where rowls th' Oregon,' he says, 'fr'm th' lakes to th' gulf,' he says, 'fr'm th' Atlantic to th' Passific where rowls th' Oregon,' he says, 'an' fr'm ivry American who has th' blood iv his ancesthors' hathred iv tyranny in his veins,--your ancesthors an' mine, Mr. McAdoo,' he says,--'there goes up a mute prayer that th' nation as wan man, fr'm Bangor, Maine, to where rowls th' Oregon, that,' he says, 'is full iv salmon, which is later put up in cans, but has th' same inthrest as all others in this question,' he says, 'that,' he says, 'th' descindants iv Wash'nton an',' he says, 'iv Immitt,' he says, 'will jine hands f'r to protect,' he says, 'th' codfisheries again th' Vandal hand iv th' British line,' he says. 'I therefore move ye, Mr. Prisident, that it is th' sinse iv this house, if anny such there be, that Tay Pay O'Connor is a greater man thin Lord Salisberry,' he says. "Now where's Hinnery? Where's th' bould Fenian? Where's th' moonlighter? Where's th' pikeman? Faith, he's changed his chune, an' 'tis 'Sthrangers wanst, but brothers now,' with him, an' 'Hands acrost th' sea an' into some wan's pocket,' an' 'Take up th' white man's burden an' hand it to th' coons,' an' 'An open back dure an' a closed fr-ront dure.' 'Tis th' same with all iv thim. They'se me frind Joe Choate. Where 'd Joe spind th' night? Whisper, in Windsor Castle, no less, in a night-shirt iv th' Prince iv Wales; an' the nex' mornin', whin he come downstairs, they tol' him th' rile fam'ly was late risers, but, if he wanted a good time, he cud go down an' look at th' cimitry! An' he done it. He went out an' wept over th' grave iv th' Father iv his Counthry. Ye'er man, George Washington, Hinnissy, was on'y th' stepfather. "Well, glory be, th' times has changed since me frind Jawn Finerty come out iv th' House iv Riprisintatives; an', whin some wan ast him what was goin' on, he says, 'Oh, nawthin' at all but some damned American business.' Thim was th' days! An' what's changed thim? Well, I might be sayin' 'twas like wanst whin me cousin Mike an' a Kerry man be th' name iv Sullivan had a gredge again a man named Doherty, that was half a Kerry man himsilf. They kept Doherty indures f 'r a day, but by an' by me cousin Mike lost inthrest in th' gredge, havin' others that was newer, an' he wint over to th' ya-ards; an' Doherty an' Sullivan begin to bow to each other, an' afther a while they found that they were blood relations, an', what's closer thin that whin ye're away fr'm home, townies. An' they hooked arms, an' sthrutted up an' down th' road, as proud as imprors. An' says they, 'We can lick annything in th' ward,' says they. But, before they injyed th' 'lieance f'r long, around th' corner comes me cousin Mike, with a half-brick in each hand; an' me brave Sullivan gives Doherty th' Kerry man's thrip, an' says he, 'Mike,' he says, 'I was on'y pullin' him on to give ye a crack at him,' he says. An' they desthroyed Doherty, so that he was in bed f'r a week." "Well, I wondher will Mike come back?" said Mr. Hennessy. "Me cousin Mike," said Mr. Dooley, "niver missed an iliction. An' whin th' campaign opened, there wasn't a man on th' ticket, fr'm mayor to constable, that didn't claim him f'r a first cousin. There are different kinds iv hands from acrost th' sea. There are pothry hands an' rollin'-mill hands; but on'y wan kind has votes." "CYRANO DE BERGERAC." "Ivry winter Hogan's la-ad gives a show with what he calls th' Sixth Wa-ard Shakspere an' Willum J. Bryan Club, an' I was sayjooced into goin' to wan las' night at Finucane's hall," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' girls was goin'," said Mr. Hennessy; "but th' sthovepipe come down on th' pianny, an' we had a minsthrel show iv our own. What was it about, I dinnaw?" "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "I ain't much on th' theayter. I niver wint to wan that I didn't have to stand where I cud see a man in blue overalls scratchin' his leg just beyant where the heeroyne was prayin' on th' palace stairs, an' I don't know much about it; but it seemed to me, an' it seemed to Hartigan, th' plumber, that was with me, that 'twas a good play if they'd been a fire in th' first act. They was a lot iv people there; an', if it cud 've been arranged f'r to have injine company fifteen with Cap'n Duffy at th' head iv thim come in through a window an' carry off th' crowd, 'twud've med a hit with me. "'Tis not like anny play I iver see before or since. In 'Tur-rble Tom; or, th' Boys iv Ninety-eight,' that I see wanst, th' man that's th' main guy iv th' thing he waits till ivry wan has said what he has to say, an' he has a clean field; an' thin he jumps in as th' man that plays th' big dhrum gives it an upper cut. But with this here play iv 'Cyrus O'Bergerac' 'tis far diff'rent. Th' curtain goes up an' shows Bill Delaney an' little Tim Scanlan an' Mark Toolan an' Packy Dugan, that wurruks in the shoe store, an' Molly Donahue an' th' Casey sisters, thim that scandalized th' parish be doin' a skirt dance at th' fair, all walkin' up an' down talkin'. 'Tin to wan on Sharkey,' says Toolan. 'I go ye, an' make it a hundherd,' says Tim Scanlan. 'Was ye at th' cake walk?' 'Who stole me hat?' 'Cudden't ye die waltzin'?' 'They say Murphy has gone on th' foorce.' 'Hivins, there goes th' las' car!' 'Pass th' butther, please: I'm far fr'm home.' All iv thim talkin' away at once, niver carin' f'r no wan, whin all at wanst up stheps me bold Hogan with a nose on him,--glory be, such a nose! I niver see th' like on a man or an illyphant. "Well, sir, Hogan is Cy in th' play; an' th' beak is pa-art iv him. What does he do? He goes up to Toolan, an' says he: 'Ye don't like me nose. It's an ilicthric light globe. Blow it out. It's a Swiss cheese. Cut it off, if ye want to. It's a brick in a hat. Kick it. It's a balloon. Hang a basket on it, an' we'll have an' ascinsion. It's a dure-bell knob. Ring it. It's a punchin' bag. Hit it, if ye dahr. F'r two pins I'd push in th' face iv ye.' An', mind ye, Hinnissy, Toolan had said not wan wurrud about th' beak,--not wan wurrud. An' ivry wan in th' house was talkin' about it, an' wondhrin' whin it 'd come off an' smash somewan's fut. I looked f'r a fight there an' thin. But Toolan's a poor-spirited thing, an' he wint away. At that up comes Scanlan; an' says he: 'Look here, young fellow,' he says, 'don't get gay,' he says, 'don't get gay,' he says. 'What's that?' says Hogan. Whin a man says, 'What's that?' in a bar-room, it manes a fight, if he says it wanst. If he says it twict, it manes a fut race. 'I say,' says Scanlan, 'that, if ye make anny more funny cracks, I'll hitch a horse to that basket fender,' he says, 'an' dhrag it fr'm ye,' he says. At that Hogan dhrew his soord, an' says he: 'Come on,' he says, 'come on, an' take a lickin,' he says. An' Scanlan dhrew his soord, too. 'Wait,' says Hogan. 'Wait a minyit,' he says. 'I must think,' he says. 'I must think a pome,' he says. 'Whiniver I fight,' he says, 'I always have a pome,' he says. 'Glory be,' says I, 'there's Scanlan's chanst to give it to him,' I says. But Scanlan was as slow as a dhray; an', before he cud get action, Hogan was at him, l'adin' with th' pome an' counthrin' with the soord. 'I'll call this pome,' he says, 'a pome about a gazabo I wanst had a dool with in Finucane's hall,' he says. 'I'll threat ye r-right,' he says, 'an' at the last line I'll hand ye wan,' he says. An' he done it. 'Go in,' he says in th' pome, 'go in an' do ye'er worst,' he says. 'I make a pass at ye'er stomach,' he says, 'I cross ye with me right,' he says; 'an,' he says at th' last line, he says, 'I soak ye,' he says. An' he done it. Th' minyit 'twas over with th' pome 'twas off with Scanlan. Th' soord wint into him, an' he sunk down to th' flure; an' they had to carry him off. Well, sir, Hogan was that proud ye cudden't hold him f'r th' rest iv th' night. He wint around ivrywhere stickin' people an' soakin' thim with pothry. He's a gr-reat pote is this here Hogan, an' a gr-reat fighter. He done thim all at both; but, like me ol' frind Jawn L., he come to th' end. A man dhropped a two-be-four on his head wan day, an' he died. Honoria Casey was with him as he passed away, an' she says, 'How d'ye feel?' 'All right,' says Hogan. 'But wan thing I'll tell ye has made life worth livin',' he says. 'What's that?' says Miss Casey. 'I know,' says I. 'Annywan cud guess it. He manes his nose,' I says. But ivrywan on th' stage give it up. 'Ye don't know,' says Hogan. ''Tis me hat,' he says; an', makin a low bow to th' aujience, he fell to th' flure so hard that his nose fell off an' rowled down on Mike Finnegan. 'I don't like th' play,' says Finnegan, 'an' I'll break ye'er nose,' he says; an' he done it. He's a wild divvle. Hogan thried to rayturn th' compliment on th' sidewalk afterward; but he cudden't think iv a pome, an' Finnegan done him." "Well, said Mr. Hennessy, "I'd like to've been there to see th' fightin'." "In th' play?" asked Mr. Dooley. "No," said Mr. Hennessy. "On th' sidewalk." THE UNION OF TWO GREAT FORTUNES. "They'se wan thing that always makes me feel sure iv what Hogan calls th' safety iv our dimmycratic institutions," said Mr. Dooley, "an' that's th' intherest th' good people iv New York takes in a weddin' iv th' millyionaires. Anny time a millyionaire condiscinds to enther th' martial state, as Hogan says, an', as Hogan says, make vows to Hyman, which is the Jew god iv marredge, he can fill th' house an' turn people away fr'm th' dure. An' he does. Th' sthreets is crowded. Th' cars can har'ly get through. Th' polis foorce is out, an' hammerin' th' heads iv th' delighted throng. Riprisintatives iv th' free an' inlightened press, th' pollutyem iv our liberties, as Hogan says, bright, intilligent young journalists, iver ready to probe fraud an' sham, disgeezed as waithers, is dashin' madly about, makin' notes on their cuffs. Business is suspinded. They'se no money in Wall Sthreet. It's all at th' sacred scene. Hour be hour, as th' prisints ar-re delivered, th' bank rates go up. Th' Threeasury Departmint has to go on a silver basis, there bein' no goold to mannyfacther into plunks. "Inside th' house th' prisints cast a goolden gleam on th' beauchious scene. Th' happy father is seen seated at a table, dictattin' millyion-dollar checks to a stinographer. Th' goold chandeliers is draped with r-ropes iv dimon's an' pearls. Th' hired girl is passin' dhrinks in goolden goblets. Twinty firemen fr'm th' New York Cinthral Railroad is shovellin' dimon'-studded pickle crutes into th' back yard, among th' yachts an' horses. Chansy Depoo enthers an' thrips over a box iv bonds. 'Ar-re these th' holy bonds iv mathrimony?' he says; f'r he is a wild divvle, an' ye can't stop his jokin', avin on solemn occasions. "Th' soggarth comes in afther a while, carryin' a goold prayer-book, th' gift iv th' Rothscheelds, an' stands behind a small but vallyable pree Doo. To th' soft, meelojous chune iv th' Wagner Palace Weddin' March fr'm 'Long Green,' th' groom enthers, simply but ixpinsively attired in governmint fours, an' fannin' himsilf with a bunch iv first morgedge bonds. "Th' prayers f'r th' occasion, printed on negotyable paper, is disthributed among th' guests. Th' bride was delayed be th' crowd outside. Women screamed an' waved their handkerchefs, sthrong men cheered an' wept; an' 'twas not until th' polis had clubbed tin hardy pathrites to death that th' lady cud enther th' house where her fate was to be sealed. But fin'lly she med it; an' th' two happy, happy childher, whose sunshiny youth riprisinted five thousan' miles iv thrack, eight goold mines, wan hundherd millyion dollars' worth iv rollin' stock, an' a majority intherest in th' Chicago stock yards, was r-ready f'r th' nicissary thransfers that wud establish th' combination. "Th' ceremony was brief, but intherestin'. Th' happy father foorced his way through dimon' stomachers; an' they was tears in his eyes as he handed th' clargyman, whose name was Murphy,--but he carried himsilf as well as if he was used to it,--handed him a check f'r tin millyion dollars. I don't blame him. Divvle th' bit! Me own hear-rt is har-rd an' me eyes ar-re dhry, but I'd break down if I had to hand anny wan that much. 'I suppose th' check is good,' says th' clargyman, ''Tis certified,' says th' weepin' father. 'Do ye take this check,' says th' clargyman, 'to have an' to hold, until some wan parts ye fr'm it?' he says. 'I do,' says th' young man. 'Thin,' says th' clargyman, 'I see no reason why ye shudden't be marrid an' live comfortable,' he says. An' marrid they were, in th' same ol' foolish way that people's been marrid in f'r cinchries. 'Tis a wondher to me th' ceremony ain't changed. Th' time is comin', Hinnissy, whin millyionaires 'll not be marrid be Father Murphy, but be th' gov'nors iv th' stock exchange. They'll be put through th' clearin' house, me faith, an' securities 'll be issued be th' combination. Twinty-year, goold-secured, four per cint bonds iv mathrimony! Aha, 'tis a joke that Chansy Depoo might 've med! "Th' crowd outside waited, cheerin' an' fightin' th' polis. In this here land iv liberty an' akequality, Hinnissy, ivry man is as good as ivry other man, except a polisman. An' it showed how thrue th' people in New York is to th' thraditions iv Jefferson that divvle a wan iv thim 'd move away till th' check 'd been passed fr'm father to son, an' th' important part iv th' sacred ceremony was over. Thin a few iv thim wint home to cook dinner f'r their husbands, who was previnted be their jooties at th' gas-house fr'm attindin' th' function. Th' rest raymained an' see th' two gr-reat fortunes get into their carredge, pursued be th' guests to th' amount iv five hundherd millyions, peltin' thim with seed pearls." "Sure," said Mr. Hennessy, "mebbe 'twasn't as bad as th' pa-apers let on. Ye can't always thrust thim." "P'rhaps not," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' pa-apers say, 'Two gr-reat fortunes united'; an', if that's it, they didn't need th' sarvices iv a priest, but a lawyer an' a thrust comp'ny. P'rhaps, with all th' certyfied checks, 'twas two rale people that was marrid; an', if that's so, it explains th' prisince if Father Murphy." THE DREYFUS CASE. I. "Th' scene was treemenjously excitin'. Th' little city iv Rennes was thronged with des'prit journalists that had pledged their fortunes an' their sacred honors, an' manny iv thim their watches, to be prisint an' protect th' public again th' degradin' facts. Niver since th' war in Cubia has so manny iv these brave fellows been gathered together at th' risk iv their lives fr'm overcrowdin' th' resthrants. No wan has iver sufficiently described th' turrors iv a corryspondint's life excipt th' corryspondints thimsilves. Gin'rals an' other liars is rewarded. Th' corryspondint gets no credit. No wan will give him credit. Still he sticks to his post; an' on this pearlous day he was at Rennes, fightin' th' other corryspondints, or, if he was an English journalist, defindin' th' honor iv Fr-rance again hersilf. 'Tis a good thing for Fr-rance that there ar-re silf-sacrificin' men that don't undherstand her language, to presint her vicious nature to th' English an' American public. Otherwise, Hinnissy, she might think she was as good as th' rest iv us. "Well, while th' sthreets in Rennes was packed with these dauntless souls, ar-rmed with death-dealin' kodaks, there was a commotion near th' coort-house. Was it a rivolution? Was this th' beginnin' iv another Saint Barth'mew's Day, whin th' degraded passions in Fr-rance, pent up durin' three hundherd years, 'd break forth again? Was it th' signal iv another div'lish outbreak that 'd show th' thrue nature iv th' Fr-rinch people, disgeezed behind a varnish iv ojoous politeness which our waiters know nawthin' about? No, alas! alas! 'twas nawthin' a man cud make more thin a column iv. 'Twas th' ac-cursed janitor goin' in to open th' degraded windows. Abase th' janitor, abase th' windows! Fear followed uncertainty. No wan knew what moment he might be called upon to defind his life with his honor. Suddenly th' brutal polisman who sthud on gyard waved his hand. What cud the brave men do? They were obliged to rethreat in disordher. But our special corryspondint was able f'r to obtain a fine view of th' thrillin' scene that followed. First came th' coort, weepin'. They was followed be th' gin'rals in th' Fr-rinch ar-rmy, stalwart, fearless men, with coarse, disagreeable faces. Each gin'ral was attinded be his private bodygyard iv thried and thrusted perjurers, an' was followed be a wagon-load iv forgeries, bogus affidavies, an' other statements iv Major Estherhazy. Afther thim come th' former ministers iv th' Fr-rinch governmint, makin' an imposin' line, which took three hours passin' a given point. As they marched, it was seen that they were shyly kickin' each other. "An interval iv silence followed, in which cud be heard cries iv 'Abase Dhryfuss!' an' 'Abase Fr-rance!' an' thin come th' man on whom th' lies iv all th' wurruld is cinthred. Captain Dhryfuss plainly shows his throubles, which have made him look tin years younger. His raven hair is intirely white; an' his stalwart frame, with th' shoulders thrown back, is stooped an' weary. His haggard face was flushed with insolent confidence, an' th' cowa'dice in his face showed in his fearless eye. As he passed, a young Fr-rinch sojer was with diff'culty resthrained fr'm sthrikin' him an' embracin' him with tears in his eyes. "In th' coort-room th' scene baffled description. It was an inspirin' sight f'r th' judges, whin they were awake. Row on row iv journalists, sharpin' pencils an' slappin' each other's faces, r-rose to th' ceilin'. Here an' there cud be seen a brillyant uniform, denotin' th' prisince iv th' London Times corryspondint. Th' lawn behind th' coort was thronged with ex-mimbers iv th' Fr-rinch governmint. Th' gin'ral staff, bein' witnesses f'r th' prosecution, sat with th' coort: th' pris'ner, not bein' able to find a chair, sat on th' window-sill. His inthrest in th' proceedin's was much noticed, an' caused gr-reat amusement. Ivrybody was talkin' about th' mysteryous lady in white. Who is she? Some say she is a Dhryfussard in th' imploy iv Rothscheeld; others, that she is an agent iv th' Anti-Semites. No wan has learned her name. She says she is Madame Lucille Gazahs, iv wan hundherd an' eight Rue le Bombon, an' is a fav'rite iv th' Fr-rinch stage. She is wan iv th' great mysthries iv this ree-markable thrile. "Afther th' coort had kissed th' witnesses, th' proceedin's opined. 'Tis thrue, they kiss each other. I wanst see a Fr-rinchman go f'r to kiss a man be th' name iv Doherty, that inthrajooced risolutions in favor iv Fr-rance again Germany at a convintion. Doherty thought he was afther his ear, an' laid him out. But in Fr-rance 'tis different. They begin be kissin', an' this thrile opined this way. "'Pris'ner,' said th' prisident iv th' coort, 'th' eyes iv Fr-rance is upon us, th' honor iv th' nation is at stake. Th' naytional definces, th' integrity iv that ar-rmy upon which Fr-rance must depind in time iv peace, th' virtue iv public life, an' th' receipts iv th' exposition is involved. Incidentally, ye ar-re bein' thried. But why dhrag in matthers iv no importance? We ar-re insthructed, accordin' to th' pa-apers, be th' Coort iv Cassation, to permit no ividince that does not apply to your connection with th' case. As sojers, we bow to th' superyor will. We will follow out th' instructions iv th' supreme coort. We have not had time to read thim, but we will look at thim afther th' thrile. In th' mane time we will call upon Gin'ral Merceer, that gallant man, to tell us th' sthory iv his life.' "'I obey, mon colonel,' says Gin'ral Merceer, kissin' th' coort. 'Not to begin too far back, an' to make a long sthory short, I am an honest man, an' th' son iv an honest man. I admit it.' "'Good,' says th' prisident. 'D'ye recognize th' pris'ner?' 'I do,' says Gin'ral Merceer, 'I seen him wanst dhrinkin' a shell iv Munich beer in a caafe. [Marked sensation in th' coort, an' cries iv 'Abase la bock.'] "'I says to mesilf thin, "This man is a thraitor." But th' thrainin' iv a sojer makes wan cautious. I determined to fortify mesilf with ividince. I put spies on this man, this perfiejous wretch, an' discovered nawthin'. I was paralyzed. An officer iv th' Fr-rinch ar-rmy, an' nawthin' suspicyous about him! Damnable! I was with difficulty resthrained fr'm killin' him. But I desisted. [Cries iv 'Shame!'] I said to mesilf: "Th' honor iv Fr-rance is at stake. Th' whole wurruld is lookin' at me, at me, Bill Merceer. I will go to bed an' think it over." I wint to bed. Sleep, blessed sleep that sews up th' confused coat-sleeve iv care, as th' perfiejous Shakspere [cries iv 'Conspuez Shakspere!'] says, dayscinded on me tired eyes. [The coort weeps.] I laid aside me honor [cries iv 'Brave gin'ral'] with me coat [murmurs]. I slept. "'I dhreamed that I see th' German Impror playin' a Jew's-harp. [Cries iv 'Abase Rothscheeld!' an' sensation.] I woke with a vi'lent start, th' perspiration poorin' fr'm me rugged brow. "Cap Dhryfuss is guilty," I cried. But no, I will confirm me ividince. I darted into me r-red pants. I dhruv with fury to th' home iv Madame Cleepathry, th' cillibrated Agyptian asthrologist an' med'cin woman. [Th' coort, 'We know her, she supplies ividence to all Fr-rinch coorts.'] I tol' her me dhream. She projoosed a pack iv cards. She tur-rned a r-red king an' a black knave. "Th' Impror Willum an' Cap Dhryfuss," I says, in a fury. I burst forth. I had Cap Dhryfuss arristed. I dashed to th' prisident. He was a-receivin' rayfusals f'r a new cabinet. "I have found th' thraitor," says I. "Hush!" says he. "If th' Impror Willum hears ye, he'll declare war," he says. I was stupefied. "Oh, my beloved counthry!" I cried. "Oh, hivin!" I cried. "What shall I do?" I cried. They was not a minyit to lose. I disbanded th' ar-rmy. I ordhered th' navy into dhry dock. I had me pitcher took, I wint home an' hid in th' cellar. F'r wan night Fr-rance was safe.' "They was hardly a dhry eye in th' house whin th' gin'ral paused. Th' coort wept. Th' aujience wept. Siv'ral of th' minor journalists was swept out iv th' room in th' flood. A man shovellin' coal in th' cellar sint up f'r an umbrella. Th' lawn shook with th' convulsive sobs iv th' former ministers. Gin'ral Merceer raised his damp face, an' blew a kiss to a former minister at wan iv th' windows, an' resumed his tistimony." THE DREYFUS CASE. II. "'It was about this time or some years later,' continues Gin'ral Merceer, 'that I received ividince iv th' Cap's guilt. I made it mesilf. It was a letter written be me fr'm th' Cap to a German grocer, askin' f'r twinty r-rounds iv sausage. [Turmoil in the coort.] It was impossible, mon colonel, that this here letter cud have been written be Estherhazy. In th' first place he was in Paris at th' time, in th' sicond place he was in London. Th' letter is not in his handwritin', but in th' handwritin' iv Colonel Pat th' Clam. Thin again I wrote th' letter mesilf. Thin who cud 've written it? It must 've been Cap Dhryfuss. [Cheers fr'm th' coort.] I give me reasons as they occurred to me: First, th' Armeenyan athrocities; sicond, th' risignation iv Gin'ral Alger; third, th' marriage iv Prince Lobengula; fourth, th' scarcity iv sarvint girls in th' sooburban towns; fifth, th' price iv gas. [Cries iv 'Abase th' price iv gas!'] I thank th' aujience. I will raysume where I left off. I was speakin' iv Gin'ral Guns. I met him on th' sthreet. Th' moon was clear in th' sky. I says, "Guns," I says, "lave us go down to Hogan's, an' I'll buy ye a tub iv obsceenthe." As we sthrolled through th' bullyvard, I saw a man that looked like a German dhrivin' a cab. I was overcome with terror. I ran madly home, followed be Guns. It was a week befure I cud hold a glass iv obsceenthe without spillin' th' liquor. Shortly afther this, or it may've been tin years befure, or it may niver have occurred [the coort, 'Spoken like a Fr-rinchman an' a sojer'], in th' middle iv July a man tol' me that the divine Sara [wild an' continyous applause, cries iv 'Sara foriver!'] was about to projooce th' immortal play iv "Omlet" [cheers] be th' wretched Shakspere [hisses]. Cud annything be clearer? I will detain th' coort not longer thin a day while I give me opinyon on this marvellous performance.' "Cap Dhryfuss was settin' on th' window-sill, whistlin' 'Garry Owen,' an' makin' faces at th' gallant corryspondint iv th' Daily Wrongs iv Man. At this point he cried out laughingly: 'I will not conthradict th' gin'ral. I will say he lies. I saw th' letter mesilf, an' that man was Esterhazy.' [Sensation.] "'Let me ask this canal iv a Jew a question,' says th' corryspondint iv th' evening Rothscheeld Roaster, a Fr-rinchman be th' name iv Sol Levi. "'Ask it,' says Cap Dhryfuss. "'You are a despicable thraitor,' says th' gallant corryspondint. [Sensation.] "'Th' pris'ner must answer,' says th' coort. 'It is now nearly six o'clock iv th' mornin', an' time to get up an' dhress.' "'I refuse to make anny commint,' says Cap Dhryfuss, "The pris'ner's remark, uttered in tones iv despair, caused gr-reat emotion in th' aujience. There were angry cries iv 'Lynch him!' an' all eyes were tur-rned to th' Cap. "'Silence!' roared th' coort, bendin' a stern, inflexible look on th' pris'ner. 'This is a coort iv justice. We ar-re disposed f'r to grant ivry indulgence; but, if outsiders persist in intherferin' with these proceedin's,' he says, 'we'll expel thim fr'm th' r-room. What does th' prisoner think this is?' "'I thought it was a thrile,' says th' Cap; 'but, be th' number iv vet'ran journalists here, it must be th' openin' iv a new hotel.' "'Not another wurrud,' says th' coort, 'or ye'll be fired out. No wan shall insult th' honest, hard-wurrukin', sober, sensible journalists iv Fr-rance. Not if this coort knows it. Ye bet ye, boys, th' coort is with ye. Th' press is th' palajeen iv our liberties. Gin'ral Merceer will raysume his tistimony. He was speakin' of th' game iv goluf.' "'Perhaps I'd betther sing it,' says th' gin'ral. "'I'll play an accompanymint f'r ye on th' flute,' says th' prisident iv th' coort. 'While Gin'ral Merceer is proceedin' with his remarks, call Colonel Pat th' Clam, who is sick an' can't come. Swear Gin'ral Billot, Gin'ral Boisdeffer, Gin'ral Chammy, an' th' former mimbers iv th' governmint.' "'I object to thim bein' sworn,' says Matther Blamange. "'They must be sworn,' says th' prisident. 'How th' divvle can they perjure thimsilves if they ain't sworn? An' who ar-re ye, annyhow?' "'I'm th' counsel f'r th' pris'ner,' says Matther Blamange. 'Get out ye'ersilf,' says Matther Blamange. 'I'm as good a man as ye ar-re. I will ask that gintleman who jest wint out the dure, Does it pay to keep up appearances?' [Groans.] "'Gin'ral Billot,' says th' prisident, 'what d'ye know about this infernal case which is broodin' like a nightmare over our belovid counthry, an' gettin' us up ivry mornin' befure milkin' time?' "'Nawthin' at all,' says Gin'ral Billot. "'Nayther do I,' says th' prisident. 'But I think th' Cap's guilty.' "'I'm glad to hear ye say that,' says th' gin'ral, 'If ye didn't, I'd rayjooce ye to th' r-ranks to-morrah. I niver see th' man befure; an', be hivins, I don't want to see him again. But I have a letter here fr'm him, askin' me if he cud knock off wurruk at four o'clock to go to his aunt's fun'ral.' "'Cap,' says th' prisident, 'what ye got to say to this? Did ye write th' letter?' "'I did,' says th' Cap. "'Throw it out thin,' says th' prisident. 'We must be guided be th' laws iv ividence. Th' witness will confine himself to forgeries. Have ye e'er a forgery about ye'er clothes, mon gin'ral?' "'I wish to confront th' witness,' says Matther Blamange. "'Sit down,'" says th' prisident. "'D'ye raymimber meetin' me at dinner at Moosoo de Bozoo's. It was years ago, durin' th' time iv Napolyeon, befure th' big fire? If I raymimber right, we had peas. Wasn't it a lovely night? Oh dear, oh dear, gintlemen iv th' press an' mon prisident, ye ought to have been there. Well, I says to Gin'ral Billot, I says, "Gin'ral," I says, "how ar-re ye, annyhow." An' the gin'ral replies, "F'r an ol' man, well." I made up me mind thin that th' Cap was innocent, an' this was before he was born. "'Me distinguished colleague in th' thrile iv this case, th' editor iv wan iv th' Paris papers,' says th' prisident, 'has received a letter fr'm th' military attachay or spy iv th' Impror iv Austhrich, sayin' that he did not write th' letter referred to be Prisident Kruger, an', if he did, it's a forgery. But what cud ye ixpict? I will throw both letters into the secret dossier.' "'What's that?' says Matther Blamange. "'It's a collection iv pomes wrote to th' Paris papers be spies,' says th' prisident. 'Call Colonel Peekhart, if th' others ar-re not through. What, you again, Peekhart? Set down, sir.' "'Gintlemen iv Fr-rance,' says Colonel Peekhart. 'Unaccustomed as I am to public speakin', I wish to addhress ye a few wurruds on th' situation iv th' poor in China.' "'Assassin!' hisses th' coort. "'Canal!' says Matther Blamange. "At this moment th' door was burst open; an' an ex-Prisident iv Fr-rance come boundin' in, an', r-rushin' up th' steps iv th' thrybune, smacked Gin'ral Merceer in th' eye. Th' gr-reatest rayspict was shown f'r th' former chief magistrate iv th' raypublic. No wan shot at him. He was white with rage. 'Th' honor iv Fr-rance is at stake,' he says. 'Our counthry lies prostrate in th' mud. I must presarve th' dignity iv me high office; but, if Gin'ral Merceer will step out into th' back yard, I'll beat his head off. I don't know annything about this accursed case. It was all referred to me whin I was Prisident. I am here to see that th' honor iv me high office is not assailed. I protest I did not say what an anonymous corryspondint in to-night's Sore says I said. I did me jooty. Whin I saw th' ar-rmy disorganized an' Fr-rance beset be foreign foes, I raysigned. What was I to do? Was I to stay in office, an' have me hat smashed in ivry time I wint out to walk? I tell ye, gintlemen, that office is no signcure. Until hats are made iv cast iron, no poor man can be Prisident iv Fr-rance. But I was not speakin' iv th' Dhryfuss case.' "'Don't dare to mintion that matter in this coort,' says th' prisident. 'I'm surprised a man iv ye'er intilligence 'd thry to dhrag in exthranyous matther, whin th' honor iv th' ar-rmy is at stake. Gin'ral Merceer, stand beside this witness. Now both speak at wanst! Annybody else that has annything to say, lave him say it now, so it won't be heard.' "'Mon colonel,' says a former minister iv th' Fr-rinch governmint, who was th' polisman at th' dure, 'Judge Crazy th' Boorepare is here, demandin' to be heard.' "'Gr-reat hivins!' says th' coort; an' they wint out through th' windows. "That night they was gr-reat excitement in Rennes. Th' citizens dhrivin home their cows cud har'ly make their way through th' excited throngs on th' sthreet. Th' corryspondints iv th' English papers do not dare to go to bed befure nine o'clock on account iv rumors iv a gin'ral massacre. Madame Sara Bernhardt gave a magnificint performance at th' theaytre, an' was wildly cheered. It was believed in London, Budapesth, Posen, New York, Cookham, an' Upper Sandusky that Fr-rance is about to perish. As I go to press, th' news has excited no commint in Fr-rance." THE DREYFUS CASE. III. "While th' thrillin' scenes I'm tellin' ye about is goin' on, Hinnissy, worse is bein' enacted in beautiful Paris. In that lovely city with its miles an' miles iv sparklin' resthrants,--la belly Paree, as Hogan 'd say,--th' largest American city in th' wurruld, a rivolution's begun. If ye don't believe it, read th' pa-apers. They've arrested a pote. That was all r-right; f'r Fr-rance is sufferin' fr'm too much pothry that 'll scan, as Hogan says, an' too much morality that won't. They ought to be a rule f'r th' polis to pinch anny pote caught poting between th' hours iv twelve an' twelve. But th' mistake th' chief iv th' polis made was to r-run in a butcher at th' same time. What th' butcher done I dinnaw; but annyhow they accused him iv wantin' to poleaxe th' governmint; an' they thrun him into a cell. Now th' butcher he had a frind be th' name iv Guerin,--an Irish name it is, but this la-ad don't appear to be wan iv us,--Jools Guerin. He was wanst in th' thripe business; but he is now r-runnin' a newspaper, like most iv th' people iv Fr-rance. As a thripe butcher, his circulation was larger an' among a betther class than his newspaper. Bein' a la-ad with a fine sinse iv gratichood, an' havin' been wanst fed an' clothed be a Jew man, he calls his pa-aper th' Anti-Jew; an' its principle is, whin ye see a Jew, hand him a crack in th' jaw. 'Tis a good principle, though I wanst knew a man be th' name iv Solomon Felsenthal, that was known in th' ring as Mike Gallegher, th' Tipp'rary Cyclone, as a thribute to th' feelin's iv th' pathrons iv spoort; an', if Jools had thried to carry out his platform with Solly, they'd be no siege in Fort Chabrool. Not anny. That Jew man 'd been champeen iv th' wurruld if all iv him cud 've kept out iv close quarthers with th' man again him. "I don't quarrel with Jools' feelin's, mind ye. 'Tis th' histhry iv th' wurruld that th' Jews takes our watches fr'm us be tin per cint a month, an' we take thim back be means iv a jimmy an' a piece iv lead pipe. They're on'y two known methods iv finance,--bankin' an' burglary. Th' Jews has th' first down fine, but all th' rest iv th' wurruld is at home in th' second. So Jools's all r-right as far as he goes. But he don't go far. "Well, whin Jools hear-rd that his frind th' butcher was sloughed up, he wint fairly wild. He says to himsilf, he says, 'I'll go home,' he says, 'an' defy th' governmint,' he says. 'I'll start a rivolution,' he says. 'But,' he says, 'I must first notify th' polis,' he says, 'so's to prevint disordher,' he says. So he wint to th' chief iv polis, who was an ol' frind iv his,--they was in th' same newspaper office or thripe dairy or something,--an' th' chief kissed Jools, an' asked him what he cud do f'r him. 'I wish,' said Jools, 'ye'd sind down tin or a dozen good men in uniform an' a few detectives in citizen's clothes,' he says. "I've asked some ladies an' gintlemen to a five o'clock rivolution at my house,' he says; 'an' I'd like to be sure they'll be no disordher,' he says. 'Well,' says th' chief, ''twill not be aisy,' he says. 'Ye see th' prisident--I f'rget his name--has been asked to go to th' r-races with some frinds,' he says; 'an' they will prob'bly thry to kill him,' he says. 'We can't play anny fav'rites here,' he says. 'We have to protect th' low as well as th' high,' he says. 'If annything happens to this man, th' case is li'ble to be taken up be th' ex-prisidents' association; an' they're num'rous enough to make throuble f'r us,' he says. 'But,' he says, 'I'll do what I can f'r ye, me ol' frind,' he says. 'Give us th' best ye have,' says Jools; 'an', if ye've nawthin' to do afther ye close up, ye might dhrop in,' he says, 'an' have a manifesto with us,' he says. 'Come just as ye ar-re,' he says. ''Tis an informal rivolution,' he says. "An' away he wint. At sharp five o'clock th' rivolution begun. Th' sthreets was dinsely packed with busy journalists, polis, sojers, an' fash'nably dhressed ladies who come down fr'm th' Chang's All Easy in motocycles. There was gr-reat excitement as Jools come to th' windy an' pinned a copy iv his vallyable journal on th' sill, accompanied be a thrusty liftnant wavin' a statement iv th' circulation iv th' Anti-Jew. Jools at this moment was a tur-rble sight. He was dhressed fr'm head to foot in Harveyized, bomb-proof steel, with an asbestos rose in his buttonhole. Round his waist was sthrapped four hundherd rounds iv ca'tridges an' eight days' provisions. He car-rid a Mauser rifle on each shoulder, a machine gun undher wan ar-rm, a dinnymite bomb undher another, an' he was smoking a cigareet. 'Ladies an' gintlemen,' he says, 'I'm proud an' pleased to see ye prisint in such lar-rge numbers at th' first rivolution iv th' prisint season,' he says. 'With th' kind permission iv th' hated polis undher th' di-rection iv me good frind an' fellow-journalist, Loot Franswoo Coppere, an' th' ar-rmy, f'r whose honor ivry Fr-renchman 'll lay down his life, th' siege will now begin. We will not,' he says, 'lave this house till we have driven ivry cur-rsed Cosmypollitan or Jew,' he says, 'fr'm this noble land iv th' br-rave an' home iv th' flea,' he says. 'Veev Fr-rance!' he says. 'Veev Jools Guerin!' he says. 'Conspuez Rothscheeld!' he says. 'It's ye'er move, Loot,' he says to th' polisman. "'I defer to th' ar-rmy whose honor is beyond reproach,' says th' polisman, 'or recognition,' he says. 'Veev l'army!' he says. "'Thank ye,' says Gin'ral Bellow, salutin'. 'I will do me jooty. Man can do no more,' he says. 'Jools,' he says, 'surrinder,' he says. 'Ye cannot longer hol' out,' he says. 'Ye have provisions on'y f'r eight years.' "'We will remain till th' last wan iv us perishes iv indigestion,' says Jools. "'Thin I must take sthrong measures,' says th' gin'ral. 'At a given signal we will storm th' house, bate down th' dures, smash in th' roofs, cut off th' gas, poison th' wather supply, back up th' sewer, break th' windys, an' r-raise th' rint.'" "'Do ye'er worst,' says Jools, proudly. "'Thin,' says th' gin'ral, imprissively, 'if these measures do not suffice, I will suspind th' deliv'ry iv th' mails,' he says. "'Miscreant!' cries Jools, tur-rnin' white. 'An' this is called a merciful governmint,' he says. 'Mong doo,' he says, 'what cr-rimes will not Fr-rinchmen commit again' Fr-rinchmen!' he says. 'But,' he says, 'ye little know us, if ye think we can be quelled be vi'lence,' he says. 'I have a last card,' he says. 'I refuse to give th' signal,' he says. "'Thin,' says th' gin'ral, tur-rnin' away with tears in his eyes, 'we must adopt other measures.' "'Very well,' says Jools. 'But mark wan thing,--that, if ye attempt to make me ridiculous, ye shall suffer.' "'I assure ye, mong editor,' says th' gin'ral, earnestly, 'that th' governmint will not make ye anny more ridiculous than it makes itsilf,' says he. "'Me honor is satisfied,' says Jools. 'Do ye'er worst,' he says. "At eight o'clock th' minister iv war ar-rived, an' took command. He ordhered up twinty rig'mints iv cav'lry, tin batthries iv artillery, an' two divisions iv fut sojers. It was his intintion to sind th' cav'lry in over th' roofs, while th' army carried th' front stoop, protected be fire fr'm th' heavy artillery, while th' Fr-rinch navy shelled th' back dure. But this was seen to be impossible, because th' man that owned th' wine-shop next dure, he said 'twud dhrive away custom. All th' sthreets f'r miles ar-round was blockaded without effect. Th' fire departmint was called to put Jools out, but wather niver touched him. Th' sewer gang wint down an' blocked th' dhrains, an' Jools soon had inspiration f'r a year's writin'. At last accounts th' garrison was still holdin' out bravely again a witherin' fire iv canned food, lobsters, omelets, an' hams. A brave gossoon in th' Sivinth Artill'ry did partic'larly effective wurruk, hur-rlin' a plate iv scrambled eggs acrost th' sthreet without spillin' a dhrop, an' is now thrainin' a pie like mother used to make on th' first windy iv th' sicond flure. It is reported that th' minister iv war at four o'clock to-morrow mornin' will dhrop a bundle iv copies iv Jools' paper through th' chimbley. Whin he opens th' windy, a pome be Paul Deroulede 'll be read to him. This is again th' articles iv war, but th' case is desp'rate. "But I was thinkin', Hinnissy, as I walked down th' Roo Chabrool, how I'd like to see a Chicago polisman come sthrollin' along with his hat on th' back iv his head. I don't love Chicago polismen. They seem to think ivry man's head's as hard as their own. But I'd give forty-three francs, or eight dollars an' sixty cints iv our money, if th' Fr-rinch governmint 'd sind f'r Jawnny Shea, an' ask him to put down this here rivolution. Th' nex' day they'd move th' office iv th' Anti-Seemite Society to th' morgue." THE DREYFUS CASE. IV. "Well, Hinnissy, to get back to Rennes. Whin I left off, th' air was full iv rumors iv an approachin' massacree. It was still full at daybreak. Exthraordinney measures was adopted to provide again disturbance. Th' gyard was doubled, an' both polismen had all they cud do to keep th' crowd in ordher. Th' English an' American journalists appeared at th' thrile wrapped up in th' flags iv their rayspictive counthries. All th' Jews, excipt th' owners iv anti-Jew papers fr'm Paris, wore heavy masks an' kep' their hands in their pockets. At four o'clock th' prisident called th' aujience to disordher, an', havin' disentangled Gin'ral Merceer an' a former prisident iv th' raypublic, demanded if Moosoo Bertillon was in th' room. "'Here,' says that gr-reat janius, descindin' fr'm th' roof in a parachute. Ye know Bertillon. Ye don't? Iv coorse ye do, Hinnissy. He's th' la-ad that invinted th' system iv ditictive wurruk med aisy that they use down in th' Cintral Polis Station. I mind wanst, afther 'twas inthrojooced, th' loot says to Andy Rohan,--he's a sergeant now, be hivins!--he says, 'Go out,' he says, 'an' fetch in Mike McGool, th' safe robber,' he says. 'Here's his description,' he says: 'eyelashes, eight killomethres long; eyes, blue an' assymethrical; jaw, bituminous; measuremint fr'm abaft th' left ear to base iv maxillory glan's, four hectograms; a r-red scar runnin' fr'm th' noomo-gasthric narve to th' sicond dorsal verteebree,' he says. 'Tis so. I have th' description at home in th' cash dhrawer. Well, Andy come in about six o'clock that night, lookin' as though he'd been thryin' to r-run a fut race acrost a pile iv scrap ir'n; an' says he, 'Loot,' he says, 'I've got him,' he says. "I didn't take th' measuremints,' he says, 'because, whin I pulled out th' tape line, he rowled me eighty hectograms down th' sthreet,' he says. 'But 'tis Mike McGool,' he says. 'I don't know annything about his noomo-gasthric narves,' he says, 'but I reco'nized his face,' he says. 'I've r-run him in fifty times,' he says. "Bertillon, besides bein' a profissor iv detictives, is a handwritin' expert, which is wan iv th' principal industhries iv Fr-rance at th' prisint time. He was accompanied be a throop iv assistants carryin' a camera, a mutoscope, a magic lantern, a tib iv dye, a telescope, a calceem light, a sextant, a compass, a thermometer, a barometer, a thrunkful iv speeches, a duplicate to th' Agyptian obelisk, an ink-eraser, an' a rayceipt f'r makin' goold out iv lead pipe. "'Well, sir,' says Bertillon, 'what d'ye want?' "'Nawthin',' says th' coort. 'Didn't ye ask to be called here?' "'No,' says Bertillon, 'an' ye didn't ask me, ayther. I come. Ye said jus' now, Why do I believe th' Cap's guilty? I will show ye. In th' spring iv ninety-five or th' fall iv sixty-eight, I disraymimber which, Gin'ral Merceer'-- "'Ye lie,' says Gin'ral Merceer, coldly. "'--called on me; an' says he, "Bertillon," he says, "ye'er fam'ly's been a little cracked, an' I thought to ask ye to identify this letther which I've jus' had written be a frind iv mine, Major Estherhazy," he says. "I don't care to mintion who we suspect; but he's a canal Jew in th' artillery, an' his name's Cap Dhryfuss," he says. "It's not aisy," I says; "but, if th' honor iv th' ar-rmy's at stake, I'll thry to fix th' raysponsibility," I says. An' I wint to wurruk. I discovered in th' first place that all sentences begun with capitals, an' they was a peryod at th' end iv each. This aroused me suspicions. Clearly, this letther was written be a Jew. Here I paused, f'r I had no samples iv th' Cap's writin' to compare with it. So I wrote wan mesilf. They was much th' same. "Sure," says I, "th' Cap's guilty," I says. But how did he do it? I thried a number iv experiments. I first laid down over th' letther a piece of common tissue paper. Th' writin' was perfectly plain through this. Thin I threw it on a screen eighteen hands high. Thin I threw it off. Thin I set it to music, an' played it on a flute. Thin I cooked it over a slow fire, an' left it in a cool airy place to dhry. In an instant it flashed over me how th' forgery was done. "Th' Cap first give it to his little boy to write. Thin he had his wife copy it in imitation iv Macchew Dhryfuss's handwritin'. Thin Macchew wrote it in imitation iv Estherhazy. Thin th' Cap had it put on a typewriter, an' r-run through a wringer. Thin he laid it transversely acrost a piece of wall paper; an', whereiver th' key wurrud sponge-cake appeared, he was thereby able f'r to make a sympathic lesion, acquirin' all th' characteristics iv th' race, an' a dam sight more." "'I follow ye like a horse afther a hay wagon,' says th' prisident, 'hungrily, but unsatisfacthrly. Ye do not prove that th' throuble was symotic, mong expert.' "'Parfictly,' says Moosoo Bertillon. 'I will have me assistants put up a screen, an' on this I will projooce ividince'--"'Go away,' says th' prisident. 'Call Colonel Prystalter. Mong colonel, ye thraitor, describe th' conversation ye had with Colonel Schneider, th' honorable but lyin' spy or confidential envoy iv th' vin'rable Impror iv Austhrich, may th' divvle fly way with him! But mind ye, ye must mintion no names.' "'I know no man more honest,' says th' witness. "'Thin your acquaintance is limited to ye'ersilf,' says Gin'ral Merceer. "'Colonel Schneider,' says th' witness, 'th' Austhrich,--whom I will designate, f'r fear iv internaytional entanglements, merely as Colonel Schneider,--says to me, he says: "Th' letther pretindin' to be fr'm me is a forgery." "How's that?" says I. "Didn't ye write an' sign it?" I says. "I did," says he. "But some wan else sint it to th' pa-apers." "'Thin 'tis clearly a forgery,' says th' prisident. "'I wish to ask this witness wan question,' says Gin'ral Merceer. 'Was it th' Robin shell or th' day befure?' "'My answer to that,' says th' witness, 'is decidedly, Who?' "'Thin,' says Gin'ral Merceer, 'all I can say is, this wretch's tistimony is all a pack iv lies.' "'Hol' on there!' calls a voice from th' aujience. "'What d'ye want?' says th' prisident. "'I'm th' corryspondint iv th' Georgia Daily Lyncher, an' I can't undherstand a wurrud ye say. I've lost me dictionary. Th' people iv th' State iv Georgia mus' not be deprived iv their information about th' scand'lous conduct iv this infamious coort.' "'Thrue,' says th' prisident. 'Fr-rance 'd soon perish if Georgia shud thransfer its intherest fr'm Fr-rinch coorts to its own sacred timples iv justice. Perhaps some confrere 'll lind th' distinguished gazabo a copy iv his Ollendorff. Manewhile'-- "'Mong prisident,' says a white-faced polisman, 'Judge Crazy the Boore'-- "'Gr-reat hivins!' cried th' prisident. 'Thin th' quarantine at Oporto is a farce.' An' he plunged into th' seething mass iv handwritin' experts an' ex-prisidents iv th' raypublic in th' coort-yard below." THE DREYFUS CASE. V. "An' I was thinking Hinnissy" (Mr. Dooley said in conclusion), "as I set in that there coort, surrounded be me fellow-journalists, spies, perjurers, an' other statesmen, that I'd give four dollars if th' prisident iv th' coort 'd call out, 'Moosoo Dooley, take th' stand.' "'Here,' says I; an' I'd thread me way with dignity through th' Fr-rinch gin'rals an' ministers on th' flure, an' give me hand to th' prisident to kiss. If he went anny further, I'd break his head. No man 'll kiss me, Hinnissy, an' live. What's that ye say? He wudden't want to? Well, niver mind. "'Here,' says I, 'mong colonel, what d'ye want with me?' "'What d'ye know about this case, mong bar-tinder.' "'Nawthin',' says I. 'But I know as much as annywan else. I know more thin most iv thim la-ads down below; f'r I can't undherstand a wurrud ye say, so I'm onable,' I says, 'f'r to make mistakes. I won't give anny tistimony, because 'twud be out iv place in this sacred timple devoted to th' practice iv orathry,' I says; 'but I can make as good a speech as annywan, an' here goes.' "Gin'ral Merceer--'May I ask this polluted witness wan question?' "Th' Witness.--'Set down, ye infamious ol' polthroon!' says I. 'Set down an' pondher ye'er sins,' I says. 'If ye had ye'er dues, ye'd be cooprin' a bar'l in th' pinitinchry. If ye're afraid iv th' Impror Willum, be hivins, ye want to be afraid iv th' Impror Dooley; f'r he's Dutch, an' I ain't. I'll raysume me speech. Lady an' Gintlemen, prisoner at th' bar, freeman that ought to be there, lawyers, gin'rals, ex-prisidents, former mimbers iv th' cabinet, an' you, me gin'rous confreres iv th' wurruld's press, I come fr'm a land where injustice is unknown, where ivry man is akel befure th' law, but some are betther thin others behind it, where th' accused always has a fair thrile ayether,' I says, 'in th' criminal coort or at th' coroner's inquest,' I says. 'I have just been in another counthry where such conduct as we've witnessed here wud be unknown at a second thrile,' I says, 'because they have no second thriles,' I says. 'We Anglo-Saxons ar-re th' salt iv th' earth, an' don't ye f'rget it, boys. All our affairs ar-re in ordher. We convict no innocent men an' very few guilty wans, perjury is unknown amongst us, we have no military scandals, an' our private life is beyond rebuke. So we have th' time an' th' inclination to study th' vile offences iv our neighbors, an' give thim advice free iv cost. An' that is why I'm here to-day in this degraded counthry to tell ye what's th' matther with ye an' what ye ought to do. "'An' this is me opinyon: I don't think Cap. Dhryfuss wr-rote th' borderoo. I think he was th' on'y man in Fr-rance that didn't. But I ain't got as high an opinyon iv th' Cap as I had. I ain't no purity brigade; but, th' older I get, th' more I think wan wife's enough f'r anny man, an' too manny f'r some. They was a time, Cap, whin 'twas seryously thought iv takin' ye fr'm th' Divvle's Own Island an' makin' ye prisident iv th' Women's Rescue League. But I'm afraid, Cap, ye're disqualified f'r that position be what we've heard fr'm ye'er own lips durin th' thrile. Ye lost a good job. Thin there ar-re some other things about ye I don't undherstand. I can't make out what ye meant be pretindin' to go to It'ly an' doublin' back into Germany; an' I wish f'r me own peace iv mind all ye'er explanations 'd mate. But, sure, if ivry man that was too free with his affections was to be sint to th' Divvle's Own Island, they'd have to build an intinsion to that far-famed winther resort. An' if suspicyous actions was proof iv guilt, mong colonel, ye'd have th' mimbers iv th' gin'ral staff sthrung up in as manny cages as ye see at th' Zoo-illogical Gardens [laughter an' cries iv 'Veev Dooley!'] "'Th' throuble is, mong colonel, lady an' gintlemen, that it ain't been Cap Dhryfuss that's been on thrile, but th' honor iv th' nation an' th' honor iv th' ar-rmy. If 'twas th' Cap that was charged, ye'd say to him, "Cap, we haven't anny proof again ye; but we don't like ye, an' ye'll have to move on." An' that 'd be th' end iv th' row. The Cap 'd go over to England an' go into th' South African minin' business, an' become what Hogan calls "A Casey's bellows." But, because some la-ad on th' gin'ral staff got caught lyin' in th' start an' had to lie some more to make th' first wan stick, an' th' other gin'rals had to jine him f'r fear he might compromise thim if he wint on telling his fairy stories, an' they was la-ads r-runnin' newspapers in Paris that needed to make a little money out iv th' popylation, ye said, "Th' honor iv th' Fr-rinch people an' th' honor iv th' Fr-rinch ar-rmy is on thrile"; an' ye've put thim in th' dock instead iv th' Cap. Th' honor iv Fr-rance is all right, me boy, an' will be so long as th' Fr-rinch newspapers is not read out iv Paree,' I says. 'An', if th' honor iv th' Fr-rinch ar-rmy can stand thim pants that ye hew out iv red flannel f'r thim, a little threachery won't injure it at all,' I says. 'Yes,' says I, 'th' honor iv Fr-rance an' th' honor iv th' ar-rmy 'll come out all r-right,' I says; 'but it wudden't do anny harm f'r to sind th' honor iv th' Fr-rinch gin'rals to th' laundhry,' I says. 'I think ye'd have to sind Gin'ral Merceer's to th' dyer's,' I says. 'Ye niver can take out th' spots, an' it might as well all be th' same color,' I says. 'Mong colonel,' I says imprissively, 'so long as ivry man looks out f'r his own honor, th' honor iv th' counthry 'll look out f'r itsilf,' I says. 'No wan iver heard iv a nation stealin' a lead pipe or committin' perjury,' I says. ''Tis th' men that makes up th' nation that goes in f'r these diversions,' I says. 'I'd hate to insure again burglars th' naytional honor that was guarded be that ol' gazabo,' says I, indicatin' Merceer with th' toe iv me boot. "'That's wan point. They's another, mong colonel. Ye're all afraid. That's th' truth iv th' matther. Ye're like a lot iv ol' women that thinks ivry time th' shutter creaks burglars is goin' to break into th' house. Ye're afraid iv Rothscheeld, an' th' Impror iv Germany, an' th' Dook d'Orleans, Vik Bonaparte, an' Joe Chamberlain, an' Bill McKinley. Be hivins, I believe ye're even afraid iv Gin'ral Otis! Ye're afraid iv th' newspapers, ye're afraid iv Jools Guerin, ye're afraid iv a pote, even whin he is not ar-rmed with his pothry, an' ye're afraid iv each other. Brace up! be men! If I was a Fr-rinchman, I'd be afraid iv no man but th' cab-dhrivers; an' I wudden't be afraid iv thim long, f'r I'd be a cab-dhriver mesilf. "'Wan thing more, an' thin me tistimony's over. Ye want me advice. Ye didn't ask f'r it. If I was prisident iv this coort-martial, I'd say to Cap Dhryfuss: "Cap, get out. Ye may not be a thraitor, but ye're worse. Ye're become a bore." An' I'd give him money enough to lave th' counthry. Thin I'd sind th' gin'ral staff off to some quiet counthry village where they'd be free fr'm rumors iv war, an' have nawthin' else to do but set around in rockin'-chairs an' play with th' cat. Thin I'd cut th' cable to England; an' thin I'd gather all the journalists iv Paris together, an' I'd say, "Gintlemen," I'd say, "th' press is th' palajeem iv our liberties," I'd say; "but our liberties no longer requires a palajeem," I'd say. "This wan, whativer it means, is frayed at th' risbands, an' th' buttonholes is broken, annyhow," I'd say. "I've bought all iv ye tickets to Johannisberg," I'd say, "an' ye'll be shipped there tonight," I'd say. "Ye'er confreres iv that gr-reat city is worn out with their exertions, an' ye'll find plenty iv wurruk to do. In fact, those iv ye that're anti-Seemites 'll niver lack imployment," I'd say. "Hinceforth Fr-rance will be free--fr'm th' likes iv ye," I'd say. An' th' nex' mornin' Paris 'd awake ca'm an' peaceful, with no newspapers, an' there 'd be more room in our own papers f'r th' base-ball news,' says I. "'But, mong liquor dealer, what ye propose 'd depopylate France,' says th' prisident. "'If that's th' case,' says I, 'Fr-rance ought to be depopylated,' I says. 'I've been thinkin' that's th' on'y way it can be made fit to live in f'r a man fr'm Chicago, where th' jambons come fr'm,' says I, lavin' th' stand." * * * * * "Arrah, what ar-re ye talkin' about?" demanded Mr. Hennessy. "Ye niver got a peek in th' dure." "What have you been doin'?" Mr. Dooley asked, disregarding the interruption. "I wint out to see th' rowlin' mills," said Mr. Hennessy. "They have a very good plant; an' a man be th' name iv Mechell Onnessy or Mike Hennessy, a cousin iv mine that come over th' Fenian time with Stevens, is boss iv a gang. He speaks Fr-rinch like a boardin'-school. I talked with wan iv th' la-ads through him. "Did ye ask him about th' Dhryfuss case?" asked Mr. Dooley, eagerly. "I did." "What did he say?" "He said he niver heerd of it." 
14684	----	Mr. DOOLEY SAYS BY THE AUTHOR OF "MR. DOOLEY IN PEACE AND IN WAR," "MR. DOOLEY IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN", ETC. NEW YORK, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS CONTENTS PAGE DIVORCE 1 GLORY 14 WOMAN SUFFRAGE 25 THE BACHELOR TAX 40 THE RISING OF THE SUBJECT RACES 50 PANICS 67 OCEAN TRAVEL 78 WORK 89 DRUGS 100 A BROKEN FRIENDSHIP 106 THE ARMY CANTEEN 110 THINGS SPIRITUAL 123 BOOKS 134 THE TARIFF 144 THE BIG FINE 158 EXPERT TESTIMONY 168 THE CALL OF THE WILD 180 THE JAPANESE SCARE 193 THE HAGUE CONFERENCE 204 TURKISH POLITICS 214 VACATIONS 227 Mr. DOOLEY SAYS DIVORCE "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "I see they've been holdin' a Divoorce Congress." "What's that?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Ye wudden't know," said Mr. Dooley. "Divoorce is th' on'y luxury supplied be th' law that we don't injye in Ar-rchey Road. Up here whin a marrid couple get to th' pint where 'tis impossible f'r thim to go on livin' together they go on livin' together. They feel that way some mornin' in ivry month, but th' next day finds thim still glarin' at each other over th' ham an' eggs. No wife iver laves her husband while he has th' breath iv life in him, an' anny gintleman that took a thrip to Reno in ordher to saw off th' housekeepin' expinses on a rash successor wud find throuble ready f'r him whin he come back to Ar-rchey Road. No, sir, whin our people grab hands at th' altar, they're hooked up f'river. There's on'y wan decree iv divoorce that th' neighbors will recognize, an' that's th' wan that entitles ye to ride just behind th' pall bearers. That's why I'm a batch. 'Tis th' fine skylark iv a timprary husband I'd make, bringin' home a new wife ivry Foorth iv July an' dischargin' th' old wan without a charackter. But th' customs iv th' neighbors are agin it. "But 'tis diff'rent with others, Hinnissy. Down be Mitchigan Avnoo marredge is no more bindin' thin a dhream. A short marrid life an' an onhappy wan is their motto. Off with th' old love an' on with th' new an' off with that. 'Till death us do part,' says th' preacher. 'Or th' jury,' whispers th' blushin' bride. "Th' Divoorce Congress, Hinnissy, that I'm tellin' ye about was assembled to make th' divoorce laws iv all th' States th' same. It's a tur-rble scandal as it is now. A man shakes his wife in wan State on'y to be grabbed be her an' led home th' minyit he crosses th' border. There's no safety f'r anny wan. In some places it's almost impossible f'r a man to get rid iv his fam'ly onless he has a good raison. There's no regularity at all about it. In Kentucky baldness is grounds f'r divoorce; in Ohio th' inclemency iv th' weather. In Illinye a woman can be freed fr'm th' gallin' bonds iv mathrimony because her husband wears Congress gaiters; in Wisconsin th' old man can get his maiden name back because his wife tells fortunes in th' taycup. "In Nebrasky th' shackles ar-re busted because father forgot to wipe his boots; in New York because mother knows a Judge in South Dakota. Ye can be divoorced f'r annything if ye know where to lodge th' complaint. Among th' grounds ar-re snorin', deefness, because wan iv th' parties dhrinks an' th' other doesn't, because wan don't dhrink an' th' other does, because they both dhrink, because th' wife is addicted to sick headaches, because he asked her what she did with that last $10 he give her, because he knows some wan else, because she injyes th' society iv th' young, because he f'rgot to wind th' clock. A husband can get a divoorce because he has more money thin he had; a wife because he has less. Ye can always get a divoorce f'r what Hogan calls incompatibility iv temper. That's whin husband an' wife ar-re both cross at th' same time. Ye'd call it a tiff in ye'er fam'ly, Hinnissy. "But, mind ye, none iv these raisons go in anny two States. A man that wants to be properly divoorced will have to start out an' do a tour iv our gr-reat Republic, an' be th' time he's thurly released he may want to do it all over agin with th' second choice iv his wild, glad heart. "It wud be a grand thing if it cud be straightened out. Th' laws ought to be th' same ivrywhere. In anny part iv this fair land iv ours it shud be th' right iv anny man to get a divoorce, with alimony, simply be goin' befure a Justice iv th' Peace an' makin' an affydavit that th' lady's face had grown too bleak f'r his taste. Be Hivens, I'd go farther. Rather than have people endure this sarvichood I'd let anny man escape be jumpin' th' conthract. All he'd have to do if I was r-runnin' this Governmint wud be to put some clothes in th' grip, write a note to his wife that afther thinkin' it over f'r forty years he had made up his mind that his warm nature was not suited to marredge with th' mother iv so manny iv his childher, an' go out to return no more. "I don't know much about marrid life, except what ye tell me an' what I r-read in th' pa-apers. But it must be sad. All over this land onhappily mated couples ar-re sufferin' almost as much as if they had a sliver in their thumb or a slight headache. Th' sorrows iv these people ar-re beyond belief. I say, Hinnissy, it is th' jooty iv th' law to marcifully release thim. "Ye take th' case iv me frind fr'm Mud Center that I was readin' about th' other day. There was a martyr f'r ye. Poor fellow! Me eyes filled with tears thinkin' about him. Whin a young man he marrid. He was a fireman in thim days, an' th' objict iv his etarnal affection was th' daughter iv th' most popylar saloon keeper in town. A gr-reat socyal gulf opened between thim. He had fine prospects iv ivinchooly bein' promoted to two-fifty a day, but she was heiress to a cellar full iv Monongahela rye an' a pool table, an' her parents objicted, because iv th' diffrence in their positions. But love such as his is not to be denied. Th' bold suitor won. Together they eloped an' were marrid. "F'r a short time all wint well. They lived together happily f'r twinty years an' raised wan iv th' popylous fam'lies iv people who expect to be supported in their old days. Th' impechuse lover, spurred on be th' desire to make good with his queen, slugged, cheated, an' wurruked his way to th' head iv th' railroad. He was no longer Greasy Bill, th' Oil Can, but Hinnery Aitch Bliggens, th' Prince iv Industhree. All th' diff'rent kinds iv money he iver heerd iv rolled into him, large money an' small, other people's money, money he'd labored f'r an' money he'd wished f'r. Whin he set in his office countin' it he often left a call f'r six o'clock f'r fear he might be dhreamin' an' not get to th' roundhouse on time. "But, bein' an American citizen, he soon felt as sure iv himsilf as though he'd got it all in th' Probate Coort, an' th' arly Spring saw him on a private car speedin' to New York, th' home iv Mirth. He was received with open ar-rms be ivry wan in that gr-reat city that knew the combynation iv a safe. He was taken f'r yacht rides be his fellow Kings iv Fi-nance. He was th' principal guest iv honor at a modest but tasteful dinner, where there was a large artificyal lake iv champagne into which th' comp'ny cud dive. In th' on'y part iv New York ye iver read about--ar-re there no churches or homes in New York, but on'y hotels, night resthrants, an' poolrooms?--in th' on'y part iv New York ye read about he cud be seen anny night sittin' where th' lights cud fall on his bald but youthful head. "An' how was it all this time in dear old Mud Center? It is painful to say that th' lady to whom our frind was tied f'r life had not kept pace with him. She had taught him to r-read, but he had gone on an' taken what Hogan calls th' postgrajate coorse. Women get all their book larnin' befure marredge, men afther. She'd been pretty active about th' childher while he was pickin' up more iddycation in th' way iv business thin she'd iver dhream iv knowin'. She had th' latest news about th' throuble in th' Methodist Church, but he had a private wire into his office. "A life spint in nourishin' th' young, Hinnissy, while fine to read about, isn't anny kind iv a beauty restorer, an' I've got to tell ye that th' lady prob'bly looked diff'rent fr'm th' gazelle he use to whistle three times f'r whin he wint by on Number Iliven. It's no aisy thing to rock th' cradle with wan hand an' ondylate th' hair with another. Be th' time he was gettin' into th' upper classes in New York she was slowin' down aven f'r Mud Center. Their tastes was decidedly dissimilar, says th' pa-aper. Time was whin he carrid th' wash pitcher down to th' corner f'r a quart iv malt, while she dandled th' baby an' fried th' round steak at th' same time. That day was past. She hadn't got to th' pint where she cud dhrink champagne an' keep it out iv her nose. Th' passin' years had impaired all possible foundations f'r a new crop iv hair. Sometimes conversation lagged. "Mud Center is a long way fr'm th' Casino. Th' last successful exthravaganza that th' lady had seen was a lecture be Jawn B. Gough. She got her Eyetalian opry out iv a music box. What was there f'r this joynt intelleck an' this household tyrant to talk about? No wondher he pined. Think iv this Light iv th' Tendherloin bein' compelled to set down ivry month or two an' chat about a new tooth that Hiven had just sint to a fam'ly up th' sthreet! Nor was that all. She give him no rest. Time an' time again she asked him was he comin' home that night. She tortured his proud spirit be recallin' th' time whin she used to flag him fr'm th' window iv th' room where Papa had locked her in. She aven wint so far as to dhraw on him th' last cow'rdly weapon iv brutal wives--their tears. One time she thravelled to New York an' wan iv his frinds seen her. Oh, it was crool, crool. Hinnissy, tell me, wud ye condim this gr-reat man to such a slavery just because he'd made a rash promise whin he didn't have a cent in th' wurruld? Th' law said no. Whin th' Gr-reat Fi-nanceer cud stand it no longer he called upon th' Judge to sthrike off th' chains an' make him a free man. He got a divoorce. "I dare ye to come down to my house an' say thim things," said Mr. Hennessy. "Oh, I know ye don't agree with me," said Mr. Dooley. "Nayether does th' parish priest. He's got it into his head that whin a man's marrid he's marrid, an' that's all there is to it. He puts his hand in th' grab-bag an' pulls out a blank an' he don't get his money back. "'Ill-mated couples?' says he. 'Ill-mated couples? What ar-re ye talkin' about? Ar-re there anny other kinds? Ar-re there anny two people in th' wurruld that ar-re perfectly mated?' he says. 'Was there iver a frindship that was annything more thin a kind iv suspension bridge between quarrels?' he says. 'In ivry branch iv life,' says he, 'we leap fr'm scrap to scrap,' he says. 'I'm wan iv th' best-timpered men in th' wurruld, am I not? ('Ye are not,' says I.) I'm wan iv th' kindest iv mortals,' he says, 'but put me in th' same house with Saint Jerome,' he says, 'an' there'd be at laste wan day in th' month whin I'd answer his last wurrd be slammin' th' dure behind me,' he says. 'Man is nachrally a fightin' an quarrelin' animal with his wife. Th' soft answer don't always turn away wrath. Sometimes it makes it worse,' he says. 'Th' throuble about divoorce is it always lets out iv th' bad bargain th' wan that made it bad. If I owned a half in a payin' business with ye, I'd niver let th' sun go down on a quarrel,' he says. 'But if ye had a bad mouth I'd go into coort an' wriggle out iv th' partnership because ye'ar a cantankerous old villain that no wan cud get on with,' he says. 'If people knew they cudden't get away fr'm each other they'd settle down to life, just as I detarmined to like coal smoke whin I found th' collection wasn't big enough to put a new chimbley in th' parish house. I've acchally got to like it,' he says. 'There ain't anny condition iv human life that's not endurable if ye make up ye'er mind that ye've got to endure it,' he says. 'Th' throuble with the rich,' he says, 'is this, that whin a rich man has a perfectly nachral scrap with his beloved over breakfast, she stays at home an' does nawthin' but think about it, an' he goes out an' does nawthin but think about it, an' that afthernoon they're in their lawyers' office,' he says. 'But whin a poor gintleman an' a poor lady fall out, the poor lady puts all her anger into rubbin' th' zinc off th' wash-boord an' th' poor gintleman aises his be murdhrin' a slag pile with a shovel, an' be th' time night comes ar-round he says to himself: Well, I've got to go home annyhow, an' it's no use I shud be onhappy because I'm misjudged, an' he puts a pound iv candy into his coat pocket an' goes home an' finds her standin' at th' dure with a white apron on an' some new ruching ar-round her neck,' he says. "An' there ye ar-re. Two opinions." "I see on'y wan," said Mr. Hennessy. "What do ye raaly think?" "I think," said Mr. Dooley, "if people wanted to be divoorced I'd let thim, but I'd give th' parents into th' custody iv th' childher. They'd larn thim to behave." GLORY "Hogan has been in here this afthernoon, an' I've heerd more scandal talked thin I iver thought was in the wurrld." "Hogan had betther keep quiet," said Mr. Hennessy. "If he goes circulatin' anny stories about me I'll--" "Ye needn't worry," said Mr. Dooley. "We didn't condiscend to talk about annywan iv ye'er infeeryor station. If ye want to be th' subjick iv our scand'lous discoorse ye'd betther go out an' make a repytation. No, sir, our talk was entirely about th' gr-reat an' illusthrees an' it ran all th' way fr'm Julius Cayzar to Ulysses Grant. "Dear, oh dear, but they were th' bad lot. Thank th' Lord nobody knows about me. Thank th' Lord I had th' good sinse to retire f'rm pollyticks whin me repytation had spread as far as Halsted Sthreet. If I'd let it go a block farther I'd've been sorry f'r it th' rest iv me life an' some years afther me death. "I wanted to be famous in thim days, whin I was young an' foolish. 'Twas th' dhream iv me life to have people say as I wint by: 'There goes Dooley, th' gr-reatest statesman iv his age,' an' have thim name babies, sthreets, schools, canal boats, an' five-cent seegars afther me, an' whin I died to have it put in th' books that 'at this critical peeryod in th' history of America there was need iv a man who combined strenth iv charackter with love iv counthry. Such a man was found in Martin Dooley, a prom'nent retail liquor dealer in Ar-rchey Road.' "That's what I wanted, an' I'm glad I didn't get me wish. If I had, 'tis little attintion to me charackter that th' books iv what Hogan calls bi-ography wud pay, but a good deal to me debts. Though they mintioned th' fact that I resked death f'r me adopted fatherland, they'd make th' more intherestin' story about th' time I almost met it be fallin' down stairs while runnin' away fr'm a polisman. F'r wan page they'd print about me love iv counthry, they'd print fifty about me love iv dhrink. "Th' things thim gr-reat men done wud give thim a place in Byrnes's book. If Julius Caysar was alive to-day he'd be doin' a lockstep down in Joliet. He was a corner loafer in his youth an' a robber in his old age. He busted into churches, fooled ar-round with other men's wives, curled his hair with a poker an' smelled iv perfumery like a Saturday night car. An' his wife was a suspicyous charackter an' he turned her away. "Napolyon Bonypart, impror iv th' Fr-rinch, was far too gay aven f'r thim friv'lous people, an' had fits. His first wife was no betther than she shud be, an' his second wife didn't care f'r him. Willum Shakespeare is well known as an author of plays that no wan can play, but he was betther known as a two-handed dhrinker, a bad actor, an' a thief. His wife was a common scold an' led him th' life he desarved. They niver leave th' ladies out iv these stories iv th' gr-reat. A woman that marries a janius has a fine chance iv her false hair becomin' more immortal thin his gr-reatest deed. It don't make anny difference if all she knew about her marital hero was that he was a consistent feeder, a sleepy husband, an' indulgent to his childher an' sometimes to himsilf, an' that she had to darn his socks. Nearly all th' gr-reat men had something th' matther with their wives. I always thought Mrs. Wash'nton, who was th' wife iv th' father iv our counthry, though childless hersilf, was about right. She looks good in th' pitchers, with a shawl ar-round her neck an' a frilled night-cap on her head. But Hogan says she had a tongue sharper thin George's soord, she insulted all his frinds, an' she was much older thin him. As f'r George, he was a case. I wish th' counthry had got itsilf a diff'rent father. A gr-reat moral rellijous counthry like this desarves a betther parent. "They were all alike. I think iv Bobby Burns as a man that wrote good songs, aven if they were in a bar'brous accint, but Hogan thinks iv him as havin' a load all th' time an' bein' th' scandal iv his parish. I remimber Andhrew Jackson as th' man that licked th' British at Noo Orleans be throwin' cotton bales at thim, but Hogan remimbers him as a man that cudden't spell an' had a wife who smoked a corncob pipe. I remimber Abraham Lincoln f'r freein' th' slaves, but Hogan remimbers how he used to cut loose yarns that made th' bartinder shake th' stove harder thin it needed. I remimber Grant f'r what he done ar-round Shiloh whin he was young, but Hogan remimbers him f'r what he done arr-ound New York whin he was old. "An' so it goes. Whin a lad with nawthin' else to do starts out to write a bi-ography about a gr-reat man, he don't go to th' war departmint or th' public library. No, sir, he begins to search th' bureau dhrawers, old pigeon-holes, th' records iv th' polis coort, an' th' recollections iv th' hired girl. He likes letters betther thin annything else. He don't care much f'r th' kind beginning: 'Dear wife, I'm settin' in front iv th' camp fire wearin' th' flannel chest protector ye made me, an' dhreamin' iv ye,' but if he can find wan beginnin': 'Little Bright Eyes: Th' old woman has gone to th' counthry,' he's th' happiest bi-ographer ye cud see in a month's thravel. "Hogan had wan iv thim books in here th' other day. 'Twas written by a frind, so ye can see it wasn't prejudiced wan way or another. 'At this time,' says the book, 'an ivint happened that was destined to change th' whole coorse iv our hero's life. Wan day, while in a sthreet car, where he lay dozin' fr'm dhrink, he awoke to see a beautiful woman thryin' to find a nickel in a powder puff. Th' brutal conductor towered over her, an' it was more thin th' Gin'ral cud bear. Risin' to his feet, with an oath, he pulled th' rope iv th' fare register an' fell off th' car. "Th' incident made a deep impression on th' Gin'ral. I have no doubt he often thought iv his beautiful Madonna iv th' throlly, although he niver said so. But wan night as he staggered out iv th' dinin'-room at th' German Ambassadure's, who shud he run acrost but th' fair vision iv th' surface line. She curtsied low an' picked him up, an' there began a frindship so full iv sorrow an' happiness to both iv thim. He seldom mintioned her, but wan night he was heard to mutter: 'Her face is like wan iv Rembrand's saints.' A few historyans contind that what he said was: 'Her face looks like a remnant sale,' but I cannot believe this. "They exchanged brilliant letters fr manny years, in fact ontil th' enchanthress was locked up in an insane asylum. I have not been able to find anny iv his letters, but her's fell into th' hands iv wan iv his faithful servants, who presarved an' published thim. (Love an' Letters iv Gin'ral Dhreadnaught an' Alfaretta Agonized; Stolen, Collected an' Edited be James Snooper.) * * * Next year was mim'rable f'r his gloryous victhry at Punkheim, all th' more wondherful because at th' time our hero was sufferin' fr'm deleeryyum thremens. "It shows th' fortitude iv th' Gin'ral an' that he was as gr-reat a liar as I have indicated in th' precedin' pages, that with th' cheers iv his sojers ringin' in his ears, he cud still write home to his wife: 'Ol' girl--I can't find annything fit to dhrink down here. Can't ye sind me some cider fr'm th' farm.' * * * In 1865 he was accused iv embezzlemint, but th' charges niver reached his ears or th' public's ontil eight years afther his death. * * * In 67' his foster brother, that he had neglected in Kansas City, slipped on his ballroom flure an' broke his leg. * * * In '70 his wife died afther torturin' him f'r fifty years. They were a singularly badly mated couple, with a fam'ly iv fourteen childher, but he did not live long to enjoy his happiness. F'r some reason he niver left his house, but passed away within a month, one of th' gr-reatest men th' cinchry has projooced. For further details iv th' wrong things he done see th' notes at th' end iv th' volume.' It seems to me, Hinnissy, that this here thing called bi-ography is a kind iv an offset f'r histhry. Histhry lies on wan side, an' bi-ography comes along an' makes it rowl over an' lie on th' other side. Th' historyan says, go up; th' bi-ographer says, come down among us. I don't believe ayether iv thim. "I was talkin' with Father Kelly about it afther Hogan wint out. 'Were they all so bad, thim men that I've been brought up to think so gloryous?' says I. 'They were men,' says Father Kelly. 'Ye mustn't believe all ye hear about thim, no matther who says it,' says he. 'It's a thrait iv human nature to pull down th' gr-reat an' sthrong. Th' hero sthruts through histhry with his chin up in th' air, his scipter in his hand an' his crown on his head. But behind him dances a boot-black imitatin' his walk an' makin' faces at him. Fame invites a man out iv his house to be crowned f'r his gloryous deeds, an' sarves him with a warrant f'r batin' his wife. 'Tis not in th' nature iv things that it shudden't be so. We'd all perish iv humilyation if th' gr-reat men iv th' wurruld didn't have nachral low-down thraits. If they don't happen to possess thim, we make some up f'r thim. We allow no man to tower over us. Wan way or another we level th' wurruld to our own height. If we can't reach th' hero's head we cut off his legs. It always makes me feel aisier about mesilf whin I r-read how bad Julius Cayzar was. An' it stimylates compytition. If gr-reatness an' goodness were hand in hand 'tis small chance anny iv us wud have iv seem' our pitchers in th' pa-apers.' "An' so it is that the battles ye win, th' pitchers ye paint, th' people ye free, th' childher that disgrace ye, th' false step iv ye'er youth, all go thundherin' down to immortality together. An' afther all, isn't it a good thing? Th' on'y bi-ography I care about is th' one Mulligan th' stone-cutter will chop out f'r me. I like Mulligan's style, f'r he's no flatthrer, an' he has wan model iv bi-ography that he uses f'r old an' young, rich an' poor. He merely writes something to th' gin'ral effect that th' deceased was a wondher, an' lets it go at that." "Which wud ye rather be, famous or rich?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "I'd like to be famous," said Mr. Dooley, "an' have money enough to buy off all threatenin' bi-ographers." WOMAN SUFFRAGE "I see be th' pa-apers that th' ladies in England have got up in their might an' demanded a vote." "A what?" cried Mr. Hennessy. "A vote," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' shameless viragoes," said Mr. Hennessy. "What did they do?" "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "an immense concoorse iv forty iv thim gathered in London an' marched up to th' House iv Commons, or naytional dormytory, where a loud an' almost universal snore proclaimed that a debate was ragin' over th' bill to allow English gintlemen to marry their deceased wife's sisters befure th' autopsy. In th' great hall iv Rufus some iv th' mightiest male intellecks in Britain slept undher their hats while an impassioned orator delivered a hem-stitched speech on th' subject iv th' day to th' attintive knees an' feet iv th' ministhry. It was into this here assimbly iv th' first gintlemen iv Europe that ye see on ye'er way to France that th' furyous females attimpted to enter. Undaunted be th' stairs iv th' building or th' rude jeers iv th' multichood, they advanced to th' very outside dures iv th' idifice. There an overwhelmin' force iv three polismen opposed thim. 'What d'ye want, mum?' asked the polls. 'We demand th' suffrage,' says th' commander iv th' army iv freedom. "The brutal polis refused to give it to thim an' a desp'rate battle followed. Th' ladies fought gallantly, hurlin' cries iv 'Brute,' 'Monster,' 'Cheap,' et cethry, at th' constablry. Hat pins were dhrawn. Wan lady let down her back hair; another, bolder thin th' rest, done a fit on th' marble stairs; a third, p'raps rendered insane be sufferin' f'r a vote, sthruck a burly ruffyan with a Japanese fan on th' little finger iv th' right hand. Thin th' infuryated officers iv th' law charged on th' champeens iv liberty. A scene iv horror followed. Polismen seized ladies be th' arms and' led thim down th' stairs; others were carried out fainting by th' tyrants. In a few minyits all was over, an' nawthin' but three hundhred hairpins remained to mark th' scene iv slaughter. Thus, Hinnissy, was another battle f'r freedom fought an' lost." "It sarves thim right," said Mr. Hennessy. "They ought to be at home tindin' th' babies." "A thrue statement an' a sound argymint that appeals to ivry man. P'raps they havn't got any babies. A baby is a good substichoot f'r a ballot, an' th' hand that rocks th' cradle sildom has time f'r anny other luxuries. But why shud we give thim a vote, says I. What have they done to injye this impeeryal suffrage that we fought an' bled f'r? Whin me forefathers were followin' George Wash'nton an' sufferin' all th' hardships that men endure campin' out in vacation time, what were th' women doin'? They were back in Matsachoosetts milkin' th' cow, mendin' socks, followin' th' plow, plantin' corn, keepin' store, shoein' horses, an' pursooin' th' other frivvlous follies iv th' fair but fickle sect. Afther th' war our brave fellows come back to Boston an' as a reward f'r their devotion got a vote apiece, if their wives had kept th' Pilgrim fathers that stayed at home fr'm foreclosin' th' morgedge on their property. An' now, be hivens, they want to share with us what we won. "Why, they wudden't know how to vote. They think it's an aisy job that anny wan can do, but it ain't. It's a man's wurruk, an' a sthrong man's with a sthrong stomach. I don't know annything that requires what Hogan calls th' exercise iv manly vigor more thin votin'. It's th' hardest wurruk I do in th' year. I get up befure daylight an' thramp over to th' Timple iv Freedom, which is also th' office iv a livery stable. Wan iv th' judges has a cold in his head an' closes all th' windows. Another judge has built a roarin' fire in a round stove an' is cookin' red-hots on it. Th' room is lit with candles an' karosene lamps, an' is crowded with pathrites who haven't been to bed. At th' dure are two or three polismen that maybe ye don't care to meet. Dock O'Leary says he don't know annything that'll exhaust th' air iv a room so quick as a polisman in his winter unyform. All th' pathrites an', as th' pa-apers call thim, th' high-priests iv this here sacred rite, ar-re smokin' th' best seegars that th' token money iv our counthry can buy. "In th' pleasant warmth iv th' fire, th' harness on th' walls glows an' puts out its own peculiar aromy. Th' owner iv th' sanchoo-ary iv Liberty comes in, shakes up a bottle iv liniment made iv carbolic acid, pours it into a cup an' goes out. Wan iv th' domestic attindants iv th' guests iv th' house walks through fr'm makin' th' beds. Afther a while th' chief judge, who knows me well, because he shaves me three times a week, gives me a contimchous stare, asks me me name an' a number iv scand'lous questions about me age. "I'm timpted to make an angry retort, whin I see th' polisman movin' nearer, so I take me ballot an' wait me turn in th' booth. They're all occypied be writhin' freemen, callin' in sthrangled voices f'r somewan to light th' candle so they'll be sure they ain't votin' th' prohybition ticket. Th' calico sheets over th' front iv th' booths wave an' ar-re pushed out like th' curtains iv a Pullman car whin a fat man is dhressin' inside while th' thrain is goin' r-round a curve. In time a freeman bursts through, with perspyration poorin' down his nose, hurls his suffrage at th' judge an' staggers out. I plunge in, sharpen an inch iv lead pencil be rendin' it with me teeth, mutilate me ballot at th' top iv th' dimmycratic column, an' run f'r me life. "Cud a lady do that, I ask ye? No, sir, 'tis no job f'r th' fair. It's men's wurruk. Molly Donahue wants a vote, but though she cud bound Kamachatka as aisily as ye cud this precint, she ain't qualified f'r it. It's meant f'r gr-reat sturdy American pathrites like Mulkowsky th' Pollacky down th' sthreet. He don't know yet that he ain't votin' f'r th' King iv Poland. He thinks he's still over there pretindin' to be a horse instead iv a free American givin' an imytation iv a steam dhredge. "On th' first Choosday afther th' first Monday in November an' April a man goes ar-round to his house, wakes him up, leads him down th' sthreet, an' votes him th' way ye'd wather a horse. He don't mind inhalin' th' air iv liberty in a livery stable. But if Molly Donahue wint to vote in a livery stable, th' first thing she'd do wud be to get a broom, sweep up th' flure, open th' windows, disinfect th' booths, take th' harness fr'm th' walls, an' hang up a pitcher iv Niagary be moonlight, chase out th' watchers an' polis, remove th' seegars, make th' judges get a shave, an' p'raps invalydate th' iliction. It's no job f'r her, an' I told her so. "'We demand a vote,' says she. 'All right,' says I, 'take mine. It's old, but it's trustworthy an' durable. It may look a little th' worse f'r wear fr'm bein' hurled again a republican majority in this counthry f'r forty years, but it's all right. Take my vote an' use it as ye please,' says I, 'an' I'll get an hour or two exthry sleep iliction day mornin',' says I. 'I've voted so often I'm tired iv it annyhow,' says I. 'But,' says I, 'why shud anny wan so young an' beautiful as ye want to do annything so foolish as to vote?' says I. 'Ain't we intilligent enough?' says she. 'Ye'ar too intilligent,' says I. 'But intilligence don't give ye a vote.' "'What does, thin,' says she. 'Well,' says I, 'enough iv ye at wan time wantin' it enough. How many ladies ar-re there in ye'er Woman's Rights Club?' 'Twinty,' says she. 'Make it three hundher,' says I, 'an' ye'll be on ye'er way. Ye'er mother doesn't want it, does she? No, nor ye'er sister Katie? No, nor ye'er cousin, nor ye'er aunt? All that iliction day means to thim is th' old man goin' off in th' mornin' with a light step an' fire in his eye, an' comin' home too late at night with a dent in his hat, news-boys hollerin' exthries with th' news that fifty-four votes had been cast in th' third precint in th' sivinth ward at 8 o'clock, an' Packy an' Aloysius stealin' bar'ls fr'm th' groceryman f'r th' bone-fire. If they iver join ye an' make up their minds to vote, they'll vote. Ye bet they will.' "'Ye see, 'twas this way votin' come about. In th' beginnin' on'y th' king had a vote, an' ivrybody else was a Chinyman or an Indyan. Th' king clapped his crown on his head an' wint down to th' polls, marked a cross at th' head iv th' column where his name was, an' wint out to cheer th' returns. Thin th' jooks got sthrong, an' says they: Votin' seems a healthy exercise an' we'd like to thry it. Give us th' franchise or we'll do things to ye. An' they got it. Thin it wint down through th' earls an' th' markises an' th' rest iv th' Dooley fam'ly, till fin'lly all that was left iv it was flung to th' ign'rant masses like Hinnissy, because they made a lot iv noise an' threatened to set fire to th' barns.' "'An' there ye ar-re. Ye'll niver get it be askin' th' polis f'r it. No wan iver got his rights fr'm a polisman, an' be th' same token, there ar-re no rights worth havin' that a polisman can keep ye fr'm gettin'. Th' ladies iv London ar-re followin' the right coorse, on'y there ain't enough iv thim. If there were forty thousand iv thim ar-rmed with hat pins an' prepared to plunge th' same into th' stomachs iv th' inimies iv female suffrage, an' if, instead iv faintin' in th' ar-rms iv th' constablry, they charged an' punctured thim an' broke their way into th' House iv Commons, an' pulled th' wig off the speaker, an' knocked th' hat over th' eyes iv th' prime ministher it wudden't be long befure some mimber wud talk in his sleep in their favor. Ye bet! If ye'er suffrage club was composed iv a hundhred thousand sturdy ladies it wudden't be long befure Bill O'Brien wud be sindin' ye a box iv chocolate creams f'r ye'er vote.' "'Some day ye may get a vote, but befure ye do I'll r-read this in th' pa-apers: A hundhred thousand armed an' detarmined women invaded th' capital city to-day demandin' th' right to vote. They chased th' polis acrost th' Pottymac, mobbed a newspaper that was agin th' bill, an' tarred an' feathered Sinitor Glue, th' leader iv th' opposition. At 10 o'clock a rumor spread that th' Prisident wud veto th' bill, an' instantly a huge crowd iv excited females gathered in front of the White House, hurlin' rocks an' cryin' 'Lynch him!' Th' tumult was on'y quelled whin th' Prisident's wife appeared on th' balcony an' made a brief speech. She said she was a mimber iv th' local suffrage club, an' she felt safe in assuring her sisters that th' bill wud be signed. If nicissry, she wud sign it hersilf. (Cheers.) Th' Prisident was a little onruly, but he was frequently that way. Th' marrid ladies in th' aujeence wud undherstand. He meant nawthin'. It was on'y wan iv his tantrums. A little moral suasion wud bring him ar-round all right. At prisint th' Chief Magistrate was in th' kitchen with his daughter settin' on his head. "'Th' speech was received with loud cheers, an' th' mob proceeded down Pinnslyvanya Avnoo. Be noon all enthrances to th' capital were jammed. Congressmen attimptin' to enter were seized be th' hair iv th' head an' made to sign a pa-aper promisin' to vote right. Immejately afther th' prayer th' Hon'rable Clarence Gumdhrop iv Matsachoosetts offered th' suffrage bill f'r passage. 'Th' motion is out iv ordher,' began th' Speaker. At this minyit a lady standin' behind th' chair dhrove a darning needle through his coat tails. 'But,' continued th' Speaker, reachin' behind him with an agnized ex'pression, 'I will let it go annyhow.' 'Mr. Speaker, I protest,' began th' Hon'rable Attila Sthrong, 'I protest--' At this a perfeck tornado iv rage broke out in th' gall'ries. Inkwells, bricks, combs, shoes, smellin' bottles, hand mirrors, fans, an' powdher puffs were hurled at th' onforchnit mimber. In the midst iv th' confusion th' wife iv Congressman Sthrong cud be seen wavin' a par'sol over her head an' callin' out: 'I dare ye to come home to-night, polthroon.' "'Whin th' noise partially subsided, th' bold Congressman, his face livid with emotion, was heard to remark with a sob: 'I was on'y about to say I second th' motion, deary.' Th' bill was carried without a dissintin' voice, an' rushed over to th' Sinit. There it was opposed be Jeff Davis but afther a brief dialogue with th' leader iv th' suffrageites, he swooned away. Th' Sinit fin'lly insthructed th' clerk to cast th' unanimous vote f'r th' measure. To-night in th' prisince iv a vast multichood th' Prisident was led out be his wife. He was supported, or rather pushed, be two iv his burly daughters. He seemed much confused, an' his wife had to point out th' place where he was to sign. With tremblin' fingers he affixed his signature an' was led back. "'The night passed quietly. Th' sthreets were crowded all avenin' with good-natured throngs iv ladies, an' in front iv th' dry goods stores, which were illuminated f'r th' occasion, it was almost impossible to get through. Iv coorse there were th' usual riochous scenes in th' dhrug stores, where th' bibulous gathered at th' sody-wather counthers an' cillybrated th' victory in lemon, vanilla, an' choc'late, some iv thim keepin' it up till 9 o'clock, or aven later.' 'Whin that comes about, me child,' says I, 'ye may sheathe ye'er hat pins in ye'er millinary, f'r ye'll have as much right to vote as th' most ignorant man in th' ward. But don't ask f'r rights. Take thim. An' don't let anny wan give thim to ye. A right that is handed to ye f'r nawthin' has somethin' th' matther with it. It's more than likely it's on'y a wrong turned inside out,' says I. 'I didn't fight f'r th' rights I'm told I injye, though to tell ye th' truth I injye me wrongs more; but some wan did. Some time some fellow was prepared to lay down his life, or betther still, th' other fellows', f'r th' right to vote.'" "I believe ye're in favor iv it ye'ersilf," said Mr. Hennessy. "Faith," said Mr. Dooley, "I'm not wan way or th' other. I don't care. What diff'rence does it make? I wudden't mind at all havin' a little soap an' wather, a broom an' a dusther applied to pollyticks. It wudden't do anny gr-reat harm if a man cudden't be illicted to office onless he kept his hair combed an' blacked his boots an' shaved his chin wanst a month. Annyhow, as Hogan says, I care not who casts th' votes iv me counthry so long as we can hold th' offices. An' there's on'y wan way to keep the women out iv office, an' that's to give thim a vote." THE BACHELOR TAX "This here pa-aper says," said Mr. Hennessy, "that they're goin' to put a tax on bachelors. That's r-right. Why shudden't there be a tax on bachelors? There's one on dogs." "That's r-right," said Mr. Dooley. "An' they're goin' to make it five dollars a year. Th' dogs pay only two. It's quite a concession to us. They consider us more thin twice as vallyable, or annyhow more thin twice as dangerous as dogs. I suppose ye expect next year to see me throttin' around with a leather collar an' a brass tag on me neck. If me tax isn't paid th' bachelor wagon'll come over an' th' bachelor catcher'll lassoo me an' take me to th' pound an' I'll be kept there three days an' thin, if still unclaimed, I'll be dhrowned onless th' pound keeper takes a fancy to me. Ye'll niver see it, me boy. No, Sir. Us bachelors ar-re a sthrong body iv men polytickally, as well as handsome and brave. If ye thry to tax us we'll fight ye to th' end. If worst comes to worst we won't pay th' tax. Don't ye think f'r a minyit that light-footed heroes that have been eludin' onprincipled females all their lives won't be able to dodge a little thing like a five-dollar tax. There's no clumsy collector in th' wurruld that cud catch up with a man iv me age who has avoided the machinations iv th' fair f'r forty years an' remains unmarrid. "An' why shud we be taxed? We're th' mainstay iv th' Constitution an' about all that remains iv liberty. If ye think th' highest jooty iv citizenship is to raise a fam'ly why don't ye give a vote to th' shad? Who puts out ye'er fire f'r ye, who supports th' Naytional Governmint be payin' most iv th' intarnal rivnoo jooties, who maintains th' schools ye sind ye'er ignorant little childher to, be payin' th' saloon licenses, who does th' fightin' f'r ye in th' wars but th' bachelors? Th' marrid men start all th' wars with loose talk whin they're on a spree. But whin war is declared they begin to think what a tur-rble thing 'twud be if they niver come home to their fireside an' their wife got marrid again an' all their grandchildher an' their great-grandchildher an' their widow an' th' man that marrid her an' his divoorced wife an' their rilitives, descindants, friends, an' acquaintances wud have to live on afther father was dead and gone with a large piece iv broken iron in his stomach or back, as th' case might be, but a pension come fr'm th' Governmint. So, th' day war is declared ye come over here an' stick a sthrange-lookin' weepin in me hand an' I close down me shop an' go out somewhere I niver was befure an' maybe lose me leg defindin' th' hearths iv me counthry, me that niver had a hearth iv me own to warm me toes by but th' oil stove in me bedroom. An' that's th' kind iv men ye'd be wantin' to tax like a pushcart or a cow. Onscrupulous villain! "Whin ye tax th' bachelors ye tax valor. Whin ye tax th' bachelors ye tax beauty. Ye've got to admit that we're a much finer lookin' lot iv fellows thin th' marrid men. That's why we're bachelors. 'Tis with us as with th' ladies. A lady with an erratic face is sure to be marrid befure a Dhream iv Beauty. She starts to wurruk right away an' what Hogan calls th' doctrine iv av'rages is always with thim that starts early an' makes manny plays. But th' Dhream iv Beauty figures out that she can wait an' take her pick an' 'tis not ontil she is bumpin' thirty that she wakes up with a scream to th' peril iv her position an' runs out an' pulls a man down fr'm th' top iv a bus. Manny a plain but determined young woman have I seen happily marrid an' doin' th' cookin' f'r a large fam'ly whin her frind who'd had her pitcher in th' contest f'r th' most beautiful woman in Brighton Park was settin' behind th' blinds waitin' f'r some wan to take her buggy ridin'. "So it is with us. A man with a face that looks as if some wan had thrown it at him in anger nearly always marries befure he is old enough to vote. He feels he has to an' he cultivates what Hogan calls th' graces. How often do ye hear about a fellow that he is very plain but has a beautiful nature. Ye bet he has. If he hadn't an' didn't always keep it in th' show-case where all th' wurruld cud see he'd be lynched be th' Society f'r Municipal Improvement. But 'tis diff'rent with us comely bachelors. Bein' very beautiful, we can afford to be haughty an' peevish. It makes us more inthrestin'. We kind iv look thim over with a gentle but supeeryor eye an' say to oursilves: 'Now, there's a nice, pretty atthractive girl. I hope she'll marry well.' By an' by whin th' roses fade fr'm our cheeks an' our eye is dimmed with age we bow to th' inivitable, run down th' flag iv defiance, an' ar-re yanked into th' multichood iv happy an' speechless marrid men that look like flashlight pitchers. Th' best-lookin' iv us niver get marrid at all. "Yes, Sir, there's no doubt we do a good deal to beautify th' landscape. Whose pitchers ar-re those ye see in th' advertisemints iv th' tailorman? There's not a marrid man among thim. They're all bachelors. What does th' gents' furnishing man hang his finest neckties in th' front window f'r but to glisten with a livelier iris, as Hogan says, th' burnished bachelor? See th' lordly bachelor comin' down th' sthreet, with his shiny plug hat an' his white vest, th' dimon stud that he wint in debt f'r glistenin' in his shirt front, an' th' patent-leather shoes on his feet out-shinin' th' noonday sun. "Thin we see th' marrid man with th' wrinkles in his coat an' his tie undher his ear an' his chin unshaven. He's walkin' in his gaiters in a way that shows his socks ar-re mostly darned. I niver wore a pair iv darned socks since I was a boy. Whin I make holes in me hosiery I throw thim away. 'Tis a fine idee iv th' ladies that men are onhappy because they have no wan to darn their socks an' put buttons on their shirts. Th' truth is that a man is not onhappy because his socks ar-re not darned but because they ar-re. An' as f'r buttons on his shirt, whin th' buttons comes off a bachelor's shirt he fires it out iv th' window. His rule about clothes is thurly scientific. Th' survival iv th' fit, d'ye mind. Th' others to th' discard. No marrid man dares to wear th' plumage iv a bachelor. If he did his wife wud suspict him. He lets her buy his cravats an' his seegars an' 'tis little diff'rence it makes to him which he smokes. "'Twud be villanous to tax th' bachelors. Think iv th' moral side iv it. What's that? Ye needn't grin. I said moral. Yes, Sir. We're th' most onselfish people in th' wurruld. All th' throubles iv th' neighborhood ar-re my throubles an' my throubles ar-re me own. If ye shed a tear f'r anny person but wan ye lose ye'er latch-key, but havin' no wan in partiklar to sympathize with I'm supposed to sympathize with ivry wan. On th' conthry if ye have anny griefs ye can't bear ye dump thim on th' overburdened shoulders iv ye'er wife. But if I have anny griefs I must bear thim alone. If a bachelor complains iv his throubles people say: 'Oh, he's a gay dog. Sarves him right.' An' if he goes on complainin' he's liable to be in gr-reat peril. I wudden't dare to tell me woes to ye'er wife. If I did she'd have a good cry, because she injyes cryin', an' thin she'd put on her bonnet an' r-run over an' sick th' widow O'Brien on me. "Whin a lady begins to wondher if I'm not onhappy in me squalid home without th' touch iv a woman's hand ayether in th' tidy on th' chair or in th' inside pocket iv th' coat, I say: 'No, ma'am, I live in gr-reat luxury surrounded be all that money can buy an' manny things that it can't or won't. There ar-re Turkish rugs on th' flure an' chandyleers hang fr'm th' ceilins. There I set at night dhrinkin' absinthe, sherry wine, port wine, champagne, beer, whisky, rum, claret, kimmel, weiss beer, cream de mint, curaso, an' binidictine, occas'nally takin' a dhraw at an opeem pipe an' r-readin' a Fr-rinch novel. Th' touch iv a woman's hand wudden't help this here abode iv luxury. Wanst, whin I was away, th' beautiful Swede slave that scrubs out me place iv business broke into th' palachal boodoor an' in thryin' to set straight th' ile paintin' iv th' Chicago fire burnin' Ilivator B, broke a piece off a frame that cost me two dollars iv good money.' If they knew that th' on'y furniture in me room was a cane-bottomed chair an' a thrunk an' that there was nawthin' on th' flure but oilcloth an' me clothes, an' that 'tis so long since me bed was made up that it's now a life-size plaster cast iv me, I'd be dhragged to th' altar at th' end iv a chain. "Speakin' as wan iv th' few survivin' bachelors, an old vethran that's escaped manny a peril an' got out iv manny a difficult position with honor, I wish to say that fair woman is niver so dangerous as whin she's sorry f'r ye. Whin th' wurruds 'Poor man' rises to her lips an' th' nurse light comes into her eyes, I know 'tis time f'r me to take me hat an' go. An' if th' hat's not handy I go without it. "I bet ye th' idee iv taxin' bachelors started with th' dear ladies. But I say to thim: 'Ladies, is not this a petty revenge on ye'er best frinds? Look on ye'er own husbands an' think what us bachelors have saved manny iv ye'er sisters fr'm. Besides aren't we th' hope iv th' future iv th' instichoochion iv mathrimony? If th' onmarrid ladies ar-re to marry at all, 'tis us, th' bold bachelors, they must look forward to. We're not bachelors fr'm choice. We're bachelors because we can't make a choice. Ye all look so lovely to us that we hate to bring th' tears into th' eyes iv others iv ye be marryin' some iv ye. Considher our onforchnit position an' be kind. Don't oppress us. We were not meant f'r slaves. Don't thry to coerce us. Continue to lay f'r us an' hope on. If ye tax us there's hardly an old bachelor in th' land that won't fling his five dollars acrost th' counter at th' tax office an' say: 'Hang th' expense.'" THE RISING OF THE SUBJECT RACES "Ye'er frind Simpson was in here awhile ago," said Mr. Dooley, "an' he was that mad." "What ailed him?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "it seems he wint into me frind Hip Lung's laundhry to get his shirt an' it wasn't ready. Followin' what Hogan calls immemoryal usage, he called Hip Lung such names as he cud remimber and thried to dhrag him around th' place be his shinin' braid. But instead iv askin' f'r mercy, as he ought to, Hip Lung swung a flat-iron on him an' thin ironed out his spine as he galloped up th' stairs. He come to me f'r advice an' I advised him to see th' American consul. Who's th' American consul in Chicago now? I don't know. But Hogan, who was here at th' time, grabs him be th' hand an' says he: 'I congratulate ye, me boy,' he says. 'Ye have a chance to be wan iv th' first martyrs iv th' white race in th' gr-reat sthruggle that's comin' between thim an' th' smoked or tinted races iv th' wurruld,' he says. 'Ye'll be another Jawn Brown's body or Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Go back an' let th' Chink kill ye an' cinchries hence people will come with wreathes and ate hard-biled eggs on ye'er grave,' he says. "But Simpson said he did not care to be a martyr. He said he was a retail grocer be pro-fissyon an' Hip Lung was a customer iv his, though he got most iv his vittles fr'm th' taxydermist up th' sthreet an' he thought he'd go around to-morrah an' concilyate him. So he wint away. "Hogan, d'ye mind, has a theery that it's all been up with us blondes since th' Jap'nese war. Hogan is a prophet. He's wan iv th' gr-reatest prophets I know. A prophet, Hinnissy, is a man that foresees throuble. No wan wud listen a minyit to anny prophet that prophesized pleasant days. A successful weather prophet is wan that predicts thunder storms, hurrycanes an' earthquakes; a good financial prophet is wan that predicts panics; a pollytickal prophet must look into th' tea leaves an' see th' institutions iv th' wurruld cracked wide open an' th' smiling not to say grinnin', fields iv this counthry iv ours,' or somebody's laid waste with fire and soord. Hogan's that kind iv a prophet. I'm onhappy about to-day but cheerful about to-morrah. Hogan is th' happyest man in th' wurruld about to-day but to-morrah something is goin' to happen. I hate to-day because to-morrah looks so good. He's happy to-day because it is so pleasant compared with what to-morrah is goin' to be. Says I: 'Cheer up; well have a good time at th' picnic next Saturdah.' Says he: 'It will rain at th' picnic.' "He's a rale prophet. I wudden't pick him out as a well-finder. He cudden't find a goold mine f'r ye but he cud see th' bottom iv wan through three thousand feet iv bullyon. He can peer into th' most blindin' sunshine an' see th' darkness lurkin' behind it. He's predicted ivry war that has happened in our time and eight thousand that haven't happened to happen. If he had his way th' United States navy wud be so big that there wudden't be room f'r a young fellow to row his girl in Union Park. He can see a war cloud where I can't see annything but somebody cookin' his dinner or lightin' his pipe. He'd made th' gr-reat foreign iditor an' he'd be fine f'r th' job f'r he's best late at night. "Hogan says th' time has come f'r th' subjick races iv th' wurruld to rejooce us fair wans to their own complexion be batin' us black and blue. Up to now 'twas: 'Sam, ye black rascal, tow in thim eggs or I'll throw ye in th' fire. 'Yassir,' says Sam. 'Comin',' he says. 'Twas: 'Wow Chow, while ye'er idly stewin' me cuffs I'll set fire to me unpaid bills.' I wud feel repaid be a kick,' says Wow Chow. 'Twas: 'Maharajah Sewar, swing th' fan swifter or I'll have to roll over f'r me dog whip.' 'Higgins Sahib,' says Maharajah Sewar, 'Higgins Sahib, beloved iv Gawd an' Kipling, ye'er punishments ar-re th' nourishment iv th' faithful. My blood hath served thine f'r manny ginerations. At laste two. 'Twas thine old man that blacked my father's eye an' sint my uncle up f'r eighty days. How will ye'er honor have th' accursed swine's flesh cooked f'r breakfast in th' mornin' when I'm through fannin' ye?' "But now, says Hogan, it's all changed. Iver since th' Rooshyans were starved out at Port Arthur and Portsmouth, th' wurrad has passed around an' ivry naygur fr'm lemon color to coal is bracin' up. He says they have aven a system of tilly-graftin' that bates ours be miles. They have no wires or poles or wathered stock but th' population is so thick that whin they want to sind wurrud along th' line all they have to do is f'r wan man to nudge another an' something happens in Northern Chiny is known in Southern Indya befure sunset. And so it passed through th' undherwurruld that th' color line was not to be dhrawn anny more, an' Hogan says that almost anny time he ixpicts to see a black face peerin' through a window an' in a few years I'll be takin' in laundhry in a basement instead iv occypyin' me present impeeryal position, an' ye'll be settin' in front iv ye'er cabin home playin' on a banjo an' watchin' ye'er little pickahinnissies rollickin' on th' ground an' wondhrn' whin th' lynchin' party'll arrive. "That's what Hogan says. I niver knew th' subjick races had so much in thim befure. A few years ago I had no more thought iv Japan thin I have iv Dorgan's cow. I admire Dorgan's cow. It's a pretty cow. I have often leaned on th' fence an' watched Dorgan milkin' his cow. Sometimes I wondhered in a kind iv smoky way why as good an' large a cow as that shud let a little man like Dorgan milk her. But if Dorgan's cow shud stand up on her hind legs, kick over the bucket, chase Dorgan out iv th' lot, put on a khaki unyform, grab hold of a Mauser rifle an' begin shootin' at me, I wudden't be more surprised thin I am at th' idee iv Japan bein' wan iv th' nations iv th' wurruld. I don't see what th' subjick races got to kick about, Hinnissy. We've been awfully good to thim. We sint thim missionaries to teach thim th' error iv their relligyon an' nawthin' cud be kinder thin that f'r there's nawthin' people like betther thin to be told that their parents are not be anny means where they thought they were but in a far more crowded an' excitin' locality. An' with th' missionaries we sint sharpshooters that cud pick off a Chinyman beatin' th' conthribution box at five hundherd yards. We put up palashal goluf-coorses in the cimitries an' what was wanst th' tomb iv Hung Chang, th' gr-reat Tartar Impror, rose to th' dignity iv bein' th' bunker guardin' th' fifth green. No Chinyman cud fail to be pleased at seein' a tall Englishman hittin' th' Chinyman's grandfather's coffin with a niblick. We sint explorers up th' Nile who raypoorted that th' Ganzain flows into th' Oboo just above Lake Mazap, a fact that th' naygurs had known f'r a long time. Th' explorer announces that he has changed th' names iv these wather-coorses to Smith, Blifkins an' Winkinson. He wishes to deny th' infamyous story that he iver ate a native alive. But wan soon succumbs to th' customs iv a counthry an' Sir Alfred is no viggytaryan. "An' now, be Hivin, all these here wretched millyons that we've done so much f'r ar-re turnin' on us. Th' Japs threaten us with war. Th' Chinese won't buy shoes fr'm us an' ar-re chasin' th' missionaries out iv their cozy villas an' not even givin' thim a chance to carry away their piannies or their silverware. There's th' divvle to pay all along th' levee fr'm Manchurya to Madagascar, accordin' to Hogan. I begin to feel onaisy. Th' first thing we know all th' other subjick races will be up. Th' horses will kick an' bite, the dogs will fly at our throats whin we lick thim, th' fishes will refuse to be caught, th' cattle an' pigs will set fire to th' stock yards an' there'll be a gineral rebellyon against th' white man. "It's no laughin' matther, I tell ye. A subjick race is on'y funny whin it's raaly subjick. About three years ago I stopped laughin' at Jap'nese jokes. Ye have to feel supeeryor to laugh an' I'm gettin' over that feelin'. An' nawthin' makes a man so mad an' so scared as whin something he looked down on as infeeryor tur-rns on him. If a fellow man hits him he hits him back. But if a dog bites him he yells 'mad dog' an' him an' th' neighbors pound th' dog to pieces with clubs. If th' naygurs down South iver got together an' flew at their masters ye'd hear no more coon songs f'r awhile. It's our conceit makes us supeeryor. Take it out iv us an' we ar-re about th' same as th' rest." "I wondher what we'd do if all thim infeeryor races shud come at us together?" said Mr. Hennessy. "They're enough iv thim to swamp us." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "I'd have to go on bein' white or, to speak more acc'rately, pink. An' annyhow I guess they've been infeeryor too long to change. It's got to be a habit with thim." PANICS "Have ye taken ye'er money out iv th' bank? Are ye wan iv thim impechuse prooletaryans that has been attackin' th' Gibyraltars iv fi-nance, cow'rd that ye are to want ye'er money in a hurry, or are ye not? I see be th' look iv ye'er face that ye are not. Ye have been a brave man; ye have had faith in th' future iv our counthry; ye have perceived that our financial institutions are sound if they are nawthin' else. Ye undherstand that it's upon th' self-resthraint iv men like th' likes iv ye that th' whole credit iv th' nation depinds. I read it in the pa-apers an' 'tis thrue. Besides, ye have no money in th' bank. Th' on'y way ye or me cud rightly exthricate anny money fr'm a bank wud be be means iv a brace an' bit. "No matther. 'Tis you that has done it. I give great credit to George B. Cortilyoo, J. Pierpont Morgan, Lord Rothschild, Jawn D. Rockyfellar, th' banks iv Ameriky, th' clearing house comity, th' clearing out comity, an' all th' brave an' gallant fellows that have stood firmly with their backs to th' wall an' declared that anny money taken out iv their institutions wud be taken over their dead bodies. They have behaved as American gintlemen shud behave whin foorce iv circumstances compels thim to behave that way. But if, in this tur-rible imergency I am obliged to tell th' truth, I've got to confess to ye that th' thanks iv th' nation, a little bit late, but very corjal, are due to th' boys that niver had a cent in th' banks, an' niver will have. They have disturbed none iv our institutions. No great leader iv fi-nance has turned green to see wan iv thim thryin' to do th' leap f'r life through a closed payin' teller's window. Th' fellow that with wan whack iv a hammer can convart a steer into an autymobill or can mannyfacther a pearl necklace out iv two dollars' worth iv wurruk on a slag pile, has throubled no wan. Ye're th' boy in this imergency, Hinnissy. Th' other mornin' I was readin' th' pa-apers about th' panic in Wall Sthreet an' though I've niver seen annything all me life but wan continyal panic I felt low in me mind ontil I looked up an' see ye go by with ye'er shovel on ye'er shouldher an' me heart leaped up. I wanted to rush to th' tillygraft office and wire me frind J. Pierpont Morgan: 'Don't be downcast. It's all right. I just see Hinnissy go by with his shovel.' "No, sir, ye can bet it ain't th' people that have no money that causes panics. Panics are th' result iv too manny people havin' money. Th' top iv good times is hard times and th' bottom iv hard times is good times. Whin I see wan man with a shovel on his shouldher dodgin' eight thousand autymobills I begin to think 'tis time to put me money in me boot." "'Tis hard f'r me to undherstand what's goin' on," said Mr. Hennessy. "What does it all mean?" "'Tis something ye wudden't be ixpected to know, said Mr. Dooley. 'Tis what is known as credit. I'll explain it to ye. F'r the sake iv argymint well say ye're a shoemaker. Oh, 'tis on'y f'r th' sake iv argymint. Iverywan knows that a burly fellow like you wudden't be at anny employmint as light an' effiminate as makin' shoes. But supposin' fr th' sake iv argymint ye're a shoemaker. Ye get two dollars a day f'r makin' forty dollars' worth iv shoes. Ye take part of ye'er ill-gotten gains an' leave it with me f'r dhrink. Afther awhile, I take th' money over to th' shoe store an' buy wan iv th' pairs iv shoes ye made. Th' fellow at th' shoe store puts th' money in a bank owned be ye'er boss. Ye'er boss sees ye're dhrinkin' a good deal an' be th' look iv things th' distillery business ought to improve. So he lends th' money to a distiller. Wan day th' banker obsarves that ye've taken th' pledge, an' havin' fears f'r th' distilling business, he gets his money back. I owe th' distiller money an' he comes to me. I have paid out me money f'r th' shoes an' th' shoe-store man has put it in th' bank. He goes over to th' bank to get it out an' has his fingers cut off in a window. An' there ye are. That's credit. "I niver knew befure how little it depinded on. There's Grogan th' banker. He's a great man. Look at his bank. It looks as though an earthquake wudden't flutter it. It's a cross between an armory an' a jail. It frowns down upon th' sthreet. An' Grogan. He looks as solid as though th' columns iv th' building was quarried out iv him. See him with his goold watch chain clankin' again th' pearl buttons iv his vest. He niver give me much more thin a nod out iv th' north-east corner iv his left eyebrow, but he was always very kind an' polite to Mulligan, th' little tailor. Except that I thought he had a feelin' iv respect f'r me an' none at all f'r Mulligan. Th' other mornin' I see him standin' on a corner near th' bank as Mulligan dashed by with a copy iv his fav'rite journal in wan hand an' a pass book in th' other. 'That man is a coward,' says Mulligan. 'Tis th' likes iv him that desthroys public confidence,' says he. 'He must've been brave at wan peeryod iv his life,' says I. 'Whin was that?' says he. 'Whin he put th' money in,' says I. 'It's th' likes iv him that makes panics,' says he. 'It's th' likes iv both iv ye,' says I. 'I niver see such team wurruk,' says I. 'That bank is a perfectly solvint institution,' says he. 'It's as sthrong as th' rock of Gibyraltar. I'm goin' over now to close it up,' says he. An' he wint. "Well, glory be, 'tis no use botherin' our heads about it. Panics an' circuses, as Father Kelly says, are f'r th' amusement iv th' poor. An' a time iv this kind is fine f'r ivrybody who hasn't too much. A little while ago ye niver r-read in th' pa-aper annything about th' fellow that had his money in th' bank anny more thin ye'd read about th' spectators at a prize fight. 'Twas all what th' joynts iv fi-nance were doin'. 'Who's that man with th' plug hat just comin' out iv th' gamblin' joint?' 'That's th' prisidint iv th' Eighth Rational.' 'An' who's that shakin' dice at th' bar?' 'That's th' head iv our greatest thrust comp'ny.' An' so it wint. To-day I read in th' pa-apers an appeal to th' good sense iv Mulligan, th' tailor. It didn't mintion his name, but it might just as well. 'Twas th' same as sayin': 'Now, look here, Mulligan, me brave fellow. 'Tis up to you to settle this whole matther. It's got beyond us and we rely on ye not to dump us. We lost our heads but a man iv ye'er carackter can't afford to do annything rash or on-thinkin' like a lot iv excitable fi-nanceers. Ye must get undher th' situation at wanst. We appeal to th' good common sense th' pathritism, th' honor, th' manly courage an' th' ca-mness in th' face iv great danger iv Timothy Mulligan to pull us out iv th' hole. Regards to Mrs. Mulligan an' all th' little wans. Don't answer in person (signed) Jawn D. Rockyfellar.' "An' iv coorse Mulligan'll do it. Mulligan caused th' throuble be havin' money in th' first place an' takin' it out in th' second place. Mulligan will settle it all be carryin' his money back to th' bank where money belongs. Don't get excited about it, Hinnissy, me boy. Cheer up. 'Twill be all right tomorrah, or th' next day, or some time. 'Tis wan good thing about this here wurruld, that nawthin' lasts long enough to hurt. I have been through manny a panic. I cud handle wan as well as Morgan. Panics cause thimsilves an' take care iv thimsilves. Who do I blame for this wan? Grogan blamed Rosenfelt yesterday; to-day he blames Mulligan; to-morrah he won't blame anny wan an' thin th' panic will be over. I blame no wan, an' I blame ivry wan. All I say to ye is, be brave, be ca'm an' go on shovellin'. So long as there's a Hinnissy in th' wurruld, an' he has a shovel, an' there's something f'r him to shovel, we'll be all right, or pretty near all right. "Don't ye think Rosenfelt has shaken public confidence?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Shaken it," said Mr. Dooley; "I think he give it a good kick just as it jumped off th' roof." OCEAN TRAVEL "I see this here new steamboat has broke all records. It come acrost th' Atlantic Ocean in four days. Passengers that got aboord at Liverpool on Saturday were in New York Friday afthernoon." "But that's more thin four days." "Not be nautical time, said Mr. Dooley. Ye mustn't figure it out th' way ye do on land. On land ye niver read that 'Th' Thunderbolt limited has broken all records be thravellin' fr'm New York (Harrisburg) to Chicago (Fort Wayne) in eight hours.' But with a steamboat 'tis different. Ye saw a lot iv time off ayether end an' what's left is th' v'yage. 'Th' Conyard line's gr-reat ocean greyhound or levithin iv th' seas has broken all records iv transatlantic passages except thim made be th' Germans. She has thravelled fr'm Liverpool (a rock so far off th' coast iv Ireland that I niver see it) to New York (Sandy Hook lightship) in four or five days. Brittanya again rules th' waves.' So if ye've anny frinds inclined to boast about makin' a record ask thim did they swim aboord at Daunt's Rock an' swim off at th' lightship. If they didn't, refuse to take off ye'er hat to thim. To tell how long it takes to cross th' Atlantic compute th' elapsed time fr'm boordin' house to boordin' house. It's fr'm a week to ten days depindin on th' time ye go to bed whin ye come home. Manny a man that come over on a five-day boat has had th' divvle iv a time explainin' to his wife what he did with th' other two days. No record iv thransatlantic thravel takes into account th' longest, roughest an' most dangerous part iv th' passage, which is through th' New York custom house. "But 'tis wondherful annyhow. 'Tis wondherful that a man shud cross th' Atlantic ocean annyhow an' 'tis enough to make ye dizzy to think iv him crossin' it in an iron boat that looks like a row iv office buildings. Th' grand times they must've had. Time was whin a man got on a boat an' was lost f'r a week or ten days. Now, be hivens, through th' wondhers iv modhern science he's hardly settled down to a cigar an' a game iv pinochle with another fugitive that he's just met, whin a messenger boy comes down th' deck on his bicycle an' hands him a tillygram with glad tidings fr'm home. Th' house is burned, th' sheriff has levied on his furniture or th' fam'ly are down with th' whoopin' cough. On th' other hand we know all about what they are doin' on boord th' levithin. Just as ye'er wife is thinkin' iv ye bein' wrecked on a desert island or floatin' on a raft an' signallin' with an undershirt she picks up th' pa-aper an' reads: 'Th' life iv th' ship is Malachi Hinnissy, a wealthy bachelor fr'm Pittsburg. His attintions to a widow from Omaha are most marked. They make a handsome couple.' "Well, sir, they must 've had th' gloryus time on boord this new boat. In th' old days all ye knew about a ship was that she left Liverpool and landed in New York afther a most disthressin' v'yage. Now ye r-read iv th' gay life aboord her fr'm day to day: 'Th' tie in th' billyard tournymint was played off last night. Th' resthrants are crowded nightly an' great throngs are seen in Main Sthreet undher th' brilliant illuminations. Th' public gardens are in full bloom an' are much frequented be childher rollin' hoops and sailin' boats in th' artificial lake. Th' autymobill speedway gives gr-reat satisfaction. Th' opening day iv th' steeplechase races was a success. Th' ilivator in th' left annex fell thirteen stories Thursday, but no wan was injured. Th' brokerage house iv Conem an' Comp'ny wint into th' hands iv a receiver to-day. Th' failure was due to th' refusal iv th' banks to lend anny more money on hat pools. Th' steeple iv th' Swedenborjan Church is undher repair. Th' _Daily Fog Horn_ has put in three new color presses an' will begin printin' a colored supplement Sunday next.' An' so it goes. It ain't a boat at all. It's a city. "At laste I thought it was but Hannigan that come over in it says it's a boat. 'Ye must've had a grand time,' says I, 'in this floatin' palace, atin' ye'er fill iv sumchuse food an' gazin' at th' beautifully jooled ladies,' says I. 'Ah,' says I, 'th' wondhers iv science that cud put together a conthrivance th' like iv that,' says I. 'It's a boat,' says he. 'That's th' best I can say about it,' says he. 'Did ye not glide noiselessly through th' wather?' says I? 'I did not,' says he. 'Divvle th' glide. We bumped along pretty fast an' th' injines made noises like injines an' th' ship creaked like anny ship.' 'An' wasn't th' food fine?' 'It depinded on th' weather. There was plenty iv it on good days, an' too much iv it on other days.' 'An' th' beautifully jooled ladies?' 'No wan knew whether th' ladies were beautifully jooled except th' lady that searched thim at th' custom house. "'Don't ye make a mistake, Dooley,' says he. 'A boat's a boat. That's all it is. Annything ye can get at sea ye can get betther on land. A millyonaire is made as comfortable on an ocean liner as a longshoreman on earth an' ye can play that comparison all th' way down to th' steerage. Whin I read about this here floatin' palace I says to mesilf: I'll add a little money and go acrost in oryental luxury. Whin I got aboord th' decks were crowded with happy people worryin' about their baggage an' wondherin' already whether th' inspector in New York wud get onto th' false bottom iv th' thrunks. I give th' old an' enfeebled English gintleman that carried me satchel a piece iv silver. He touched his cap to me an' says Cue. Cue is th' English f'r I thank ye kindly in Irish. He carrid me bag downstairs in th' ship. We kept goin' down an' down till we touched bottom, thin we rambled through long lanes neatly decorated with steel girders till we come to a dent in th' keel. That was me boodoor. At laste part iv it was. There were two handsome berths in it an' I had th' top wan. Th' lower wan was already occypied be a gintleman that had started to feel onaisy on th' way down f'm London an' was now prepared f'r th' worst. I left him to his grief an' wint up on th' roof iv th' ship. "'It was a gay scene f'r th' boat had started. Long rows iv ladies were stretched on invalid chairs with shawls over thim, pretindin' to read an' takin' deep smells at little green bottles. Three or four hundherd men had begun to walk around th' ship with their hands folded behind thim. A poker game between four rale poker players an' a man that didn't know th' game but had sharp finger-nails was already started in th' smokin'-room. About that time I begun to have a quare sinsation. I haven't been able to find out yet what it was. I must ask Dock O'Leary. I wasn't sea-sick, mind ye. I'm a good sailor. But I had a funny feelin' in me forehead between me eyes. It wasn't a headache exactly but a kind iv a sthrange sinsation like I used to have whin I was a boy an' thried to look cross-eyed. I suppose it was th' strong light. I didn't have anny aversion to food. Not at all. But somehow I didn't like th' smell iv food. It was disagreeable to me an' it seemed to make th' place in me head worse. Sivral times I wint to th' dinin'-room intindin' to jine th' jovyal comp'ny there but quit at th' dure. It was very sthrange. I don't know how to account f'r it. Very few people were sea-sick on th' v'yage, but sivral hundherd who were injyin' paddlin' a spoon in a cup iv beef tea on deck spoke iv havin' th' same sinsation. I didn't speak iv it to th' ship's doctor. I'd as lave carry me ailments to a harness maker as to a ship's doctor. But there it was, an' fr'm me pint iv view it was th' most important ivint iv th' passage. "Next to that th' most excitin' thing was thryin' to find annybody that wud take money fr'm me. It's a tur-rble awkward thing to have to force money on an Englishman in a uniform like an admiral's an' talkin' with an accent that manny iv th' finest people on th' deck were thryin' to imitate, but I schooled mesilf to it. An' sthrange to say they niver refused. They were even betther thin that. I was lavin' th' ship whin th' fellow that pulled th' plug out iv th' other man's bath f'r me touched me on th' shoulder. I turned an' see a frindly gleam in his eye that made me wondher if he had a knife. I give him what they call five bobs over there, which is wan dollar an' twinty cints iv our money. He touched his cap an' says Cue. I was greatly moved. But it's done wan thing f'r me. It's made me competint f'r anny office connected with th' legal departmint iv a sthreet railway. Be hivens, I cud hand a piece iv change to a judge iv th' supreem coort. I hear th' Conyard line has passed a dividend. They ought to make a merger with th' head stoort,' says he. "An' there ye ar-re. A boat's a boat aven whin it looks like a hotel. But it's wondherful annyhow. Whin ye come to think iv it 'tis wondherful that anny man cud cross th' Atlantic in annything. Th' Atlantic Ocean is a fine body iv wather, but it's a body iv wather just th' same. It wasn't intinded to be thravelled on. Ye cud put ye'er foot through it annywhere. It's sloppy goin' at best. Th' on'y time a human being can float in it is afther he's dead. A man throws a horseshoe into it an' th' horseshoe sinks. This makes him cross an' he builds a boat iv th' same mateeryal as a millyon horseshoes, loads it up with machinery, pushes it out on th' billows an' goes larkin' acrost thim as aisy as ye plaze. If he didn't go over on a large steel skyscraper he'd take a dure off its hinges an' go on that. "All ye have to do is to tell him there's land on th' other side iv th' ragin' flood an' he'll say: 'All right, I'll take a look at it.' Ye talk about th' majesty iv th' ocean but what about th' majesty iv this here little sixty-eight be eighteen inches bump iv self-reliance that treats it like th' dirt undher his feet? It's a wondher to me that th' ocean don't get tired iv growlin' an' roarin' at th' race iv men. They don't pay anny heed to it's hollering. Whin it behaves itsilf they praise it as though it was a good dog. 'How lovely our ocean looks undher our moon.' Whin it rises in its wrath they show their contimpt f'r it be bein' sea-sick into it. But no matther how it behaves they niver quit usin' its face f'r a right iv way. They'll niver subjoo it but it niver bates thim. There niver was a time in th' history iv little man's sthruggle with th' vasty deep that he didn't deserve a decision on points." "Well, it's all very well, but f'r me th' dhry land," said Mr. Hennessy. "Will ye iver cross th' ocean again?" "Not," said Mr. Dooley, "till they asphalt it an' run th' boats on throlleys." WORK "Ye haven't sthruck yet, have ye?" said Mr. Dooley. "Not yet," said Mr. Hennessy. "But th' dillygate was up at th' mills to-day an' we may be called out anny minyit now." "Will ye go?" asked Mr. Dooley. "Ye bet I will," said Mr. Hennessy. "Ye just bet I will. I stand firm be union principles an' besides it's hot as blazes up there these days. I wudden't mind havin' a few weeks off." "Ye'll do right to quit," said Mr. Dooley. "I have no sympathy with sthrikers. I have no sympathy with thim anny more thin I have with people goin' off to a picnic. A sthrike is a wurrukin' man's vacation. If I had to be wan iv thim horny-handed sons iv toil, th' men that have made our counthry what it is an' creates th' wealth iv th' wurruld--if I had to be wan iv thim pillars iv th' constitution, which thank Gawd I haven't, 'tis sthrikin' I'd be all th' time durin' th' heated term. I'd begin sthrikin' whin th' flowers begin to bloom in th' parks, an' I'd stay on sthrike till 'twas too cold to sit out on th' bleachers at th' baseball park. Ye bet I wud. "I've noticed that nearly all sthrikes occur in th' summer time. Sthrikes come in th' summer time an' lockouts in th' winter. In th' summer whin th' soft breezes blows through shop an' facthry, fannin' th' cheeks iv th' artisan an' settin' fire to his whiskers, whin th' main guy is off at th' seashore bein' pinched f'r exceedin' th' speed limit, whin 'tis comfortable to sleep out at nights an' th' Sox have started a batting sthreak, th' son iv Marthy, as me frind Roodyard Kipling calls him, begins to think iv th' rights iv labor. "Th' more he looks out iv th' window, th' more he thinks about his rights, an' wan warm day he heaves a couplin' pin at th' boss an' saunters away. Sthrikes are a great evil f'r th' wurrukin' man, but so are picnics an' he acts th' same at both. There's th' same not gettin' up till ye want to, th' same meetin' ye'er frinds f'r th' first time in their good clothes an' th' same thumpin' sthrangers over th' head with a brick. Afther awhile th' main guy comes home fr'm th' seaside, raises wages twinty per cent, fires th' boss an' takes in th' walkin' dillygate as a specyal partner. "But in winter, what Hogan calls another flower iv our industhreel system blooms. In th' winter it's warmer in th' foundhry thin in th' home. There is no hearth as ample in anny man's home as th' hearth th' Steel Comp'ny does its cookin' by. It is pleasant to see th' citizen afther th' rigors iv a night at home hurryin' to th' mills to toast his numbed limbs in th' warm glow iv th' Bessemer furnace. About this time th' main guy takes a look at the thermometer an' chases th' specyal partner out iv th' office with th' annual report iv th' Civic Featheration. He thin summons his hardy assocyates about him an' says he: 'Boys, I will no longer stand f'r th' tyranny iv th' unions. Conditions has changed since last summer. It's grown much colder. I do not care f'r the money at stake, but there is a great principle involved. I cannot consint to have me business run be outsiders at a cost iv near thirty thousand dollars a year,' says he. An' there's a lockout. "'Tis a matther iv th' seasons. So if ye sthrike ye'll not get me sympathy. I resarve that f'r me infeeryors. I'll keep me sympathy f'r th' poor fellow that has nobody to lure him away fr'm his toil an' that has to sweat through August with no chanst iv gettin' a day in th' open onless th' milishy are ordhered out an' thin whin he goes back to wurruk th' chances are somebody's got his job while th' sthrikin' wurrukin' man returns with his pockets full iv cigars an' is hugged at th' dure be the main guy. If I was rejooced to wurrukin' f'r me livin', if I was a son iv Marthy I'd be a bricklayer. They always sthrike durin' th' buildin' season. They time it just right. They niver quit wurruk. They thry not to meet it. It is what Hogan calls a pecolyar fact that bricklayers always time their vacations f'r th' peeryod whin there is wurruk to be done. "No, sir, don't ask me to weep over th' downthrodden wurrukin' man whin he's out on sthrike. Ye take these here tillygraft op'rators that have laid off wurruk f'r th' summer. Do they look as though they were sufferin'? Ye bet they don't. Th' tired tillygraft op'rator come home last week with a smile on his face. 'I have good news f'r ye, mother,' says he. 'Ye haven't sthruck?' says she, hope sthrugglin' with fear in her face. 'Ye've guessed it,' says he. 'We weren't exactly ordhered out. Th' signal f'r a sthrike was to be a series iv sharp whistles fr'm the walkin' dillygate, but, whin that didn't come an' we were tired iv waitin' th' report iv th' baseball game come over th' wires an' we mistook that f'r a signal. Ye must get the childher ready f'r a day in th' counthry. We can't tell how soon this sthruggle again th' greed iv capital will be declared off an' we must make th' most iv it while it lasts,' says he. "I know a tillygraft op'rator, wan iv thim knights iv th' key that has a fine job in a counthry deepo. All he has to do is to be up in time to flag number eight at six o'clock an' wait till number thirty-two goes through at midnight, keep thrains fr'm bumpin' into each other, turn switches, put up th' simaphore, clean th' lamps an' hand out time tables an' sell tickets. F'r these dissypations he dhraws down all th' way fr'm fifteen to twinty dollars a week. An' he wants to sthrike. An' th' pa-apers say if he does he'll tie up our impeeryal railroad systems. Think iv that. I never had much iv an opinyon iv him. All he iver done f'r me was to misspell me name. He's a little thin man that cudden't lift an eighth iv beer with both hands, but he's that important if he leaps his job we'll all have to walk. "I've often thought I'd like to have th' walkin' dillygate iv th' Liquor Dealers' Binivolent Assocyation come around an' ordher me to lay down me lemon squeezer an' bung starter an' walk out. But nawthin' iv th' kind iver happens an' if it did happen no wan wud care a sthraw. Th' whole wurruld shuddhers at th' thought that me frind Ike Simpson, the tillygraft op'rator, may take a day off: but me or Pierpont Morgan might quit f'r a year an' no wan wud care. Supposin' Rockyfellar an' Pierpont Morgan an' Jim Hill shud form a union, an' shud demand a raise iv a millyon dollars a year, reduction iv wurrukin' time fr'm two to wan hour ivry week, th' closed shop, two apprentices f'r each bank an' no wan allowed to make money onless he cud show a union card? Whin th' sthrike comity waited on us we'd hoist our feet on th' kitchen table, light a seegar, polish our bone collar button with th' sleeve iv our flannel shirt an' till thim to go to Bannagher. "We'd say: 'Ye'er demands are onraisonable an' we will not submit. F'r years we have run th' shop almost at a loss. There are plenty iv men to take ye'er places. They may not be as efficient at first but they'll soon larn. Ye'er demands are refused an' ye can bang th' dure afther ye.' A fine chanct a millyonaire wud have thryin' to persuade ye be peaceful means fr'm takin' his job. Think iv him on th' dead line thryin' to coax ye not to go in but to stand by him as he would sit on ye if you were in th' same position. Wud ye or wud ye not lave ye'er coat in his hands as ye plunged in th' bank? They'd have to resort to vilence. Th' stock exchange wud go out in sympathy. Th' milishy wud be called out an' afther awhile th' financeers wud come back with their hats in their hands an' find their old places took be other men. "No, sir, a sthrike iv financeers wudden't worry anny wan. 'Tis a sthrange thing whin we come to think iv it that th' less money a man gets f'r his wurruk, th' more nicissry it is to th' wurruld that he shud go on wurrukin'. Ye'er boss can go to Paris on a combination wedding an' divoorce thrip an' no wan bothers his head about him. But if ye shud go to Paris--excuse me f'r laughin' mesilf black in th' face--th' industhrees iv the counthry pines away. "An' th' higher up a man regards his wurruk, th' less it amounts to. We cud manage to scrape along without electhrical injineers but we'd have a divvle iv a time without scavengers. Ye look down on th' fellow that dhrives th' dump cart, but if it wasn't f'r him ye'd niver be able to pursoo ye'er honorable mechanical profissyon iv pushin' th' barrow. Whin Andhrew Carnagie quit, ye wint on wurrukin'; if ye quit wurruk, he'll have to come back. P'raps that's th' reason th' wurrukin' man don't get more iv thim little pictures iv a buffalo in his pay envelope iv a Saturdah night. If he got more money he wud do less wurruk. He has to be kept in thrainin'. "Th' way to make a man useful to th' wurruld is to give him a little money an' a lot iv wurruk. An' 'tis th' on'y way to make him happy, too. I don't mean coarse, mateeryal happiness like private yachts an' autymobills an' rich food an' other corrodin' pleasures. I mean something entirely diffr'ent. I don't know what I mean but I see in th' pa-apers th' other day that th' on'y road to happiness was hard wurruk. 'Tis a good theery. Some day I'm goin' to hire a hall an' preach it in Newport. I wudden't mintion it in Ar-rchy Road where wurruk abounds. I don't want to be run in f'r incitin' a riot. "This pa-aper says th' farmer niver sthrikes. He hasn't got th' time to. He's too happy. A farmer is continted with his ten-acre lot. There's nawthin' to take his mind off his wurruk. He sleeps at night with his nose against th' shingled roof iv his little frame home an' dhreams iv cinch bugs. While th' stars are still alight he walks in his sleep to wake th' cow that left th' call f'r four o'clock. Thin it's ho! f'r feedin' th' pigs an' mendin' th' reaper. Th' sun arises as usual in th' east an' bein' a keen student iv nature, he picks a cabbage leaf to put in his hat. Breakfast follows, a gay meal beginnin' at nine an' endin' at nine-three. Thin it's off f'r th' fields where all day he sets on a bicycle seat an' reaps the bearded grain an' th' Hessian fly, with nawthin' but his own thoughts an' a couple iv horses to commune with. An' so he goes an' he's happy th' livelong day if ye don't get in ear-shot iv him. In winter he is employed keepin' th' cattle fr'm sufferin' his own fate an' writin' testymonyals iv dyspepsia cures. 'Tis sthrange I niver heerd a farmer whistle except on Sunday. "No, sir, ye can't tell me that a good deal iv wurruk is good f'r anny man. A little wurruk is not bad, a little wurruk f'r th' stomach's sake an' to make ye sleep sound, a kind of nightcap, d'ye mind. But a gr-reat deal iv wurruk, especially in th' summer time, will hurt anny man that indulges in it. So, though I don't sympathize with sthrikers, I congratulate thim. Sthrike, says I, while the iron is hot an' ye'er most needed to pound it into a horseshoe. An' especially wud I advise ivrybody to sthrike whin th' weather is hot." DRUGS "What ails ye?" asked Mr. Dooley of Mr. Hennessy, who looked dejected. "I'm a sick man," said Mr. Hennessy. "Since th' picnic?" "Now that I come to think iv it, it did begin th' day afther th' picnic," said Mr. Hennessy. "I've been to see Dock O'Leary. He give me this an' these here pills an' some powdhers besides. An' d'ye know, though I haven't taken anny iv thim yet, I feel betther already." "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "'tis a grand thing to be a doctor. A man that's a doctor don't have to buy anny funny papers to enjye life. Th' likes iv ye goes to a picnic an' has a pleasant, peaceful day in th' counthry dancin' breakdowns an' kickin' a football in th' sun an' ivry fifteen minyits or so washin' down a couple of dill-pickles with a bottle of white pop. Th' next day ye get what's comin' to ye in th' right place an' bein' a sthrong, hearty man that cudden't be kilt be annything less thin a safe fallin' on ye fr'm a twenty-story building ye know ye ar-re goin' to die. Th' good woman advises a mustard plasther but ye scorn th' suggestion. What good wud a mustard plasther be again this fatal epidemic that is ragin' inside iv ye? Besides a mustard plasther wud hurt. So th' good woman, frivilous crather that she is, goes back to her wurruk singin' a light chune. She knows she's goin' to have to put up with ye f'r some time to come. A mustard plasther, Hinnissy, is th' rale test iv whether a pain is goin' to kill ye or not. If the plasther is onbearable ye can bet th' pain undherneath it is not. "But ye know ye are goin' to die an' ye're not sure whether ye'll send f'r Father Kelly or th' doctor. Ye finally decide to save up Father Kelly f'r th' last an' ye sind f'r th' Dock. Havin' rescued ye fr'm th' jaws iv death two or three times befure whin ye had a sick headache th' Dock takes his time about comin', but just as ye are beginnin' to throw ye'er boots at th' clock an' show other signs iv what he calls rigem mortar, he rides up in his fine horse an' buggy. He gets out slowly, one foot at a time, hitches his horse an' ties a nose bag on his head. Thin he chats f'r two hundherd years with th' polisman on th' beat. He tells him a good story an' they laugh harshly. "Whin th' polisman goes his way th' Dock meets th' good woman at th' dure an' they exchange a few wurruds about th' weather, th' bad condition iv th' sthreets, th' health iv Mary Ann since she had th' croup an' ye'ersilf. Ye catch th' wurruds, 'Grape Pie,' 'Canned Salmon,' 'Cast-iron digestion.' Still he doesn't come up. He tells a few stories to th' childher. He weighs th' youngest in his hands an' says: 'That's a fine boy ye have, Mrs. Hinnissy. I make no doubt he'll grow up to be a polisman.' He examines th' phottygraft album an' asks if that isn't so-an'-so. An' all this time ye lay writhin' in mortal agony an' sayin' to ye'ersilf: 'Inhuman monsther, to lave me perish here while he chats with a callous woman that I haven't said annything but What? to f'r twinty years.' "Ye begin to think there's a conspiracy against ye to get ye'er money befure he saunters into th' room an' says in a gay tone: 'Well, what d'ye mane be tyin' up wan iv th' gr-reat industhrees iv our nation be stayin' away fr'm wurruk f'r a day?' 'Dock,' says ye in a feeble voice, 'I have a tur'ble pain in me abdumdum. It reaches fr'm here to here,' makin' a rough sketch iv th' burned disthrict undher th' blanket. 'I felt it comin' on last night but I didn't say annything f'r fear iv alarmin' me wife, so I simply groaned,' says ye. "While ye ar-re describin' ye'er pangs, he walks around th' room lookin' at th' pictures. Afther ye've got through he comes over an says: 'Lave me look at ye'er tongue. 'Hum,' he says, holdin' ye'er wrist an' bowin' through th' window to a frind iv his on a sthreet car. 'Does that hurt?' he says, stabbin' ye with his thumbs in th' suburbs iv th' pain. 'Ye know it does,' says ye with a groan. 'Don't do that again. Ye scratched me.' He hurls ye'er wrist back at ye an' stands at th' window lookin' out at th' firemen acrost th' sthreet playin' dominoes. He says nawthin' to ye an' ye feel like th' prisoner while th' foreman iv th' jury is fumblin' in his inside pocket f'r th' verdict. Ye can stand it no longer. 'Dock,' says he, 'is it annything fatal? I'm not fit to die but tell me th' worst an' I will thry to bear it. 'Well,' says he, 'ye have a slight interioritis iv th' semi-colon. But this purscription ought to fix ye up all right. Ye'd betther take it over to th' dhrug sthore an' have it filled ye'ersilf. In th' manetime I'd advise ye to be careful iv ye'er dite. I wudden't ate annything with glass or a large percintage iv plasther iv Paris in it.' An' he goes away to write his bill. "I wondher why ye can always read a doctor's bill an' ye niver can read his purscription. F'r all ye know, it may be a short note to th' dhruggist askin' him to hit ye on th' head with a pestle. An' it's a good thing ye can't read it. If ye cud, ye'd say: 'I'll not cash this in at no dhrug store. I'll go over to Dooley's an' get th' rale thing.' So, afther thryin' to decipher this here corner iv a dhress patthern, ye climb into ye'er clothes f'r what may be ye'er last walk up Ar-rchy Road. As ye go along ye begin to think that maybe th' Dock knows ye have th' Asiatic cholery an' was onl'y thryin' to jolly ye with his manner iv dealin' with ye. As ye get near th' dhrug store ye feel sure iv it, an' 'tis with th' air iv a man without hope that ye hand th' paper to a young pharmycist who is mixin' a two-cent stamp f'r a lady customer. He hands it over to a scientist who is compoundin' an ice-cream soda f'r a child, with th' remark: 'O'Leary's writin' is gettin' worse an' worse. I can't make this out at all.' 'Oh,' says th' chemist, layin' down his spoon, 'that's his old cure f'r th' bellyache. Ye'll find a bucket iv it in th' back room next to th' coal scuttle.' "It's a gr-reat medicine he give ye. It will do ye good no matther what ye do with it. I wud first thry poorin' some iv it in me hair. If that don't help ye see how far ye can throw th' bottle into th' river. Ye feel betther already. Ye ought to write to th' medical journals about th' case. It is a remarkable cure. 'M---- H---- was stricken with excruciating tortures in th' gastric regions followin' an unusually severe outing in th' counthry. F'r a time it looked as though it might be niciss'ry to saw out th' infected area, but as this wud lave an ugly space between legs an' chin, it was determined to apply Jam. Gin. VIII. Th' remedy acted instantly. Afther carryin' th' bottle uncorked f'r five minyits in his inside pocket th' patient showed signs iv recovery an' is now again in his accustomed health.' "Yes, sir, if I was a doctor I'd be ayether laughin' or cryin' all th' time. I'd be laughin' over th' cases that I was called into whin I wasn't needed an' cryin' over th' cases where I cud do no good. An' that wud be most iv me cases. "Dock O'Leary comes in here often an' talks medicine to me. 'Ye'ers is a very thrying pro-fissyon,' says I. 'It is,' says he. 'I'm tired out,' says he. 'Have ye had a good manny desprit cases to-day?' says I. 'It isn't that,' says he, 'but I'm not a very muscular man,' he says, 'an' some iv th' windows in these old frame houses are hard to open,' he says. Th' Dock don't believe much in dhrugs. He says that if he wasn't afraid iv losin' his practice he wudn't give annybody annything but quinine an' he isn't sure about that. He says th' more he practises medicine th' more he becomes a janitor with a knowledge iv cookin'. He says if people wud on'y call him in befure they got sick, he'd abolish ivry disease in th' ward except old age an' pollyticks. He says he's lookin' forward to th' day whin th' tillyphone will ring an' he'll hear a voice sayin': 'Hurry up over to Hinnissy's. He niver felt so well in his life.' 'All right, I'll be over as soon as I can hitch up th' horse. Take him away fr'm th' supper table at wanst, give him a pipeful iv tobacco an' walk him three times around th' block.' "But whin a man's sick, he's sick an' nawthin' will cure him or annything will. In th' old days befure ye an' I were born, th' doctor was th' barber too. He'd shave ye, cut ye'er hair, dye ye'er mustache, give ye a dhry shampoo an' cure ye iv appindicitis while ye were havin' ye'er shoes shined be th' naygur. Ivry gineration iv doctors has had their favrite remedies. Wanst people were cured iv fatal maladies be applications iv blind puppies, hair fr'm the skulls iv dead men an' solutions iv bat's wings, just as now they're cured be dhrinkin' a tayspoonful iv a very ordhinary article iv booze that's had some kind iv a pizenous weed dissolved in it. "Dhrugs, says Dock O'Leary, are a little iv a pizen that a little more iv wud kill ye. He says that if ye look up anny poplar dhrug in th' ditchnry ye'll see that it is 'A very powerful pizen of great use in medicine.' I took calomel at his hands f'r manny years till he told me that it was about the same thing they put into Rough on Rats. Thin I stopped. If I've got to die, I want to die on th' premises. "But, as he tells me, ye can't stop people from takin' dhrugs an' ye might as well give thim something that will look important enough to be inthrojuced to their important an' fatal cold in th' head. If ye don't, they'll leap f'r the patent medicines. Mind ye, I haven't got annything to say again patent medicines. If a man wud rather take thim thin dhrink at a bar or go down to Hop Lung's f'r a long dhraw, he's within his rights. Manny a man have I known who was a victim iv th' tortures iv a cigareet cough who is now livin' comfortable an' happy as an opeem fiend be takin' Doctor Wheezo's Consumption Cure. I knew a fellow wanst who suffered fr'm spring fever to that extent that he niver did a day's wurruk. To-day, afther dhrinkin' a bottle of Gazooma, he will go home not on'y with th' strenth but th' desire to beat his wife. There is a dhrug store on ivry corner an' they're goin' to dhrive out th' saloons onless th' govermint will let us honest merchants put a little cocaine or chloral in our cough-drops an' advertise that it will cure spinal minigitis. An' it will, too, f'r awhile." "Don't ye iver take dhrugs?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Niver whin I'm well," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin I'm sick, I'm so sick I'd take annything." A BROKEN FRIENDSHIP "Hogan was in here just now," said Mr. Dooley, "an' he tells me he was talkin' with th' Alderman an' they both agreed we're sure to have war with th' Japs inside iv two years. They can see it comin'. Befure very long thim little brown hands acrost th' sea will hand us a crack in th' eye an' thin ye'll see throuble." "What's it all about?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Divvle a thing can I make out iv it," said Mr. Dooley. "Hogan says we've got to fight f'r th' supreemacy iv th' Passyfic. Much fightin' I'd do f'r an ocean, but havin' taken th' Philippeens, which ar-re a blamed nuisance, an th' Sandwich Islands, that're about as vallyable as a toy balloon to a horse-shoer, we've got to grab a lot iv th' surroundin' dampness to protect thim. That's wan reason why we're sure to have war. Another reason is that th' Japs want to sind their little forty-five-year-old childher to be iddycated in th' San Francisco public schools. A third reason why it looks like war to Hogan an' th' Alderman is that they'd been dhrinkin' together. "Wud ye iver have thought 'twas possible that anny wan in this counthry cud even talk iv war with thim delightful, cunning little Oryentals? Why, 'tis less thin two years since Hogan was comin' home fr'm th' bankit iv th' Union iv Usurers with his arms around th' top iv a Jap's head while th' Jap clutched Hogan affectionately about th' waist an' they sung 'Gawd Save th' Mickydoo.' D'ye raymimber how we hollered with joy whin a Rooshyan Admiral put his foot through th' bottom iv a man-iv-war an' sunk it. An' how we cheered in th' theaytre to see th' cute little sojers iv th' Mickydoo mowin' down th' brutal Rooshyan moojiks with masheen guns. An' fin'lly, whin th' Japs had gone a thousand miles into Rooshyan territory an' were about busted an' ayether had to stop fightin' or not have car fare home, our worthy Prisident, ye know who I mean, jumped to th' front an' cried: 'Boys, stop it. It's gone far enough to satisfy th' both iv ye.' An th' angel iv peace brooded over th' earth an' crowed lustily. "Day after day th' pa-apers come out an' declared, in th' column next to th' half-page ad iv th' Koppenheimer bargain sale, that th' defeat iv Rooshya was a judgment iv th' Lord on th' Czar. If ye saw a Jap annywhere, ye asked him to take a dhrink. "Hogan talked about nawthin' else. They were a wondherful little people. How they had diviloped! Nawthin' in th' histhry iv th' wurruld was akel to th' way they'd come up. They cud shoot straighter an' oftener thin anny other nation. A Jap cud march three hundred miles a day f'r eight days with nawthin' to eat. They were highly civvylized. It was an old civvylization but not tainted be age. Millyons iv years befure th' first white man set fut in Milwaukee th' Japs undhershtud th' mannyfacther iv patent wringers, sewin'-masheens, reapers, tillyphones, autymobills, ice-cream freezers, an' all th' other wondhers iv our boasted Westhren divilopement. "Their customs showed how highly they'd been civvylized. Whin a Jap soldier was defeated, rather thin surrendher an' be sint home to have his head cut off, he wud stab himself in th' stummick. Their treatment iv women put thim on a higher plane thin ours. Cinchries ago befure th' higher iddycation iv women was dhreamed iv in this counthry, th' poorest man in Japan cud sind his daughter to a tea-house, which is th' same as our female siminaries, where she remained till she gradyated as th' wife iv some proud noble iv th' old Samuri push. "Their art had ours thrimmed to a frazzle. Th' Jap artist O'Casey's pitcher iv a lady leanin' on a river while a cow walked up her back, was th' loveliest thing in th' wurruld. They were th' gr-reatest athletes iver known. A Japanese child with rickets cud throw Johnson over a church. They had a secret iv rasslin' be which a Jap rassler cud blow on his opponent's eyeball an' break his ankle. They were th' finest soordsmen that iver'd been seen. Whin a Japanese soordsman wint into a combat he made such faces that his opponent dhropped his soord an' thin he uttered a bloodcurdlin' cry, waved his soord four hundhred an' fifty times over th' head iv th' victim or in th' case iv a Samuri eight hundred an' ninety-six, give a whoop resimblin' our English wurrud 'tag,' an' clove him to th' feet. As with us, on'y th' lower classes engaged in business. Th' old arrystocracy distained to thrade but started banks an' got all th' money. Th' poor man had a splendid chance. He cud devote his life to paintin' wan rib iv a fan, f'r which he got two dollars, or he cud become a cab horse. An' even in th' wan branch iv art that Westhren civvylization is supposed to excel in, they had us beat miles. They were th' gr-reatest liars in th' wurruld an' formerly friends iv th' Prisidint. "All these here things I heerd fr'm Hogan an' see in th' pa-apers. I invied this wondherful nation. I wisht, sometimes, th' Lord hadn't given me two blue an' sometimes red eyes an' this alkiline nose, but a nose like an ear an' a couple iv shoe-buttons f'r eyes. I wanted to be a Jap an' belong to th' higher civvylization. Hogan had a Jap frind that used to come in here with him. Hogan thought he was a Prince, but he was a cook an' a student in a theelogical siminry. They'd talk be th' hour about th' beauties iv what Hogan called th' Flowery Kingdom. 'Oh, wondherful land,' says Hogan. 'Land iv chrysanthymums an' cherry blossoms a' gasyhee girls,' says he. 'Japan is a beautiful land,' says Prince Okoko. 'Nippon, (that's th' name it goes by at home,) Nippon, I salute ye,' says Hogan. 'May victhry perch upon ye'er banners, an' may ye hammer our old frinds an' allies fr'm Mookden to Moscow. Banzai,' says he. An' they embraced. That night, in ordher to help on th' cause, Hogan bought a blue flower-pot fr'm th' Prince's collection f'r eighteen dollars. He took it home undher his ar-rm in th' rain an' th' next mornin' most iv th' flower-pot was on his new overcoat an' th' rest was meltin' all over th' flure. "That was the beginnin' iv th' end iv th' frindship between th' two gr-reat nations that owe thimselves so much. About th' time Hogan got th' flower-pot, th' fire-sale ads an' th' Rooshyan outrage news both stopped in th' newspa-apers. A well-known fi-nanceer who thravelled to Tokeeo with a letter iv inthraduction to th' Mickydoo fr'm th' Prisidint beginnin' 'Dear mick,' got a brick put through his hat as he wint to visit th' foorth assistant to th' manicure iv th' eighth assistant to th' plumber iv th' bricklayer iv th' Mickydoo, which is th' nearest to his Majesty that foreign eyes ar-re permitted to look upon. A little later a number iv Americans in private life who wint over to rayceive in person th' thanks iv th' Impror f'r what they'd done f'r him talkin' ar-round th' bar at th' Union League Club, were foorced be th' warmth iv their rayciption to take refuge in th' house iv th' Rooshyan counsel. Th' next month some iv th' subjects iv our life-long frind an' ally were shot while hookin' seals fr'm our side iv th' Passyfic. Next week a prom'nent Jap'nese statesman was discovered payin' a socyal visit to th' Ph'lippeens. He had with him at th' time two cameras, a couple iv line men, surveyin' tools, a thousand feet iv tape line, an' a bag iv dinnymite bombs. Last month th' Jap'nese Governmint wrote to th' Prisidint: 'Most gracious an' bewilderin' Majesty, Impror iv th' Sun, austere an' patient Father iv th' Stars, it has come to our benign attintion that in wan iv ye'er populous domains our little prattlin' childher who ar-re over forty years iv age ar-re not admitted to th' first reader classes in th' public schools. Oh, brother beloved, we adore ye. Had ye not butted in with ye'er hivenly binivolence we wud've shook Rooshya down f'r much iv her hateful money. Now we must prove our affection with acts. It is our intintion to sind a fleet to visit ye'er shores, partickly San Francisco, where we undherstand th' school system is well worth studyin'.' "An' there ye ar-re, Hinnissy. Th' frindship ceminted two years ago with blood an' beers is busted. I don't know whether annything will happen. Hogan thinks so, but I ain't sure. Th' Prisidint has announced that rather thin see wan octoginaryan Jap prevented fr'm larnin' his a-bee-abs he will divastate San Francisco with fire, flood, dinnymite, an' personalities. But San Francisco has had a pretty good bump lately an' wud hardly tur-rn over in its sleep f'r an invasion. Out there they're beginnin' to talk about what nice people th' Chinese ar-re compared with our old frinds an' allies. They say that th' Jap'nese grow up too fast f'r their childher, an' that 'tis no pleasant sight to see a Jap'nese pupil combin' a set iv gray whiskers an' larnin', 'Mary had a little lamb,' and if th' Prisidint wants thim to enther th' schools he'll have to load thim in a cannon an' shoot thim in." "We'd bate thim in a fight," said Mr. Hennessy. "They cudden't stand up befure a gr-reat, sthrong nation like ours." "We think we're gr-reat an' sthrong," said Mr. Dooley. "But maybe we on'y look fat to thim. Annyhow, we might roll on thim. Wudden't it be th' grand thing, though, if they licked us an' we signed a threaty iv peace with thim an' with tears iv humilyation in our eyes handed thim th' Ph'lippeens!" THE ARMY CANTEEN "I seen big Doherty runnin' in a sojer to-day an' 'twas a fine sight. Th' sojer was fr'm th' County Kerry an' had a thrip an' Doherty is th' champeen catch-as-catch-can rassler iv Camp Twinty-eight. He had a little th' worst iv it, f'r he cud on'y get a neck holt, th' warryor havin' no slack to his pants, but he landed him at last. 'Twas gr-reat to see thim doin' a cart-wheel down th' sthreet." "Was th' sojer under th' influence?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Ye might say he was," said Mr. Dooley. "That is, ye might say so if ye didn't know that th' dhrinkin' habits iv' th' army have been rayformed. Didn't ye know they were? They ar-re. Yes, sir. Th' motto iv our brave fellows is now 'Away, away, th' bowl,' 'Tis 'Wine f'r th' thremblin' debauchee, but water, pure water, f'r me,' 'Tis 'Father, dear father, come home with me now.' An' who did it? Who is it that improves men an' makes thim more ladylike, an' thin quits thim, but th' ladies? This here reform was carried out be th' Young Ladies' Christyan Tim'prance Union, no less. Ye see, 'twas this way. F'r manny years it's been th' theery that dhrink an' fightin' wint arm-in-arm. If ye dhrank ye fought; if ye fought ye drank to fight again. As Hogan says, Mars, who was th' gawd iv war, was no good onless he was pushed into throuble be Backis, the gawd iv dhrink. About th' time Mars was r-ready to quit an' go home to do th' Spring plowin', Backis handed him a jigger iv kerosene an' says: 'That fellow over there is leerin' at ye. Ar-re ye goin' to stand that?' an' Mars bustled in. Th' barkeeper an' th' banker ar-re behind ivry war. "Well, in former times th' Governmint kept a saloon f'r th' sojers. Up at Fort Shurdan they had a ginmill where th' warryors cud go an' besot thimsilves with bottled beer an' dominoes. It was a sad sight to see thim grim heroes, survivors iv a thousand marches through th' damp sthreets on Decoration Day, settin' in these temples iv hell an' swillin' down th' hated cochineel that has made Milwaukee what it is. To this palace iv vice th' inthrepid definder iv his Nation's honor hastened whin he had completed th' arjoos round iv his jooties, after he had pressed th' Lootinant's clothes, curried th' Captain's horse, mended th' roof iv th' Major's house, watered th' geeranyums f'r th' Colonel's wife, an' written his daily letter to th' paper complainin' about th' food. There he sat an' dhrank an' fought over his old battles with th' cook an' recalled th' name that he give whin he first enlisted an' thried to think who it was he married in Fort Leavenworth, ontil th' bugle summoned him to th' awful carnage called supper. "Well, sir, 'twas dhreadful. We opposed it as much as we cud. As a dillygate to th' Binivolent Assoeyation iv Saloon Keepers iv America I've helped to pass manny resolutions to save our brave boys in yellow fr'm th' insidyous foe that robs thim iv what intellicts they show be goin' into the army. Our organ-ization petitioned Congress time an' time again to take th' Governmint out iv this vile poorsoot that was sappin' th' very vitals iv our sojery. Why, we asked, shud Uncle Sam engage in this thraffic in th' souls iv men without payin' f'r a license, whin dacint citizens were puttin' up their good money a block away an' niver a soul comin' down fr'm th' fort to be thrafficked in? Did Congress pay anny attintion to us? It did not. "But wan day a comity iv ladies fr'm th' Young Ladies' Christyan Timp'rance Union wint out to th' fort. They'd seen th' Colonel at th' last p'rade an' they'd decided that 'twas high time they disthributed copies iv 'Death in th' Bottle; or, Th' Booze-Fighter's Finish,' among our sojery. Whin they got up there they seen a large bunch iv our gallant fellows makin' a dash f'r an outlyin' building, an' says wan iv thim: 'What can they be in such a hurry f'r? That must be th' chapel. Let us go in.' An' in they wint. "Hinnissy, th' sight that met their young an' unaccustomed eyes was enough to shock even a lady lookin' f'r throuble. Th' air was gray an' blue with th' fumes iv that heejous weed that has made mankind happy though single f'r four hundred years, an' that next to alcohol is th' greatest curse iv th' sons iv Adam. Some iv th' wretches were playin' cards, properly called th' Divvle's bible; others were indulgin' in music, that lure iv th' Evil Wan f'r idleness, while still others were intint on th' furyous game iv dominoes, whose feet take hold on hell. But worse, still worse, they saw through their girlish spectacles dimmed with unbidden tears. F'r in front iv each iv these war-battered vethrans shtud a bottle, in some cases bar'ly half filled with a brownish-yellow flood with bubbles on top iv it. What was it, says ye? Hardened as I am to dhrink iv ivry kind, I hesitate to mention th' wurrud. But concealment is useless. 'Twas beer. These brave men, employed be th' taxpayer iv America to defind th' hearths iv th' tax-dodger iv America, supposed be all iv us to have consicrated their lives to upholdin' th' flag, were at heart votaries, as Hogan says, iv Aloes, gawd iv beer. "F'r a moment th' ladies shtud dumfounded. But they did not remain long in this unladylike attichood. Th' Chairwoman iv th' dillygation recovered her voice an', advancin' to'rd a Sergeant who was thryin' to skin a pair iv fours down so that it wud look like a jack full to his ineebryated opponent, she said: 'Me brave man, d'ye ralize that that bottle is full iv th' Seed iv Desthruction?' she says. 'I think ye'er wrong, mum,' says he. 'It's Pilsener,' he says. 'Soon or late,' she says, 'th' Demon Rum will desthroy ye,' she says. 'Not me,' says th' vethran iv a thousand enlistments. 'I don't care f'r rum. A pleasant companyon, but a gossip. It tells on ye. Th' Demon Rum with a little iv th' Demon Hot Water an' th' Demon Sugar is very enticin', but it has a perfume to it that is dangerous to a married man like mesilf. Rum, madam, is an informer. Don't niver take it. I agree with ye that it's a demon,' says he. 'Why,' says she, 'do ye drink this dhreadful poison?' says she. 'Because,' says th' brave fellow, 'I can't get annything sthronger without desertin,' he says. "An' they wint down to Washington to see th' Congressmen. Ye know what a Congressman is. I've made a few right here in this barroom. Th' on'y thing a Congressman isn't afraid iv is th' on'y thing I'd be afraid iv, an' that is iv bein' a Congressman. An' th' thing he's most afraid iv is th' ladies. A comity iv ladies wud make Congress repeal th' ten commandments. Not that they'd iver ask thim to, Hinnissy. They'd make thim ten thousand if they had their way an' mark thim: 'F'r men on'y.' But, annyhow, th' ladies comity wint down to Washin'ton. They'd been there befure an' dhriven th' Demon Rum fr'm th' resthrant into a lair in th' comity room. A Congressman came out, coughin' behind his hand, an' put his handkerchief into th' northwest corner iv his coat. 'Ladies,' says he, 'what can I do f'r ye?' he says. 'Ye must save th' ar-rmy fr'm th' malt that biteth like a wasp an' stingeth like an adder,' says they. 'Ye bet ye'er life I will, ladies,' says th' Congressman with a slight hiccup. 'I will do as ye desire. A sojer that will dhrink beer is a disgrace to th' American jag,' he says. 'We abolished public dhrinkin' in th' capitol,' he says. 'We done it to make th' Sinitors onhappy, but thim hardened tools iv predytory wealth have ordhered ink wells made in th' shape iv decanters. But,' he says, 'th' popylar branch iv th' Naytional Ligislachure is not to be outdone. Ye see these panels on th' wall? I touch a button an' out pops a bottle iv Bourbon that wud make ye'er eyes dance. Whoop-ee!' "So Congress passed a bill abolishin' th' canteen. An' it's all right now. If a sojer wants to desthroy himself he has to walk a block. Some iv me enterprisin' colleagues in th' business have opened places convenient to th' fort where th' sons iv Mars, instead iv th' corroding beer, can get annything fr'm sulphuric acid to knock-out dhrops. I see wan iv thim stockin' up at a wholesale dhrug store last week. If the sojers escape th' knock-out dhrops they come down-town an' Doherty takes care iv thim. A sojer gets thirteen dollars a month, we'll say. Twelve dollars he can devote to dhrink an' wan dollar to th' fine. Twelve times eight hundhred an' twelve times that--well, 'tis no small item in th' coorse iv a year. Whin th' Binivolent Assocyation iv Saloonkeepers holds its next meeting I'm goin' to propose to send dillygates to th' Young Ladies Christyan Timp'rance Union. It ought to be what th' unions call an affilyated organization." "Oh, well," said Mr. Hennessy, "they think they're doin' what's right." "An' they ar-re," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye'll not find me defindin' th' sellin' iv dhrink to anny man annywhere. There's no wan that's as much iv a timp'rance man as a man that's been in my business f'r a year. I'd give up all th' fun I get out iv dhrinkin' men to escape th' throuble I have fr'm dhrunkards. Drink's a poison. I don't deny it. I'll admit I'm no betther thin an ordinhry doctor. Both iv us gives ye something that cures ye iv th' idee that th' pain in ye'er chest is pnoomony iv th' lungs. If it really is pnoomony ye go off somewhere an' lie down an' ayether ye cure ye'ersilf iv pnoomony or th' pnoomony cures ye iv life. Dhrink niver made a man betther, but it has made manny a man think he was betther. A little iv it lifts ye out iv th' mud where chance has thrown ye; a little more makes ye think th' stains on ye'er coat ar-re eppylets; a little more dhrops ye back into th' mud again. It's a frind to thim that ar-re cold to it an' an inimy to those that love it most. It welcomes thim in an' thrips thim as they go out. I tell ye 'tis a threacherous dhrug an' it oughtn't to be given to ivry man. "To get a dhrink a man ought first to be examined be his parish priest to see whether he needs it an' how it's goin' to affect him. F'r wan man he'd write on th' prescription 'Ad lib,' as Dock O'Leary does whin he ordhers a mustard plasther f'r me; f'r another he'd write: 'Three times a day at meals.' But most people he wudden't prescribe it f'r at all. "Do I blame th' ladies? Faith, I do not. Ye needn't think I'm proud iv me business. I only took to it because I am too selfish to be a mechanic an' too tender-hearted to be a banker or a lawyer. No, sir, I wudden't care a sthraw if all th' dhrink in th' wurruld was dumped to-morrah into th' Atlantic Ocean, although f'r a week or two afther it was I'd have to get me a diving suit if I wanted to see annything iv me frinds. "No, sir; th' ladies ar-re not to blame. They've always thried to reform man, an' they haven't yet got onto th' fact that maybe he's not worth reformin'. They don't undherstan' why a man shud be allowed to pizen himsilf into th' belief that he amounts to something, but thin they don't undherstand man. They little know what a bluff he is an' how 'tis on'y be fortifyin' himsilf with stuff that they regard as iv no use except to burn undher a tea-kettle that he dares to go on livin' at all. He knows how good dhrink makes him look to himsilf, an' he dhrinks. They see how it makes him look to ivrybody else, an' they want to take it away fr'm him. Whin he's sober his bluff is on th' outside. Whin he's dhrunk he makes th' bluff to his own heart. Dhrink turns him inside out as well as upside down, an' while he's congratulatin' himsilf on th' fine man he is, th' neighbors know him f'r a boaster, a cow'rd, an' something iv a liar. That th' ladies see an' hate. They do not know that there is wan thing an' on'y wan thing to be said in favor iv dhrink, an' that is that it has caused manny a lady to be loved that otherwise might've died single." "They're all right, said Mr. Hennessy. I'm against it." "Yes," said Mr. Dooley. "Anny man is against dhrink that's iver been really against it." THINGS SPIRITUAL "Th' latest thing in science," said Mr. Dooley, "is weighin' th' human soul. A fellow up in Matsachoosetts has done it. He weighs ye befure ye die an' he weighs ye afther ye die, an' th' diff'rence is what ye'er soul weighs. He's discovered that th' av'rage weight iv a soul in New England is six ounces or a little less. Fr'm this he argies that th' conscience isn't part iv th' soul. If it was th' soul wud be in th' heavyweight class, f'r th' New England conscience is no feather. He thinks it don't escape with th' soul, but lies burrid in th' roons iv its old fam'ly home--th' liver. "It's so simple it must be true, an' if it ain't true, annyhow it's simple. But it's a tur-rble thing to think iv. I can't see anny money in it as an invintion. Who'll want to have his soul weighed? Suppose ye'er time has come. Th' fam'ly ar-re busy with their own thoughts, grievin' because they hadn't been as good to ye as they might, because they won't have ye with thim anny more, because it's too late f'r thim to square thimsilves, pityin' ye because ye'er not remainin' to share their sorrows with thim, wondhrin' whether th' black dhresses that were bought in honor iv what people might have said if they hadn't worn thim in mimry iv Aunt Eliza, wud be noticed if they were worn again f'r ye. Th' very young mimbers iv th' fam'ly ar-re standin' around, thryin' to look as sad as they think they ought to look. But they can't keep it up. They nudge each other, their eyes wandher around th' room, an' fr'm time to time they glance over at Cousin Felix an' expect him to make a laugh'ble face. He's a gr-reat frind iv theirs an' they're surprised he isn't gayer. Something must've happened to him. Maybe he's lost his job. There ar-re a gr-reat manny noises in th' sthreet. Th' undertaker whistles as he goes by, an' two iv th' neighbors ar-re at th' gate sayin' what a fine man ye were if ye didn't dhrink, an' askin' did ye leave much. "An' little ye care. Everything is a millyon miles away fr'm ye. F'r th' first time in ye'er life ye're alone. F'r the first time in ye'er life ye ar-re ye'ersilf. F'r Hiven knows how manny years ye've been somebody else. Ye've been ye'er wife, ye'er fam'ly, ye'er relations, th' polisman on th' beat, th' doctor, th' newspaper reporther, th' foreman at th' mills, th' laws iv th' land, th' bartinder that gives ye dhrinks, th' tailor, th' barber, an' public opinion. Th' wurruld has held a lookin'-glass in front iv ye fr'm th' day ye were born an' compelled ye to make faces in it. But in this here particular business ye have no wan to please but ye'ersilf. Good opinyon an' bad opinyon ar-re alike. Ye're akelly unthroubled be gratichood an' revenge. No wan can help ye or stay ye. Ye're beyond th' sound iv th' alarm clock an' th' facthry whistle an' beginnin' th' Big Day Off whin th' man iv Science shakes ye be th' elbow an' says: 'Ye've got to weigh out.' An' he weighs figures: 'Wan hundhred an' forty-siven fr'm wan hundhred an' fifty. Siven fr'm naught can't be done; borry wan; siven fr'm ten leaves three. I find that th' soul iv our late laminted frind weighed a light three pounds avirdoopoise.' "No, sir, it won't do. 'Twill niver be popylar. People won't have their souls weighed. I wudden't f'r all th' wurruld have th' wurrud go through th' ward: 'Did ye hear about Dooley's soul?' 'No, what?' 'They had to get an expert accountant to figure its weight, it was that puny.' "D'ye suppose Dorgan, th' millyonaire, wud consint to it? Whin he entered th' race iv life he was properly handicapped with a soul to offset his avarice an' his ability, so that some iv th' rest iv us wud have a kind iv a show again him. But as soon as he thinks no wan can see him he begins to get rid iv his weight an' comes rompin' home miles ahead. But th' judges say: 'Hold on, there; yell have to weigh out,' an' a little later a notice is posted up that Dorgan is disqualified f'r ridin' undherweight in th' matther iv soul. On th' other hand, there's little Miss Maddigan, th' seamstress. She's all but left at th' post; she's jostled all th' way around, an' comes in lame, a bad last. But she's th' only wan iv th' lot that's kept th' weight. She weighs ninety-six pounds--six iv it bein' tea an' toast an ninety iv it soul. "No, sir, whin it comes to goin' up to th' scales to have their souls weighed people'll be as shy as they are in a Customs House. Th' people that wud make th' invintion pay wud be th' last to want to be tested by it. Th' pa-apers might keep records iv th' results: 'Misther So-an'-so, th' gr-reat captain iv finance, died yesterday, universally regretted. His estate amounts to nineteen millyon dollars. There ar-re two large bequests to charity. Wan is a thrust fund set aside f'r his maiden sister Annybelle, who will receive f'r life th' income on eight hundhred dollars in stock iv th' Hackensack Meadows Comp'ny. Th' other is forty-two dollars to buy a wooden leg f'r his brother Isaac, it bein' undherstood that no charge is to be made be th' estate against th' brother f'r a set iv false teeth bought f'r him in th' year nineteen four. Th' balance iv th' property is left in trust f'r th' minor childher until they ar-re 90 years old. Th' deceased requested that his soul be measured be troy weight. It tipped th' beam at wan pennyweight.'" "D'ye think th' soul can be weighed?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "I know it's there, but I think--I kind iv feel--I wondher--I don't hardly know--" "I see what ye mean" said Mr. Dooley. "Scales an' clocks ar-re not to be thrusted to decide annything that's worth deciding. Who tells time be a clock? Ivry hour is th' same to a clock an' ivry hour is different to me. Wan long, wan short. There ar-re hours in th' avenin' that pass between two ticks iv th' clock; there ar-re hours in th' arly mornin' whin a man can't sleep that Methusalah's age cud stretch in. Clocks ar-re habichool liars, an' so ar-re scales. As soon as annything gets good enough to weigh ye can't weigh it. Scales ar-re f'r th' other fellow. I'm perfectly willin' to take ye'er weight or ye'er soul's weight fr'm what th' scales say. Little I care. A pound or two more or less makes no diff'rence. But when it comes to measurin' something that's precious to me, I'll not thrust it to a slight improvement on a see-saw. "But what do I know about it, annyhow? What do I know about annything? I've been pitchin' information into ye f'r more years thin anny wan iver wint to colledge, an' I tell ye now I don't know annything about annything. I don't like to thrust mesilf forward. I'm a modest man. Won't somebody else get up? Won't ye get up, Tiddy Rosenfelt; won't ye, Willum Jennings Bryan; won't ye, Prisidint Eliot; won't ye, pro-fissors, preachers, doctors, lawyers, iditors? Won't annybody get up? Won't annybody say that they don't know annything about annything worth knowin' about? Thin, be Hivens, I will. All alone I'll stand up befure me class an' say: 'Hinnissy, about annything that can't be weighed on a scales or measured with a tape line I'm as ign'rant as--ye'ersilf. I'll have to pay ye back th' money I took fr'm ye f'r ye'er schoolin'. It was obtained be false pretences.' "How can I know annything, whin I haven't puzzled out what I am mesilf. I am Dooley, ye say, but ye're on'y a casual obsarver. Ye don't care annything about me details. Ye look at me with a gin'ral eye. Nawthin' that happens to me really hurts ye. Ye say, 'I'll go over to see Dooley,' sometimes, but more often ye say, 'I'll go over to Dooley's.' I'm a house to ye, wan iv a thousand that look like a row iv model wurrukin'men's cottages. I'm a post to hitch ye'er silences to. I'm always about th' same to ye. But to me I'm a millyon Dooleys an' all iv thim sthrangers to ME. I niver know which wan iv thim is comin' in. I'm like a hotel keeper with on'y wan bed an' a millyon guests, who come wan at a time an' tumble each other out. I set up late at night an' pass th' bottle with a gay an' careless Dooley that hasn't a sorrow in th' wurruld, an' suddenly I look up an' see settin' acrost fr'm me a gloomy wretch that fires th' dhrink out iv th' window an' chases me to bed. I'm just gettin' used to him whin another Dooley comes in, a cross, cantankerous, crazy fellow that insists on eatin' breakfast with me. An' so it goes. I know more about mesilf than annybody knows an' I know nawthin'. Though I'd make a map fr'm mem'ry an' gossip iv anny other man, f'r mesilf I'm still uncharted. "So what's th' use iv thryin' to know annything less important. Don't thry. All ye've got to do is to believe what ye hear, an' if ye do that enough, afther a while ye'll hear what ye believe. Ye've got to start in believin' befure ye can find a reason f'r ye'er belief. Our old frind Christopher Columbus hadn't anny good reason f'r believin' that there was anny such a place as America. But he believed it without a reason an' thin wint out an' found it. Th' fellows that discovered th' canals on Mars which other fellows think cud be cured be a good oculist, hadn't anny right to think there were canals on Mars. But wan iv thim said: 'I wondher if there ar-re canals on Mars; I believe there ar-re. I'll look an' see. Be Hivens, there ar-re.' If he'd wondhered an' thin believed about clothes poles he'd've found thim too. Anny kind iv a fact is proof iv a belief. A firm belief atthracts facts. They come out iv holes in th' ground an' cracks in th' wall to support belief, but they run away fr'm doubt. "I'll niver get anny medal f'r makin' anny man give up his belief. If I see a fellow with a chube on his eye and hear him hollerin', 'Hooray, I've discovered a new planet,' I'll be th' last man in th' wurruld to brush th' fly off th' end iv th' telescope. I've known people that see ghosts. I didn't see thim, but they did. They cud see ghosts an' I cudden't. There wasn't annything else to it. I knew a fellow that was a Spiritualist wanst. He was in th' chattel morgedge business on week days an' he was a Spiritulist on Sunday. He cud understand why th' spirits wud always pick out a stout lady with false hair or a gintleman that had his thumb mark registhered at Polis Headquarthers to talk through, an' he knew why spirits liked to play on banjoes an' mandolins an' why they convarsed be rappin' on a table in th' dark. An' there was a man that wud bite a silver dollar in two befure he'd take it f'r good." "My aunt seen a ghost wanst," said Mr. Hennessy. "Ivrybody's aunt has seen a ghost," said Mr. Dooley. BOOKS "Well, sir, if there's wan person in th' wurruld that I really invy 'tis me frind th' ex-Prisidint iv Harvard. What a wondherful thing is youth. Old fellows like ye'ersilf an' me make a bluff about th' advantages iv age. But we know there's nawthin' in it. We have wisdom, but we wud rather have hair. We have expeeryence, but we wud thrade all iv its lessons f'r hope an' teeth. "It makes me cross to see mesilf settin' here takin' a post grajate coorse in our cillybrated univarsity iv th' Wicked Wur-ruld an' watchin' th' freshmen comin' in. How happy they are, but how seeryous. How sure they are iv ivrything. Us old fellows are sure iv nawthin'; we laugh but we are not cheerful; we have no romance about th' colledge. Ye don't hear us givin' nine long cheers f'r our almy matther. We ain't even thankful f'r th' lessons it teaches us or th' wallops it hands us whin we f'rget what we've been taught. We're a sad lot iv old la-ads, hatin' th' school, but hatin' th' grajation exercises aven more. "But 'tis a rale pleasure to see th' bright faced freshmen comin' in an' I welcome th' last young fellow fr'm Harvard to our vin'rable institution. I like to see these earnest, clear-eyed la-ads comin' in to waken th' echoes iv our grim walls with their young voices. I'm sure th' other undhergrajates will like him. He hasn't been spoiled be bein' th' star iv his school f'r so long, Charles seems to me to be th' normal healthy boy. He does exactly what all freshmen in our university do whin they enther. He tells people what books they shud read an' he invints a new relligon. Ivry well-ordhered la-ad has to get these two things out iv his system at wanst. What books does he advise, says ye? I haven't got th' complete list yet, but what I seen iv it was good. Speakin' fr mesilf alone, I don't read books. They are too stimylatin'. I can get th' same wrong idees iv life fr'm dhrink. But I shud say that if a man was a confirmed book-reader, if he was a man that cudden't go to sleep without takin' a book an' if he read befure breakfast, I shud think that Doctor Eliot's very old vatted books are comparatively harmless. They are sthrong it is thrue. They will go to th' head. I wud advise a man who is aisily affected be books to stick to Archibald Clavering Gunter. But they will hurt no man who's used to readin'. He has sawed thim out carefully. 'Give me me tools,' says he, 'an' I will saw out a five-foot shelf iv books.' An' he done it. He has th' right idee. He real-izes that th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing. Otherwise th' libry may get mixed up with readin' matther on th' table. Th' shelf shud thin be nailed to th' wall iliven feet fr'm th' flure an' hermetically sealed. "What books does he riccomind? Iv course there's such folklore as Epicbaulus in Marsupia an' th' wurruks iv Hyperphrastus. But it shows how broad an' indulgent th' doctor's taste is that he has included Milton's Arryopatigica, if I have th' name right. This is what ye might call summer readin'. I don't know how I cud describe it to ye, Hinnissy. Ye wudden't hardly call it a detective story an' yet it ain't a problem play. Areopapigica is a Greek gur-rul who becomes th' iditor iv a daily newspaper. That is th' beginnin' iv th' plot. I won't tell ye how it comes out. I don't want to spile ye'er injymint iv it. But ye'll niver guess who committed th' crime. It is absolutely unexpicted. A most injanyous book an' wan iv th' best sellers iv its day. There were four editions iv thirty copies each an' I don't know how manny paper-covered copies at fifty cents were printed f'r circulation on th' mail coaches. I'm not sure if it iver was dhramatized; if it wasn't, there's a chanst f'r some manager. "The darin' rescue iv Areopatigica be Oliver Cromwell--but I won't tell ye. Ye must read it. There ar-re some awful comical things in it. I don't agree with Uncle Joe Cannon, who says it is trashy. It is light, perhaps even frivolous. But it has gr-reat merit. I can't think iv annything that wud be more agreeable thin lyin' in a hammock, with a glass iv somethin' in ye'er hand on a hot day an' readin' this little jim iv pure English an' havin' a profissor fr'm colledge within aisy call to tell ye what it all meant. I niver go f'r a long journey. I mane I niver go f'r a long journey without a copy iv Milton's Agropapitica in me pocket. I have lent it to brakemen an' they have invaryably returned it. I have read it to men that wanted to fight me an' quited thim. Yet how few people iv our day have read it! I'll bet ye eight dollars that if ye wait till th' stores let out ye can go on th' sthreet an' out iv ivry ten men ye meet at laste two, an' I'll take odds on three, have niver aven heerd iv this pow'ful thragedy. Yet while it was runnin' ye cudden't buy a copy iv th' Fireside Companyon an' f'r two cinchries it has proticted th' shelves iv more libries thin anny iv Milton's pomes, f'r Hogan tells me this author, who ye hardly iver hear mentioned in th' sthreet cars at th' prisint moment, was a pote as well as an author an' blind at that, an', what is more, held a prom'nent pollytickal job. I wondher if two hundred years fr'm now people will cease to talk iv William Jennings Bryan. He won't, but will they? "Well, sir, it must be a grand thing to injye good books, but it must be grander still to injye anny kind iv books. Hogan can read annything. He ain't a bit particklar. He's tur-rbly addicted to th' habit. Long years ago I decided that I cudden't read annything but th' lightest newspaper with me meals. I seldom read between meals excipt now an' thin f'r socyability's sake. If I am with people that are readin' I'm very apt to jine thim so's not to appear to be bad company. But Hogan is always at it. I wudden't mind if he wint out boldly to readin'-rooms an' thin let it alone. But he reads whin he is be himsilf. He reads in bed. He reads with his meals. He is a secret reader. He nips in second-hand book stores. He can't go on a thrain an' have anny fun lookin' at th' other passengers or invyin th' farmers their fields an' not invyin' their houses. Not a bit iv it. He has to put a book in his pocket. He'll tell ye that th' on'y readin' is Doctor Eliot's cillybrated old blend an' he'll talk larnedly about th' varyous vintages. But I've seen him read books that wud kill a thruckman. Th' result iv it is that Hogan is always wrong about ivrything. He sees th' wurruld upside down. Some men are affected diff'rent. Readin' makes thim weep. But it makes Hogan believe in fairies while he's at it. He's irresponsible. There ain't annything in th' wurruld f'r him but dark villyans an' blond heroes. An' he's always fightin' these here imaginary inimies an' frinds, wantin' to desthroy a poor, tired, scared villyan, an' losin' his good money to a hero. I've thried to stop him. 'Use ye'er willpower,' say I. 'Limit ye'ersilf to a book or two a day,' says I. 'Stay in th' open air. Take soft readin'. How d'ye expict to get on in th' wurruld th' way ye are goin'? Who wud make a confirmed reader th' cashier iv a bank? Ye'd divide ye'er customers into villyans an' heroes an' ye wudden't lend money to th' villyans. An' thin ye'd be wrong aven if ye were right. F'r th' villyans wud be more apt to have th' money to bring back thin th' heroes,' says I. 'Ye may be right,' says he. 'But 'tis too late to do annything with me. An' I don't care. It may hurt me in th' eyes iv me fellow counthrymen, but look at th' fun I get out iv it. I wudden't thrade th' injanyous wicked people an' th' saints that I see f'r all th' poor, dull, half-an'-half crathers that ye find in th' wurruld,' says he. "An' there ye ar-re. It's just as his frind, th' most prom'nent get-rich-quick-man iv his time, wanst said: 'Readin' makes a man full.' An' maybe Hogan's right. Annyhow, I'm glad to have him advised about his books so that he won't hurt himsilf with lithrachoor that don't come undher th' pure food act. An' I'm glad to welcome our young friend Charles Eliot into our ancient univarsity. He'll like it f'r awhile. He is sure to make th' team an' I wudden't mind seein' him captain iv it. 'Tis a gr-reat colledge afther all, an' if it makes me mad part iv th' time, because I'm always gettin' licked f'r what somebody else has done, on th' whole I injye it. Th' coorse is hard. Ivry man, woman, an' child is profissor an' student to ye. Th' examinations are tough. Ye niver know whin they're goin' to take place or what they'll be about. Profissor Eliot may pass ye on'y to have Profissor Hinnissy turn ye down. But there's wan sure thing--ye'll be grajiated. Ye'll get th' usual diploma. Ye'll grajiate not because iv annything ye've done, but because ye'er room is needed. 'I like th' old place,' says ye. 'An' I'm just beginnin' to larn,' says ye. 'Pass on, blockhead,' says th' faculty. 'Pass on, Hinnissy--ye'll niver larn annything.' An' there ye are. What'll ye take?" "I wudden't mind havin' a little"--began Mr. Hennessy. "I don't mean what you mean," said Mr. Dooley. "Will ye have th' avenin' paper or a little iv th' old stuff off th' shelf?" THE TARIFF "Well, sir, 'tis a gr-r-rand wurruk thim Sinitors an' Congressmen are doin' in Wash'n'ton. Me heart bleeds fr th' poor fellows, steamin' away undher th' majestic tin dome iv th' capitol thryin' to rejooce th' tariff to a weight where it can stand on th' same platform with me frind big Bill without endangerin' his life. Th' likes iv ye wud want to see th' tariff rejooced with a jack plane or an ice pick. But th' tariff has been a good frind to some iv thim boys an' it's a frind iv frinds iv some iv th' others an' they don't intend to be rough with it. A little gentle massage to rejooce th' most prom'nent prochooberances is all that is nicissry. Whiniver they rub too hard an' th' tariff begins to groan, Sinitor Aldhrich says: 'Go a little asier there, boys. He's very tender in some iv thim schedules. P'raps we'd betther stop f'r th' day an' give him a little nourishment to build him up,' he says. An' th' last I heerd about it, th' tariff was far fr'm bein' th' wan an' emacyated crather ye'd like to see comin' out iv th' Sinit chamber. It won't have to be helped onto ye'er back an' ye won't notice anny reduction in its weight. No, sir, I shudden't be surprised if it was heartier thin iver. "Me congressman sint me a copy iv th' tariff bill th' other day. He's a fine fellow, that congressman iv mine. He looks afther me inthrests well. He knows what a gr-reat reader I am. I don't care what I read. So he sint me a copy iv th' tariff bill an' I've been studyin' it f'r a week. 'Tis a good piece iv summer lithrachoor. 'Tis full iv action an' romance. I haven't read annythink to akel it since I used to get th' Dead-wood Dick series. "I'm in favor iv havin' it read on th' Foorth iv July instead iv th' declaration iv indypindance. It gives ye some idee iv th' kind iv gloryous governmint we're livin' undher, to see our fair Columbia puttin' her brave young arms out an' defindin' th' products iv our soil fr'm steel rails to porous plasthers, hooks an' eyes, artyficial horse hair an' bone casings, which comes undher th' head iv clothin' an' I suppose is a polite name f'r pantaloons. "Iv coorse, low people like ye, Hinnissy, will kick because it's goin' to cost ye more to indulge ye'er taste in ennervating luxuries. D'ye know Sinitor Aldhrich? Ye dont? I'm surprised to hear it. He knows ye. Why, he all but mentions ye'er name in two or three places. He does so. 'Tis as if he said: 'This here vulgar plutycrat, Hinnissy, is turnin' th' heads iv our young men with his garish display. Befure this, counthries have perished because iv th' ostintation iv th' arrystocracy. We must presarve th' ideels iv American simplicity. We'll show this vulgar upstart that he can't humilyate his fellow citizens be goin' around dhressed up like an Asyatic fav'rite iv th' Impror Neero, be Hivens. How will we get at him?' says he. 'We'll put a tax iv sixty per cent. on ready made clothin' costin' less thin ten dollars a suit. That'll teach him to squander money wrung fr'm Jawn D. Rockyfellar in th' Roo dilly Pay. We'll go further thin that. We'll put a tax iv forty per cent. on knitted undherwear costin' less thin a dollar twinty-five a dozen. We'll make a specyal assault on woolen socks an' cowhide shoes. We'll make an example iv this here pampered babe iv fortune,' says he. "An' there it is. Ye haven't got a thing on ye'er back excipt ye'er skin--an' that may be there; I haven't got as far as th' hide schedule yet--that ain't mentioned in this here boolwark iv our liberties. It's ye'er own fault. If ye will persist in wearin' those gee-gaws ye'll have to pay f'r thim. If ye will go on decoratin' ye'er house with shingles an' paint an' puttin' paper on th' walls an' adornin' th' inside iv it with ye'er barbaric taste f'r eight day clocks, cane bottom chairs an' karosene lamps, ye've got to settle, that's all. Ye've flaunted ye'er wealth too long in th' face iv a sturdy people. "Ye'd think th' way such as ye talk that ivrything is taxed. It ain't so. 'Tis an insult to th' pathritism iv Congress to say so. Th' Republican party, with a good deal iv assistance fr'm th' pathriotic Dimmycrats, has been thrue to its promises. Look at th' free list, if ye don't believe it. Practically ivrything nicissry to existence comes in free. What, f'r example, says ye? I'll look. Here it is. Curling stones. There, I told ye. Curling stones are free. Ye'll be able to buy all ye'll need this summer f'r practically nawthin'. No more will ladies comin' into this counthry have to conceal curling stones in their stockin's to avoid th' iniquitous customs. "What else? Well, teeth. Here it is in th' bill: 'Teeth free iv jooty.' Undher th' Dingley bill they were heavily taxed. Onless ye cud prove that they had cost ye less thin a hundhred dollars, or that ye had worn thim f'r two years in Europe, or that ye were bringin' thim in f'r scientific purposes or to give a museem, there was an enormous jooty on teeth. Th' Governmint used to sind profissyonal humorists down to th' docks to catch th' teeth smugglers. But fr'm now on ye can flaunt ye'er teeth in th' face iv anny inspictor. Ye don't have to declare thim. Ye don't have to put thim in th' bottom iv ye'er thrunk. Ye don't have to have thim chalked or labelled befure ye get off th' dock. Ye don't have to hand a five to th' inspictor an' whisper: 'I've got a few bicuspids that I picked up while abroad. Be a good fellow an' let me through.' No, sir, teeth are free. "What other nicissities, says ye? Well, there's sea moss. That's a good thing. Ivry poor man will apprecyate havin' sea moss to stir in his tea. Newspapers, nuts, an' nux vomica ar-re free. Ye can take th' London _Times_ now. But that ain't all by anny means. They've removed th' jooty on Pulu. I didn't think they'd go that far, but in spite iv th' protests iv th' Pulu foundhries iv Sheboygan they ruthlessly sthruck it fr'm th' list iv jootyable articles. Ye know what Pulu is, iv coorse, an' I'm sure ye'll be glad to know that this refreshin' bev'rage or soap is on th' free list. Sinitor Root in behalf iv th' pulu growers iv New York objicted, but Sinitor Aldhrich was firm. 'No, sir,' he says, 'we must not tax annything that enters into th' daily life iv th' poor,' he says. 'While not a dhrinkin' man mesilf, I am no bigot, an' I wud not deny anny artisan his scuttle iv pulu,' he says. So pulu was put on th' free list, an' iv coorse Zapper an' Alazarin had to go on, too, as it is on'y be addin' thim to pulu that ye can make axle-grease. "There was a gr-reat sthruggle over can-nary bur-rd seed. Riprisintatives iv th' Chicago packers insisted that in time canary bur-rds cud be taught to eat pork chops. Manny sinitors thought that th' next step wud be to take th' duty off cuttle fish bone, an' thus sthrike a blow at th' very heart iv our protictive system. But Sinitor Tillman, who is a gr-reat frind iv th' canary bur-rd an' is niver seen without wan perched on his wrist, which he has taught to swear, put up a gallant fight f'r his protegees, an' thousands iv canary bur-rds sang with a lighter heart that night. Canary bur-rd seed will be very cheap this year, an' anny American wurrukin' man needn't go to bed hungry. There ought to be some way iv teachin' their wives how to cook it. It wud make a nourishin' dish whin ye have whetted ye'er face on a piece iv cuttle fish bone. I'm sure th' raison American wurrukin' men don't hop around an' sing over their wurruk is because they are improperly fed. "Yes, sir, canary bur-rd seed is free. What else? Lookin' down th' list I see that divvy-divvy is free also. This was let in as a compliment to Sinitor Aldhrich. It's his motto. Be th' inthraduction iv this harmless dhrug into th' discussion he's been able to get a bill through that's satisfacthry to ivrywan. But I am surprised to see that spunk is on th' free list. Is our spunk industhree dead? Is there no pathrite to demand that we be proticted against th' pauper spunk iv Europe? Maybe me frind Willum Taft had it put on th' free list. I see in a pa-aper th' other day that what was needed at th' White house was a little more spunk. But does he have to import it fr'm abroad, I ask ye? Isn't there enough American spunk? "Well, sir, there are a few iv th' things that are on th' free list. But there are others, mind ye. Here's some iv thim: Apatite, hog bristles, wurruks iv art more thin twinty years old, kelp, marshmallows, life boats, silk worm eggs, stilts, skeletons, turtles, an' leeches. Th' new tariff bill puts these familyar commodyties within th' reach iv all. But there's a bigger surprise waitin' for ye. What d'ye think ends th' free list? I'll give ye twinty chances an' ye'll niver guess. Blankets? No. Sugar? Wrong. Flannel shirts? Thry to be a little practical, Hinnissy. Sinitor Aldhrich ain't no majician. Well, I might as well tell ye if ye're sure ye'er heart is sthrong an' ye can stand a joyful surprise. Ar-re ye ready? Well, thin, joss sticks an' opyum f'r smokin' ar-re on th' free list! If they ain't I'm a Chinyman an' if they are I'll be wan pretty soon. "How often have I envied Hop Lung whin I see him burnin' his priceless joss sticks. How often have I seen him lyin' on top iv me week's washin' pullin' away at th' savry rooster brand an' dhreamin' he was th' Impror iv Chiny, while I've had to contint mesilf with a stogy that give me a headache! But that day is passed. Me good an' great frind fr'm Rhode Island has made me th' akel iv anny Chink that iver rolled a pill. Th' tariff bill wudden't be complete without that there item. But it ought to read: 'Opyum f'r smokin' while readin' th' tariff bill.' Ye can take this sterlin' piece iv lithrachoor to a bunk with ye an' light a ball iv hop. Befure ye smoke up p'raps ye can't see where th' tariff has been rejooced. But afther ye've had a long dhraw it all becomes clear to ye. Ye'er worries about th' childhren's shoes disappear an' ye see ye'ersilf floatin' over a purple sea iv alazarin, in ye'er private yacht, lulled be th' London _Times_, surrounded be wurruks iv art more thin twinty years old, atin' marshmallows an' canary bur-rd seed, while th' turtles an' leeches frisk on th' binnacle. "Well, sir, if nobody else has read th' debates on th' tariff bill, I have. An' I'll tell ye, Hinnissy, that no such orathry has been heerd in Congress since Dan'l Webster's day, if thin. Th' walls iv Congress hall has resounded with th' loftiest sintimints. Hinnery Cabin Lodge in accents that wud melt th' heart iv th' coldest mannyfacthrer iv button shoes has pleaded f'r freedom f'r th' skins iv cows. I'm sorry to say that this appeal fr'm th' cradle iv our liberties wasn't succissful. Th' hide iv th' pauperized kine iv Europe will have to cough up at th' custom house befure they can be convarted into brogans. This pathriotic result was secured be th' gallant Bailey iv Texas. A fine lib'ral minded fellow, that lad Bailey. He's an ardint free thrader, mind ye. He's almost a slave to th' historic principles iv th' Dimmycratic party. Ye bet he is. But he's no blamed bigot. He can have principles an' he can lave thim alone. An' I want to tell ye, me frind, that whin it comes to disthributin' th' honors f'r this reform iv th' tariff, don't ye fail to throw a few flowers, or, if bricks are handier, bricks at th' riprisintatives iv our small but gallant party. It was a fine thing to see thim standin' be th' battle cry iv our grand old organyzation. "Says th' sinitor fr'm Louisyanny: 'Louisyanny, th' proudest jool in th' dyadim iv our fair land, remains thrue to th' honored teachin's iv our leaders. Th' protictive tariff is an abomynation. It is crushin' out th' lives iv our people. An' wan iv th' worst parts iv this divvlish injine iv tyranny is th' tariff on lathes. Fellow sinitors, as long,' he says, 'as I can stand, as long as nature will sustain me in me protest, while wan dhrop iv pathriotic blood surges through me heart, I will raise me voice again a tariff on lathes, onless,' he says, 'this dhread implymint iv oppressyon is akelly used,' he says, 'to protict th' bland an' beautiful molasses iv th' State iv me birth,' he says. "'I am heartily in sympathy with th' sinitor fr'm Louisyanny,' says th' sinitor fr'm Virginya. 'I loathe th' tariff. Fr'm me arliest days I was brought up to look on it with pizenous hathred. At manny a con-vintion ye cud hear me whoopin' again it. But if there is such a lot iv this monsthrous iniquity passin' around, don't Virginya get none? How about th' mother iv prisidents? Ain't she goin' to have a grab at annything? Gintlemen, I do not ask, I demand rights f'r me commonwealth. I will talk here ontil July fourth, nineteen hundhred an' eighty-two, agin th' proposed hellish tax on feather beds onless somethin' is done f'r th' tamarack bark iv old Virginya.' "A sinitor: 'What's it used f'r?' "Th' sinitor fr'm Virginya: 'I do not quite know. It is ayether a cure f'r th' hives or enthers largely into th' mannyfacture iv carpet slippers. But there's a frind iv mine, a lile Virginyan, who makes it an' he needs th' money.' "'Th' argymints iv th' sinitor fr'm Virginya are onanswerable,' says Sinitor Aldhrich. 'Wud it be agreeable to me Dimmycratic collague to put both feather beds an' his what's-ye-call-it in th' same item?' "'In such circumstances,' says th' sinitor fr'm Virginya, 'I wud be foorced to waive me almost insane prejudice again th' hellish docthrines iv th' distinguished sinitor fr'm Rhode Island,' says he. "An' so it goes, Hinnissy. Niver a sordid wurrud, mind ye, but ivrything done on th' fine old principle iv give an' take." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "what diff'rence does it make? Th' foreigner pays th' tax, annyhow." "He does" said Mr. Dooley, "if he ain't turned back at Castle Garden." THE BIG FINE "That was a splendid fine they soaked Jawn D. with," said Mr. Dooley. "What did they give him?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Twinty-nine millyon dollars," said Mr. Dooley. "Oh, great!" said Mr. Hennessy. "That's a grand fine. It's a gorjous fine. I can't hardly believe it." "It's thrue, though," said Mr. Dooley. "Twinty-nine millyon dollars. Divvle th' cent less. I can't exactly make out what th' charge was that they arrested him on, but th' gin'ral idee is that Jawn D. was goin' around loaded up to th' guards with Standard Ile, exceedin' th' speed limit in acquirin' money, an' singin' 'A charge to keep I have' till th' neighbors cud stand it no longer. The judge says: 'Ye're an old offender an' I'll have to make an example iv ye. Twinty-nine millyon dollars or fifty-eight millyon days. Call th' next case, Misther Clerk. "Did he pay th' fine? He did not. Iv coorse he cud if he wanted to. He wuddent have to pawn annything to get th' money, ye can bet on that. All he'd have to do would be to put his hand down in his pocket, skin twinty-nine millyon dollar bills off iv his roll an' hurl thim at th' clerk. But he refused to pay as a matter iv principle. 'Twas not that he needed th' money. He don't care f'r money in th' passionate way that you an' me do, Hinnissy. Th' likes iv us are as crazy about a dollar as a man is about his child whin he has on'y wan. Th' chances are we'll spoil it. But Jawn D., havin' a large an' growin' fam'ly iv dollars, takes on'y a kind iv gin'ral inthrest in thim. He's issued a statement sayin' that he's a custojeen iv money appinted be himsilf. He looks afther his own money an' th' money iv other people. He takes it an' puts it where it won't hurt thim an' they won't spoil it. He's a kind iv a society f'r th' previntion of croolty to money. If he finds a man misusing his money he takes it away fr'm him an' adopts it. Ivry Saturdah night he lets th' man see it fr a few hours. An' he says he's surprised to find that whin, with th' purest intintions in th' wurruld, he is found thryin' to coax our little money to his home where it'll find conjanial surroundings an' have other money to play with, th' people thry to lynch him an' th' polis arrest him f'r abduction. "So as a matther iv principle he appealed th' case. An appeal, Hinnissy, is where ye ask wan coort to show it's contempt f'r another coort. 'Tis sthrange that all th' pathrites that have wanted to hang Willum Jennings Bryan an' mesilf f'r not showin' proper respect f'r th' joodicyary, are now showin' their respect f'r th' joodicyary be appealin' fr'm their decisions. Ye'd think Jawn D. wud bow his head reverentially in th' awful presence iv Kenesaw Mt. Landis an' sob out: 'Thank ye'er honor. This here noble fine fills me with joy. But d'ye think ye give me enough? If agreeable I'd like to make it an even thirty millyons.' But he doesn't. He's like mesilf. Him an' me bows to th' decisions iv th' coorts on'y if they bow first. "I have gr-reat respect f'r th' joodicyary, as fine a lot iv cross an' indignant men as ye'll find annywhere. I have th' same respect f'r thim as they have f'r each other. But I niver bow to a decision iv a judge onless, first, it's pleasant to me, an', second, other judges bow to it. Ye can't be too careful about what decisions ye bow to. A decision that seems agreeable may turn out like an acquaintance ye scrape up at a picnic. Ye may be ashamed iv it to-morrah. Manny's th' time I've bowed to a decree iv a coort on'y to see it go up gayly to th' supreem coort, knock at th' dure an' be kicked down stairs be an angry old gintleman in a black silk petticoat. A decree iv th' coort has got to be pretty vinrable befure I do more thin greet it with a pleasant smile. "Me idee was whin I read about Jawn D's fine that he'd settle at wanst, payin' twinty-eight millyon dollars in millyon dollar bills an' th' other millyon in chicken-feed like ten thousand dollar bills just to annoy th' clerk. But I ought to've known betther. Manny's th' time I've bent me proud neck to a decision iv a coort that lasted no longer thin it took th' lawyer f'r th' definse to call up another judge on th' tillyphone. A judge listens to a case f'r days an' hears, while he's figurin' a possible goluf score on his blotting pad, th' argymints iv two or three lawyers that no wan wud dare to offer a judgeship to. Gin'rally speakin', judges are lawyers. They get to be judges because they have what Hogan calls th' joodicyal timp'ramint, which is why annybody gets a job. Th' other kind people won't take a job. They'd rather take a chance. Th' judge listens to a case f'r days an' decides it th' way he intinded to. D'ye find th' larned counsel that's just been beat climbin' up on th' bench an' throwin' his arms around th' judge? Ye bet ye don't. He gathers his law books into his arms, gives th' magistrate a look that means, 'There's an eliction next year', an' runs down th' hall to another judge. Th' other judge hears his kick an' says he: 'I don't know annything about this here case except what ye've whispered to me, but I know me larned collague an' I wuddent thrust him to referee a roller-skatin' contest. Don't pay th' fine till ye hear fr'm me.' Th' on'y wan that bows to th' decision is th' fellow that won, an' pretty soon he sees he's made a mistake, f'r wan day th' other coort comes out an' declares that th' decision of th' lower coort is another argymint in favor iv abolishing night law schools. "That's th' way Jawn D. felt about it an' he didn't settle. I wondher will they put him away if he don't pay ivinchooly? 'Twill be a long sentence. A frind iv mine wanst got full iv kerosene an' attempted to juggle a polisman. They thried him whin he come out iv th' emergency hospital an' fined him a hundhred dollars. He didn't happen to have that amount with him at th' moment or at anny moment since th' day he was born. But the judge was very lenient with him. He said he needn't pay it if he cuddent. Th' coort wud give him a letther of inthroduction to th' bridewell an' he cud stay there f'r two hundhred days. At that rate it'll be a long time befure Jawn D. an' me meet again on the goluf-links. Hogan has it figured out that if Jawn D. refuses to go back on his Puritan principles an' separate himsilf fr'm his money he'll be wan hundhred an' fifty-eight thousand years in cold storage. A man ought to be pretty good at th' lock step in a hundhred an' fifty-eight thousand years. "Well, sir, glory be but times has changed whin they land me gr-reat an' good frind with a fine that's about akel to three millyon dhrunk an' disorderly cases. 'Twud've been cheaper if he'd took to dhrink arly in life. I've made a vow, Hinnissy, niver to be very rich. I'd like to be a little rich, but not rich enough f'r anny wan to notice that me pockets bulged. Time was whin I dhreamed iv havin' money an' lots iv it. 'Tis thrue I begun me dhreams at th' wrong end, spent th' money befure I got it. I was always clear about th' way to spend it but oncertain about th' way to get it. If th' Lord had intinded me to be a rich man He'd've turned me dhreams around an' made me clear about makin' th' money but very awkward an' shy about gettin' rid iv it. There are two halves to ivry dollar. Wan is knowin' how to make it an' th' other is not knowin' how to spend it comfortably. Whin I hear iv a man with gr-reat business capacity I know he's got an akel amount iv spending incapacity. No matter how much he knew about business he wuddent be rich if he wasn't totally ignorant iv a science that we have developed as far as our means will allow. But now, I tell ye, I don't dhream iv bein' rich. I'm afraid iv it. In th' good old days th' polis coorts were crowded with th' poor. They weren't charged with poverty, iv coorse, but with the results iv poverty, d'ye mind. Now, be Hivens, th' rich have invaded even th' coorts an' the bridewell. Manny a face wearin' side whiskers an' gold rimmed specs peers fr'm th' windows iv th' black Maria. 'What's this man charged with?' says th' coort. 'He was found in possession iv tin millyon dollars,' says th' polisman. An' th' judge puts on th' black cap." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "'tis time they got what was comin' to thim." "I'll not say ye're wrong," said Mr. Dooley. "I see th' way me frind Jawn D. feels about it. He thinks he's doin' a great sarvice to th' worruld collectin' all th' money in sight. It might remain in incompetint hands if he didn't get it. 'Twud be a shame to lave it where it'd be misthreated. But th' on'y throuble with Jawn is that he don't see how th' other fellow feels about it. As a father iv about thirty dollars I want to bring thim up mesilf in me own foolish way. I may not do what's right be thim. I may be too indulgent with thim. Their home life may not be happy. Perhaps 'tis clear that if they wint to th' Rockyfellar institution f'r th' care iv money they'd be in betther surroundings, but whin Jawn thries to carry thim off I raise a cry iv 'Polis,' a mob iv people that niver had a dollar iv their own an' niver will have wan, pounce on th' misguided man, th' polis pinch him, an' th' governmint condemns th' institution an' lets out th' inmates an' a good manny iv thim go to th'bad." "D'ye think he'll iver sarve out his fine?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "I don't know," said Mr. Dooley. "But if he does, whin he comes out at the end iv a hundhred an fifty-eight thousand years he'll find a great manny changes in men's hats an' th' means iv transportation but not much in annything else. He may find flyin' machines, though it'll be arly f'r thim, but he'll see a good manny people still walkin' to their wurruk." EXPERT TESTIMONY "What's an expert witness?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "An expert witness," said Mr. Dooley, "is a doctor that thinks a man must be crazy to be rich. That's thrue iv most iv us, but these doctors don't mean it th' way I do. Their theery is that annything th' rich do that ye want to do an' don't do is looney. As between two men with money, th' wan with most money is craziest. If ye want a diploma f'r sanity, Hinnissy, th' on'y chance ye have iv gettin' it is to commit a crime an' file an invintory iv ye'er estate with th' coort. Ye'll get a certy-ficate iv sanity that ye'll be able to show with pride whin ye're let out iv Joliet. "In th' old days if a man kilt another man he took three jumps fr'm th' scene iv th' disaster to th' north corrydor iv th' County Jail. That still goes f'r th' poor man. No wan has thried to rob him iv th' privilege won f'r him be his ancestors iv bein' quickly an' completely hanged. A photygraph iv him is took without a collar, he's yanked befure an awful coort iv justice, a deef-mute lawyer is appinted to look afther his inthrests an' see that they don't suffer be bein' kept in th' stuffy atmosphere iv th' coortroom, th' State's attorney presints a handsome pitcher iv him as a fiend in human form, th' judge insthructs th' jury iv onprejudiced jurors in a hurry to get home that they ar-re th' sole judges iv th' law an' th' fact, th' law bein' that he ought to be hanged an' th' fact bein' that he will be hanged, an' befure our proletory frind comes out iv his thrance he's havin' his first thorough fill-up iv ham an' eggs, an' th' clargy ar-re showin' an amount iv inthrest in him that must be surprisin' to a man iv his humble station. "A few days later I r-read in th' pa-apers in a column called 'Brief News Jottings,' just below a paragraph about th' meetin' iv th' Dairyman's Assocyation, an account iv how justice has pursooed her grim coorse in th' case iv John Adamowski. An' I'm thankful to know that th' law has been avinged, that life an' property again ar-re safe in our fair land iv freedom, an' that th' wretched criminal lived long enough to get all he wanted to eat. "Justice is all a poor criminal asks f'r, an' that's what he gets. He don't desarve a anny betther. 'Tis like askin' on'y f'r a pair iv dooces in a car-d game an' havin to bet thim. If I done wrong I'd say: 'Don't deal me anny justice. Keep it f'r thim that wants it. Undher th' circumstances all I ask is a gr-reat deal iv injustice an' much mercy. I do not ask to be acquitted be a jury iv me peers. I am a modest man an' I'll accipt me freedom fr'm th' humblest bailiff in th' land. I do not care to come triumphant out iv this ordeel an' repoort other cases f'r th' newspa-apers. All I ask is a block's start an' some wan holdin' th' polisman's coattails. I waive me right to be thried be an incorruptible, fair, an' onprejudiced Judge. Give me wan that's onfair an' prejudiced an' that ye can slip somethin' to. "No, sir, whin a man's broke an' does something wrong, th' on'y temple iv justice he ought to get into is a freight car goin' West. Don't niver thrust that there tough-lookin' lady with th' soord in her hand an' th' handkerchief over her eyes. She may be blind, though I've seen thriles where she raised th' bandage an' winked at th' aujence--she may be blind, but 'tis th' fine sinse iv touch she has, an' if ye vinture into her lodgins an' she goes through ye'er pockets an' finds on'y th' pawnticket f'r th' watch ye stole off Hogan, she locks th' dure, takes off th' handkerchief, an' goes at ye with th' soord. "But suppose ye have a little iv th' useful with ye. Ye br-reak into Hogan's house some night sufferin' fr'm an incontrollable impulse to take his watch. Don't get mad, now. I'm on'y supposin' all this. Ye wudden't take his watch. He has no watch. Well, he's sound asleep. Ye give him a good crack on th' head so he won't be disturbed, an' hook th' clock fr'm undher th' pillow. Th' next day ye're arristed. Th' pa-apers comes out with th' news: 'Haughty sign iv wealthy fam'ly steals watch fr'm awful Hogan. Full account iv dhreadful career iv th' victim. Unwritten law to be invoked,' an' there's an article to show that anny wan has a right to take Hogan's watch, that he was not a proper man to have th' care iv a watch, annyhow, an' that ye done well to hook it. This is always th' first step to'rd securin' cold justice f'r th' rich. Ye're next ilicted a mimber iv nearly all th' ministers' assocyations, an' finally, in ordher that th' law may be enfoorced without regard to persons, an expert witness is hired f'r ye. "Th' thrile begins. Ye walk in with a quick, nervous sthride an' set th' watch be th' coort clock. 'Ar-re ye guilty or not guilty?' says th' clerk. 'Guilty an' glad iv it,' says ye'er lawyer amid cheers an' hisses. 'Have ye th' watch with ye?' says th' coort. 'I have,' says th' pris'ner, smilin' in his peculiar way. 'Lave me look at it,' says th' coort. 'I will not,' says the pris'ner, puttin' it back into his pocket. 'How ar-re ye goin' to defind this crook?' says th' Judge. 'We ar-re goin' to prove that at th' time he committed this crime he was insane,' says th' lawyer. 'I object,' says th' State's attorney. 'It is not legal to inthrajooce evidence iv insanity till th' proper foundations is established. Th' defince must prove that th' pris'ner has money. How do we know he isn't broke like th' rest iv us?' Th' coort: 'How much money have ye got?' The pris'ner: 'Two millyon dollars, but I expect more.' Th' coort: 'Objection overruled.' "Th' expert is called. 'Doctor, what expeeryence have ye had among th' head cures?' 'I have been f'r forty years in an asylum.' 'As guest or landlord?' 'As both.' 'Now, doctor, I will ask you a question. Supposin' this pris'ner to be a man with a whole lot iv money, an' supposin' he wint to this house on th' night in question, an' suppose it was snowin', an' suppose it wasn't, an' suppose he turned fr'm th' right hand corner to th' left goin' upstairs, an' supposin' he wore a plug hat an' a pair iv skates, an' supposin' th' next day was Winsday--' 'I objict,' says th' State's attorney. 'Th' statues, with which me larned frind is no doubt familiar, though I be darned if he shows it, f'rbids th' mention iv th' days iv th' week.' 'Scratch out Winsday an' substichoot four o'clock in Janooary,' says th' coort. 'Now, how does th' sentence r-read?' 'Th' next day was four o'clock in Janooary--an' supposin' th' amount iv money, an' supposin' ye haven't got a very large salary holdin' th' chair iv conniption fits at th' college, an' supposin' ye don't get a cent onless ye answer r-right, I ask ye, on th' night in question whin th' pris'ner grabbed th' clock, was he or was he not funny at th' roof?' 'I objict to th' form iv question,' says th' State's attorney. 'In th' eighth sintince I move to sthrike out th' wurrud and as unconstitutional, unprofissyonal, an' conthry to th' laws iv evidence.' 'My Gawd, has my clint no rights in this coort?' says th' other lawyer. 'Ye bet he has,' says th' coort. 'We'll sthrike out th' wurrud and but well substichoot th' more proper wurrud "aloofness." "'Did ye see th' pris'ner afther his arrest?' 'I did.' 'Where?' 'In th' pa-apers.' 'What was he doin'?' 'His back was tur-rned.' 'What did that indicate to ye?' 'That he had been sufferin' fr'm a variety iv tomaine excelsis--' 'Greek wurruds,' says th' coort. 'Latin an' Greek,' says th' expert. 'Pro-ceed,' says th' coort. 'I come to th' conclusion,' says th' expert, 'that th' man, when he hooked th' watch, was sufferin' fr'm a sudden tempest in his head, a sudden explosion as it were, a sudden I don't know-what-th'-divvle-it-was, that kind iv wint off in his chimbley, like a storm at sea.' 'Was he in anny way bug befure th' crime?' 'Not a bit. He suffered fr'm warts whin a boy, which sometimes leads to bozimbral hoptocollographophiloplutomania, or what th' Germans call tantrums, but me gin'ral con-clusion was that he was perfectly sane all his life till this minnyit, an' that so much sanity wint to his head an' blew th' cover off.' "'Has he been sane iver since?' says the lawyer. 'Ye'd betther have a care how ye answer that question, me boy,' says th' pris'ner, carelessly jingling th' loose change in his pocket. 'Sane?' says th' expert. 'Well, I shud think he was. Why, I can hardly imagine how he stayed feather-headed long enough to take th' villan's joolry. Sane, says ye? I don't mean anny disrespect to th' coort or th' bar, but if ye gintlemen had half as much good brains in ye'er head as he has, ye'd not be wastin' ye'er time here. There ain't a man in this counthry th' akel iv this gr-reat man. Talk about Dan'l Webster, he was an idyut compared with this joynt intelleck. No, sir, he's a fine, thoughtful, able, magnificent specimen iv man an' has been iver since between twelve four an' twelve four-an'-a-half on that fatal night. An' a good fellow at that.' "'What d'ye propose to do to stand this here testymony off?' says th' Judge. 'I propose,' says th' State's attorney, 'to prove be some rale experts, men who have earned their repytations be testifyin' eight ways fr'm th' jack in a dozen criminal cases, that so far fr'm bein' insane on this particklar night, this was th' on'y time that he was perfeckly sane.' 'Oh, look here, Judge,' says Bedalia Sassyfrass iv _Th' Daily Fluff_, 'this here has gone far enough. Th' man's not guilty, an' if ye don't want a few remarks printed about ye, that'll do ye no good, ye'll let him off.' 'Don't pay anny attintion to what she says, Fitzy,' says another lady. 'Her decayed newspa-aper has no more circulation thin a cucumber. We expict ye to follow th' insthructions printed in our vallyable journal this mornin'.' "'Sir,' says a tall man, risin' in his place, 'I am th' Riv'rend Thompson Jubb.' 'Not th' notoryous shepherd iv that name?' 'Th' same,' says th' Riv'rend Jubb. 'That lowly worker in th' vineyard iv th' Lord who astonished th' wurruld be atin' glass in th' pulpit an' havin' th' Bible tattooed on him. I wish th' privilege iv standin' on me head an' playin' "A charge to keep I have" on the accorjeen with me feet. 'Granted,' says th' coort. 'I will now charge th' jury as to th' law an' th' fact: I am all mixed up on th' law; th' fact is there's a mob outside waitin' to lynch ye if ye don't do what it wants. Th' coort will now adjourn be th' back dure.' 'Where's th' pris'ner?' says th' expert. 'He has gone to addhress a mothers' meetin',' says th' clerk. 'Thin I must be goin' too,' says th' expert. An' there ye ar-re." "I'm glad that fellow got me off", said Mr. Hennessy, "but thim experts ar-re a bad lot. What's th' difference between that kind iv tistymony an' perjury?" "Ye pay ye'er money an' take ye'er choice", said Mr. Dooley. THE CALL OF THE WILD "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "I see me frind Tiddy Rosenfelt has been doin' a little lithry criticism, an' th' hospitals are full iv mangled authors. Th' next time wan iv thim nature authors goes out into th' woods lookin' f'r his prey he'll go on crutches." "What's it about?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "'Twas this way," said Mr. Dooley. "I have it fr'm Hogan, me lithry adviser. He keeps me posted on what's goin' on in lithrachoor, an' I do th' same f'r him on crime. I've always got a little something that's excitin' comin' to me, but this time he's made good. It seems, ye see, that a good manny iv th' la-ads that write th' books have been lavin' th' route iv th' throlley line an' takin' to th' woods. They quit Myrtle an' Clarence an' th' wrong done to Oscar Lumlovitch be th' brutal foreman iv lard tank nine, an' wint to wurruk on th' onhappy love affairs iv Carrie Boo, th' deer, an' th' throubles in th' domestic relations iv th' pan fish an' th' skate. F'r th' last year th' on'y books that Hogan has told me about have been wrote about animiles. I've always thought iv th' beasts iv th' forest prowlin' around an' takin' a leg off a man that'd been sint to Colorado f'r his lungs. But these boys tell me they're diff'rent in their home life. They fall in love, get marrid an' divoorced, bring up fam'lies, an' are supported or devoured be thim, as th' case may be, accumylate money, dodge taxes, dhrink to excess, an' in ivry way act like human bein's. I wudden't be surprised to know that a bear had a tillyphone in his room, an' that th' gopher complained iv his gas bills. "Ivry time I go up into th' park to see me old frind th' illyphant I wondher what dhreams ar-re goin' on behind that nose iv his that he uses akelly as a garden hose, a derrick, or a knife an' fork. Is he recallin' th' happy days at Barnum's befure brutal man sunk an ice pick into him an' dhrove him to th' park? Is there some wan still there that he thinks iv? Is she alive, is she dead, does she iver dhream iv him as she ates her hay an' rubs her back agin th' bars iv her gilded cage? There's th' hippypotamus. He don't look to be full iv sintiment, but ye never can tell. Manny an achin' heart beats behind a cold an' sloppy exteeryor. Somewhere in sunny Africa a loving fam'ly may be waitin' fr him. Th' wallow at th' riverside is there, with th' slime an' ooze arranged be tinder paws. But he will not return. They will meet, but they will miss him, there will be wan vacant lair. "Well, sir, just as I'd got to th' frame iv mind whin I'm thinkin' iv askin' that gloomy lookin' allygator in th' park up to spind an avenin' with me, along comes Tiddy Rosenfelt an' says there's nawthin' in it. It's hard on th' boys. They ar-re doin' th' best they can. Ye can't expect an author to lave his comfortable flat an' go three or four thousand miles to larn whether th' hero iv his little love story murdhers his uncle be bitin' him abaft th' ear or be fellin' him with a half Nelson an' hammer-lock. Why should he? Who wud feed th' goold fish while he was gone? "No, sir, he does just right. Instead iv venturin' into th' wilds an' p'raps bein' et up be wan iv his fav'rite charackters, he calls f'r some tea an' toast, jabs his pen into th' inkwell, an' writes: 'Vichtry was not long in th' grasp iv th' whale. Befure he cud return to his burrow Tusky Bicuspid had seized him be th' tail an' dashed his brains out agin a rock. With a leap in th' air th' bold wolf put to rout a covey iv muskrats, those evil sojers iv fortune that ar-re seen hoverin' over ivry animile battlefield. Wan blow iv his paw broke th' back iv th' buffalo. With another he crushed a monsthrous sage hen, at wanst th' most threacherous an' th' hardiest iv th' beasts iv th' wild. Paralyzed be th' boldness iv th' wolf, th' camel an' th' auk fled fr'm th' scene iv havoc, as is their wont. All that remained iv his inimies now was th' cow, which defied him fr'm the branches iv a pine tree an' pelted him with th' monsthrous fruit iv this cillybrated viggytable. Now, it is well known that however aven they may be in a boording house, th' wolf is no match f'r a cow in a tree. But this was no ordhinary wolf. As he heerd th' low cry iv' his mate he was indowed with th' strength iv a thousand piany movers. With a gesture iv impatience he shed his coat, f'r it was Spring, childher, an' he shud've been more careful; he shed his coat, swiftly climbed th' tree an' boldly advanced on th' foe. His inimy give th' low growl iv his hated thribe. How manny a time have I heerd it in Englewood an' shuddered with fear. But th' dauntless Tusky answered back with his battle song, th' long chirp iv th' wild wolf, his wife accompanyin' him fr'm th' foot iv th' tree on a sheep bone. With wan spring th' inthrepid wolf sprang at his inimy. She thried to sink her venomous fangs into his wish-bone, but with incredulous swiftness, he back-heeled an' upper-cut her, swung left to body an' right to point iv jaw, an' with wan last grimace iv defiance th' gr-reat bulk iv th' monsther fell tin thousand feet into th' roarin' torrent an' took th' count. Tusky heerd th' soft love-note iv his mate. She was eatin' th' whale. He hastily descinded. An' so peace come to th' jungle.' "That sounds all right to me. I like to see th' best man or th' best animile win. An' I want to see him win good. It wudden't help me story to tell about Tusky goin' home with wan ear gone an' his eye blacked, an' tellin' his wife that he'd just about managed to put wan over that stopped another wolf. That's what usually happens up this way, an' it ain't very good readin'. When I want to tell a story that'll inthrest me frinds I give it to thim good. Whin I describe me fav'rite hero, Dock Haggerty, I tell about him throwin' wan man out iv th' window an' usin' another as a club to bate th' remainin' twelve into submission. But if I had to swear to it, an' wasn't on good terms with th' Judge, I wudden't say that I iver see Dock Haggerty lick more than wan man--at a time. At a time, mind ye. He might take care iv a procession iv Johnsons. But he'd be in throuble with a couple iv mimbers iv th' Ethical Culture Society that came to him at th' same moment. 'If iver more thin wan comes at wanst,' says th' Dock, 'I'm licked,' he says. "But that ain't what I tell late at night, an' it ain't what I want to read. Ye bet it ain't. If I wint over to a book store an' blew in me good thirty-nine cints f'r a dollar-an'-a-half book, I'd want some kind iv a hero that I never see around these corners. Th' best day I iver knew Jawn L. Sullivan had a little something on me. I won't say it was much, but now that we're both retired, I'll say that I'm glad I niver challenged him. But I wudden't look at a book, an' I wudden't annyway, but I wudden't let Hogan tell me about a hero that cudden't wear an overcoat an' rubber boots, have wan arm done up in a sling, an' something th' matther with th' other, blue spectatacles on his eyes, a plug hat on his head, th' aujeence throwin' bricks at him, an' th' referee usin' a cross-cut saw on his neck, an' thin make two hundher an' fifty Jawn L. Sullivans establish th' new record f'r th' leap through th' window. Whin I want a hero, I want a good wan. I don't care whether 'tis a wolf, a sojer, or a Prisident. It all comes to th' same thing--whether 'tis Hogan's frind, th' Wolf that he's been talkin' about f'r a year, or that other old frind iv his that he used to talk about--what d'ye call him?--ah, where's me mind goin'?--Ivanhoe. "But Tiddy Rosenfelt don't feel that way about it. He's called down thim nature writers just th' same way he'd call me down if I wint befure th' fifth grade at th' Brothers' school an' told thim what I thought wud inthrest thim about Dock Haggerty. What does he say? I'll tell ye. 'I do not wish to be harsh,' says he, 'but if I wanted to charackterize these here nature writers, I wud use a much shorter an' uglier wurrud thin liar, if I cud think iv wan, which I cannot. Ye take, f'r example, What's-his-name. Has this man iver been outside iv an aviary? I doubt it. Here he has a guinea pig killin' a moose be bitin' it in th' ear. Now it is notoryous to anny lover iv th' wilds, anny man with a fondness f'r these monarchs iv forests, that no moose can be kilt be a wound in th' ear. I have shot a thousand in th' ear with no bad effects beyond makin' thim hard iv hearin'. "'Here is a book befure me be wan iv these alleged nature writers. This is a man whose name is a household wurrud in Conneticut. His books are used in th' schools. An' what does this man, who got his knowledge iv wild beasts apparently fr'm mis-treatin' hens f'r th' pip, say; what is his message to th' little babblin' childher iv Conneticut? It is thim that I've got to think iv. Instead iv tellin' thim th' blessed truth, instead iv leadin' thim up be thurly Christyan teachings to an undherstandin' iv what is right an' what is ideel in life, he poisons their innocent minds with th' malicious, premeditated falsehood--I can't think iv an uglier or shorter wurrud that wud go with premeditated--that th' wolf kills th' grizzly bear be sinkin' its hidyous fangs into th' gapin' throat iv its prey. How can honest citizens an' good women be brought up on such infamyous docthrine? Supposin' a bear shud attack Conneticut an' th' bells shud ring f'r th' citizens to arise, an' these little darlings shud follow this false prophet an' run out in their nighties an' thry to leap at his throat. Wudden't the bear be surprised? Wudden't the little infants be surprised? Ye bet they wud. I want these here darlings to know th' blessed truth, th' softenin' an' beautiful truth that th' on'y way f'r a wolf to kill a bear is to disembowel him. There is no other way. Th' wolf springs at his prey, an' with wan terrific lunch pries him open. No wolf cud kill a bear th' way Willum J. Long iv Stamford has described. A bear has th' sthrongest throat iv anny crather in th' wurruld, barrin' Bryan. Why, I wud hate to have to sthrangle a bear. I did wanst, but I had writer's cramp f'r months aftherward.' "An' that settles it. Fr'm now on ye can get anny wan iv these here nature writers be callin' up four iliven eight B, Buena Park. Th' wild animiles can go back to their daily life iv doin' th' best they can an' th' worst they can, which is th' same thing with thim, manin' get what ye want to eat an' go to sleep with ye'er clothes on. But some wan ought to bring out a new nature story. I've thought iv chapter twinty-eight: 'With wan blow iv his pen he laid low, but not much lower, Orpheus L. Jubb, th' well-known minichure painter who has taken up nature study. With another he disembowelled th' Riv'rend Doctor Aleck Guff, who retired fr'm th' Universalist Church because he cud not subscribe to their heejous docthrines about th' future life, an' wrote his cillybrated book on wild animiles iv th' West fr'm a Brooklyn car window. It took on'y a moment f'r him to inflict a mortal wound on Seton-Thompson's kodak. An' Tiddy Rosenfelt stood alone in th' primeval forest. Suddenly there was a sound in th' bushes. He loaded his pen, an' thin give a gasp iv relief, f'r down th' glade come his thrusted ally, John Burroughs, leadin' captive th' pair iv wild white mice that had so long preyed on th' counthry.' "An' there ye ar-re, Hinnissy. In me heart I'm glad these neefaryous plots iv Willum J. Long an' others have been defeated. Th' man that tells ye'er blessed childher that th' way a wild goat kills an owl is be pretendin' to be an alarum clock, is an undesirable citizen. He ought to be put in an aquaryum. But take it day in an' day out an' Willum J. Long won't give anny information to ye'er son Packy that'll deceive him much. Th' number iv carryboo, deers, hippypotamuses, allygators, an' muskoxes that come down th' Ar-rchey Road in th' coorse iv a year wudden't make anny wan buy a bow an' arrow. It don't make near as much diff'rence to us how they live as it does to thim how we live. They're goin' an' we're comin', an' they ought to investygate an' find out th' reason why. I suppose they don't have to go to school to larn how to bite something that they dislike so much they want to eat it. If I had to bring up a flock iv wild childher in Ar-rchey Road, I wudden't much care what they larned about th' thrue habits iv th' elk or th' chambok, but I'd teach thim what I cud iv th' habits, the lairs, an' th' bite iv th' polisman on th' beat." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "Tiddy Rosenfelt is right. A fellow that writes books f'r childher ought to write th' truth." "Th' little preciouses wudden't read thim," said Mr. Dooley. "Annyhow, th' truth is a tough boss in lithrachoor. He don't pay aven boord wages, an' if ye go to wurruk f'r him ye want to have a job on th' side." THE JAPANESE SCARE "Did ye go to see th' Japs whin they were here?" asked Mr. Dooley. "I did not," said Mr. Hennessy. "Nor I," said Mr. Dooley. "I was afraid to. They're a divvle iv a sinsitive people thim Japs. Look cross-eyed at thim an' they're into ye'er hair. I stayed away fr'm th' stock yards whin me frind Gin'ral Armour was showin' Gin'ral Kroky some rale slaughter. I didn't dare to go down there f'r fear I'd involve this fair land iv ours in war. Supposin' th' haughty little fellow was to see me grinnin' at him. A smile don't seem th' same thing to an Oryental that it is to us Cowcassians. He might think I was insultin' him. 'Look at that fellow makin' faces at me,' says he. 'He ain't makin' faces at ye,' says th' Mayor. 'That's th' way he always looks.' 'Thin he must have his face changed,' says Kroky. 'If he don't I'll appeal to th' Mickydoo an' he'll divastate this boasted raypublic iv ye'ers,' he says, 'fr'm sea to sea,' he says. "Well, what's to be done about it? I can't change me face an' there's no legal way iv removin' it. Th' Prisidint writes to th' Gov'nor, th' Gov'nor requests th' Sheriff, th' Sheriff speaks to th' Mayor, th' Mayor desires th' Chief iv Polis, th' Chief iv Polis ordhers th' polisman on th' beat, an' th' polisman on th' beat commands me to take me alarmin' visage out iv th' public view. Suppose I go down to see me counsel, Barrister Hogan. He tells me that undher th' rights guaranteed to me be th' Constitution, which Gawd defind an' help in these here days, an' me liquor license, I'm entitled to stick me tongue in me cheek, wink, roll up me nose, wiggle me hands fr'm me ears, bite me thumb, or say 'Pooh' to any black-an'-tan I meet. "Thin what happens? Th' first thing I know a shell loaded with dynnymite dhrops into th' lap iv some frind iv mine in San Francisco; a party iv Jap'nese land in Boston an' scalp th' wigs off th' descindants iv John Hancock an' Sam Adams; an' Tiddy Rosenfelt is discovered undher a bed with a small language book thryin' to larn to say 'Spare me' in th' Jap'nese tongue. And me name goes bouncin' down to histhry as a man that brought roon to his counthry, an' two hundherd years fr'm now little childer atin' their milk with chop sticks in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will curse me f'r me wickedness instead iv blessin' th' mimry iv a man that done so much to keep their fathers fr'm hurryin' home at night. So I stayed away. F'r a moment th' peril is over. "But it won't be f'r long. Ivry mornin' I pick up me pa-aper with fear an' thremblin'. War with Japan is immynint. 'Tokyo, June five--Th' whole nation is wild with excitement over th' misthreatment iv a Jap'nese in Los Angeles, an' unless an apology is forthcomin' it will be difficult f'r th' Governmint to prevint th' navy fr'm shootin' a few things at ye. Th' people iv America shud know that they ar-re at th' brink iv war. A corryspondint iv th' _Daily Saky_, who wurruks in an old porcylain facthry in Maine, writes that this famous subjick iv th' Mickydoo, whose name has escaped him but who had a good job in a livery stable in Tokyo befure he was sint on a mission to th' American people to see what he cud get, wint into an all night resthrant an' demanded his threaty rights, which ar-re that th' waiter was to tuck his napkin into his collar an' th' bartinder must play "Nippon th' gloryous" on a mouth organ. Onforchinitely th' proprietor iv th' place, a man be th' name iv Scully, got hold iv a copy iv th' threaty with Sweden with th' sad result that he give th' subjick iv th' Mickydoo th' wrong threaty rights. He hit him over th' head with a bung starter. There is some relief in th' situation to-night based on th' repoort that th' Prisidint has sint an apology an' has ordhered out th' army to subjoo Scully. "'The Impror held a meetin' iv th' Elder Statesmen to-night to discuss sindin' a fleet to San Francisco to punish th' neglect iv threaty rights iv th' Japanese be a sthreet car conductor who wudden't let a subjick iv th' Mickydoo ride on th' Thirty-first Sthreet line with an Ogden Avnoo thransfer dated August eighteen hundherd an' siventy-two.' 'Th' Prisidint has ordhered th' arrest an' imprisonmint iv a dentist in Albany who hurt a Jap'nese whose tooth he was fillin'. He has raquisted th' Mickydoo to give us another chance befure layin' waste our land.' 'Followin' th' advice iv th' Jap'nese ambassadure f'r poor young Japs to marry rich American girls, a Jap'nese combynation theelogical student an' cook applied f'r th' hand iv th' daughter iv th' boordin'-house keeper where he was employed. He was able to limp to th' Jap'nese Consul's house, where he made a complaint to th' Impror, who was an old frind iv his father. Th' Prisidint has ordhered th' lady to marry th' Chink.' 'Th' Hoop-la Theatre was closed last night on complaint iv th' Jap'nese ambassadure that th' Fluff Opry Comp'ny was givin' a riprisintation iv Jap'nese charackter in pink robes instead iv th' seemly black derby hats, a size too large, Prince Albert coats, pear-colored pants, button shoes, sthring neckties, an' spectacles which is th' well-known unyform iv th' gloryous race. As token iv their grief th' Cab'net waited on th' Jap'nese embassy at dinner to-night an' Admiral Bob Evans has been ordhered to sink th' battle ship _Louisyanny_ an' carry Gin'ral Kroky's hat box to th' deepo.' "An' so it goes. I'm in a state iv alarum all th' time. In th' good old days we wudden't have thought life was worth livin' if we cudden't insult a foreigner. That's what they were f'r. Whin I was sthrong, befure old age deprived me iv most iv me pathritism an' other infantile disordhers, I niver saw a Swede, a Hun, an Eyetalian, a Boohlgaryan, a German, a Fr-rinchman, that I didn't give him th' shouldher. If 'twas an Englishman I give him th' foot too. Threaty rights, says ye? We give him th' same threaty rights he'd give us, a dhrink an' a whack on th' head. It seemed proper to us. If 'twas right to belong to wan naytionality, 'twas wrong to belong to another. If 'twas a man's proud boast to be an American, it was a disgrace to be a German an' a joke to be a Fr-rinchman. "An' that goes now. Ye can bump anny foreigner ye meet but a Jap. Don't touch him. He's a live wire. Don't think ye can pull his impeeryal hat down on his bold upcurved nose. Th' first thing ye know ye'll be what Hogan calls Casey's Bellows, an' manny a peaceful village in Indyanny'll be desthroyed f'r ye'er folly. Why, be Hivens, it won't be long till we'll have to be threatin' th' Chinese dacint. Think iv that will ye. I r-read in th' pa-aper th' other day that th' Chinese ar-rmy had been reorganized an' rearmed. Hincefoorth, instead iv th' old fashioned petticoats they will wear th' more war-like short skirt. Th' palm leafs have been cast aside f'r modhren quick-firin' fans, an' a complete new assortment iv gongs, bows an' arrows, stink-pots, an' charms against th' evil eye has been ordhered fr'm a well-known German firm. Be careful th' next time ye think iv kickin' an empty ash-barl down yefer frind Lip Hung's laundhry. "It's hard f'r me to think iv th' Japs this way. But 'tis th' part iv prudence. A few years ago I didn't think anny more about a Jap thin abont anny other man that'd been kept in th' oven too long. They were all alike to me. But to-day, whiniver I see wan I turn pale an' take off me hat an' make a low bow. A few years ago an' I'd bet I was good f'r a dozen iv thim. But I didn't know how tur-rible a people they are. Their ships are th' best in th' wurruld. We think we've got good ships. Th' Lord knows I'm told they cost us enough, though I don't remimber iver payin' a cent f'r wan. But a Jap'nese rowboat cud knock to pieces th' whole Atlantic squadron. It cud so. They're marvellous sailors. They use guns that shoot around th' corner. They fire these here injines iv desthruction with a mysteeryous powdher made iv a substance on'y known to thim. It is called saltpether. These guns hurl projyctiles weighin' eighty tons two thousand miles. On land they ar-re even more tur-rible. A Jap'nese sojer can march three hundhred miles a day an' subsist on a small piece iv chewin' gum. Their ar-rmy have arrived at such a perfection at th' diffycult manoover known as th' goose step that they have made this awful insthrument iv carnage th' terror iv th' armies iv Europe. As cav'lrymen they ar-re unexcelled. There is on'y wan horse in Japan, but ivry Japanese sojer has larned to ride him. To see wan iv their magnificent cav'lry rijments goin' into action mounted on Joko is a sight long to be raymimbered. Above all, th' Jap'nese is most to be feared because iv his love iv home an' his almost akel love iv death. He is so happy in Japan that we wud rather die somewhere's else. Most sojers don't like to be kilt. A Jap'nese sojer prefers it. It was hard to convince th' nation that they hadn't lost th' war with Rooshya because not so many Rooshyans had been kilt as Japs. Faith we ought to be scared iv thim. I niver see wan without wondhrin' whether me cellar is bomb-proof. "An' I sigh f'r th' good old days befure we become what Hogan calls a wurruld power. In thim days our fav'rite spoort was playin' solytare, winnin' money fr'm each other, an' no wan th' worse off. Ivry-body was invious iv us. We didn't care f'r th' big game goin' on in th' corner. Whin it broke up in a row we said: 'Gintlemen, gintlemen!' an' maybe wint over an' grabbed somebody's stake. But we cudden't stand it anny longer. We had to give up our simple little game iv patience an' cut into th' other deal. An' now, be Hivens, we have no peace iv mind. Wan hand we have wan partner; another hand he's again us. This minyit th' Jap an' me ar-re playin' together an' I'm tellin' him what a fine lead that was; th' next an' he's again me an' askin' me kindly not to look at his hand. There ar-re no frinds at cards or wurruld pollyticks. Th' deal changes an' what started as a frindly game iv rob ye'er neighbor winds up with an old ally catchin' me pullin' an ace out iv me boot an' denouncin' me." "Sure thim little fellows wud niver tackle us," said Mr. Hennessy. "Th' likes iv thim!" "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "'tis because they ar-re little ye've got to be polite to thim. A big man knows he don't have to fight, but whin a man is little an' knows he's, little an' is thinkin' all th' time he's little an' feels that ivrybody else is thinkin' he's little, look out f'r him." THE HAGUE CONFERENCE "I see," said Mr. Hennessy, "we're goin' to sind th' navy to th' Passyfic." "I can't tell," said Mr. Dooley, "whether th' navy is goin' to spend th' rest iv its days protectin' our possessions in th' Oryent or whether it is to remain in th' neighborhood iv Barnstable makin' th' glaziers iv New England rich beyond th' dhreams iv New England avarice, which ar-re hopeful dhreams. Th' cabinet is divided, th' Sicrety iv th' Navy is divided, th' Prisidint is divided an' th' press is divided. Wan great iditor, fr'm his post iv danger in Paris, has ordhered th' navy to report at San Francisco at four eight next Thursday. Another great iditor livin' in Germany has warned it that it will do so at its peril. Nawthin' is so fine as to see a great modhern journalist unbend fr'm his mighty task iv selectin' fr'm a bunch iv phottygrafts th' prettiest cook iv Flatbush or engineerin' with his great furrowed brain th' Topsy Fizzle compytition to trifle with some light warm-weather subjict like internaytional law or war. But men such as these can do annything. "But, annyhow, what diff'rence does it make whether th' navy goes to th' Passyfic or not? If it goes at all, it won't be to make war. They've dumped all th' fourteen inch shells into th' sea. Th' ammunition hoists ar-re filled with American beauty roses an' orchids. Th' guns are loaded with confetty. Th' officers dhrink nawthin' sthronger thin vanilla an' sthrawberry mixed. Whin th' tars go ashore they hurry at wanst to th' home iv th' Christyan Indeavor Society or throng th' free libries readin' relligous pothry. Me frind Bob Evans is goin' to conthribute a series iv articles to th' _Ladies' Home Journal_ on croshaying. F'r th' Hague Peace Conference has abolished war, Hinnissy. Ye've seen th' last war ye'll iver see, me boy. Th' Hague conference, Hinnissy, was got up be th' Czar iv Rooshya just befure he moved his army agin th' Japs. It was a quiet day at Saint Pethersburg. Th' Prime Minister had just been blown up with dinnymite, th' Czar's uncle had been shot, an' wan iv his cousins was expirin' fr'm a dose iv proosic acid. All was comparitive peace. In th' warrum summer's afthernoon th' Czar felt almost dhrousy as he set in his rile palace an' listened to th' low, monotonous-drone iv bombs bein' hurled at th' Probojensky guards, an' picked th' broken glass out iv th' dhrink that'd just been brought to him be an aged servitor who was prisidint iv th' Saint Pethersburg lodge iv Pathriotic Assassins. Th' monarch's mind turned to th' subjick iv war an' he says to himsilf: 'What a dhreadful thing it is that such a beautiful wurruld shud be marred be thousands iv innocint men bein' sint out to shoot each other f'r no cause whin they might betther stay at home an' wurruk f'r their rile masthers,' he says. 'I will disguise mesilf as a moojik an' go over to th' tillygraft office an' summon a meetin' iv th' Powers,' he says. "That's how it come about. All th' powers sint dillygates an' a g-reat manny iv th' weaknesses did so too. They met in Holland an' they have been devotin' all their time since to makin' war impossible in th' future. Th' meetin' was opened with an acrimonyous debate over a resolution offered be a dillygate fr'm Paryguay callin' f'r immeejit disarmamint, which is th' same, Hinnissy, as notifyin' th' Powers to turn in their guns to th' man at th' dure. This was carrid be a very heavy majority. Among those that voted in favor iv it were: Paryguay, Uryguay, Switzerland, Chiny, Bilgium, an' San Marino. Opposed were England, France, Rooshya, Germany, Italy, Austhree, Japan, an' the United States. "This was regarded be all present as a happy auggry. Th' convintion thin discussed a risolution offered be th' Turkish dillygate abolishin' war altogether. This also was carried, on'y England, France, Rooshya, Germany, Italy, Austhree, Japan, an' th' United States votin' no. "This made th' way clear f'r th' discussion iv th' larger question iv how future wars shud be conducted in th' best inthrests iv peace. Th' conference considhered th' possibility iv abolishin' th' mushroom bullet which, entherin' th' inteeryor iv th' inimy not much larger thin a marble, soon opens its dainty petals an' goes whirlin' through th' allyminthry canal like a pin-wheel. Th' Chinese dillygate said that he regarded this here insthrumint iv peace as highly painful. He had an aunt in Pekin, an estimable lady, unmarried, two hundhred an' fifty years iv age, who received wan without warnin' durin' th' gallant riscue iv Pekin fr'm th' foreign legations a few years ago. He cud speak with feelin' on th' subjick as th' Chinese army did not use these pro-jictyles but were armed with bean-shooters. "Th' English dillygate opposed th' resolution. 'It is,' says he, 'quite thrue that these here pellets are in many cases harmful to th' digestion, but I think it wud be goin' too far to suggest that they be abolished ontil their mannyfacther is betther undherstud be th' subjick races,' he says. 'I suppose wan iv these bullets might throw a white man off his feed, but we have abundant proof that whin injicted into a black man they gr-reatly improve his moral tone. An' afther all, th' improvemint iv th' moral tone is, gintlemen, a far graver matther thin anny mere physical question. We know fr'm expeeryence in South Africa that th' charmin' bullet now undher discussion did much to change conditions in that enlightened an' juicy part iv his Majesty's domains. Th' darky that happened to stop wan was all th' betther f'r it. He retired fr'm labor an' give up his squalid an' bigamious life,' he says. 'I am in favor, howiver, iv restrictin' their use to encounters with races that we properly considher infeeryor,' he says. Th' dillygate fr'm Sinagambya rose to a question iv privilege. 'State ye'er question iv privilege,' says th' chairman. 'I wud like to have th' windows open,' says th' dillygate fr'm Sinagambya. 'I feel faint,' he says. "Th' Honorable Joe Choate, dillygate fr'm th' United States, moved that in future wars enlisted men shud not wear ear-rings. Carried, on'y Italy votin' no. "Th' conference thin discussed blowin' up th' inimy with dinnymite, poisinin' him, shootin' th' wounded, settin' fire to infants, bilin' prisoners-iv-war in hot lard, an' robbin' graves. Some excitemint was created durin' th' talk be th' dillygate fr'm th' cannybal islands who proposed that prisoners-iv-war be eaten. Th' German dillygate thought that this was carryin' a specyal gift iv wan power too far. It wud give th' cannybal islands a distinct advantage in case iv war, as Europeen sojers were accustomed to horses. Th' English dillygate said that while much cud be said against a practice which personally seemed to him rather unsportsmanlike, still he felt he must reserve th' right iv anny cannybal allies iv Brittanya to go as far as they liked. Th' Hon'orable Joe Choate moved that in future wars no military band shud be considered complete without a base-dhrum. Carrid. "Th' entire South American dillygation said that no nation ought to go to war because another nation wanted to put a bill on th' slate. Th' English dillygate was much incensed. 'Why, gintlemen', says he, 'if ye deprived us iv th' right to collect debts be killin' th' debtor ye wud take away fr'm war its entire moral purpose. I must ask ye again to cease thinkin' on this subjick in a gross mateeryal way an' considher th' moral side alone,' he says. Th' conference was much moved be this pathetic speech, th' dillygate fr'm France wept softly into his hankerchef, an' th' dillygate fr'm Germany wint over an' forcibly took an open-face goold watch fr'm th' dillygate fr'm Vinzwala. "Th' Hon'rable Joe Choate moved that in all future wars horses shud be fed with hay wheriver possible. Carrid. A long informal talk on th' reinthroduction iv scalpin' followed. At last th' dillygate fr'm Chiny arose an' says he: 'I'd like to know what war is. What is war annyhow?' 'Th' Lord knows, we don't,' says th' chairman. 'We're all profissors iv colledges or lawyers whin we're home,' he says. 'Is it war to shoot my aunt?' says th' dillygate fr'm Chiny. Cries iv 'No, no.' 'Is it war to hook me father's best hat that he left behind whin he bashfully hurrid away to escape th' attintions iv Europeen sojery?' he says. 'Is robbery war?' says he. 'Robbery is a nicissry part iv war,' says th' English dillygate. 'F'r th' purpose iv enfoorcin' a moral example,' he says. "'Well,' says old Wow Chow, 'I'd like to be able to go back home an' tell thim what war really is. A few years back ye sint a lot iv young men over to our part iv th' wurruld an' without sayin' with ye'er leave or by ye'er leave they shot us an' they hung us up be our psyche knots an' they burned down our little bamboo houses. Thin they wint up to Pekin, set fire to th' town, an' stole ivry thing in sight. I just got out iv th' back dure in time to escape a jab in th' spine fr'm a German that I niver see befure. If it hadn't been that whin I was a boy I won th' hundred yards at th' University iv Slambang in two hours an' forty minyits, an' if it hadn't happened that I was lightly dhressed in a summer overskirt an' a thin blouse, an' if th' German hadn't stopped to steal me garters, I wudden't be here at this moment,' says he. 'Was that war or wasn't it?' he says. 'It was an expedition,' says th' dillygate fr'm England, 'to serve th' high moral jooties iv Christyan civvylization.' 'Thin,' says th' dillygate fr'm Chiny, puttin' on his hat, 'I'm f'r war,' he says. 'It ain't so rough,' he says. An' he wint home." TURKISH POLITICS "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "onaisy lies th' crown on anny king's head these days. Th' time was whin it was me ambition or wan iv thim to be a king. Arly in life I'd committed the youthful folly iv bein' born outside iv th' counthry an' so I cuddent be Prisidint. But it don't make anny diff'rence what counthry a king comes from so long as he don't come fr'm th' counthry where he's king. 'No natives need apply,' is th' motto. If a counthry is so bad off that it has to have a king, they sind a comity down to Ellis Island an' pick out a good healthy Scandinavyan, make him throw away his wooden shoes an' leather cap, an' proclaim him king, Definder iv th' Faith. Kings are th' on'y assisted immygrants that are let in. Th' King iv England is German, th' King iv Italy is a Sardine, th' King iv Sweden is a Fr-rinchman, an' all th' other kings an' queens are Danes excipt th' King iv Denmark, an' th' Lord knows what he is. "So ye see, Hinnissy, there's nawthin' in th' Constitution to prevint me fr'm bein' a king, an I looked forward to th' time whin I'd turn th' Illinye Cinthral deepo into a rile palace an' rule me subjicks, ye'ersilf among thim, with a high hand. I'd be a just but marciful monarch. No wan that come to th' palace wud go away empty handed. I'd always lave thim a little something. Divvle a bit iv a cabinet I'd have, but I'd surround mesilf with th' best thrained flattherers that cud be hired f'r love or money, an' no wan wud tell me th' truth, an' I'd live an' die happy. I'd show these modhern kings how a king ought to behave. Ye wudden't see Martin I, iv beloved mim'ry, runnin' around like a hired entertainer, wan day doin' th wurruk iv a talkative bricklayer at th' layin' iv a cornerstone, another day presidin' over a bankit iv th' Amalgamated Society iv Mannyfacthrers iv Hooks-an'-Eyes or racin' horses with Boots Durnell an' Charlie Ox or waitin' out in th' rain f'r a balloon to come down that's stuck on a church steeple forty miles away. No, sir, I'd niver appear in public but wanst a year, an' thin I'd blindfold me lile subjicks so that they'd stay lile. An' I'd niver open me mouth excipt to command music an' dhrink. But th' low taste iv kings has rooned th' business as a pursoot f'r gintlemen, an' to-day I'd think twict befure takin' th' job. 'Tis as preecaryous as a steeple jack's, an' no more permanent thin a Rosenfelt holdover undher Taft. If a king goes out an' looks haughty some wan iv his subjicks fires a gas pipe bomb at him, an' if he thries to be janial he's li'ble to be slapped on th' back in th' paddock an' called 'Joe.' "Look at me frind, Abdul Hamid. Whin I dhreamed iv bein' king, sometimes I let me mind run on till I had mesilf promoted to be Sultan iv Turkey. There, me boy, was a job that always plazed me. It was well paid, it looked to be permanent, and I thought it about th' best situation in th' wurruld. Th' Sultan was a kind iv a combination iv pope an' king. If he didn't like ye, he first excommunicated ye an' thin he sthrangled ye. There, thinks I to mesilf, there he sets, th' happy old ruffyan, on a silk embroidered lounge, in his hand-wurruked slippers, with his legs curled up undher him, a turban on his head, a crooked soord in his lap, a pitcher iv sherbet (which is th' dhrink in thim parts) at his elbow, a pipestem like a hose in his hand, while nightingales whistle in th' cypress threes in th' garden an' beautiful Circassyan ladies dance in front iv him far fr'm his madding throng iv wives, as th' pote says. "Whin th' sicrety iv th' threasury wants to repoort to him, he starts fr'm his office on his stomach an' wriggles into th' august prisince. 'What is it ye want, oh head iv lignum vity?' says th' Sultan. 'Bark f'r th' ladies,' says he with a chuckle. 'Oh, descindant iv th' prophet, whose name be blest! Oh, sun an' moon an' stars, whose frown is death an' whose smile is heaven to th' faithful;--' 'Don't be so familyar with me first name,' says th' Sultan, 'but go on with ye'er contimptible supplication,' says he. 'Ye'er slave,' says th' sicrety iv th' threasury fr'm th' flure, 'is desthroyed with grief to tell ye that afther standin' th' intire empire on its head he's been onable to shake out more thin two millyon piasthres f'r this week's expinses iv ye'er awfulness,' says he. 'What!' says th' sultan, 'two millyon piasthres--bar'ly enough to buy bur-rd seed f'r me bulbuls,' says he. 'How dare ye come into me august prisince with such an insult. Lave it on th' flure f'r th' boy that sweeps up, oh, son iv a tailor,' he says, an' he gives a nod an' fr'm behind a curtain comes Jawn Johnson with little on him, an' th' next thing ye hear iv th' faithless minister is a squeak an' a splash. He rules be love alone, thinks I, an' feelin' that life without love is useless, annybody that don't love him can go an' get measured f'r a name plate an' be sure he'll need it befure th' price is lower. His people worship him an' why shudden't they. He allows thim to keep all th' dogs they want, he proticts thim fr'm dissolute habits be takin' their loose money fr'm thim, an' ivry year he gives thim an Armeenyan massacree which is a great help to th' cigareet business in this counthry. "Happy Abdul, thinks I. If I cud be a haythen an' was a marryin' man, 'tis ye'er soft spot I'd like to land in f'r me declinin' days. So whin I r-read in th' pa-apers that there was a rivolution startin' to fire Abdul Hamid, I says to mesilf: 'A fine chance ye've got, me lads. That old boy will be holdin' down his job whin there's a resignation fr'm th' supreeme coort bench at Wash'nton,' says I. 'Th' first thing ye young Turks know ye'll-be gettin' a prisent fr'm ye'er sov'reign iv a necktie,' says I, 'an' it won't fit ye,' says I. "Well, sir, I was wrong. I knew I was wrong th' minyit I see a pitcher iv Abdul Hamid in th' pa-aper--a snap-shot, mind ye! Think of that, will ye? D'ye suppose a sultan or a king that knew his thrade wud iver let anny wan take a snap-shot iv him? Did ye iver hear iv Alexander th' Gr-reat or Napoleon Bonyparte havin' a snap-shot took iv him? No, sir. Whin they wanted to satisfy th' vulgar curiosity iv th' popylace to know what their lord looked like, they chained an artist to a wall in th' cellar of th' palace an', says they: 'Now set down an' paint a pitcher iv me that will get ye out iv here,' says they. Nobody in thim days knew that th' king had a mole on his nose an' that wan iv his eyes was made iv glass, excipt th' people that had jobs to lose. "Up to th' time Abdul Hamid wint thrapezin' around Constantinople in a hack an' havin' his pitcher took be amachoor phottygrafters his job was secure. Up to that time whin wan Turk talked to another about him they talked in whispers. 'What d'ye suppose he's like, Osman?' says wan. 'Oh me, oh my,' says th' other, 'but he's th' tur-rble wan. They says his voice is like thunder, an' lightnin' shoots fr'm his eyes that wud shrivel th' likes iv ye an' me to a cinder.' But whin Abdul, be damid, as th' potes call him, made th' mistake iv pokin' his head out iv th' palace 'twas diff'rent. 'Well, who d'ye think I see to-day but th' Sultan. I tell ye I did. What is he like? He ain't much to look at--a skinny little man, Osman, that ye cud sthrangle between ye'er thumb an' forefinger. He had a bad cold an' was sneezin'. He wore a hand-me-down coat. He has a wen on th' back iv his neck an' he's crosseyed. Here's a pitcher iv him.' 'What, that little runt? Ye don't mean to say that's th' Sultan.--Why, he looks like th' fellow that stops me ivry day on th' corner an' asks me have I anny old clothes betther thin what I have on. An' to think iv th' likes iv him rulin' over th' likes iv us. Let's throw him out.' "So it was with me old frind Abdul. Wan day a captain an' a squad iv polis backed th' wagon up to th' dure iv th' palace an' rung th' bell. 'Who's there?' says th' Sultan, stuffin' th' loose change into his shoe. 'Th' house is pulled,' says th' captain. 'Ye'er license is expired. Ye'd betther come peaceful,' he says. An' they bust in th' dure an' th' Sultan puts a shirt an' a couple iv collars into a grip an' selicts iliven iv his least formid-able wives to go along with him an' they put on their bonnets an' shawls an' carry out their bur-rd cages an' their goold fish an' their fancy wurruk an' th' pathrol wagon starts off an' has to stop so that iliven iv thim can go back an' get something they f'rgot at th' last moment an' th' ex-commander iv th' faithful says, 'Did ye iver know wan iv thim to be ready, Cap?' an' th' captain says, 'They're all alike, Doc,' an' th' dhriver clangs th' bell, an' off goes th' mighty potentate to a two-story frame house in Englewood. An' th' sultan's brother is taken out iv a padded cell where he had been kept f'r twinty years because he was crazy to be sultan, an' is boosted into th' throne. An' he has his pitcher took an' is intherviewed be th' reporthers an' tells thim he will do th' best he can an' he hopes th' press won't be too hard on him, because he is a poor loonytick annyhow. "An' there ye ar-re. There goes me dhream iv bein' sultan along with me dhream iv bein' a gr-reat gin'ral till th' Spanish war. If that's th' kind iv job a sultan has, I'll lave it f'r anny wan to take that wants it. Why, be Hivens, whin th' Young Turks come to search th' palace, like th' pathrites they ar-re, to find if he'd left anny money behind, divvle th' thrace they found iv annything that I'd thrade f'r me back room. I begun to feel sorry f'r th' poor old miscreent. Instead iv lollin' on a sofy an' listenin' to th' song iv th' mockin' bur-rd in th' pommygranite threes while ladies fr'm th' chorus iv 'Th' Black Crook' fanned him with fans iv peacock feathers, th' mis'rable old haythen was locked up in a garret with a revolver in his hand ready to shoot anny wan that come next or near him. He suffered fr'm dyspepsia an' he cuddent sleep nights. He cud ate nawthin' sthronger thin milk toast. He was foorced be fashion's whim to have five hundhred wives whin wan was abundant. Take it all in all, he led a dog's life, an' I bet ye he's happyer now where he is, wathrin' th' geeranyums, mowin' th' lawn, an' sneakin' into Constantinople iv a Saturday night an' seein' Circassyan girls dancin' f'r th' first time in his life. His childher are all grown up an' safe in jail, he has four hundhred an' eighty-nine less wives, but iliven are a good manny in th' suburbs; he has put away a few piasthres f'r a rainy day, out-iv-dure life may improve his health, an' I shudden't wondher if ye'd read some day in th' pa-aper: 'At th' Stambool county fair th' first prize f'r Poland Chiny hens was won be A. Hamid, th' pop'lar ex-sultan.' "Ye can't tell annything about it. Give th' poor man a chance, says I. There may be th' makins iv a dacint citizen in him afther all. What opporchunity has he had, tell me? What can ye expict fr'm a man that niver was taught annything betther thin that he cud do annything he wanted to do without bein' called down f'r it? It doesn't make anny diff'rence whether 'tis a polisman or th' Rajah iv Beloochistan, be gorry, put a club in his hand an' tell him that he can use it an' he'll begin usin' it tomorrah. He'll break wan head tomorrah, two th' next day, an' befure he's been on th' foorce or th' throne a year it'll be a whack on th' chimbly befure he says 'How ar-re ye.' By an' by he'll get so manny people afraid iv him that he'll be in danger and that'll make him afraid iv thim, an' thin he'll be more dangerous thin iver, d'ye mind? Th' on'y man ye need to be afraid iv is th' man that's afraid iv ye. An' that's what makes a tyrant. He's scared to death. If I'd thought about it whin I r-read iv me frind murdherin' people I'd've known they'd find him thremblin' in a room an' shootin' at th' hired girl whin she come in with his porridge. So I'm glad afther all that I didn't put in me application. I want no man to fear me. I'd hate to be more of a coward thin I am." "What ar-re these Turkish athrocities I've been r-readin' about?" said Mr. Hennessy. "I don't know," said Mr. Dooley. "I don't keep thim. Have a cigar?" VACATIONS "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "I raaly don't know whether I'm glad or sorry to get back. It seems a little sthrange to be here again in the turmoil iv life in a large city, but thin, again, 'tis pleasant to see th' familyar faces wanst more. Has annything happened since I wint away on me vacation? Did ye miss me? Am I much sunburnt?" "What ar-re ye talkin' about?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "I see ye on'y last night." "Ye did not," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye may have seen me undherstudy, but ye didn't see me. Where was I? It depinds on what time iv night it was. If it was eight o'clock, I was croosin' in Pierpont Morgan's yacht off th' coast iv Labrador. We were both iv us settin' up on th' front stoop iv th' boat. I had just won thirty millyon dollars fr'm him throwin' dice, an' he remarked to me 'I bet it's hot in Chicago.' But about eight thirty, th' wind, which had been blowin' acrost th' brick-yard, changed into th' northeast an' I moved back to Newpoort." "Ar-re ye crazy fr'm th' heat?" Mr. Hennessy asked. "Divvle th' bit," said Mr. Dooley, "but long ago I made up me mind not to be th' slave iv me vacation. I don't take a vacation whin a vacation comes around an' knocks at th' dure an' dhrags me out to a summer resort. If I did I'd wait a long time. I take it whiniver I feel like it. Whiniver I have a moment to spare, whin ye're talkin' or business is slack fr'm anny other reason, I throw a comb an' brush into a gripsack an' hurry away to th' mountain or th' seashore. While ye think ye're talkin' to me, at that very minyit I may be floatin' on me back in th' Atlantic ocean or climbin' a mountain in Switzerland, yodellin' to mesilf. "Most iv me frinds take their vacations long afther they are overdue. That's because they don't know how to take thim. They depind on railroads an' steamers an' what th' boss has to say about it. Long afther th' vacation will do thim no good, about th' fifteenth iv August, they tear off for th' beauties iv nature. Nachrally they can't tear off very far or they wudden't hear th' whistle whin it blew to call thim back. F'r a week or two they spind their avenin's larnin' th' profissyon iv baggageman, atin' off thrunks be day an sleepin' on thim be night. Evenchooly th' time comes f'r thim to lave th' sthrife an' throuble iv th' city that they're used to f'r th' sthrife an' throuble iv th' counthry that they don't know how to handle. They catch th' two two f'r Mudville-be-th'-Cannery, or they are just about to catch it whin they remimber that they left their tickets, money an' little Abigail Ann behind thim, an' they catch th' six forty-five which doesn't stop at Mudville excipt on Choosdahs an' Fridahs in Lent, an' thin on'y on signal. Fin'lly they're off. Th' dust an' worry iv th' city with its sprinkled pavements an' its glowin' theaytres is left behind. Th' cool counthry air blows into th' car laden with th' rich perfume iv dainty food with which th' fireman is plyin' his ir'n horse. Th' thrain stops occasion'lly. In fact ye might betther say that occasion'lly it don't stop. A thrain that is goin' to anny iv th' penal colonies where most men spind their vacations will stop at more places thin a boy on an errand. Whiniver it sees a human habitation it will pause an' exchange a few wurruds iv pleasant greetin'. It will stop at annything. It wud stop at nawthin'. "In this way ye get a good idee iv th' jography iv ye'er native land. Ye make a ten minyit stay at bustlin' little villages that ye didn't know were on th' map, an' ain't on anny map that ye buy. Th' on'y place th' thrain don't stop is at Mudville-be-th'-Cannery. Ye look into th' folder an' see ye'er town marked 'see note b.' Note b says: 'Thrains two to sixteen stop at Mudville on'y whin wrecked.' 'What is th' number iv this here cannon-ball express?' says ye to th' conductor man. 'Number twelve,' says he. 'How am I goin' to get off there?' says ye. 'How do ye usually get off a movin' thrain?' says he. 'Forward or backward?' says he. 'If ye'll go ahead to th' postal car an' get into a mail bag th' clerk may hang ye on th' hook as we pass. He's a good shot. He made three out iv tin last week,' he says. "But in due time ye reach ye'er destynation an' onpack ye'er thrunks an' come home again. A frind iv mine, a prom'nent railroad officyal who calls th' thrains at th' Union deepo, tells me he's cured his wife iv wantin' to go on a vacation. Whiniver he sees her readin' advertisements iv th' summer resorts he knows that th' fit is coming on, an' befure she gets to th' stage iv buyin' a cure f'r freckles he takes her down to th' deepo an' shows her th' people goin' on their vacations an' comin' back. Thin he gives her a boat ride in th' park, takes her to th' theaytre, an' th' next mornin' she wakes up with hardly anny sign iv her indisposition. "But th' kind iv vacation I take does ye some good. It is well within me means. In fact it sildom costs me annything but now an' thin th' thrade iv a customer that I give a bottle iv pop to whin he ast f'r a gin sour, not knowin' that at th' minyit I was whilin' me time away in th' Greek islands or climbin' Mount Vesoovyous. I don't have to carry anny baggage. I don't pay anny railroad fares. I'm not bothered be mosquitoes or rain. In fact, it's on rainy days that I thravel most. I'm away most iv th' time. I suppose me business suffers. But what care I? "In th' autumn I am pretty apt to be shootin' in th' Rocky Mountains. In th' winter I am liable to go to Florida or to th' West Indies or to Monty Carlo. I'm th' on'y American citizen that iver beat Monty Carlo. I plugged away at number siventeen an' it came up eighty-two times runnin'. 'Tis thrue I squandhered th' money on th' fickle Countess de Brie, but aisy came aisy go. Me disappointment was soon f'rgotten among th' gayeties iv Algeers. I often go up th' Nile because it's handy to th' Ar-rchey Road. I can get back befure bedtime. In summer I may go to Newpoort, although it ain't th' place it was whin I first wint there. It was simple thin. People laughed at Clarence Von Steenevant because he wore a hat encrusted in dimons instead iv th' rough-an'-ready goold bonnet that ye grabbed fr'm th' rubbish iv old pearl necklaces an' marredge certyficates on th' hall table whin ye wint out to play tennis. It has changed since. But there are still a few riprisintatives iv th' older memberships iv th' stock exchange who cannot lave th' familyar scenes, an' I like to dhrop in on these pathricyans an' gossip iv days that ar-re no more. Faith, there's hardly a place that I don't spind me summers. If I don't like a place I can move. I sail me yacht into sthrange harbors. I take me private car wheriver I want to go. I hunt an' I fish. Last year I wint to Canada an' fished f'r salmon. I made a gr-reat catch--near thirty cans. An' whin I'm tired I can go to bed. An' it is a bed, not a rough sketch iv a brick-yard. "Well, well, what places I have seen. An' I always see thim at their best. Th' on'y way to see anny place at its best is niver to go there. No place can be thruly injyeable whin ye have to take ye'ersilf along an' pay rent f'r him whin ye get there. An' wan iv th' gr-reat comforts iv my kind iv a vacation is that I always knows what's goin' on at home. Whin Hogan goes on his kind iv vacation th' newspa-aper he gets was printed just afther th' third inning iv th' baseball game th' day befure yisterdah. Th' result is that whin Hogan comes home he don't know what's happened. He doesn't know who's been murdhered or whether Chicago or Pittsburg is at th' head iv th' league. "An' summer is th' best time iv th' year f'r news. Th' heat an' sthrong dhrink brings out pleasant peculyarities in people. They do things that make readin' matther. They show signs iv janus. Ivrything in th' pa-aper inthrests me. Here's th' inside news iv a cillybrated murdher thrile blossomin' out in th' heat. Here's a cillybrated lawyer goin' to th' cillybrated murdherer an' demandin' an increase in th' honoraryum iv his cillybrated collague. Lawyers don't take money. What they get f'r their public sarvices in deludin' a jury is th' same as an offerin' in a church. Ye don't give it thim openly. Ye sind thim a bunch iv sweet peas with the money in it. This here larned counsel got wan honoraryum. But whin things begun to took tough f'r his protegee he suggested another honoraryum. Honoraryum is fr'm th' Latin wurruds honor an' aryum, mainin' I need th' money. "Yes, sir, ye can't injye a vacation without th' pa-apers. How glad I am to know that Congress has adjourned afther rejoocin' th' tariff to a level where th' poorest are within its reach. An' how cud I be happy away fr'm here if I didn't know how me frind Willum Taft was gettin' on at goluf. Iv coorse I'm inthrested in all that goes on at th' summer capitol. I am glad to know that Charles played tennis fr'm ten to iliven an' aftherward took a throlley car ride to Lynn, where he bought a pair iv shoes an' a piece iv blueberry pie, but at two o'clock had entirely recovered. But th' rale inthrest is in th' prisidint's goluf. Me fav'rite journal prints exthries about it. 'Specyal exthry; six thirty. Horrible rumor. Prisidint Taft repoorted stymied.' He's th' best goluf player we've iver had as prisidint. He cud give Abra'm Lincoln a shtroke a stick. He bate th' champeen iv the' wurruld last week be a scoore iv wan hundhred an' eighty-two to siventy-six. He did so. "Here's a column about yisterdah's game. 'A large crowd assimbled to see th' match. Prisidint appeared ca'm an' collected. He wore his club unyform, gray pants, black leather belt, an' blue shirt. His opponent, th' sicrety iv war, was visibly narvous. Th' prisident was first off th' tee with an excellent three while his opponent was almost hopelessly bunkered in a camera. But he made a gallant recovery with a vaccuum cleaner an' was aven with th' prisidint in four. Th' prisidint was slightly to th' left in th' long grass on his fifth, but, nawthin' daunted, he took a hoe an' was well out in siven. Both players were in th' first bunker in eight, th' sicrety iv war havin' flubbed his sixth an' bein' punished f'r overdarin' on th' siventh. Th' prisidint was first out iv th' bunker at a quarther past two, his opponent followin' at exactly three sixteen. Th' prisidint was within hailin' distance iv home on his sixteenth shot, while his opponent had played eighteen. But th' pace had been too swift an' it was merely a question iv which wud be th' first to crack. That misfortune fell to th' lot iv th' sicrety iv war. Findin' himsilf in a bad lie, he undhertook to use a brassy in a spirit iv nawthin' venture nawthin' gain. It was raaly a brillyant shot. A foot nearer th' ball an' he might have accomplished a feat in golufing histhry. But th' luck iv war was against him an' he sthruck himsilf upon th' ankle. Th' prisidint, resolvin' to give him no mercy, took his dhriver an' made a sterling carry to within thirty yards iv th' green. There was now nawthin' to it. Continuin' to play with great dash, but always prudently, he had a sure putt iv not more thin forty feet to bate th' records f'r prisidints f'r this hole, a record that was established be th' prisident iv th' Women's Christyan Timp'rance Union in nineteen hundhred an' three. His opponent cried 'I give it to ye,' an' th' prisidint was down in a brillyant twinty two. His opponent was obliged to contint himsilf with a more modest but still sound an' meritoryous thirty-eight (estimated). "An' there ye ar-re. I'm ivrywhere, but I can always keep in touch with what's goin' on." "What kind iv a game is goluf?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Why do they call it rile an' ancient?" "I don't know," said Mr. Dooley, "onless it is because th' prisidint iv th' United States has just took it up." 
39753	----	Desjardins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.netCanada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net THE MISFIT CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS [Illustration: "ENJOYING HER FATHER'S PARTING FONDLING."] _THE_ MISFIT CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS BY THE CONSOLATION CLUB _Illustrated by Wallace Goldsmith_ JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY PUBLISHERS BOSTON & LONDON 1906 _Copyright, 1906_ By JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY _Entered at Stationers' Hall_ Colonial Press _C. H. Simonds & Co._ _Boston, U. S. A._ _THE MISFIT CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS_ _TIME_ The day before Christmas and Christmas day. _PLACES_ BAKER BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT. Large and flourishing. THE M'CARTY ABODE. Small and dilapidated. _CHARACTERS_ HERR BAUMGÄRTNER, with a mercenary heart and an eye to the main chance. KATRINA BAUMGÄRTNER, with a tender heart and an eye on her lover. HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S EMPLOYEES, with commercial hearts and eyes single to the approval of KATRINA BAUMGÄRTNER. WIDOW M'CARTY, with a sad heart and many cares. { Granny M'Carty,--much care; little comfort. HER { Grandad Rafferty,--much comfort; little CARES { care. { Nine Little M'Cartys,--both cares and comforts. MICHAEL M'CARTY,--the loved and lamented. _LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS_ "ENJOYING HER FATHER'S PARTING FONDLING" "THE GREAT DELIGHT OF ALL THE CHILDREN" "'FOR MY THIRTEEN BEST CUSTOMERS'" "SHE APPLIED HERSELF TO THE SHIRTS WITH VIGOR" "IMPRINTED ON THEM A FEW REMINDERS OF MATERNAL SOLICITUDE" "GRANDAD WAS SPEECHLESS" "'AN' ARE YE INSINOOATIN', MISTHER RAFFERTY?'" "AS KATRINA PASSED THROUGH THE STORE" "'I MAY GO, MAY I NOT?'" "'IT'S SAMPLES I HAVE . . .' SAID TERENCE, PROUDLY DISPLAYING THE CONTENTS OF HIS BUNDLE" "TO ADMIRE THE FESTIVE PREPARATIONS" "AND AS SHE SAT THERE MEMORY CAME AND STOOD BY HER" "KATRINA . . . WENT TO WORK" "HE PICKED UP THE CARD AND READ" "WAS ON HIS WAY TO THE CITY HOSPITAL" "'A MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM KATRINA BAUMGÄRTNER!'" "SHE PLACED BOTH PUDDINGS IN HER APRON" "'GOTT IN HIMMEL! DONNER UND BLITZEN!'" "'TWELVE CAKES TO THE WIDOW M'CARTY!'" "BRIDGET NEXT ATTACKED HER FATHER" "'IT'S MORE ROOMETIZ FOR ME, SO IT IS'" "'VEN I SMOKES DAT PIPE DEN I FORGET DOSE PLUM PUDDINGS'" "HIS GLANCE FELL UPON SOMETHING WHITE THAT LAY ON THE COUNTER" "'A STICK OF CANDY APIECE'" "KATY . . . RETURNED BEARING ALOFT A PACKAGE" "MRS. M'CARTY LET THEM HUNT" "THE HOUSE . . . HELD MORE HIDING-PLACES THAN ONE WOULD HAVE SUPPOSED" "'IT'S MY MICHAEL,--MY HEART OF THE WORLD'" _THE MISFIT CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS_ _First Episode_ HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT EIGHT O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS 'Twas the day before Christmas, yet there was no need to tell that to any one in Buffalo, for everywhere in the city was the stir and excitement that precedes a great holiday. Every one seemed to be alert and in a hurry. The very air was full of Christmas scents. One felt that something unusual was going on, and nowhere was this more apparent than in Baker Baumgärtner's large establishment. Among the German residents of this prosperous lake port this was the most popular bakery in the town, and Herr Baumgärtner was caterer and confectioner as well as baker. Consequently he had a very large trade, and the twelve wagons that were despatched daily from the Baumgärtner bakery went to all parts of the city. Not only was he popular among the German residents, but whoever had once tasted the baker's crisp rolls and genuine German rye bread--not to mention the Lebkuchen and Pfeffernüsse at Christmastime--never neglected an opportunity to order more. Even the delicious Marzipan Brod--a sweetmeat made of almonds, sugar, and rose-water--was not omitted from his Christmas confections. Certainly, Herr Baumgärtner's establishment was almost too tempting for one who possessed but a slender pocketbook at Christmas-time. The windows, washed and polished until they fairly shone, were now hung with wreaths of holly, and festoons of evergreens were draped across both doors and windows in token of the holiday season. Two large firtrees in boxes stood on each side of the entrance. Herr Baumgärtner's Christmas windows were the great delight of all the children in the neighborhood, for in one stood a tall Christmas tree from whose branches dangled the most wonderful candies and cakes,--boys and girls, kings and queens, cows, dogs, funny fat pigs, violins, real Swiss houses,--in fact all kinds of toys. These were made either of chocolate, sugar, or gingerbread. This marvellous tree was also adorned with a huge silver star at the top, while glittering gold and silver paper chains were suspended from its branches. These, and the many colored candles, made it a bewildering sight. Truly, it was a real fairy Christmas tree. [Illustration: "THE GREAT DELIGHT OF ALL THE CHILDREN"] Perhaps no one but Herr Baumgärtner himself knew that this tree was in memory of a little boy who long years before had spent a few short Christmas days with him, for Herr Baumgärtner's only son had died when three years old. The baker was not a man who was supposed to have much sentiment, but he would as soon omit the baking of the Christmas cakes as omit the Christmas tree in remembrance of little Fritz. It certainly was a joy and delight to all the children round about, and so great was its fame that many a child begged "to go just once"--if he lived a long way off--and see the Baumgärtner's wonderful Christmas tree. Though it was yet early in the morning the wagons were already returning from the delivery of the breakfast rolls and bread. The air of the store was odorous with appetizing scents, attesting the baker's concocting skill. The shelves were filled with fragrant fresh bread, and there was an extra supply of cakes and buns. Under the glass cases were arranged the most tempting holiday cakes. Particularly attractive was the Lebkuchen,--a highly spiced gingerbread,--which was artistically made into different shapes, some square, others large and round, while again others were in the form of hearts with an ornament of sugar-work around the outside. On many were the words, "Merry Christmas," in tiny red and white candies. The animals made of gingerbread were as numerous as those that went into the Ark. These were done over with a thin white icing, and not a child that entered the bakery could be induced to leave without at least one animal which he selected as his fancy prompted him, while many almost wept because they could not buy all. But perhaps for "grown-ups" the favorite cakes were the hard little Pfeffernüsse. Large wreaths of pine were suspended from the ceiling, and a feeling of homesickness came over many a German customer at the smell of the favorite Lebkuchen and the words, "Fröhliche Weihnachten,"--for Baker Baumgärtner was a shrewd man and wished his customers a merry Christmas in German as well as in English,--and they thought of the joyful times in the Fatherland when the Christ-child had visited the home and had brought them just such simple gifts as these. Baker Baumgärtner was a big, burly man with a loud, gruff voice. He expected prompt obedience from all his employees,--apprentice boys, bakers, and clerks alike,--and this he usually obtained. He was very methodical, attending to every detail of his large business and knowing just what to require from every one under him. "Be fair and honest" was his motto; yet he delighted in "making moneys,"--as he expressed it,--but honestly. His interests in life seemed to be divided between his growing business and his pretty daughter, Katrina. She was the idol of his eye and he could refuse her nothing, though counted close in business matters. It was eight o'clock in the morning and trade was beginning briskly. The telephone orders kept the bell jingling. The clerks and bakers were prepared for a busy day, and had received from Herr Baumgärtner their special instructions in regard to the catering and delivering. Already early customers were beginning to come in. Herr Baumgärtner stood near a table which was in the rear of the store. On this table were displayed thirteen Christmas puddings, set apart in royal aloofness. These the baker intended as presents to some of his best customers. "Ach, dose puddings!" he soliloquized. "Goot, rich, schön! But I get my moneys back again." In other words, he anticipated a large return from a small investment. Baker Baumgärtner knew how to do the handsome thing upon occasion, and was possessed of a generosity which, like Bob Acres' courage, "came and went." Just now it was at full tide. Desirous of presenting his gifts in the best possible manner, he went to his desk, and taking out thirteen gilt-edged cards, he wrote on each: "With the Christmas Greetings of Herr Wilhelm Baumgärtner." He next took from its wrapping a quantity of pink and blue tissue paper with embroidered edges. At this moment Hans Kleinhardt, his head clerk, entered the store. "Hans, come you here once!" cried the baker. "Dot fine puddings vat you see dere are for my thirteen best customers. Vat you tink, Hans,"--showing him the tissue papers, "joost de ting to wrap dot puddings in, nicht wahr? Always in Hirschberg dey say to me, 'Ach, Herr Baumgärtner, Sie haben immer so schönes Papier.'" [Illustration: "'FOR MY THIRTEEN BEST CUSTOMERS'"] "Ja, ja," assented Hans, "it is so fine already." So anxious was our Hans to ingratiate himself and make a good impression,--for Hans was ambitious,--that had Herr Baumgärtner wished them wrapped in circus posters Hans would have said: "Ja, ja, it is so fine already." "Dot pink, Hans, ist ausgezeichnet, dot will we haf, and moreover on each tie you a piece of dat Christmas holly mit de red berries. Hans, see. Here is dat list of mein thirteen best customers. Send you dem dose puddings. Each and efery pudding is joost quite alike. Here are dose cardts mit vich I send dem my Christmas Greetings. You see dot dose puddings get sent dis Christmas eve." Hans put the list and the thirteen cards into his pocket and promised to attend to the order faithfully. "A 'phone call for you, sir," said one of his clerks. Herr Baumgärtner went slowly to the telephone. Nothing ever made the good baker hurry, for haste was not in his make-up. "Hello, vat you vant?" A large order had not been delivered. That was an unpardonable offence in the Baumgärtner establishment. The baker was slow to be aroused, but when once his anger was awakened he was, indeed, a furious man. The wild, fierce Teuton in him got the upper hand. "Donner Wetter!" he cried. "Vat for dat big order not delivered, and vone of mein goot customers dat leaves me much moneys? You tink I hire you for noddings, eh? Joost to trow my moneys away on you?" He stormed and raged at the unlucky clerk through whose carelessness the mistake had occurred. "Himmel!" he yelled. "How come dat you forget? You are one Dummkopf! I haf not served in die German army for noddings, and ven I say 'You delifer dose tings on Monday' I mean on Monday, and not on Tuesday. You hear dat now?" The unhappy clerk acknowledged that he heard, and, fortunately for him, the entrance of a wealthy customer saved him from further wrath. The sincere admiration expressed by the customer for the Christmas decorations and the Christmas confections was appreciated by the baker, and the pleasant words, being supplemented by a large order, restored Herr Baumgärtner to his usual good humor. As he returned to his office he could not refrain from pausing a moment beside the table which held the Christmas puddings. "Ach, dose puddings!" he commented, viewing them with professional pride, "Dey are joost like von picture!" _Second Episode_ WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE MORNING OF THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS Down on the tow-path was a little, weather-beaten shanty that presented a far different setting for the enactments of the coming holiday. Here, for six sad months, the Widow M'Carty had tried to keep the wolf from the door, but work as she might, her efforts would hardly have frightened an able-bodied weasel. It was now some eight months since Michael M'Carty, broad-shouldered, courageous, and loving, had rushed home to his snug cottage one noon-time with the news that he had shipped as assistant engineer on the big, new freighter, the _Go-Between_, which was to leave port that very night. Bridget, his wife, had smiled bravely at him through tears that the prospect of separation called to her eyes, but went thriftily to work to get his clothes in readiness; "Fer," said she, "there'll be no tellin' whin they'll feel a needle again." Michael M'Carty had followed the lakes before, and now with better wages than ever it was no time for "complainin'." Indeed, there never had been any time for "complainin'" in Bridget's cheery, helpful life. Even the maternal cares which had multiplied so rapidly had not robbed her of her girlish buoyancy, and the ninth little M'Carty, at that moment enjoying her father's parting fondling, had been just as welcome as the first, now a proud member of the highest "Grammar Grade," though barely thirteen. Michael M'Carty was ambitious for his children, and even dreamed of sending his cleverest offspring to the New High School which he passed each morning on his way to work. That presumptuous plan never had been whispered to any one save his "darlin' Biddy," and they dreaded the day when it should be made known to Granny M'Carty, whose presence at the family hearthstone supplied all the discipline that could possibly be needed in any fairly moral household. Granny M'Carty's rule was like unto that of the Chinese mother-in-law, and if anything ever had pleased her since her son brought her to his hospitable home, she had betrayed no suspicion of the feeling. On the occasion described Granny swayed to and fro in her chair,--the most comfortable that the house afforded,--and wailed: "Ochone, sorra the day! The banshee was singin' onunder the windy last night, an' ye'll be drownded, sure; or failin' or that ye won't know onny more than to go ashore at Chicagy an' there ye'll be murthered to death with one of them hand-bags, worra, worra!" If the demon of pessimism lurked by the M'Carty fireside in the person of Granny M'Carty, that malign influence was offset by the angel of optimism who brooded over the family circle under the name of Grandad Rafferty. Grandad, whose society was the only dowry that Bridget Rafferty had brought to her husband, now interposed his sweet, quavering tones. "Whist, Granny, don't be undoin' the b'y jist as he's leavin' Biddy an' the childer. The blessid Virgin will fetch him back all right. Good luck to ye, lad. Ye're a fine son to me, an' I'll mind Biddy an' the chicks an' look after them while ye are away." Grandad was right. He certainly would "mind" the children, for their lightest word was law to him. He would "look after" them, and fondly, too, but his feeble limbs never could follow the antics of the merry little brood. With a varied cargo of good wishes and gloomy forebodings, and with Bridget's gold ring on his finger "for luck," Michael steamed away,--sorrowful at leaving his dear ones, but glad that fortune favored his honest efforts for their comfortable support. Never had such a storm swept the lakes in spring-time as buffeted the poor _Go-Between_, yet untried by wind and wave. Unskilful loading interfered with a perfect ballast, and unseamanlike management left her at the mercy of the tempest. "WENT DOWN WITH ALL ON BOARD!" was the head-line that greeted faithful Bridget M'Carty on the morning of that dreadful day a week after Michael had left her, and before she could snatch a paper her heart told her the name of the boat. Though a tireless worker, Bridget had always depended upon Michael for the management of their small affairs, and at first she was bewildered by the responsibility thrust upon her. It took time to recover from the shock of the sad news and to make plans and find work that would put bread into twelve hungry mouths. In that time the little store of savings was expended, for in addition to all the other troubles, Granny M'Carty brooded herself ill, and the doctor's bill had to be paid. It was soon apparent that the snug little home in which Michael had left his family must be abandoned for humbler quarters. Inexperienced in house-hunting and feeling restricted to the lowest possible rent, Mrs. M'Carty fell a prey to an unprincipled landlord, who induced her to take her flock to a ramshackle abode on the tow-path which he described as "quite habitable." The place had not seemed so objectionable while warm weather lasted. The passing canal-boats with their patient motive power afforded unfailing interest to the little M'Cartys by day, and the swish of the displaced waters lulled them to sleep at night. Viewed objectively, the place perhaps was not without attractions. "A real live painter" had once pitched his easel near at hand, causing a little M'Carty to run home breathless with the information that he had called their house "picturesque." When Grandad Rafferty heard this compliment to their domicile, he said,--"Picteresk is it? Well, that is a comfort!" But Granny M'Carty refused to be deceived by empty words; "Picteresk, indade! Let them live on that who can!" Half-covered with snow in the freezing winter weather, the picturesque element of the M'Carty home was lost in desolation, and on this December day even stout-hearted Bridget was obliged to let her feelings partake of the prevailing atmosphere. Salt tears trickled down the poor woman's cheeks and fell into the tub where she was "doin' out" the wash of some street-car conductors not fortunate enough to have womenfolk of their own. "Indeed," said Bridget with doleful humor, "that's all the salt water these poor shirts will be getting to set their color, and oh, dear! I wish they were Michael's." She sank down on an upturned tub and gave way to her bitter grief as she seldom allowed herself to do. "Sure, it's the first Christmas since my name was M'Carty that the tub will be upside down. The childer couldn't always spare a stocking apiece for hanging up, but it was many a bit they found in the tub. My pie, Mike used to be calling it. "And now it's him that is dead, and we've not even a meal in the pantry--no, nor pantry neither, and what'll become of us now?" But Mrs. M'Carty soon realized that even the luxury of time to mourn was denied the poor, and she controlled herself resolutely with the words: "There, ain't ye ashamed of yourself, Biddy M'Carty? As if it were not bad enough to have the trouble in your heart without grieving about it aloud into the bargain. Supposing the children were all dead, and Grandad were blind, and--and Granny were took away, and yourself were in the insane crazy asylum. Then would be time to be wasting in weeping." So, leaving tears for the pastime of lunatics, Bridget bravely furbished up her philosophy and brought it into use. To make up for lost time she applied herself to the shirts with such vigor that the very fabric was in danger of disappearing with the spots of dirt which she attacked. These garments must be ready as soon as possible, for she needed the money to which their cleansing entitled her. She had just sent Katy and Norah out with her last piece of work. It was not lucrative, being the washing for the little lame seamstress who could not afford to pay much, but for whom Mrs. M'Carty, with the generosity of the warm-hearted Irish, continued to work. The family income was somewhat augmented by the willing efforts of Dennis and Terence, and they were now absent in the pursuit of their vocation, the sale of daily newspapers. Mary and Maggie, too young to be of assistance, were quietly dressing up Granny's stick in a bit of tattered shawl and playing that it was a witch, at any moment liable to pounce on Granny and carry her off, the wish, perhaps, being father to the thought. Unobserved, the little girls were making threatening gestures behind the old lady's chair, indicative of her impending fate. Meantime they cast fearful glances toward the owner of the stick, the danger of momentary discovery adding pleasurable excitement to their pastime. Baby Ellen was asleep in her favorite resting-place, Grandad's arms. The two younger boys were making themselves unpopular by toddling back and forth between the living-room and the lean-to, from which latter place came the dull rhythm of Mrs. M'Carty's scrub, scrub, scrub on the wash-board. An outbreak from Granny heralded the interruption of the witch drama, and brought Bridget to the spot. The children were dodging behind Grandad's chair, while Granny poured the vials of her wrath on their offending heads, at the same time indulging in her favorite custom of throwing at them the articles within her reach. Perhaps the one compensation in the paucity of the furnishings of the M'Carty home was the limitation on the vehicles of Granny's wrath. "Och, them spalpeens!" she shouted as her daughter-in-law entered, "bad 'cess to them, rampin' an' rampagin' 'round till me ears is jist burshtin'!" Mrs. M'Carty, feeling that some one ought to be punished, and not thinking it quite filial to belabor her mother-in-law, caught up two or three of her olive branches that were recklessly waving in the air, and imprinted on them a few gentle reminders of maternal solicitude. Howls rent the air, but these were largely for effect, for Bridget had a whole-souled way with her in administering punishment, which left no lasting resentment in the objects of her discipline. Always concerned lest the correction of her grandchildren be lacking in severity, Granny growled: "Sthop yer whillelewin' an' phillelewin'! Ye ought to have a strap, so ye had!" She felt a certain satisfaction in the crisis which she had precipitated, but it did not temper her speech, for as soon as the children were quiet she broke forth. "Begorra, perhaps it's a nice Christmas we'll be havin' with the winter here with its searchin' cold, an' nothin' but this shanty with its two rooms an' lean-to, an' half the furnitoor gone to pay rent, an' put food in the mouths of that greedy raft of childer. An' jist feel my roomatiz!" her voice growing more shrill with excitement, "an' not a whole pane in the windy, but it's many a pain I have in me bones. An' I nade linnyment this minit. An' look at him settin' there," pointing wrathfully at Grandad Rafferty, "an' not makin' anybody trouble!" and she paused as if to contemplate the pleasure that would be afforded her to see Grandad making somebody a great deal of trouble. "An' there's my poor Michael," she went on, "drownded an the wather an' wearin' that nice gold ring on his skellington." "Oh, don't," moaned poor Bridget, putting up her hand as if to ward off the blow of cruel words. But Granny, finding her ravings were making an impression, grew more fluent. "I don't doubt me there was the price of a bottle of linnyment in that ring, an' more, an' ye that extravagant to be makin' him wear it when ye knew he'd be drowned." Bridget and Grandad were at their wit's end, as many a time before, for words with which to soothe the old woman. Though he inwardly resented this abuse of his daughter, Grandad tried as usual to pour oil on the seething waters. "Annyhow, Granny, it's a mercy it was a real gold ring, an' not one of them chape things to be gettin' all rusty in the wather." Granny flew into a more violent rage. "An' are ye insinooatin', Misther Rafferty, that my son would ever wear an old brass ring? I'd have ye know that real gold is none too good for the poor, dear b'y to be drownded in. An' I wish ye'd stop yer talkin', ye blatherin' omadhaun," she snapped out, and then relapsed into sullen silence, setting her empty pipe upside down in her mouth, a veritable picture of despair. [Illustration: "GRANDAD WAS SPEECHLESS"] But Granny's silence, even, could make itself felt. Grandad was speechless. Dear old Grandad! The sun of his cheerfulness had suffered no eclipse from the clouds of adversity that enveloped the M'Carty family. His "Marnin', honey!" and "Avenin', shure!" sounded as pleasantly as ever. When he had bread he ate it thankfully, and when there was none he said that his "sthomick had a sort of full feelin' of itsilf." [Illustration: "'AN' ARE YE INSINOOATIN', MISTHER RAFFERTY'"] He was a constant comfort to his daughter, but the sweetness of his spirit was gall and wormwood to Granny. If there is one thing more exasperating than another to a caustic temperament, it is the constant companionship of a bland and optimistic disposition. In Granny's case the necessity of maintaining both sides of a quarrel kept her tongue sharpened to a piercing point. After a moment's quiet, Mrs. M'Carty slipped the pipe out of Granny's mouth and returned it to her filled. It was accepted, though thanklessly. With a smile and an understanding nod to her father, Bridget returned to her tubs. She finished her washing and put things to rights. Then she drew from a box where she kept a few things from Granny's prying eyes, her sorry Christmas presents,--some pictures cut from an illustrated paper and pasted on squares of cardboard. "The poor darlings," she said. "I can't even be buying them trifling presents. I must be saving every penny, for the first of the month is coming, and the agent, bad 'cess to him, will be here to lift the rent. An' these poor picters is all I've got for Christmas for the biggest ones, and nothing at all for the next size, and the same for the middlest size and the littlest ones, and never a thing for the baby. I most wish I'd let little Patsy keep the ball he stole from the Wilkeson boy." The strain of the recent encounter had told on Mrs. M'Carty's usually steady nerves, and her inability to contribute to her children's holiday enjoyment filled her with sudden resentment. "I suppose them Barneys up on Fifth Street will every one of them be strutting and ballyragging 'round with gewgaws, and fixings, and such like things. Faith, they'll need them to be making themselves look decent, so they will. Truth, every single one of them Barneys has more freckles than I could find on my whole nine together, if I searched with a candle. And why can't they be having what they're after wanting! Anybody can buy that has money." Bridget laid the pictures back in the box. "You can stay there," she said, closing the cover. "It will never do to be giving something to one and nothing to the rest of them. Bedad, I'd like to put my eye on a dollar once. It's always to be watching a cent that makes a body short-sighted." _Third Episode_ HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT TEN O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS It was Herr Baumgärtner's habit to open his mouth almost as prudently as his purse, but when at ten o'clock one of his clerks returned without the amount of the bill he had been sent out to collect, the baker lost patience. "You cannot get dat moneys! Haf you said how I must pay my insurance, and all der clerks in dis big store, and all der extras for Christmas? How will I pay for dem if my moneys comes not back again? Haf you said how I must haf it?" The clerk explained that he had told Mr. Weiss, the debtor, all this and that he had said he would pay, without fail, the first of the next month. "Next mont'!" cried the indignant baker. "He haf told me dat same t'ing six times already! First he write he will send it next mont'; den he say, 'Soon as my interest is due I will pay;' next times, 'My wife she is sick and you must wait yet a little while.' Go tell him I vill haf dat moneys dis day!" The clerk departed as he was bidden. The baker shook his head angrily. "Ach, dose peoples! I haf no patience mit dem. In Germany Fritz Weiss was dat honest and goot. It is all along of his wife. She must haf one fine house, and dere girls such clot'es,--like one Baronin,--vich is bad for dem, and for my Katrina too, ven she know of it. Bewahre, dat my Katrina should so dress. Yet I haf die means and Fritz he haf not. So foolish a wife he haf. Gott sei Dank! My blessed wife war nicht so. She had always so much goot sense, and dose girls are not like my Katrina. Nein, I haf not seen one Mädchen like mein Katrina, immer sehr schön und gut." At this moment Herr Baumgärtner looked out of his office and saw his Katrina entering the store. "Ach, dere is mein Katrina. She makes me always glad ven I see her," he mused, watching her with loving eyes as she came through the store. Katrina was a picture to delight other eyes than those of her father. A mass of wavy, flaxen hair framed a face of rare tints of pink and pearl. Beautiful blue eyes she had, eyes that could be trustful or merry under their long lashes, while the sweet, smiling mouth with its full-arched upper lip was not the least of Katrina's charms. When one looked at her it was like beholding the vision of some bewitching, Saxon princess. Herr Baumgärtner was not burdened with a large family, for he had only this one daughter, so it would seem that Katrina Baumgärtner might have advantages denied many of her companions. She had rather unusual advantages, for while her girl friends were learning to paint uncertain flowers, and to entertain with equally dubious musical accomplishments, Katrina's father had insisted that his daughter must learn the art of the housewife. As Katrina passed through the store she had a word or a nod of recognition for each busy clerk, and for the customers whom she knew. She stopped to leave a small package with Max Schaub for his little lame August; and when George Reigel's sick Freda opened her box on Christmas morning she was to find a doll that Miss Katrina's artful fingers had dressed. When Katrina's mother was alive she had taught her child, through years of precept and example, an uncommon interpretation of the holiday giving,--that the family and friends were not to be thought of until many a Christmas surprise had been planned for the needy and unexpectant. The baker himself came in for a share of the waves of gratitude that swept toward his home at each holiday season, though this tide of good feeling was largely due to his thoughtful daughter. [Illustration: "AS KATRINA PASSED THROUGH THE STORE"] Katrina felt the blessedness of giving, but just now she had other joys, as well, to keep her heart aglow. She was at the age when most girls have considerable liberty in their personal affairs, but this was not the case with Katrina. Herr Baumgärtner settled the questions of his household with the same attention and decision that he gave to his business. Consequently his daughter was a frequent visitor at her father's store, where she came to consult him on the trivial as well as upon the most important questions pertaining to their domestic concerns. When she presented herself before Herr Baumgärtner's desk on this morning before Christmas, he greeted her with his usual question on such occasions: "Was willst du, Katrinchen?" "Something nice this time, Vater. The big snow-storm has come just in time for Christmas, you know, and I am invited to a sleigh-ride party to-night. I may go, may I not?" [Illustration: "'I MAY GO, MAY I NOT?'"] "A sleigh-ride den?" and he smiled and said, "Only once is one young!--But who asked you to go on dat sleigh-ride?" "Johann Hermann asked me this morning," replied Katrina, blushing a little, "but I told him I must first ask you." "Ach, so! Vat for a man is der Johann dat of a morning he comes to ask you, Tochterchen? Vat does he?" "He keeps books, Father, and he stopped on his way to his work. He came just after you had gone this morning, and he will come at noon to see if I may go." "Is he son of dat Herr Frederick Hermann dat knows not so much to stick to one job steady?" "Oh, no, Father, he is not like that," protested Katrina, earnestly. "He told me this morning that he meant to work hard while he was young so that he might earn money enough to be able to rest when he is old. He said he knew a man who had made a bank account that way, and he meant to do it too." "Nun, gut,--dat man he means might be me, Katrina," said Herr Baumgärtner, with a little glance of pride at his inner man. "He did not say it was you, Vater, but he is a good young man and I know you will like him. And I may go?" Herr Baumgärtner found it very hard to refuse Katrina anything, and when he felt obliged to do so he consoled himself with the reflection: "It causes me sorrow not to give her everyt'ings, but it is better for her." However, he felt that this was not the time for the discipline of self-denial, so he gave his consent. "Ja wohl, to-night kannst du, Katrinchen." "Oh, thank you, thank you, Father," and she gave his arm an affectionate squeeze as together they passed out of the office. "Doesn't the store look fine, and how good everything smells," said Katrina, delighting in the spicy odors. But Katrina was in a mood to be delighted with anything. "So much thoughts, so great work, das ist," replied her father, looking at the exemplification of the law of supply and demand going on steadily before them, and added, "but die trade goes well dis year." "That is good, and when all is sold to-night that will be sold before the Christmas you will not forget the cakes and goodies for my poor little ones for to-morrow, will you? I have some of my Christmas money saved to pay for them, but I must have a great many for my money, five times as much as I could get with it anywhere else, or I will not buy here any more, Herr Papa," said Katrina roguishly. "Ach, Katrina, vy t'row so goot stuff away on dose children? Dey know not der value. I tell you it is joost one big waste." Katrina was too wise to argue with her father even if he would have permitted, and she knew that she would get her cakes in spite of his grumbling. Turning she saw the table with its array of Christmas puddings. "Oh, what beautiful puddings!" she exclaimed. "Would they not make such a handsome window with a bit of Christmas holly on each of them?" "Ja, so dose puddings would make one splendit window, Liebchen," said the baker. "So much eggs, und raisins, und currants, und spices, und wine dey took, und six hours to cook each one. But dey will keep a year." "And are they all sold?" asked Katrina. "Nein, nein, Katrina, we sell not one of dose puddings." "Not sell them, Father! Are you going to give them away?" "Katrina, Katrina, you remember not anyt'ings to-day. At home haf I not said how I send out one puddings each to mein best customers, and on die card my compliments?" and Herr Baumgärtner straightened himself proudly. "Oh, that is so. I had forgotten," said Katrina. "But if I were going to give them away I would not send them to rich people who have money to buy them. I would send them to poor people who never have such treats." "Katrina, you know not business. You t'ink der fisherman he put dat worm on dat hook to feed der fish, eh? Den how come all dose fish at night in his basket?" Katrina never let any differences with her father stare her out of countenance, so as he turned toward his office she followed him. "I nearly forgot one thing I wanted, Father. May I have a cake to send to the Widow M'Carty? She is the woman who washes for us sometimes, you know." "Lieber Himmel! Vy should I send to the Widow M'Carty one cake? Nein, Katrina. Should I gif everyt'ing away? Vat mit der baskets for dose orphan asylums yet, I am like one big Santa Clauses already." "But Mrs. M'Carty has nine little children, Vater--" "Maype she has, I care not. I feed not so many people's nine children." "Oh, Father, this will be such a sad Christmas for the poor woman. It is not a year, yet, since her husband was drowned. And think of those nine little M'Cartys with no dear, kind, handsome papa like mine,"--Herr Baumgärtner's features relaxed a little,--"and you've often told me when Grossvater Baumgärtner went to Hirschberg with you and the little Hans that died, how that kind man--" "Dere, dere, Katrina," broke in Herr Baumgärtner in an unsteady voice. "Take dot cake, and I hope it will not choke dose M'Cartys mit der strangeness of eating anyt'ing so goot." _Fourth Episode_ WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE SIX O'CLOCK ON CHRISTMAS EVE Despite the many mechanical operations performed upon the family clock by the little M'Cartys, it ticked away the minutes, and the hours, and the days faithfully. Even on this special Christmas Eve when the fortunes of its owners seemed at their very lowest ebb, it did not so much as moderate its voice or slacken its movements. When the hour arrived that its long hand should point straight upward and its short hand straight downward, the bells of the city began to ring, and the whistles of the city began to blow, announcing, with much clamor and discordance, that another day of labor was ended. At the shriek of the first whistle Grandad Rafferty, who sat by the fire with baby Ellen on his knee, looked up at the clock and nodded to it approvingly. "Arrah now, ye little leprechaune that works while the rest do be shlapin', ye're tellin' the truth same as ever, for it's time for them that's workin' to be sthoppin'. I mind when I was young an' sphry how glad I was to lave me workin' an' run home to me swate Maggie, God rest her soul! And when she see me comin' over the hill, she'd be steppin' down the lane to mate me. And afther supper I'd smoke me dudheen whilst Maggie redded up the cabin and then--" "True for ye," broke in Granny M'Carty from her seat on the opposite side of the fire. She could not abide Grandad Rafferty's reminiscences, for they recalled to her the happy days in the old country,--the place to which her heart turned ever with longing, though she never expected to put foot again on its green turf. "It's ye that would sit and smoke an' yer Maggie workin' her legs off slavin' for yez. Och, it's the men have the aisy time in this life, but it's them same, I'm thinkin', that will pay for it by a longer sthop in purgatory, and I hope they will, so I do." "Indade, now, Mrs. M'Carty," began Grandad Rafferty, soothingly, "sure, the men have--" "Indade, then, they have not!" contradicted Granny. "Look at them men that's goin' home this minit,"--waving her hand as if toward a procession of laborers passing before her. "What have they to do? In the mornin' they're off with a fine lunch in their pails, an' never a bed to make, or a floor to swape, or a childer to clane, or a male to be cookin'. It's the womin must sthay at home and mind all that. And when they're home at night they'll eat their supper an' likely grumble at it, then sit at their ease an' smoke. Troth, if I had the word--" "Musha, musha, Mrs. M'Carty!" said Grandad. "Ye're clane forgettin' the men work hard all day, that the womin may sthay safe at home with their jewels of childers." "Jewels of childers, indade!" exclaimed Granny, her attention turned to a new grievance. "Them kind of jewels poor folks could do well withoot." "Listen to that now, Ellen, me jewel," said Grandad Rafferty, addressing himself to the baby on his knee. "Listen, but don't ye belave a worrd ye're hearin'. Yer Granny would not part with yez for long money. Would ye, Mrs. M'Carty? An' is she not ev'ry bit as fine a child as yer Michael when he wor a baby?" "Me Michael--may the Hivens be his bed--had the sense to be born a b'y, an' there was but two of him, an' here's yer grandchilder springin' up like blades of the grass for number. Oh, Michael, Michael," wailed Granny, "if ye could only see yer old mither now, 'tis not aisy ye'd rest in yer grave if ye had a grave, which ye haven't, worse luck. Here I be, with never a dacent bit or sup, me that in the old counthry had bacon with me praties an' a fine shawl fer Sunday," and at this point Granny began to weep. "Whist now, whist, Granny!" cried Mrs. M'Carty, coming in from the lean-to where she had been to bestow the insignia of her office, her board and tubs. "Don't be grieving with yerself. I'll make the supper an' ye'll feel better when ye have something warm in yer stomick. It's not much we have, but when Dinny and Terence grow a bit more--" "Grow is it?" exclaimed Granny, finding in Bridget's words another source of wrath. "Ye'd betther be prayin' the saints to kape thim from growin'. Their clothes is far too small fer their size this minit." "Now Granny, it's yerself knows me prayers won't keep them boys from growing, but it's hoping I am that the clothes will come with their bigness." "That's like yer foolishness, Bridget M'Carty," retorted Granny. "It's ye that is always expectin' somethin' betther the morrow. It's the worst ye should be lookin' for, so it is, for it's that ye'll be afther gettin', more like." "Now Granny," replied Mrs. M'Carty, "it's never a minit I'll be wasting getting ready for troubles, for when troubles come they're a different sort entirely than them you do be ready for." At this moment the door, true to its habit of flying open at any and all times, swung briskly on its hinges, and admitted Denny and Terence returned from their sale of evening papers. Terence carried a small package while Denny waved aloft a branch of evergreen which he had rescued from the street. "Look every one of you and see what Terence is after bringing," cried Denny. "Ye've left the door open on me poor old bones," complained Granny. Five little M'Cartys sprang to shut the door. "It's samples I have--enough for the whole of us," said Terence, proudly displaying the contents of his bundle. "And it's a bit of milk you put with it and it's cooked. I seen them on the counter when I ran in a grocery to warm my fingers. 'Take one,' the card said, and I asked the clerk an' he says, 'Take two, you'll be a good advertisement for it.'" "Wheat Krakle, it is," said Denny, taking up one of the samples and reading the label. "Better than meat, and more n-o-u nur, r-i ri, s-h-i-n-g shing, nourishing, whatever that may be. And I says to Terence, 'what's two of them with twelve of us?' and says I, 'let's ask 'round and get one apiece,' and here you have them." Granny who, before the opening of the package, had hoped it might contain a "bit o' bacon, or a dhrawin' o' tay," of which luxuries she had been deprived for some time, leaned back in her chair with a groan. "Och hone, it's just one more of them new aitin's to sphile my stomick," she said. "May the devil fly away with them that makes them. Sure along with them haythinish sthuffs I've ate since poor Michael died on us, me insides feel like Brian O'Connell's oatfield in the old counthry, an' that same was half-bog an' half-bushes, bad scran to it!" "Now then, Mrs. M'Carty," said Grandad Rafferty, as usual finding some good in everything, "have ye no thought how ye're savin' yer teeth with these new aitin's that shlip down so aisy ye're not to the throuble of chewin' them?" But Granny was not to be mollified, and she refused to sit down with either of the relays of the family which gathered at the tiny table and partook of the food that was "Better than meat and far more nourishing." Supper being over and the dishes hastily washed by Katy, the four elder M'Cartys were allowed to set forth for an evening walk to admire the festive preparations for the morrow's holiday,--a holiday in the pleasures of which they had no hope of sharing. Four more M'Cartys were despatched to their humble couches, two of them, owing to Granny's faultfinding, having been spanked vigorously before being turned over to the arms of Morpheus. After all, perhaps the latter pair were the ones to be envied, as the heat thus engendered made the scantiness of the bedding less apparent. Granny M'Carty in the easiest chair and Grandad Rafferty in the next easiest, sat in silence on either side of the little stove that did double duty as heater and cooker. Presently they both fell nodding, and in their dreams wandered away to the green fields of Erin, living over again in their visions the days of their vanished youth. [Illustration: "TO ADMIRE THE FESTIVE PREPARATIONS"] Now that there was no immediate need for action, Mrs. M'Carty gathered the little Ellen in her arms and sank down on a stool behind the stove. And as she sat there Memory came and stood by her and pointed back to other and happier Christmas Eves when she and Michael had made many a plan to delight the hearts of their numerous brood. The plans were simple enough, to be sure, but the children were too healthily happy to be critical. She recalled the rare Christmas Day when turkey had graced their board, and Michael, in Sunday attire, had sat at the head of the table and labored manfully with the unfamiliar joints of the holiday bird. [Illustration: "AND AS SHE SAT THERE MEMORY CAME AND STOOD BY HER"] "And now," her thought coming back to the present, "I've nothing for them children, barring the matter of a stick of candy that's hardly worth the mentioning, and for the Christmas eatings I've nought but a handful of apples the grocer gave Katy the morning, and a few potatoes, scarce enough for two apiece. And winter that long and dreary, and just my two hands to earn the bread to keep the souls in the whole of us. Oh, worra, worra, whatever shall I do without my Michael?" and Bridget, feeling herself practically alone, for Grandad and Granny still slumbered peacefully, gave vent to her feelings in a heavy sigh. The sound, however, was loud enough to rouse Grandad, who, in his assumed office of comforter-in-general to the M'Carty family, was ever on the alert to perform his duties. He leaned forward and looked anxiously into Bridget's face. "Biddy, darling," he cried, "sure ye're not grievin' on the blessid Christmas Eve? It's hard for yez with Michael dead an' gone, but grievin' won't bring him back. Think of them that ye have left,--them fine childers, an' Granny there. An' ye've me, but the saints know ye're betther off withoot me, that am just a care to yez and that lame I can't even lift a finger to help yez." "Now Grandad," cried Bridget, "it's I that am ashamed of you, I am, you that are a comfort, every minit, and no care to be speaking about. And I wasn't forgetting the children, either. They do be plenty of care, so they do, but they give a body a deal of comfort, and not a finger of them could I spare. And Granny there, sure she does be a bit cross now and then along with her rheumatism, but it keeps a body from thinking of worse things when she do be telling the faults of us. And when she's sleeping so sweet-like as she do be now, she's never a bit of care or worry. No, Daddy, it was of my hard work I was thinking, and wondering how I'd get enough to keep us alive this freezing winter." "Troth, now listen, Biddy!" said Grandad, ready with his word of cheer. "I was just afther dreamin' of a red hen, an' whenever I dream of a red hen, it's good news I'm soon hearin'." Granny awoke just in time to hear the last sentence. "Is it a hen ye dreamed ye were?" she queried. "It's because of eatin' that stuff that's not good for the hens, that gave yez them bad dreams." Then another phase of the cereal question presenting itself she turned to Mrs. M'Carty. "Bridget M'Carty, is it them same hen aitin's ye're givin' us for our dinner the morrow? Tell me that now?" So unexpectedly questioned as to her resources for the morrow's provisions, Bridget was startled into the admission that there was nothing in store save a few potatoes and the gift of apples; and the apples, like most gifts to the poor, could not be inspected too closely. "And it's all from my never getting pay for my washing. Not a penny did they give Katy, and me telling her to wait. Whatever they do be thinking a poor woman is washing their clothes for I do'no. To keep her hands red and sore, and her back just breaking with the bending over the tub, belike. I was to be getting two dollars, and now they'll be waiting till after Christmas to pay, and it's us will be waiting till after Christmas to eat. Sure it's just nothing we have to expect for our Christmas dinner, bedad." "Well, there now, honey," said Grandad Rafferty, undismayed at the prospect of a dinnerless day. "We'll never mind all that, for them that's expectin' nothin' will never have disappointment to be mournin'." Granny M'Carty, on hearing Bridget's recital broke forth into genuine Irish lamentations such as she had not indulged in since the news of Michael's untimely death, her wailings interspersed with the most direful prophecies of what was in store for the family. _Fifth Episode_ HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT SEVEN-THIRTY ON CHRISTMAS EVE It had been a very busy day in the Baumgärtner bakery, and now as the old Dutch clock on the wall struck seven, the clerks were flying hither and thither, wrapping up packages and plumping them into baskets, trying to get everything on their last loads, and at the same time to give polite service to the many customers coming and going. The Christmas puddings had not yet been delivered, but reposed in all their fruity richness on the white-covered table in the rear of the store, and exhaled such delicious odors that the whole air was permeated with what seemed the very essence of Christmas. The door opened, and this time Katrina Baumgärtner entered. In spite of the rush of business all the clerks stopped long enough to look at Miss Katrina, who had a smile and a "Merry Christmas!" for each. They felt very kindly toward the bright girl who took such an interest in their families; who remembered to ask after Mrs. Reiman's asthma, and Grandfather Potter's rheumatism, and who often sent delicacies to their invalids. "I forgot all about the cake for the Widow M'Carty's children," she explained, "so I came early to get it. I will mark it, and you won't forget to see that it is delivered, will you?" she asked, beaming on all the clerks at once. Every clerk declared that Mrs. M'Carty should have her Christmas cake if it had to be taken to her in person. "Katrina, stay here one leetle while and help your Vater," said the baker as Katrina stopped before his desk, where he was busy making entries in a large ledger. "You vos joost in time. Dere is dose puddings. Wrap dem in dose papers and set dem on dot table by der door oudt. Hans Kleinhardt comes soon mit der cards. Den he takes dose puddings and sends dem away." "Oh, father," cried Katrina in dismay, "I haven't time. I just came down to get the cake for the Widow M'Carty's children, and the sleigh-ride party will call for me here in a few minutes. Couldn't one of the clerks do it?" "Nein, nein, Katrina, dose clerks have too much business already. If you vants dot cake for dose M'Cartys, den you wrop up dose puddings right away queek. No vork, no play, mein Katrina." Katrina slipped off her cloak and went to work. The first pudding had been wrapped up when the sound of bells was heard mingled with the shouts of happy voices. She hastened to the door, but found it was not her sleigh-ride party after all, and was returning to her task when she remembered the cake for the Widow. Selecting a round loaf with nuts and candied fruits dotted over the frosted surface, she took it back with her to the table, did it up, and set it on the shelf behind her. Taking a card, she wrote: "To Mrs. Michael M'Carty with a Merry Christmas from Katrina Baumgärtner," and was about to place it on the cake when another jingle of bells was heard. Catching up the pudding, she hurried again to the front of the store, set the pudding on the table, and, unwittingly, dropped beside it the card bearing the Widow M'Carty's name. She opened the door, but the sleigh with its merry load passed on, and Katrina returned to her enforced labors. Max Schaub was collecting the last parcels for his load when he chanced to see the package on the table. He picked up the card and read,--"Mrs. Michael M'Carty." "Bless her sweet eyes,"--meaning Katrina, not the widow,--"'Tis I will see that this cake gets to the Widow M'Carty's children. Does she not ask after the leg of my lame August as if it were her very own,"--meaning Katrina, not the widow,--"and in my coat pocket have I not the singing-box she has sent him for Christmas,--and she with nine small kinder, too?"--meaning the widow, not Katrina. Thus soliloquizing, he marked a basket in which he deposited the pudding, and gave it to his driver, telling him to leave it at the widow's on the way back to the store. [Illustration: "HE PICKED UP THE CARD AND READ"] Katrina tied up the second pudding and placed it on the table from which the first had been removed just as Clerk Reiman entered the door. Remembering Katrina's request, he went to the table, and reading the card, concluded that the package beside it contained the cake destined to make happy the nine small children of the Widow M'Carty. He put it in a basket, marked it for the widow, and gave it to his special driver, who was just starting off with his load. Katrina's mind was on the anticipated joys of the evening, and she performed her task mechanically, thinking all the time of Johann and longing for the arrival of the sleighing party. Ten more puddings were enveloped in their wrappings of lace-edged tissue paper; ten more puddings were deposited, one by one, on the table in the front of the store; ten more clerks, seeing the card beside a package,--for each in his hurry forgot to drop the card in his basket,--consigned a pudding to the care of his own driver, charging him to deliver it, without fail, to the Widow M'Carty with a "Merry Christmas from Katrina Baumgärtner." Katrina had wrapped up the last pudding, when the sound of a horn, a chorus of voices, and the music of sleigh-bells caused her to run to the door once more. She opened it to come face to face with the gallant Johann. Joyfully donning her wraps, she hastened away to join the sleighing party, leaving the thirteenth pudding to its fate. A few moments later the baker came out of his office, and seeing the puddings gone, nodded his head with satisfaction and said: "Dot Hans was one goot man. Him I haf nefer to vatch. He does joost vot I tells him, effery time already." * * * * * But where was the faithful Hans Kleinhardt who was personally responsible for the safe delivery of those thirteen puddings? His supper finished, Hans was hastening back to the store with the important cards in his pocket. A shout, a scurrying to avoid a runaway horse, a hurt man, a crowd, an ambulance,--and Hans Kleinhardt, unconscious of all around him, was on his way to the City Hospital. [Illustration: "WAS ON HIS WAY TO THE CITY HOSPITAL"] An hour later a surgeon, with an air of satisfaction, said to a quiet little nurse: "A beautiful fracture,--compound,--man in good condition,--will recover nicely,--but don't let him talk for twenty-four hours." And in that man's pocket lay thirteen cards, and _they_ never said a word. _Sixth Episode_ WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE EIGHT O'CLOCK CHRISTMAS EVE Every ill known or imagined by the pessimistic Granny had been voiced in graphic predictions, but at last even her vocabulary of grumblings was exhausted, and she hobbled off to her pallet,--the thump, thump, thump of her cane beating a resentful retreat. Grandad still sat in his corner, and Bridget left her uncomfortable seat and dropped into Granny's vacant chair. "Sure, it ain't much like Christmas Eve I'm thinkin'," she said, glancing at Grandad. "There's the difference in the look of things since Mike, me darling, is gone--him that always went into town, when he stayed home the day before Christmas, to buy presents for me an' the childer. I remimber, yes, I do, 'cause I aint forgot it yet, the elligant bonnit he bought me wanst. What with feathers standing this way an' that, I was the fine lady of all Fifth Street." "Ye wor that," answered Grandad, looking up with a twinkle in his kind gray eyes. "Ye wor that, Bridget, me girl, an' ye're the same this day, fithers or no fithers." "It's the feathers makes the bird, Daddy," sighed Bridget, but his pleasant word softened the despairing look on her care-worn face. "Fithers makes the birds, did ye say, Bridget?" continued Grandad. "What kind of rasonin' is that, sure? Nivir a fither have I seen that was not projuced by wan bird or anither. An' what difference does it make what kind of fithers a bird has whin he's picked, tell me that? For me taste, a bird is betther withoot fithers at all, at all." "Ah, well," said Bridget, "it's you that have the cheery word, Grandad, and it's good to hear, but to-night I'm that beat out I couldn't throw a stick at Dooley if he came to the door this minit." Mrs. M'Carty looked about the room, so scant with furniture and so cheerless. [Illustration: "'A MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM KATRINA BAUMGÄRTNER!'"] "It's no use trying--" she began, but at that moment a knock that fairly rattled the whole shanty called her to the door. It also woke up Granny M'Carty, who thrust her head from the bedclothes and peered into the kitchen. "'Tis a mistake," she growled as a round package was handed to her daughter, and a strange voice said: "A Merry Christmas from Katrina Baumgärtner!" "'Tis a mistake, I say," she continued, as the delivery boy disappeared in the darkness, and Mrs. M'Carty, with hands trembling from excitement, carried the mysterious package to the lean-to. "Indeed, then, and it's no mistake," she whispered to herself as she opened the package and disclosed to view a beautiful Christmas pudding. "It's Miss Katrina, the darling, that's remembered us this night. One, two, three," she counted, as in imagination she divided the gift among the little M'Cartys. "Four, five, six,--sure, I must be more sparing of my pieces,--but bless the sweet Ellen, she can't eat any, and I'm not needing any myself,--but Grandad, and Granny, they must have a bit;--seven, eight, nine,--it's a trifle small, to be sure, but enough for a taste for the darlings. If Granny hadn't heard the boy, what a fine surprise I'd have for her; but she'll be wanting to know what the likes of me is getting for Christmas. She's that curious, she sleeps with her other eye open just to be seeing what she can hear. But I'll be letting her think it was a mistake, so I will." Bang! whack! bang! another thundering noise shook the rickety door. "I told you it was a mistake," screamed Granny. "He's come to take it away from yez." [Illustration: "SHE PLACED BOTH PUDDINGS IN HER APRON"] Mrs. M'Carty's heart sank. The gift evidently was a mistake. Concealing the pudding, divested of its wrappings, under her apron, she hastened to the door, to be handed another package with the same Christmas greeting from Miss Katrina Baumgärtner. Quick-witted and anxious to deceive the keen eyes and ears of old Granny, she placed both puddings in her apron, and with an audible sigh and lament that "poor folks couldn't have even the things that was give to them," she returned with renewed pleasure to her problem in division. "Sure," said she, "I must begin my count all over. It's Miss Katrina, bless her sweet eyes, knew one pudding for eleven of us would be just a bite. Now it's two puddings for eleven of us. I wish I had a yardstick and a 'rithmetic to measure them, so I do. "It's Christmas Eve after all," she continued, regarding with pleasure the two plump puddings, but the sound of approaching footsteps caused her to start again in fear that it might be as Granny had prophesied, all a mistake. She slipped quietly to the door and reached it in time to avert the knock which might have aroused Granny from her dozing. "A Merry Christmas from Katrina Baumgärtner," shouted a jolly boy as he placed a package in Mrs. M'Carty's hands. There was no mistaking this greeting, nor the contents of the parcel. "How many be she a-sending?" she whispered cautiously, and added by way of explanation, "The darlings is asleep, and I wouldn't want them to be knowing what a fine Christmas is coming for them." "Vell, vell, ain'dt one enough?" laughed the boy as he disappeared puddingless, leaving the bewildered Mrs. M'Carty in possession of the third treasure. "Now Grandad is nodding, and it's meself that's thinking there's no telling how many more Santa Clauses is coming to the M'Carty roof this night. I'll just take the light into the lean-to, and busy myself with a few pieces to fold down for my ironing; and if any more presents do be coming, they'll be taking them to the other door. Then Granny won't be hearing what's going on at all, at all." The removal of the light proved a wise precaution, though done in innocence of the avalanche of puddings which was fatefully descending upon the M'Carty household. Greater and greater was the surprise of the widow as pudding after pudding, and pudding after pudding was handed in, until twelve goodly brown concoctions graced her impromptu table,--a long white ironing-board. "Sure, I'm that excited, I'm fit to tie up," laughed Mrs. M'Carty, as she viewed the bounty of the unsuspecting Katrina. "Twelve puddings for twelve of us, even one for little Ellen. It ain't such a sum as I minded. Blessings on Miss Katrina,--may the saints have her in their keeping,--we've a pudding apiece this Christmas. It's thankful I am, and I'm not complaining, but I could' a' wished she'd tried a little variety. Bedad, if there wasn't so many of them, they'd seem to be more, so they would." _Seventh Episode_ HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT TEN O'CLOCK ON CHRISTMAS EVE It was ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, and had it not been for the holiday decorations, Baker Baumgärtner's establishment would have presented a somewhat forlorn appearance. The shelves, which earlier in the day were filled with bread, cakes, and confections of all kinds, were now almost bereft of their store, and the whole aspect of the place was disorderly and confused. Boxes and baskets, papers and strings cluttered every available corner. The clerks and drivers, congratulating themselves that they were finishing so early in the evening, had just begun the task of clearing up, when the baker entered the store. "Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed, on seeing the untidy interior. "Vat a looking place is dis! Oh, vell, I tink I can stand it ven it fills my pockets mit moneys." He stepped behind the brass screen that kept possible intruders at a respectful distance from the money-drawer. Opening it, he found that the contents of the drawer had grown very perceptibly during his absence, and he surveyed his gains with a feeling of deep self-gratulation. The Widow M'Carty's cake and the thirteen puddings must have been bread cast upon the waters that day, and so rich was the quality it had returned at once, many fold. "Der Widow M'Carty's cake, and der orphans' t'ings were nodings," he soliloquized. "But dose puddings! Dere was gut rich stuff in dose, but I got plenty moneys, I can spare dose puddings to my customers ven I gets dem back sometime all right." Looking through his change window, he saw his clerks, who evidently had made their employer's interests their own, busily rearranging everything before going home, and transforming the chaotic condition of the store into one of order. The fact of their fidelity was very manifest, and may have reminded him of all the pleasures of Christmas Eve which they had forfeited in consequence of his extra holiday trade. According to his custom, he must bestow on each a Christmas remembrance, but it was not in the spirit of a cheerful giver that he contemplated the act. "Himmel!" he said under his breath. "Twelve clerks and twelve drivers, and Hans Kleinhardt, my head man, besides all dose bakers. It makes me poor ven I am joost rich," and he sighed regretfully at the thought. The widow's cake and the thirteen puddings, although his voluntary gift, had not been spared without a wrench, and now to be confronted with the necessity of adding to them was too much for human nature,--or at least for Baumgärtner nature. He turned as if addressing some one over his shoulder,--probably his good angel, whose winged company is especially active on Christmas Eve,--and muttered reproachfully, "You expect me to be one Santa Claus again?" However, he knew that he could not escape his kind intent, and being withal a just man, yielded with a sigh. From the money-drawer he took a crisp five-dollar bill, laid it on the desk before him, and regarded it thoughtfully. The longer he looked at it the harder it seemed to part with twenty-four of them, and with an emphatic shake of the head he thrust it back again. He next selected a bright silver dollar, but, true to his better nature, he acknowledged its insufficiency, and swept it after the five-dollar bill. His third move was a compromise. He took twenty-four two-dollar bills, looked at them for a moment regretfully, then gathered them in his hand and walked toward where the clerks were just finishing and locking up for the night. [Illustration: "'GOTT IN HIMMEL! DONNER UND BLITZEN!'"] As he passed through the store, he glanced here and there with the keen eye of the master, stopping suddenly as he espied a package which looked suspiciously like a Christmas pudding. A sniff and a touch was enough to satisfy this expert. Down, down deep in his pocket went the precious bills, while the air reverberated with German expletives. "Gott in Himmel! Donner und Blitzen!" he thundered in tones that had not been heard in that store since the baker had discovered salt instead of sugar on a large batch of cinnamon kuchen. The alarmed clerks stared at the baker in consternation. Two or three of the new ones retreated to the door, but the braver hurried to their irate employer, who stood glowering like a thunder-cloud and pointing to a certain round object reposing innocently on a table. "Der Teufel! Was meint das? Das geht nicht," shrieked the baker, who was apt, under excitement, to fall into his native tongue. "Who has not his pudding got? Wo ist dat Hans Kleinhardt?" The head clerk could not be found, and as none of the other clerks knew aught of the Christmas pudding scheme, the direst misunderstanding ensued. In the midst of the excitement the front door opened and Katrina rushed in, her cheeks aglow and her enthusiasm beautiful to behold were there no puddings in the case. "Oh, Father, I ran in--" she began, then stopped suddenly. A glance at her father told her that some dreadful thing had happened to disturb the peaceful serenity that usually pervaded Herr Baumgärtner's establishment. The baker turned to her. "Vat did you do mit dose Christmas puddings, already?" "Why, Father," answered Katrina, "I wrapped them up and put them on the table by the door, just as you told me to, before I went to the sleigh-ride. They must be here somewhere." A vigorous search for the puddings ensued, but it was a fruitless quest. After a little, when the baker had calmed down somewhat, Katrina ventured to tell her errand. "I came in to see if the Widow M'Carty's cake had been sent to her, and if it hasn't, the sleigh-ride party is here and we will drive down and take it to her." "Dat cake? I know nodings about it. Did any von send the Widow M'Carty her cake?" turning to the clerks. "The Widow M'Carty's cake!" cried all the clerks in unison. "Why, I sent it to her!" "The Widow M'Carty's cake!" chorused twelve highly excited drivers. "Why, I took it to her!" "Mein Gott! Mein Gott!" ejaculated the baker as the fate of his puddings dawned upon him. "Twelve cakes to the Widow M'Carty, und day was all puddings!" [Illustration: "'TWELVE CAKES TO THE WIDOW M'CARTY!'"] _Eighth Episode_ WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE TEN-O'CLOCK ON CHRISTMAS EVE Great is the mission of the plum pudding to elevate and refine. Poor Mrs. M'Carty, who had been too tired even to throw a stick at the Dooleys, and had meant only to wait for the return of the children to seek her much-shared bed, now began to bethink herself of active preparations for the unexpected festivities of the morrow. The fire was encouraged to bestir itself, a kettle of water was put on to heat, and pails and scrubbing-brush were brought from the lean-to. At this juncture the returned sightseers burst into the room, Katy and Norah both talking at once. Terence and Denny were not far behind in their utterances, and though perhaps more coherent, were certainly not less enthusiastic. It was well that the eloquence of tongues spoke in their wonder-filled eyes, for otherwise no mere mortal could have interpreted the steadily rising tones and varied inflections which were excitedly mingled in a Babel of sounds. The scraping of snow and the confusion attendant upon their sudden entrance filled Mrs. M'Carty with new alarm, but she collected her wits enough to whisper with desperate vehemence, while she waved her scrubbing-cloth wildly: "Whist now, will you, and mind that I don't hear another word out of your heads, or you'll be waking up Granny, for upon my soul, her eyes ain't been shut more than this blessed two minutes. I hope to goodness you won't be disturbing her, for I be just going to do up her cap for the Christmas. Now off with yourselves to bed, and not another word out of your heads to-night, till to-morrow. Och, Katy dear! What would you be telling me that for again? Sure you've repeated it three times, not counting the twice of Terence's. Now, now, boys, will you mind your mother, and go to bed like good children, and be getting up bright and early with Christmas morning faces on you?" The boys obeyed and were soon deep in dreams in which "cops" were selling newspapers out in the cold, and newsboys were in Huyler's warming their feet while ladies in fluffy furs treated them to candy and ice-cream. The widow bestowed a grateful look on the two lads asleep in the bunk which had been built in the little jog between the kitchen and lean-to. Then she tiptoed past them into the inner room where she found Katy and Norah whispering excitedly and with no prospect of cessation until their mother's voice reminded them of their promise to be quiet. "Now, child of grace, get into the bed," she said to Katy, "and don't be keeping yourselves awake till the morning, and don't be forgetting to say your prayers." Mrs. M'Carty slipped back to the kitchen, where Grandad sat dozing in his one-armed rocking-chair, and immediately began to busy herself with fresh energy. "Off with your shirt, Grandad," she said, cheerfully, as the old man gave a sleepy jerk to his head. "It's the best one you have, and I'll wash it out in a minute and iron it to-night. You can wrap that old shawl about you, and while your shirt's a-soaking, I'll give you a brush over with a bit of soap and water, for it'll be that lively in the morning, there'll never be the bit of a chance, at all; and I'm not one to leave till the proper time them things I've the opportunity of doing now." The shirt being consigned to the soaking process, Bridget next attacked her father. When his ablutions were finished, she pinned a shawl around his shoulders, and moved his chair nearer the fire. With his cheeks glowing from their recent administration of soap and water, Grandad watched the washing and starching of his blue gingham shirt, thinking the while of its stiffness, which would encase him on the morrow, but at the same time regarding it as one of those trials to be borne without complaint. Mrs. M'Carty hung the shirt close to the fire to dry, while she "scrubbed thot strip in front of the sthove;" then she left the strip, "bekase," as she said in her state of bewilderment and joy, "Oi musht do the shirt whiles the irons is hot, an' it do beat all how fasht thim irons does het oop whin ye ain't waitin' on thim." So, getting up from her knees, and leaving a good-sized puddle for future attention, she proceeded to pound the iron on Grandad's shirt and one neck-cloth, turning now and then to the sweet-tempered old man, who sat smiling at her as she bustled to and fro. "Ye'll be that fine to-morrow," said Bridget, "that you'll not be after knowing yourself, sure. And your hair will be combed that smooth, you'll look ten years younger. It does be, I mind, it's the hair that adds the years to your life." Grandad Rafferty, his spirits undepressed by what sufferings the ordeal of starch and comb might have in store for him, tapped his empty pipe on the edge of the stove and responded softly,-- "'Tis ye, Biddy M'Carty, would hearten up a ghost, so ye would." "It's a quare way ye have of jabberin' all through the night that a body can't get a wink of slape," came the querulous tones of Granny from her pallet in the farther corner of the inner room. "An' it's that cold in here--an' why in the world do ye be burnin' the fire in the night an' wasthin' the wood, an' we'll be sittin' 'round freezin' to-morra with no fire at all,--so we will." For a moment Bridget's spirits fell, but the next instant they rose again. "Wait a bit, now, Granny, and I'll be bringing you a warm iron to your feet, and before you know it you'll be dreaming of the smell of fresh peat coming in the door." "Dhramin' is it, Oi'd be?" growled Granny, and in a moment more her cane was heard thumping vigorously on the floor. Bridget and Grandad had scarcely more than time to exchange a sympathetic glance when Granny appeared with her red flannel petticoat over her nightgown and a black and white shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She came hobbling in, sniffing the sudsy moisture and complaining: [Illustration: "'IT'S MORE ROOMETIZ FOR ME, SO IT IS'"] "It's more roometiz for me, so it is.--Begorra, but it's piercin' cold in there.--It's you that has the comfortable spot, Misther Rafferty. It do be that draughty when yer comin' through this way," and thus speaking her mind on a few points, Granny made her way slowly to her chair and seated herself in it. Meantime Bridget was quietly raising geysers of suds in her endeavors to conceal the luckless cap. "Bridget M'Carty," demanded Granny, "what on earth do ye be workin' at there that ye be puttin' out me eyes fairly, with splashin' soapsuds in them? Is it my cap yer sousin' up and down, now? Indade, then, and it is, an' me just wantin' it. No wonder I'll be gettin' more pain in my bones, with the wind blowin' like a penethratin' blast through the windy, an' me with no cap, an' ye kapin' yerself warm be exercisin'." "Och, now, Granny," said Bridget, hoping to pacify her, "sure I thought it would be a grand surprise for you when you woke in the morning, to see them tie-ends hanging before your eyes all starched up, that Miss Barney's mother might just be envying you." "Envyin' me, would she?" replied Granny. "Like enough 'twill not be dry by mornin' at all, an' whin I do put it on, I'll be gettin' that pain in me head agin." Grandad's conciliatory remark was never heard, for Granny's mutterings continued while her patient daughter-in-law starched and ironed the cap. When it was finished and hung by the fire to air, Bridget, with a weary smile, turned to her father. "Come now, Daddy," she said, "you'll not be wanting to get up if you don't be getting to your bed soon." "Well, thin, if ye're meanin' to put the light out in me face, I'll go back to my bed before ye do," snapped Granny, and so she went. When Grandad had been snugly tucked into his cot in the kitchen, and the pails and mops put out of sight, Bridget lay down to a well-earned sleep and dreamed that the fairies were pelting her with puddings, every third one of which fell into her mouth and was swallowed whole. _Ninth Episode_ HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT CHRISTMAS DAY Herr Baumgärtner's first impulse, on finding out what had become of his Christmas puddings, was to send at once to the Widow M'Carty's and have them returned to him. Had it not been for the lateness of the hour, doubtless this is what would have happened. But the night brings counsel, even in the matter of plum puddings, and by morning the baker had concluded that it was wiser to let the unlucky gifts remain in their misfit quarters. Perhaps Katrina's remark, that his customers would be wroth if they found they had eaten puddings that had been stored for a night, even, in so well-inhabited an abode, influenced his decision. However that may be, the baker said to Katrina as he sat down to his breakfast: "Vell, Katrina, if we haf given somedings away in the wrong place, we will not now take it back. But Katrina, dose beautiful puddings, and dose M'Cartys! ach! ach!" and he shook his head sorrowfully at the thought that these culinary triumphs should have fallen to those so incapable of appreciating a wonderful Baumgärtner plum pudding. In the eyes of the baker, to give twelve Christmas puddings to the M'Cartys was indeed to cast one's pearls before swine. Herr Baumgärtner could not remain out of sorts for any length of time, and when he found by his plate a gift from his beloved Katrina of a long meerschaum pipe from the Fatherland, he smiled and said: "Ven I smokes dat pipe den I forget dose plum puddings." The pipe, indeed, performed a placatory mission, for as the first rings of its smoke curled upward, it became a veritable pipe of peace. Later the baker and Katrina attended church together, and at the close of the service Herr Baumgärtner left his daughter and wended his way to the bakery. He tarried in front of the window occupied by the Christmas tree, whose gaily trimmed branches recalled to him so vividly the years when his little Fritz had furnished the joy and merriment of the holiday season. How the wee baby had bounded,--almost out of his mother's arms,--at sight of his first tree! Now the baker had only Katrina to cheer him, while he, in turn, was devoted to his daughter. His present errand to the bakery was to get some of her favorite Marzipan for their Christmas dinner, it having slipped his mind the night before in the distraction of the pudding calamity. As he unlocked the door and entered the store, almost the first object to claim his attention was the last Christmas pudding "left standing alone; all its nut-brown companions labelled and gone." None of his clerks had dared to risk his position by meddling with that package. Herr Baumgärtner picked up the package, saying with a sigh, as he unwrapped it: "Oh, well, you might as well go in the window and make a good show. Maybe I can sell you for New Year's day." While the baker was busy arranging his wares to make room for the pudding, a man came sauntering slowly up the street, pausing as he came to the window. He was clad in a rough suit which here and there showed the want of a prudent feminine stitch. The first glance showed him to be simply an honest Hibernian laborer. Further scrutiny disclosed the fact that he was a man who had passed through unusual experiences, for his bronzed face told of hardship and exposure. At each footfall he looked up imploringly at the passer-by, only to turn away with a sigh of disappointment. As he looked at the good things in the baker's window, he said to himself: "Ah, my poor Bridget and the little ones are likely fasting, when they ought to be having the fill of the table. And myself looking every place for them till the feet of me is wore off entirely. The cottage is empty, and the priest is a new one, and can't tell me nothing. Mebbe they've gone to the old country, or mebbe they're all--" and here he shuddered and shut his lips tightly, for he would not admit the worst. "Be jabers," his thoughts taking on a new turn, as he caught sight of a pudding being placed in the window before him, "if I could just find them, wouldn't I make the mouths of them water with that pudding. Like enough Patsy and Maggie and Norah and Katy ain't had a bite to eat of anything decent these six months. Heaven bless the spalpeens, how they would fall on that pudding! And me darling Biddy, bedad, ain't tasted one since she was living with the Church of Ireland minister in Limerick. And here I be, with money enough to buy them everything good, and not one out of them left to be buying for. Oh, well, I've no mind in me to eat myself, but I might as well step in and buy them two buns," and thereupon he entered the store. The new customer did not look especially promising; still, the baker had known far shabbier individuals to invest a dollar, even, on a holiday, so he advanced with a smile and said: [Illustration: "HIS GLANCE FELL UPON SOMETHING WHITE THAT LAY ON THE COUNTER"] "Vat can I do for you, my friend?" Pointing to the large, well-sugared buns, the man began, "Give me two--" when his glance fell upon something white that lay on the counter,--that ubiquitous card that had wrought so much mischief; the card bearing the name and address of Mrs. Michael M'Carty. "Vat's the matter mit you?" said the baker impatiently, anxious for him to complete his order. "Oh, my God, what's this?" cried the man, snatching up the card. "Dot? Vy, dat is one card to go mit one cake to the Widow M'Carty." "Widdy, widdy, is it?" cried the man, angrily. "Sure the man that calls her that will answer to me for it. Why would she be a widdy, and me working and saving as a respectable husband should for her?" "Wait awhile,--tell me,--was you Mr. Widow M'Carty?" "Who would I be then, but Michael M'Carty? It's some of them blathering Barneys that's after calling me Bridget a widdy. Their lying tongues are all the time wagging with some scandal on a woman that hasn't a good strong man to protect her and the childers. But tell me quick, where are they, and are they alive, all alive?" "I hear my Katrina speak about dem. But vere haf you been this long time? I t'ought you was drownded, already." "Sure, 'twas meself thought so too, the whole of the night, and I wished I'd never stepped me foot on that old tub of a _Go-Between_, for it was the devil's own. When we got in Lake Superior, a storm came after us sudden, and we all went down together. I was in a hole of a place I had to slape in,--sure a dog couldn't close his eye in that corner,--and in the middle of the night, down they came hustling every one of us out. 'Say yer prayers,' says they, 'for we're a-goin' to the bottom, and the Lord help us. There's not one of yez will see yer darlints again.' The water was terrible boisterous, and grabbed everythin' off the decks. Faith, it wouldn't have been so bad if we'd a place left for the sole of our foot, but she was gone entirely. A board hit me and I hung on to it, and Pat Sweeny came up from down in the water and hung on with me, and the noises of that night I'll never be getting out of me head. When it come daylight we see the pilot-house a-floating, and we got on that, and Pat Sweeny waved his red handkerchief, and I tried to push us along with the board, to the land we see a long way off. In the middle of the morning, we spied a little boat coming to us, and may the blessed Virgin spare them two men in it as long as they live. It was a bare enough place we come to, but 'twas the land, and may I be struck dead if ever I take me two feet off it, for it's not the likes of me will set foot on one of them traps of the devil again." "Ach, Gott, das war wundervoll, wundervoll," said the baker, "but tell me vy you stayed so long away?" "And what would the likes of me be doing with everything gone, but to be getting some money to come with? There were some copper mines there, and Pat and me went digging in the mines, and the engineer dying sudden-like with a fall down the shaft, it was me was there to be getting his job. I wrote Bridget as soon as ever I thought she would be looking for me coming home, and told her I wouldn't be there till I could earn some money to come by land, and what with the fine engineer wages I was getting, she needn't be expecting me till the end of the season. When I came home with me pile of money to give them all a grand Christmas, I found 'em lost on me, and I've looked every place these three days, and never a sound of them have I heard till now, and God bless ye for the good words you're giving me this day.--Troth, now that I'm after finding them, I ought to be buying that grand pudding in the windy," and diving into his pocket, he produced a roll of bills. "Nein, nein," said the baker, waving the money away, "dat pudding was not made to sell, it was made to gif away. You takes dat pudding to Mrs. M'Carty mit the gompliments of Herr Baumgärtner." With a hearty Merry Christmas, Michael M'Carty hurried away with the pudding in one hand, and the card in the other. Herr Baumgärtner, taking his Marzipan, went home to tell Katrina the news, laughing over his Christmas joke, and chuckling to himself: "Dat is vere dat pudding seems to belong!" _Tenth Episode_ WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE CHRISTMAS DAY Mrs. M'Carty rose early on Christmas morning, her mind bewildered by the fantastic visions of the night. "Sure, them puddings was all a dream," she said to herself, as she kindled her fire, "and what's the good of such dreams as that, but just to make a body discouraged with the truth of the daytimes? But, any how, I'll look at where I dreamed I put them, and then my mind will be easy for me work." More skeptical than hopeful, she went to the place where she had hidden them, and lo! to her great joy there they were,--twelve luscious, fruity puddings. "And they're just bursting with richness, and begging to be ate," she said. "It'll be a grand day for the childer, and they shall have their fill, for it's many a long, hungry day they'll be seeing before another Christmas." Breakfast was never a protracted function in the M'Carty household, but to Mrs. M'Carty, who was anxious to begin the festive preparations which the puddings had made possible, the scanty meal seemed unusually prolonged. Nothing but action could keep her from syndicating her secret before the proper moment, so while the repast was in progress, she hurried about doing, undoing, and doing over again, various household tasks. Finally Granny M'Carty, who had noticed Bridget's restlessness, exclaimed: "Are ye crazy, then, Bridget M'Carty? It's the third time this day ye've spread me bed, and ye'll not lave a whole fither in me pillow with yer senseless beatin's." "Well," said Mrs. M'Carty, ceasing from her labor, "if you're done with your breakfast, listen to me. Praise to the good Saint Antony, I found a ten-cent piece yesterday, I'd been saving that long I forgot I had it entirely, and with the help of Grandad's two lucky pennies he was never intending to spend,--may the saints spare him long to us,--I've a stick of candy apiece for the whole of you." [Illustration: "'A STICK OF CANDY APIECE'"] "Hoorooh!" shouted all the little McCartys in chorus. "Blessin's on the good Saint Antony!" said Grandad Rafferty, beaming on the excited children. "Stop yer sphakin' with such a noise!" cried Granny. "Them racketin's would deafen the saints themselves, so they would." "Then would them saints be getting ear-trumpets like Tim Barney's grandmother?" queried little Norah, climbing on the back of Granny's chair and peering over her shoulder. "Go along with yez, an' don't be askin' such irriverent questions, an' kape yerself from the back of me chair, a-shakin' me roometiz all over me." Bridget thumped on the table for quiet and proceeded to distribute the sticks of candy, each wrapped in a separate piece of paper. Grandad unrolled the paper and eyed his stick of candy lovingly. "Troth, it's peppermint," he said, "an' there's nothin' like peppermint to comfort a body's stomick. It's that long since I tasted it, I'd clane forgot how it looked, bedad." "Well, Bridget M'Carty," said Granny M'Carty, "It's ye that might have minded me health an' remembered that lemin with roometiz is like pourin' ile on fire. Ye must know, if ye have any sense,--which I misdoubt,--that roometiz hates lemin as bad as the devil hates holy wather," and she sniffed contemptuously. "Never mind that, Granny," said Grandad. "Bridget rolled up them candy and never took note of the kinds, so there'd be no strivin' with the childers. I'll take yer lemin an' ye're welcome to me peppermint. 'Twill warm yer stomick an' yer feelin's, an' acushla machree, it's not so hard on the teeth ayther," and he surrendered his candy with a charming smile. "Me teeth are as good as yours any day," retorted Granny, but she did not hesitate to make the exchange. However, she inspected the candy carefully and wiped it on the corner of her shawl before applying it to her mouth. "Now, then," said Mrs. M'Carty, after the candy had disappeared, "listen while I do be telling you the order of the day. You boys, Denny and Terence, slip across to the pile of lumber handy on the tow-path, and bring me back three wide boards. We'll borry them for a table, and take them back when we're done. My family is all going to sit down to once to their Christmas dinner, the same as them rich folks do on the avenue. And there'll be a place for me poor Michael, that was and isn't. Run along now, boys, and pick clean ones, and you, Katy and Norah, wash the dishes, and when the table is fixed you can all go on the avenue and look in the windys, but mind you're home when the bells are ringing for twelve." Their tasks were quickly finished, and eight little M'Cartys set off for their outing, two-year-old Patsy being bestowed in a box nailed on an old sled, and drawn by the others in turn. Grandad Rafferty watched them until they were out of sight and sound. "It's a fine time they'll be afther havin'," he said as he took little Ellen on his knee and settled himself comfortably in his chair,--or as comfortably as the unwonted stiffness of shirt and neckcloth would permit. Then he whispered a wonderful story to the baby, and though she could not understand a word, it served its purpose, for presently the little head nodded and the big blue eyes closed in slumber. Granny M'Carty, who from the inner room had herself been observing the departure of her grandchildren toward the habitations of affluence, now returned to her seat by the fire. "'Tis I would never let them childer go wanderin' off like that, with a chance of their never comin' home agin," she commented, "but annyhow it'll be sthill for a bit." The children safely out of the way, Mrs. M'Carty began at once her arrangements for the feature of the day,--the Christmas dinner so bountifully provided with dessert. She took from her chest her one linen table cloth, woven in a most elaborate design of shamrocks. Her husband had seen and admired the pattern, displayed in a shop window, one St. Patrick's Day, and it being in the first year of his marriage, when there was but Bridget to share his purse, he had bought the cloth and given it to her for a present. The occasions which had been deemed worthy so beautiful a table-cover, had been few and far removed, so the linen was "every bit as good as new." "You're fine enough for the queen's use," said Mrs. M'Carty, apostrophizing the cloth as she spread it carefully on her improvised dining-table and smoothed its snowy folds. "Sure, you're a trifle small for me big table, so I'll be putting you in the middle, and piecing you out at the two ends with me red and white Sunday table-cloths that ain't seen the daylight since we came to this sorry hole of a place, for it's not oilcloth that the M'Cartys shall be eating their dinner on this day." The linen cloth being spread in the centre of the table and supplemented at either end with a "red Sunday table-cloth" of more prosperous days, Mrs. M'Carty took from the top shelf in the cupboard her "set of flowered dishes"--another early marital gift. Though cheap in quality, and the plates, cups, etc., in half-dozens instead of dozens, these dishes had been Mrs. M'Carty's special pride ever since Michael had proudly bestowed them upon her. "Look, Biddy, me darlint," he had said. "I've brought you as grand a lot of dishes as ever I saw, and do you mind them posies they have? They're like the roses growing forninst Father Kelly's wall, where I used to meet you when you were Biddy Rafferty." "Go along wid yer foolishness, Michael M'Carty," was Bridget's reply, but she had cherished the gift above all her other possessions, and like the table-cloth, the dishes were used but seldom. "Bridget M'Carty!" cried Granny, when she saw Bridget setting out the dishes, "are ye usin' them dishes me poor b'y bought with his hard earnin's? I'd think ye'd more respect for Michael than to set out them fine plates to be broken by them careless haythins." But Bridget assured Granny she would keep watch over the precious ware, and went on with her preparations as zealously as though she were preparing a banquet for noble folk. She had a small package of tea which had been given her by one of the conductors for whom she washed. He was an Irish boy lately come from the old country, and Mrs. M'Carty's sympathy for his homesickness had won from him this Christmas remembrance. The tea was a most welcome gift, for her finances had not permitted her to buy this beverage for many days. She had not mentioned it, for she wished to have as many surprises as possible, for, thought she, "Surprises is about all they'll be getting." Granny had followed her daughter-in-law's movements with a lofty, scornful look, but when she saw her take down the old brown teapot and give it a washing, she could not refrain from a question. "Is it tay ye're afther havin'?" she asked, almost forgetting herself at the thought and speaking in an amiable tone. "Yes, Granny, but I was intending it for a surprise." "Wan time is as good as another for a surprise," said Granny. "If it's a good one it gives a body somethin' pleasant to be thinkin' about, an' if it's a bad one, then the sooner ye're told the sooner ye do be gettin' over it." The animated look in Granny's eyes showed that, in her opinion, this surprise was a good one, and Grandad Rafferty opened his eyes in astonishment when he heard her crooning a bit of the "Low-backed Car." "It's the peppermint did it," said he to himself, "an' may the saints kape it lastin' till bedtime." By noon the banqueting-hall of the M'Cartys presented a most festal appearance. The flowered dishes were displayed to the best advantage, and the red cotton table-cloths served the purpose of a color scheme. The baked apples adorned the centre of the table, flanked at either side by plates of bread. The oven door stood ajar, disclosing two dishes of steaming potatoes waiting to be transferred to the table, and later to the plates and stomachs of the juvenile M'Cartys. When the twelve o'clock bells began to ring, Bridget poured the water over the tea and set the teapot over the fire, where the beverage immediately began boiling with a vigor that would have appalled an epicurean taste. Granny M'Carty was moved up to the centre of the table on one side, and Grandad Rafferty was installed opposite. Little Ellen, in the charge of her grandfather, immediately preëmpted a spoon, and in her enjoyment of the new plaything brought it down with a smart rap on one of the plates. "I told yez ye'd be afther havin' ev'ry last one of them dishes broke," scolded Granny. "Ye're that extravagant with yer things, Bridget M'Carty, it's no wonder ye went an' lost yer husband. An' where's them childers that was to be comin' home at twilve? Sure they never do as they're bid unless the devil's afther them, an' if they're not here soon the tay will be sphoiled entirely," and she sniffed the air anxiously. At this critical moment the door, true to its habit, sprung open, and the eight laughing, panting, ruddy M'Carty heirs and heiresses filled the little room to overflowing. Their wraps were thrown aside and they were about to make a grand rush for the table when Mrs. M'Carty interposed. "Never in me life have I see worse manners since me eyes had the misfortune to rest on them Dooleys down the tow-path. You're patterns in manners when you're asleep, but where do you keep your decency daytimes? Go to the shed and show yourselves to the water and soap, and don't be keeping me dinner waiting long, either." Bang, thump, splash, grunt, gurgle, constituted the sign audible of the little M'Cartys' cleansing. The hands and faces were polished, the comb hastily passed round, and in they trooped, this time more quietly, as if they had scrubbed off some of their boisterous spirits. Norah had found a bit of holly, with which she adorned the dish of baked apples, while Terence, with much effort, pulled from his pocket a package wrapped in pink paper and laid it with an important air on Granny's plate. "Merry Christmas, with a present for you, Granny," he said. "What's that you've been buying?" said Mrs. M'Carty, "and you with no money to buy nothing with." "I didn't buy it," said Terence. "I'll not have anythin' to do with stholen stuff, ye wicked craytur," exclaimed Granny, pushing the offending package away from her. "I didn't steal it, neither," said Terence, proudly. "I leave such works for them Dooleys," and he held his head aloft and went over by his mother. "I believe you, Terence, my boy," said Mrs. M'Carty. "But wherever did you get it?" "He axed for it," interposed Katy. "We were that cold, and when we came to a drug-store, Terence, says he, 'Let's slip in and get warm and smell all them perfoomery and things.' And the drug-store man says, 'What does we be wanting,' and Terence says, 'We just came in to get warm, but we'd buy something if we had the money.' 'What would you buy?' said the man, and Terence says, 'Perfoomery for my mother, and stuff to cure Granny's roometiz.' 'Is that all ye want?' says the man; 'then get your fingers warm and take these to your mother and Granny, with a merry Christmas.'" "And here's your perfoomery," cried Terence, handing a smaller pink package to his mother, who exclaimed over it with delight. "Sure, it's better than flowers, and far more lasting," she said, "and it's glad I am you brought it." "I can't read this writin' at all, at all. The sphellin' is too small for me eyes," said Granny, once more becoming the centre of interest. Mrs. M'Carty took the bottle and read aloud the directions. "And you're to take a teaspoonful after each meal," she concluded. "Humph!" snorted Granny. "An' does that drug-store man lay out to furnish me with the meals? I'd like to be told that now. Me that hasn't had a decint bit since ye let me poor Michael go off and get drownded in the cold wather." The clatter attendant on the seating of the children at the table prevented the latter part of Granny's speech from being heard. The smaller M'Cartys were placed either side of Grandad, the older ones being seated by Granny. The potatoes were transferred to the board, and Mrs. M'Carty, taking the little Ellen, sat down at the nominal foot of the table, opposite the empty place set in memory of her husband. For awhile naught was spoken save only the few occasional words necessary in asking for more food. Bridget sipped a little tea, but the sight of the vacant chair quite destroyed her appetite. She looked thin and care-worn, and very unlike the brave wife who with cheery words had sped her husband on his unlucky voyage. When the children's appetites were somewhat appeased, their tongues began to fly as they recounted the morning adventures,--the sights, the sounds, and all the little incidents which had gone to make up a happy morning. Finally Bridget rapped on the table for silence. "Whist again every last one of you while I make a request. Terence, me lad, slip over to the wood-box and bring whatever you find there. It's for your Grandad." Terence quickly obeyed, while the others looked on in eager expectance. He returned with a round package wrapped in tissue and lace-trimmed paper and set it before Grandad, who undid it with surprising alacrity. "May the saints presarve us!" he exclaimed. "If it isn't as fine a puddin' as my old eyes ever see in me life." "Me, me!" cried little Patsy, "me wants a puddin'." "Yes, me little Patsy," said Grandad, "ye shall have a bite as soon as my knife can cut it. There now, sit down, all of yez, till I have a chance at it,"--for the children were crowding about the old man to get a glimpse of the beautiful pudding. But before his knife had so much as touched it, Bridget interposed. "Hold a bit," she said. "Katy, darling, run to the shed and look under the wash-tub and bring the contents to Granny." Katy fairly flew to the shed and returned bearing aloft a package which in size, shape, and wrappings was identical with that which had just been set before Grandad. Granny opened it, displaying the mate to Grandad's pudding. "Whee, whee!" cried little Patsy. "Me wants it! Me wants it!" But Bridget was ready with a third order. "Norah, my jewel, you'll likely find something to your credit forninst the dishpan." Norah lifted the dishpan and in a trice pudding number three was standing beside its predecessors. "I'll bet yer, kids," said Terence, the ready spokesman, "there's a pudding for every last one of us. Let's get busy and hunt. Sure, I see something under the stove." Mrs. M'Carty let them hunt. They preferred this, and the fun ran high as one pudding after another was discovered. The house, though so small, held more hiding-places than one would have supposed, and it was some time before the last pudding consented to be found. Mrs. M'Carty allowed each one to cut his pudding and eat a generous portion. To more fastidious palates, cold plum pudding without sauce might have seemed a doubtful luxury, but to the little M'Cartys, who never before had tasted the dainty, the plum puddings were a veritable "feast of Lucullus." Baby Ellen was given a crumb or two, and she goo-ed, and gurgled, and smiled on them all as if she thought herself the cause of all this festivity. [Illustration: "MRS. M'CARTY LET THEM HUNT"] "Praise the blessid saints," said Grandad, "they didn't forget us this Christmas day, an' these are grand puddin's." "Grand indade," replied Granny. "If Bridget M'Carty had said her prayers proper-like, it's other things besides puddin's she would have asked the saints for, but she's that foolish, she can't keep two words in her head to once. When she thinks puddin's, she just thinks puddin's, an' not aven the sauce, bedad." "Annyhow, Granny, ye must say it was fine puddin's she did be thinkin'." "Av course they're fine, but there's nothin' but puddin's, an' I have to ate them or be stharvin', I expect," and Granny helped herself to the third piece and passed her cup to Bridget to be filled the fourth time. While the puddings were being eaten Mrs. M'Carty told the tale of the mysterious presents. So dramatic was her exposition of the twelve knocks that had been the precursors of the twelve puddings that when, as she finished, there came a loud and emphatic knock at the door, Grandad Rafferty, his mind on Bridget's story, ejaculated: "Another puddin'!" [Illustration: "'IT'S MY MICHAEL,--MY HEART OF THE WORLD'"] "Annuzzer puddin'!" lisped little Patsy. "May the saints forgit to sind us another puddin'!" said Granny M'Carty. Before any one had thought to open the door, it opened from without, and there stood, looking in at the group, a tall, haggard, weary man. "Holy Virgin save us, it's Michael's ghost!" cried Granny, covering her face with her hands. For a full minute the inmates of the shanty and the man at the door stared at each other. Then Mrs. M'Carty heard the one word: "Bridget!" It was enough. Quite forgetting little Ellen, who tumbled unceremoniously to the floor, Mrs. M'Carty sprang from her chair. "It's no ghost! It's no ghost!" she cried, sobbing and laughing. "It's my Michael,--my heart of the world,--my Michael,--come back from the dead," and she threw herself into his arms. Exclamations and explanations were now the order of the day. Mrs. M'Carty in her Christmas lavishness had used all of the tea, but she reheated the contents of the teapot and cut a slice of pudding for her husband, but Michael, established in his erstwhile empty place at the table, was too happy for either eating or drinking. The dinner lasted as long as did that of any of "swelldom's four hundred," for one cannot relate in a few moments the happenings of months, nor can so wonderful a gift as that of Katrina Baumgärtner be passed over with a few words. When the tale of the puddings was ended Michael, with a merry twinkle in his eye, said to Norah: "Norah, my jewel, be lookin' outside the door there, and see what you can be after findin'." Eight little M'Cartys ran to the door. A scramble, a noisy return, and down on the table descended the thirteenth pudding. * * * * * At dusk Granny M'Carty and Grandad Rafferty sat in their accustomed places by the fire. Baby Ellen was fast asleep in Grandad's arms. The children were out for a run in the fresh air, and Bridget and Michael were enjoying a few moments of happy converse together in the lean-to. Grandad rocked gently to and fro, nodding and smiling to himself as if his thoughts were very pleasant company. The sight of his cheerful face, dimly seen by the small lamp, was too much for Granny. "It's meself," she began, "as can sit here with never a soul to be shpakin' to me, an' ev'ry one of me bones and nerves achin' with the excitemint of this day; an' it's ye, Misther Rafferty, that can sit there grinnin' and noddin' like a crazy loon. It's them that has a fine consait of themselves that gets along in this world, I mind. An' look at them puddin's,--" "Puddin's? Puddin's?" said Grandad, rousing from his reverie and looking about as if he expected to see a second installment. "Yes, puddin's!" mimicked Granny. "What's to be done with the leavin's of them thirteen puddin's, the unlucky things?" "Mrs. M'Carty, don't be callin' them puddin's unlucky. Sure, 'twas the thirteenth puddin' that let Michael be findin' his lost family. Think no more of them. Remember yer Michael that couldn't sthay lost, an' it's because ye was so lucky to be namin' him afther the good saint. Saint Michael an' the old dragon, ye mind,--" "An' is it meself ye're afther callin' an old dragon?" almost screamed Granny. "Indade and indade, Mrs. M'Carty," began Grandad, regretting his unfortunate allusion to the dragon, and anxious to avert the impending tirade, "I'm not callin' ye an old dragon, at all, at all. It's--it's yer roometiz I mane. Yes, sure, it's that is the old dragon, an' Michael will fight it for yez, an' I know he'll conquer it entirely, just as sure as I know there was luck in them thirteen puddin's. An' Granny," he went on, growing still more Utopian in his predictions, "ye'll soon be walkin' 'round gay as a cricket, with never an ache or a pain to be throublin' yez." "Are ye sure of all that, Misther Rafferty?" asked Granny eagerly. Grandad had conjured up too blissful a vision for even her gloomy spirits to withstand. "Sure? Av course I'm sure!" answered Grandad promptly, and pounded his chair with emphasis. "It's as good as done this minit, an' there's such good times comin' for all of us, it's not aven the quane we'll be envyin'." Granny sat for a few moments in silence. Then she turned to Grandad. "An' did ye mind, Misther Rafferty," she said with a little brightness, "did ye mind, I say, that Michael had the gold ring on his finger?" "I did that," answered Grandad. "Me two eyes took sight of it as soon as ever he sthirred his hand, an' it was shinin' as bright as ever it was before he went an' got drownded. An' that's another sign of good times comin' for us. An' listen, Mrs. M'Carty, it's for yer Michael bein' ev'ry bit as good as gold himself, that them saints went to all the throuble of undrownding him an' bringin' him back to us that nades him." And for once Granny smilingly agreed. THE END. Transcriber's Notes: Archaic syntax, dialect, and inconsistent spelling retained. 
16958	----	produced by the Wright American Fiction Project.) THE CROSS AND THE SHAMROCK, OR, HOW TO DEFEND THE FAITH. AN IRISH-AMERICAN CATHOLIC TALE OF REAL LIFE, DESCRIPTIVE OF THE TEMPTATIONS, SUFFERINGS, TRIALS, AND TRIUMPHS OF THE CHILDREN OF ST. PATRICK IN THE GREAT REPUBLIC OF WASHINGTON. A BOOK FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT AND SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS OF THE CATHOLIC MALE AND FEMALE SERVANTS OF THE UNITED STATES. WRITTEN BY A MISSIONARY PRIEST. [Transcriber's Note: a pseudonym for Hugh Quigley.] BOSTON: PATRICK DONAHOE, 3 FRANKLIN STREET. 1853. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by PATRICK DONAHOE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY. DEDICATION. To the faithful Irish-American Catholic citizens of the whole Union, and especially to the working portion of them, on account of their piety, their liberality, their patriotism, and their steady loyalty to the virtues symbolized by the "Cross and the Shamrock,"--on account of their attachment to the land of St. Patrick, and to the religion of her patriot princes and martyrs,--this work, written for their encouragement and instruction, is respectfully inscribed by Their humble servant, And devoted friend and fellow-citizen, THE AUTHOR. September, 1853. PREFACE. "There are moments when every citizen who feels that he can say something promotive of the welfare of his countrymen and of advantage to his country is authorized to give _public_ utterance to his sentiments, how humble soever he may be."--_Letter of Archbishop Hughes on the Madiai_, February, 1853. "There may be, in public opinion, an Inquisition a thousand times more galling to the soul than the gloomy prison or the weight of chains."--_National Democrat_, March, 1853. 1st. The above extracts, from different but respectable sources, comprise the author's chief motives in the publication of the following work. It is a well-known fact, that thousands of our fellow-Christians, in all parts of this vast _free country_, are continually subjected to a most trying ordeal of temptation and persecution on account of their religion, and that the wonderful progress of Catholicity and renewed power of the church only add to the malice, if not to the influence, of sectarians, in their efforts to make use of this odious persecution of servant boys and servant girls, of widows and orphans, to build up their own tottering conventicles, and to circumscribe the giant strides of what they call "the man of sin." A very intelligent American lawyer lately remarked to the writer of this, "that, about twenty-five years ago, the parsons fulminated all their eloquence against Satan; but they seem to have formed a league with him now, for all their vengeance is directed against the pope, who, they say, is far more dangerous than Old Harry." When we know this to be literally true, and find our poor, neglected, and uninstructed brethren in danger accordingly, how can any thing that can be said, written, or done, to alleviate their condition, or to remove prejudice from the public mind, be counted a work of supererogation? 2d. The corruption of the cheap trash literature, that is now ordinarily supplied for the amusement and instruction of the American people,--and that threatens to uproot and annihilate all the notions of virtue and morals that remain, in spite of sectarianism,--calls for some antidote, some remedy. In every rail car, omnibus, stage coach, steamboat, or canal packet, publications, containing the most poisonous principles and destructive errors, are presented to, and are purchased by, passengers of both sexes, whose minds, like the appetites of hungry animals, will take to eating the filthiest stuff, rather than want food for rumination. It is for the philanthropists of the present day, and for those who are paid for making such inquiries, to trace the connection between the _roués_ of your cities, your Bloomer women, your spiritual rappers, and other countless extravagances of a diseased public mind, and between the abominable publications to which we allude. 3d. Our people are not generally great readers of the trashy newspapers of the day; and in this respect they show their good sense, or at least have happened on good luck: it is therefore our duty to supply them with cheap and amusing literature, to entertain them during the few hours they are disengaged from work. And what reading can afford the Irish Catholic greater pleasure than any work, however imperfect, having for its end the exaltation and defence of his glorious old faith, and the vindication of his native land--his beloved "Erin-go-bragh"? Impress on his susceptible mind the honor and advantage of defence and fidelity to the CROSS and the SHAMROCK, and you give him two ideas that will come to his aid in most of his actions through life. We are ashamed here of the cross of Christ, when we see it continually dishonored and trampled on by heretics and modern pagans, in their scramble for money and pleasures. On the other hand, the poverty, humiliation, and rags of old Erin, of the kings, saints, and martyrs, scandalize us; and from these two false notions the degradation and apostasy of many Irishmen commence. Hence they no sooner land on the shores of America than they endeavor to clip the musical and rich brogue of fatherland, to make room for the bastard barbarisms and vulgar slang of Yankeedom. The remainder of the course of the apostate is easily traced, till, ashamed of creed and country, he ends by being ashamed of his Creator and Redeemer, and barters the inheritance of heaven for the miserable and short enjoyments of this earth. A _fourth_, and a leading motive in the publication of this work, is to record the manly defences which the people among whom the author lives have made of the creed of their fathers, and to enable them to refute, in a simple, practical manner, for the edification of their opponents, the many objections proposed to them about the faith. By placing a copy of this work in the hands of every head of a family in the congregation in which he presides, the author thinks he will have done something towards the salvation of that parent and his house, by showing him how he may educate his children, and save them from those subtle snares laid to rob them and him of happiness here and hereafter; for, without true religion and virtue, there is neither enjoyment nor happiness even in this world. But are the principles sound, and the estimate he has formed of American character and the conduct and motives of the sectarian parsons correct? There may be, and undoubtedly there is, great variety in American character; and, so far, what may be true of the people of one state or county, may not at all be applicable to those of the rest; but as far as regards sectarianism and its slanders of the church, and the low character, intellectually and morally, of the parsons, ministers, dominies, and preachers, with few honorable exceptions, it may be said, in the words of the poet,-- "Ex uno disce omnes." "They are all chips of the same block;" and the description in the following pages of their attempts to proselytize, seduce, and corrupt, is not at all exaggerated, as thousands of candid American Protestants can testify. Perhaps the sectarian dominies do not see the sad consequences that are infallibly produced on the minds of their hearers, after they come to detect the frauds and falsehoods which the parsons inculcate on them when children; but they are in _the cause_, and morally responsible for that doubt, irreligion, and downright infidelity which are the well-known characteristics of the male and female youth of our great country, and which threaten such disastrous consequences to society. Yes, dominies, you are responsible for all the extravagances of modern times, for the irreparable loss to virtue and society of the noble youth of your country. You hate the church of God because she is a witness against you. The priest, the nun, and the recluse are objects of your malice; for they are living examples of what you call impossible morals, and refuters of the code of low virtue you practise and preach. The faith of the Catholic laity, too, you endeavor to destroy, in order more securely to deceive your hearers, and to secure your children, your wives, and yourselves, that bread which you eat by the dissemination of error, contradiction, and contention, and which you are too lazy to "earn by the sweat of your brow." _Finally._ This work is submitted to the reader by one who will be well pleased if it affords the former any pleasure or amusement during one or two of such few hours of leisure as it took the latter to write it. Regarding style, method, and arrangement of the matter, the author has no apology to offer, except that the work has been written in great haste, and by one who, in five years, has not had a single entire day for recreation or unoccupied by severe missionary duty. Let not the critics forget this. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. A DEATH BED SCENE, 13 CHAPTER II. GETTING THE MOTHER'S BLESSING, 23 CHAPTER III. AN OFFICIAL, 32 CHAPTER IV. THE POORHOUSE, 41 CHAPTER V. THE O'CLERYS, 52 CHAPTER VI. THE COUNCIL, 60 CHAPTER VII. A RUDE LOVER OF NATURE, 69 CHAPTER VIII. THE ORPHANS IN THEIR NEW HOME, 77 CHAPTER IX. THE PRYING FAMILY, 87 CHAPTER X. A RAY OF HOPE, 97 CHAPTER XI. VAN STINGEY AGAIN.--HOW HE GETS RICH AND ENDS, 106 CHAPTER XII. MASS IN A SHANTY, 117 CHAPTER XIII. THE TEMPTER AT THE WOMAN, 129 CHAPTER XIV. THE FRUITS OF THE CROSS, 136 CHAPTER XV. THE CONVERSION, 145 CHAPTER XVI. THE ENLIGHTENED CITIZENS, 155 CHAPTER XVII. "HE AND HIS WHOLE HOUSE BELIEVED," 164 CHAPTER XVIII. "TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION," 178 CHAPTER XIX. WHAT HAPPENED TO LITTLE EUGENE O'CLERY, 187 CHAPTER XX. THE SAME, CONTINUED, 201 CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS, 213 CHAPTER XXII. THE DESERTED HOME OF THE ORPHANS, 223 CHAPTER XXIII. IN WHICH THE SCENE OF OUR TALE IS CHANGED, 240 CHAPTER XXIV. SHOWS HOW THE CROSS AND SHAMROCK WERE PERMANENTLY UNITED AFTER A LONG SEPARATION, 251 CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSION, 260 CHAPTER I. A DEATH-BED SCENE. A cold evening in the month of January, a drizzling rain storm blowing from the south-west, a cheerless sky, a dull, threatening atmosphere, together with almost impassable roads,--these are the chilling and uninviting circumstances with which, if we pay regard to truth, we must introduce our narrative to our readers. It is usual, with writers of fiction and romance, to preface their literary exhibitions with high-wrought and dazzling descriptions of natural and artificial objects--the sun, moon, and stars; the clouds, meteors, and other fantastic creations of the atmosphere; the seas, rivers, and lakes; the mountains, fields, and gardens; the birds, fishes, and the inhabitants of the savage forests, as well as the forests, groves, and woods themselves,--in a word, all nature seems as if conscious of the effects likely to result to the morals, habits, and projects of men, while some of your modern novelists are arranging their matter, sharpening their scissors, preparing pen, ink, and paper, and taking indigestible suppers to make way into the world for the offspring of their creative fancies. Ours being a tale of truth,--yes, of bare, unvarnished truth, yet of truth more interesting, if not "stranger, than fiction,"--it is not to be wondered that, when we acknowledge the homely dame, and her alone, as our guide, inspirer, and preceptor, we lack the advantage of romancers, and cannot command "a special sunset," or a storm made to order, or other enchanting scenery, to introduce us to our patrons. We must take things as we find them; and this is why cold, rain, and frost, the whistling of merciless winds, together with false and pitiless ice, constitute the principal features of our introductory chapter. The merry chimes of sleigh bells, as if to add gloom to the scene, were silent, no snow having fallen this winter, and the ice being irregular and lumpy. The streets of the city of T---- were almost entirely deserted of foot passengers, owing to the danger of walking over the slippery pavement; while cabmen and omnibus conductors had cautiously driven their teams to the stable or smithy, to have them "sharpened" for the frozen coat of mail which enveloped the earth. When about dusk, an aged gentleman, in a cloak, with a sharp-pointed cane in his hand, might be observed moving along the gutter of a narrow street. Occasionally he would slip so as to come on one knee, and now he would steer himself along by taking hold of the sills of windows, and of the railings which here and there were erected in front of a few houses on the retired and deserted street on which he crept along. At length he approaches an old three-story, red, frame-built house, which, from its shattered and dilapidated windows, at first seemed to be deserted, but which, from the description left by a messenger with his domestic in the forenoon, he could not doubt was the place where he heard the emigrant widow lay at the point of death. "Is this where the sick woman is?" said he to an old woman who opened the door. "Yes, your reverence," answered Mrs. Doherty, at once recognizing the priest; "and thank God you are come. The Lord never deserts his own, praise be to his holy name." "Is she very ill?" said Father O'Shane; for thus was named the sole pastor of the city of T---- in those days. "That she is, your reverence, and callin' for the priest this three days; but as we heard your reverence say that you would be in the country till this day, we thought it no use to give in the sick call sooner. I myself gave it in this morning afore my poor, sick old man got up." "God help the poor!" muttered the tender-hearted priest, as he ascended to the third floor, where the dying woman lay. "Amen!" answered Mrs. Doherty, aloud. "You would pity her, your reverence, if you seen the misery they are in this two months; and it is easily telling they saw better days in the ould country. It is easily knowing _that_, by the _dacent_, mannerly children she has around her, God help 'em." "Pax huic domui, et omnibus habitantibus in ea"--"Peace to this house, and all that dwell therein," uttered the priest of God, as he opened the latchless door of the room on the third story of the old "Oil Mill House," where the patient was extended on her "pallet of straw." For a moment he stood on the threshold, for within an unusual and solemn sight presented itself to his view. A woman of fair and comely features, between about thirty and forty years of age, lay as described on the floor, with four children kneeling around her. The eldest, a lad of about fifteen years, read aloud the litanies and prayers of the church for the dying, while the three younger children repeated the responses in fervent but trembling accents. "Lord, have mercy on her," cried Paul, the eldest boy. "Christ, have mercy on her," answered the younger children. "Holy Mary." _R._ "Pray for her." "All ye holy angels and archangels." _R._ "Pray for her." "All ye choirs of the just." _R._ "Pray for her." "All ye saints of God." _R._ "Make intercession for her." "From thy anger, from an unhappy death, from the pains of hell." _R._ "Deliver her, O Lord." "By thy cross and passion, by thy death and burial, by thy glorious resurrection, in the day of judgment." _R._ "Deliver her, O Lord." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant from all danger of hell, and from all pain and tribulation." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Enoch and Elias from the common death of the world." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Noah from the flood." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Abraham from the midst of the Chaldeans." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Job from all his afflictions." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Isaac from being sacrificed by his father." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Lot from Sodom and the flames of fire." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Moses from the hands of Pharaoh, King of Egypt." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Daniel from the lions' den." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst the three children from the fiery furnace and from the hands of an unmerciful king." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Susanna from her false accusers." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst David from the hands of Goliah and Saul." _R._ "Amen." "Deliver, O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Peter and Paul out of prison." _R._ "Amen." "And as thou deliveredst that blessed virgin and martyr, St. Thecla, from most cruel torments, so vouchsafe, O Lord, to deliver the soul of this thy servant, and bring it to the participation of thy heavenly joys." _R._ "Amen." "Depart, Christian soul, out of this world, in the name of God, the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who sanctified thee; in the name of the angels, archangels, thrones and dominations, cherubims and seraphims; in the name of the patriarchs and prophets, of the holy martyrs and confessors, of the holy monks and hermits, of the holy virgins, and of all the saints of God. Let thy place be this day in peace, and thy abode in _Sion_, through Christ, our Lord." _R_. "Amen." The offering up of this most beautiful prayer by the children for their dying parent was not unattended with several breaks and pauses, caused by the overwhelming grief of the poor orphans. They "gave out" the short prayers of the litany very well, and without much interruption; but when they came to the more solemn portion of that beautiful service, the "recommendation of a departing soul," they could no longer restrain their tears or suppress their lamentations. Small blame to the poor children for this manifestation of grief, since we have known instances of the most hardened hearts being touched, and the most manly eyes yielding their tribute of tears, at the bare recital of the most beautiful form of prayer for the "soul departing." We have ourselves read this service a thousand times, at least, by the death bedsides of many "departing souls;" and never could we once go through the form of it entire without yielding to the weakness of nature, and becoming speechless by the violence of our tears. Let the most obstinate unbeliever attend but a few times by the bedside of a dying Catholic, and observe the piety and faith of the priest and people around the bed of the "soul departing;" and if he be not an atheist or a blasphemer of God's providence, it is impossible for him not to perceive the superiority of the Catholic religion to all other forms of worship that ever existed. But to be present at the death hour of a Christian is a privilege which Protestants and unbelievers seldom or never enjoy; their levity and want of devotion, with their impiety and irreverence, being sufficiently powerful obstacles to their admittance into such sacred places as the chamber in which the sacred offices of religion are administered to the "departing soul." It is only the true believers, and not "those outside," who have the privilege of hearing the "prayer of faith" that saves the sick man--it is only they who enjoy occasionally the consolation from the inspiring words of the church to join their tears, and unite their sighs, sobs, and sorrows with those of their pastors and fellow-Christians, for the happy passage and merciful judgment for their departing brother. Such were the tears and sadness that Paul O'Clery and his little attendants shed around the bed of their dying mother. "Paul, my child, why do you act so?" said she, gently chiding him. "O mother! mother! how can I help it? Stop ye your crying there," said he, taking courage, and turning to his younger associates. "Silence Bridget, Patrick, and Eugene. Answer me distinctly, and hold your grief. It will vex mother." And he continued the prayer from where he left off with as good grace as he could. The venerable priest, though inside the door, was unperceived during this affecting scene; and the heavy tears might be seen stealing down his furrowed cheeks as he surveyed the group before him. "O, faith of my Lord, O, best gift of God, how precious thou art! Thou canst change men into angels, earth into paradise, and convert the misery and poverty of the poor emigrant into a picture like this, that heaven itself must delight to gaze on. That's right, my darling son," said he, "you have finished well; you have done your duty towards your mother, for which God will bless you, and I bless you in his name. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen." "The priest, mother!" whispered Bridget. "I know him by his cloak." "Glory, honor, and praise be to the Almighty," said the calm and now rejoicing widow, as she saw the face of the venerable minister of religion. "The Lord is too good to me, not to let me die in a strange land, without the consolations of my holy religion," she continued, kissing the silver crucifix of her beads. The heart of the good man was too full to give utterance to many words; and seeing that Death was at hand, that already he was master of all but the heart,--for the extremes were cold and without feeling,--he ordered the children down to Mrs. Doherty's, while he heard the short and humble confession of the poor departing soul, administered the most holy viaticum, with extreme unction, and read the last benediction of the church--"In articulo mortis." He then strengthened her soul with a few words of exhortation, and having prescribed a few short, ejaculatory prayers, bidding her to have the name, as well as the image, of Jesus ever in her heart and lips, he departed, promising to call again as soon as possible, taking the precaution to leave two dollars in silver and a three dollar bill on the little stool that stood by her bed. He had now, he said, to go about forty miles into the country; and he would, after his return, call to see how she was, and to comply with her request about the children. "I commend you now to the care of God and his angel. God bless you," said he, departing. "Into thy hands I commend my spirit. O Lord, receive my soul. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, have mercy on me. O God of love, goodness, and mercy, accept my imperfect thanksgiving; save my soul, redeemed by thy precious blood, and make me worthy to see thy glory. I believe in thee, O Lord, I hope in thee, and I love thee. O my God and my Lord, who am I that thou shouldst visit me!" With these and other fervent aspirations, this pure and exalted soul prepared for the manifestation of the glory of her Lord, and sighed to be dissolved, and to fly to the beatific vision that faith promised her, and through the merits of Christ she expected to obtain. After this, the symptoms of her disease became sensibly less dangerous than before the visit of the priest; but this calm, this seeming relief, was only temporary. Presently the impress of pale death was unmistakably settled on her calm brow. CHAPTER II. GETTING THE MOTHER'S BLESSING. When the priest departed from the precincts of "Oil Mill House," in company with the impatient messenger that required his services in the country, after a few words of encouragement and advice spoken to Paul, Bridget, Patrick, and Eugene,--for so were widow O'Clery's children named,--they returned to the bedside of their dying mother. Little Bridget was the first to observe on the small bench by the bedside the money left there by Father O'Shane. "Paul," she whispered, "look here! This is money left, I suppose, by the priest." Paul, who was acquainted with American coin, took up the eight pieces, or quarters, in silver, and the bill, and examining them by the candle, said, "O Bid, see how good the priest is! He has left us five dollars, or one pound, without saying a word about it. Mother, how do you feel? Look! the priest left us a deal of money here quietly." "God reward him for it," answered she, with a hoarse and broken voice. "Paul, darling, go on your knees, you and your sister and brothers, till I give ye my blessing before I die. Quick, children, quick, while I have strength." "O mother! mother! sure you aren't going to leave us orphans? May be you will get better now, after extreme unction." "Kneel down here by my side, my children," said she, feeling that her time was now short. "Paul, do you promise me you will be a good boy, love God, and keep his commandments?" "Yes, mother, with God's help. O woe!" "Will you watch over your brothers, and sister Bridget, and go with them to the priest, telling him not to forget that I gave ye all up to his care, and the care of God and his blessed mother?" "O, I will." "Bridget, Patrick, and Eugene, will ye obey, and be said by Paul, who is the oldest?" "Yes, mother, please God," they answered, amidst sobbing and tears that half choked them. "God bless ye, and guard ye, and save ye from all dangers of soul and body. I give ye up to God. I place ye under the holy care of the blessed mother of God. I pray that ye may preserve pure the faith of Saint Patrick. I bless ye. O, pray for me. Jesus, into thy hands--Jesus--Mary--Jesus----." There was a sigh, and by a single effort the soul extricated itself from its prison of clay to join the ranks of its kindred spirits. The widow O'Clery is no more, and Paul and his brethren are orphans indeed. For a few minutes there was a deep silence in that chamber of death, and Paul repeated the "De Profundis," in English, out of his Prayer Book; but when the cold and ghastly form of death was perceived by this poor company to be all that was left of their darling and affectionate mother, loud and mournful were their lamentations. Then, and not till then, did the forlorn state to which they were reduced reveal itself even to their juvenile minds. There they were, helpless and destitute, without father or mother, friend or relation; on every side strangers, cold, hunger, and want. The mysterious hand of Providence conducted them from comparative comfort, if not luxury, through several stages of trial, danger, and trouble, till they were now entirely stripped, like Job, of all but an existence to which death was preferable. Many are the phases of misery and crosses with which the life of man is surrounded in this vale of tears; but we think the condition of the orphan, deprived of both parents, and thrown for support or existence on a strange and selfish world, the most desolate of all. A policeman was the first who was attracted to the house of mourning by the wailing and cries of those whom this night saw alone and desolate. Mrs. Doherty, attended by an Irish servant maid from a neighboring house, were the next visitors; and, after piously kneeling around the corpse to offer their fervent prayers for the soul, they prepared to "lay out" the body. This consists, as all are probably aware, of washing the corpse, clothing it in clean linen, extending it on a table or bed, and putting up such temporary fixtures as would deprive the room in which it lies of the gloom and repulsiveness attendant on such an event. After arranging all things so that she looked "a decent corpse," with the _religious habit_ around her, Mrs. Doherty hung up the crucifix, pinned to a white linen sheet at the head of where she lay, placed her "Ursuline Manual" on her breast, and her beads on her arms, crossed on the body. "She was a handsome, fine woman, in her day, God bless her," said Mrs. Doherty. "Yes, any body can tell that," answered Norry. "I wonder how they came here at all." "I know it well," answered old Peggy Doherty. "She telled me all about it afore she took bad entirely. Her man was well off, and had a brother next to the bishop in the church, in the county of C----. When landlords began to root out the people from their homes, the brother of Mr. O'Clery, her husband, wrote letters in the newspapers about the cruelty of the landlord, who was called 'Lord Mandemon;' and on that account, and because the priest took part with the poor,--as they always do, God bless 'em!--the landlord came down on Mr. O'Clery, sold out his sixty milch cows, after being twenty-one days in pound; and though the cows were worth ten pounds each, Lord Mandemon's agent sold them by auction, and he bought them back himself for two pounds each; and so the poor family was ruined. After that, O'Clery sold out another farm he had; and, collecting all that was due to him, he came to America, against the advice of the priest, his brother. He thought, he said, to live with his family in 'a free country,' where there were no landlords or tyrants, and, while he had some means, to buy a farm which he could call his own. But he took the cholera when within sight of land, and he only lived a few days. God rest his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed. And God help those poor orphans," she said, piously, looking to where the little group, wearied from grief and crying, lay asleep on a straw bed. "I do really pity the poor creatures," said Norry. "I suppose they will have to go to the poorhouse." "I hope not; God forbid, _asthore_, the poorhouse is such a dangerous place for Catholics. I heard the priest say he would call to-morrow; and may be he will _do for_ the little dears." "'Tis hard for him to provide for all that are in distress," said Norry. "I know it; but it would be a murther to let such well-reared and decent children into the hands of those poormasters, but especially that Van Stingey, whose great delight is, they say, to convart the children of Catholics to his own sect. See what he done to the little Cronin children, whose father and mother died lately." "I heard of that; but I am afraid the priest won't be able to call on to-morrow, as he promised, if it continue to snow so." "_O yea_, God forbid; but it is a terrible night. Do ye hear how it blows? _O Heirna Dioa._" "Yes, and the snow is falling in mountains; the roads will be blocked up, and hills and hollows will be on a level in the morning." "God help every poor Christian that is out to-night," said Mrs. Doherty. "I hope the Lord will save his reverence from all harm." "Amen!" answered Norry. "He will have a hard night of it. Had he far to go?" "He had, _agra_, forty miles out in Vermont; but sure he could not refuse going. The woman is just dying; and besides, she is a Protestant, who wants to die in the faith." "Happy for her," said Norry, "if he overtakes her alive. How good the priests are to these Yankees, although they are always ridiculing the clergy; yet, if one of them is going to die, the priest not only forgives them, but is willing to travel any distance to do them a service." "Sure that's the orders of God and the church," said Mrs. Doherty. "It is not for them alone they are working, but for God, you know." "That's true," said Norry. "But still and all, when one hears how they are always ridiculing priests and nuns, and sees how they hate our religion, it is very hard, I think, to forgive them." "Yes, _agra_," said Peggy, who was better informed than Norry; "so it is hard for flesh and blood to forgive the heretics; but, unless we forgive them, God won't forgive us. The priest knows this well; and so, if there were two sick calls to come at one time to him, as happened lately, one a Protestant and the other a Catholic, he would go to the Protestant first." "That beats all," said Norry, "and is more than I would do, if I were the priest; for I know well all that is said of him behind his back." "What harm will all that scandalous talk do the priest?" said Peggy. "It only does him good; and he has a blessing for being 'spoken evil of' like our Lord. He forgives all those whom God forgives; and so, if his enemy, the Protestant, falls sick, and wants his services, he goes to him _first_, in order that he may be brought into the church, where alone he can be saved." "Thanks be to God," said Norry. "Is not it a wonder the Protestants don't understand this, and look on the priests and the church as their best friends, seeing that the priests are as ready, and readier, to attend to them than to the Catholics themselves?" "How can they understand it when they are blinded by love of money, impurity, and the hatred that the ministers excite against the church in the minds of their hearers? Wasn't our Lord himself hated by those whom he most loved, and put to death by them? It is so with every priest who follows his steps, now as well as then. The world will always hate good." This Christian philosophy was a little too sublime for poor Norry's mind, who was a long time among the Yankees, sufficiently instructed in the customs of this "free country" to be ready to observe the law of "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and life for life;" and who, besides, had her naturally warm temper rather spoiled from her continual rencontres with her mistress on such subjects as confession, priests' celibacy, purgatory, and other subjects too profound for the understanding of her mistress to know any thing about them, and too sacred in the eyes of Norry to allow them to be irreverently handled without saying something in their defence. It requires not only a perfect acquaintance with the sublime and heavenly tenets of Catholicity to speak of them with precision and propriety, but, in addition to a deep study of the truths of true religion, the _practice of her precepts_, and the frequent reception of the sacraments, are necessary to imbue the mind with the true Christian notions regarding her high commands. Poor Norry "had not a chance," she said, of going to her duties for several years; and that is why she considered "Peggy Doherty's" talk about forgiveness so strange and unaccountable. "Yes, a _Greffour_," resumed "old Peggy," "we must forgive all the world; and myself would forgive any thing sooner than kidnappin' or stealing away the children of Catholics, which these Yankee parsons are so fond of doing." "O, so they are, the villains," said Norry. "Did they take away or steal any of this poor woman's children? 'Tis a wonder if they didn't." "Well, besides the four children you see here, _asthore_, she had another neat child, one year old, named Aloysia, whom a lady up town took with her, two months since, to rear her up along with her own children; and it was only about ten days since she got news of her death. When the poor woman heard this, the heart broke entirely within her, especially as she could not be present at the child's death bed or at the funeral." "Why, that's rather strange," said Norry. "Did they send her word that she was sick?" "Not a word. It was only when I went up to Mrs. Sillerman's, the other day, to inquire about the child, she comes out and tells me the child died, and was decently interred. When I told the mother, she cried out, 'O Aloysia, Aloysia, my darling! are you, too, gone?' And she was not herself since." "I do think there must be something wrong in the matter," said Norry. "Did you tell the priest?" "No, I did not, for I had not time," said Mrs. Doherty. "God forgive me. I have a doubt in my own mind that the lady of the house (I renounce judging her) was not honest when she told me of the child's death. 'Perhaps,' says I to myself, 'she is kidnapped.' And she was such a purty angel, with a face you would delight looking on; and on her right hand,--the Lord save us!--a circle like a ring was on her middle finger. She was too good to live; and was made for heaven, I suppose. Glory be to God." CHAPTER III. AN OFFICIAL. Our poormaster, Van Stingey, was a very conscientious officer. He never squandered what he called the people's property, the commonwealth. He was none of your vulgar, ordinary poormasters. He did not want the office; they only forced it on to him. Like some of your great statesmen, he acted for _man_, as he emphatically said; not for poor widows and orphans, taken one by one; that was only a secondary consideration. His whole duty, his very existence, seemed to be needed for the good of man, or humanity in general. The question with him was, not how to relieve this or that poor man or woman. _That_ might engage the attention of a man of no intelligence, no education, or no philosophy: what he aspired to was, always to act by principle; to act so that the state, or the people who owned _real estate_, and who elected him against his will, to see that their interests were attended to, whatever became of the poor. Accordingly, when he heard of any case of particular distress, such as that a poor emigrant died of misery in a cold, deserted house, our poormaster regretted it, as an individual; but, as an officer, he said, he acted according to principle. He could not betray his constituents, who elected him against his will, by any act of extravagance; and the good of the many must be consulted. "Even the Lord," he used to say,--for he was a religious man,--"when he created the sun, left spots in it." The best statesman must sometimes do what may be cruel to the few; but, in the end, it would turn out for the good of man. This district, since his election, now twice successively, had made a saving of some two hundred a year since he became its officer; and that would, in time, open the eyes of the people as to who were proper candidates for office, tend to diminish taxes, and, in fact, be a work for man--progress and virtue. Besides this, Mr. Poormaster Van Stingey had "got religion," by which he was wonderfully enlightened, having been so lucky as to gain that valuable accomplishment just six months, and only six months, before his election, at a camp meeting held near the village of M----ville. "I tell you what, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Knicks," said he, "there is nothin' like religion. Before I got religion, and jined the church, I didn't have any knowledge of God. I used to pity these emigrants, seeing them poor and pale looking as death; but now, sir, I reads my Bible, and finds that the Lord must not regard nor love these Papists, wher'n he lets them run down so. The word of life is great." "Wal, I do not know. I care not a straw about any church; but my old mother used to teach us, when children, that poverty and crosses were no sign of the Lord's displeasure; as witness holy Job and Christ himself, who were poor. In fact, she never stopped telling us, when boys, that riches were dangerous, the love of money the root of all evil, and that 'whom he chastiseth the Lord loveth.'" "O, but your mother was a stiff Papist, you know, and did not understand the word of God." "Yes, sir-ee, she did that; for I well recollect that, in the many arguments she had with father, she always had the best of it. That she had." "She may argue from Jesuit books and the like; but the Bible she durst not look at, you know, Knicks." "I know better, Van. Don't you talk so. I have got the very Bible she used and read every day--a great large one, printed in London. Mother was English, and herself a convert to the church of Rome, though father was Dutch." "Why, I never knowed that, Knicks. That was a great misfortune. These priests, by the arts of Antichrist, will come round simple folks so, that they often succeed in leading them down to destruction." "Well, sir," said Knicks, "I can tell you I never met a Christian but my mother; and I cannot believe or listen to you say she went to destruction, but to heaven, if there is such a place. And again: if I were to embrace any religion, it would be the Roman Catholic religion; for it is the only _honest religion_ there is. Father often brought Methodist and Presbyterian ministers to make mother give up her'n; but it was no go. She always treated them civil; but they had the worst of the argument, I can tell you. They brought their Bibles, and she her'n; and then they would set to, and be at it, till at last they were obliged to give up. The only difference between her Bible and theirs is, that her'n contained some fourteen or fifteen books more than the Protestant Bible. The end of it was, that father turned with mother, and had the Irish priest O'Shane to attent him afore he died. Mother got us all baptized too." "Indeed!" carelessly ejaculated our official. "I must call and see that Bible of yours some day." This conversation--which happened a few days before the death of our emigrant widow--between his neighbor "Knicks" and our official shows what an _enlightened gentleman_ he was. Since his elevation to office, he also got promotion to another situation, which, though not so lucrative as that of poormaster, in the course of time, by proper management, promised to come to something. In a certain school house in his vicinity, where the faithful were too poor, too irreligious, or too pernicious to hire a preacher, our official held forth every Sunday, and several evenings on the week days, at prayer meetings, protracted meetings, and other roaring exercises. And to do him credit, his nasal accent and piercing shrill voice made him a capital substitute for the _hired_ regular Methodist preacher. He could be heard for nearly a mile distant calling on the _brethern_ and _sistern_ to come to heaven. "O, let us come!" he would cry; "we were made and intended for heaven. I see the shining seats, I see the crystal fountains, I see the Lord sitting on the throne. Come, sisters, come! I could embrace ye all for the Lord's sake. I could hide ye in my bosom. O! O!" There were some whose faith was not strong enough to place implicit reliance on the veracity of this very enlightened "minister of the word;" but the great majority believed, or pretended to believe, and expressed their faith by crying out, "Glory! glo-ry! glo-r-y!" If a more particular or personal description of our official is required, we can state, from minute observation, that Mr. Van Stingey was of the middle size, of thin, cadaverous appearance, short neck, snake head, with lank, sandy hair, nose flat and simex-like, small eyes, one of which he kept continually shut, as if he supposed himself a match for the poor whom he had to deal with by keeping one "eye skinned," reserving the other for some important office in church or state, to which he unquestionably aspired. Several times during the two months the destitute widow and her family were reduced to penury and sickness. Our worthy master was apprised of their condition by the neighbors; but he always answered that the law did not allow him to spend any more, just now; that these emigrants ought to remain at home; that they had no right to this country; that he heard a very godly minister foretell last year, at camp meeting, that the Romanists would yet have this country; that too many were coming by millions; that he feared that they could not be converted as fast as they were arriving; that they ought to be made pay a heavy sum, or sent back. "In short," said he one day to poor Mrs. Doherty, "I was not elected by them Irish paupers, and I never expect to be." "If every thing you say was as true as that last word, I think you would be an honest man for wonst," said Mrs. Doherty; "for there is no fear that an Irishman's or a Christian's vote will ever elect the like of you. God forgive you this day!" To suppose that any man could display such _bona fide_ ignorance as this official did in the foregoing, would be to form an incorrect and inadequate estimate of the human mind. The fact was that Van Stingey was a false, low, cruel man, whose soul, steeped in the sensuality of his past life, had lost all that was divine in its nature. His circumstances were so reduced by his crimes and dissipation, that, being "too lazy to work, and ashamed to beg," he assumed first the guise of religion to gain popularity; and when he had "got religion," then the teachers of the stuff which they call by that noble name, to keep it respectable, procured him this office as a reward for his hypocrisy. This was the official who startled the inmates of our house of mourning about five o'clock in the morning, when, thrusting his head inside the door, he cried out, "A corpse there, eh?" "The Lord save us! Who are you, or what brings you here this hour o' night?" said old granny Doherty, suspecting him as "nothing good." "Like you Irish, allers asking questions," said he, discharging a mass of tobacco almost in her face. "I am the poormaster; and, having received a report that there was a dead pauper here, thought I would have it put out of the way early, before the folks would get up." "You are a very polite gintleman, God bless you. I hope she won't be buried so soon. This is not the custom in any Christian country. After to-morrow will be soon enough. You need not be in a hurry. We expect the priest here to see to the children, as he has already left some help, God bless him." "She must be enterred this morning, having died with the ship fever, I suppose. The citizens expect me to do my _dooty_; and that I will do, if the Lord spares me." "The dickens a ship fever nor no other fever she had; but the poor woman's heart broke, seeing what she had come to in a strange country," said Mrs. Doherty, pityingly. "Wal, wal, if she had trusted in the Lord, and knew the word of God, he would not have deserted her as he has," hypocritically answered the official. "I beg your pardon, sir, don't judge rashly. She was not deserted by God, but died content and happy, after all the rites of her holy religion were administered to her," was the prompt reply. "You think so; but I want to know how she could love God without the Bible; and you Roman Catholics are not allowed its use." "God help those that can't read so," said Mrs. Doherty. "There is no chance for me or my old man, for neither of us can read it; but not so Mrs. O'Clery, God be good to her. She had her Bible, and many more good books." "Yes, sir," said Paul, joining in the dialogue. "We have always had the true Catholic Bible, and mother always read it on her knees." "Wal, my good lad, you are _pooty_ smart; and now get you ready, with the rest of you little critters, and come on the sleigh I will send for you. Let's see how many of you there are. One, two, three, four--a great lot of ye. As I was saying, be ready to come up to the county house till I can get some folks to take ye in to keep till ye are of age." "The priest, sir," said Paul, "promised to call to-day; and as he already has left us a good sum of money, I know the good man will provide for us till he writes to my uncle, who would be very sorry to hear of our going to the poorhouse or the county house, though it may be a better place." "My young lad, you will be provided for by law, and don't fail to be ready by ten o'clock," said the official, sternly, as he left the room. In a few hours after, the body of the widow O'Clery was deposited in a rough, unplaned pine coffin, and placed on board a two-horse, open sleigh. The four orphans were stowed around in the same vehicle, and, in care of a constable, the _cortege_ drove off at full speed to the cemetery. By half past eleven, the remains of the widow were consigned to their kindred earth, the few lumps of hard frozen clay on the surface her only monument--the sobs, sighs, and prayers of her own dear children the only requiem uttered over her lowly and soon-to-be-forgotten tomb. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth now, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors." (Apoc. xiv. 13.) CHAPTER IV. THE POORHOUSE. When Father O'Shane left for the village of B----, in Vermont, to administer the rites of Christian unction to a departing soul, the roads were very hard to travel, and his progress, in company with his faithful guide, was tedious and slow in the extreme. The call was to a sick woman named Finmore, who was in the last stage of consumption, and who had often, during her illness, expressed a desire that she should be attended by a priest before she would die. Her husband did not oppose her wish, but was yet either too indifferent on the subject, or too lazy, to go such a journey as to the city of T---- in search of a personage of whom he stood in such awe, and knew so little of, as the Catholic priest. A neighboring Irish farmer, named O'Leary, hearing of the wish of the dying woman, volunteered to bring the priest, if "there was one to be found in all America," he said, "provided he got a horse and wagon from the stable of the rich Yankee." And it was in company with this simple but brave and faithful man that Father O'Shane set out on the evening of the widow's death. They had not advanced many miles, however, when the wind veered round to the north-west, and a most violent snow storm blew quite in their face. Slow and unpleasant was their progress over the hard, icy road; but in the course of a few hours their farther advance became an utter impossibility with a wagon. They had, therefore, to stop at a tavern; and after a good deal of entreaty, and after having fed their horse, they succeeded in hiring from the boss the use of a sleigh to carry them along to Vermont. "Ye can't travel nohow to-night," said the boss; "the roads will be blocked up, chuck full." "We'll have to travel, sir," said the Irishman, "or die in the attempt; so let us have the cutter. Charge what you have a mind to." "Why, what in the world can be the matter? Ye ain't subpoenaed, or going to arrest somebody?" said the jolly boss. "Ah, no such thing, man," said the farmer; "but there is a woman dangerously ill, and yon gentleman in the sitting room is a doctor, going to visit her. Cost what it may, we must go ahead." "O, that alters the case. Why did you not say so at first? and you should have had it and welcome. It will be ready in no time. Hitch on to that new, light cutter in the shed, Sam," said he to the hostler. "Ya, ya," said Sam; and in five minutes the priest and his guide were again proceeding on their charitable mission. They reached their destination about two o'clock in the night, just one hour before the death of her on whose account they had come such a journey. Father O'Shane--poor old gentleman!--suffered terribly; had his ears frostbitten, and two of his fingers frozen. But no matter; a soul was to be saved, and that consideration alleviated all his sufferings, and rendered him dead to every thing--cold, pain, watchings, hunger, thirst, and weariness; nay, even death itself was but a trivial, inadequate price to be paid by a mortal man to gain an immortal soul to Christ and eternal happiness. "'Tis an awful night, reverend sir," said O'Leary. "I fear we can't go ahead." "What matter, O'Leary," said Father O'Shane, "as we reached in time? What is this night and all its violence compared with the sufferings of a poor soul in the next world? All I regret is that you did not send me in the sick call sooner. All is well, however; she was perfectly conscious, and, I hope, worthily received all the rites of religion. Hold up! you will rest well to-night, your conscience at ease, after having been engaged in such a meritorious act of charity." In nothing does the church of God manifest the divinity of her origin and mission more than in the care which she bestows on her children, the adopted brethren of Jesus Christ, at the awful hour of death. She reserves all her good things for this her last service to her children. She sends her keys there, to the bedside of the dying man, to open to him the gate to the calm and peaceful walks of justification. She sends her oils thither, too, to anoint the Christian gladiator for his last and final struggle with his powerful enemies. She sends her divine manna, to strengthen him and sustain him for the trying and unknown journey; and she sends the music of her sweet hymns and litanies to cheer him on, and the light of indulgences and benedictions to guide his soul, illumine his understanding, and shed the rays of their heavenly reflection on the difficult passage that he has to traverse. And this food, these blessings, gifts, and graces, she has ready for all repentant sinners without exception, be they the inmates of the true fold, or straying without the boundaries of the city of God; be they the timorous souls who are already washed, or the negligent, who have followed the hard ways of the world. If, in her other functions, the spouse of Christ is "terrible as an army set in array," "fair as the moon, and beautiful as the setting sun," in this, her last office at the death bedside, she is all mercy, tenderness, and goodness. O, how cold, selfish, and intolerable would life be, if the Catholic church was not present, on all occasions, with the graces, blessings, and consolations of Christ! "O Lord, if it be thy will, deprive us of every thing--riches, health, renown, pleasure; but never leave thy creatures, thy inheritance, thy children, without the consolations of thy church! O Lord, the many sheep that are here not of thy fold gather and bring in speedily, that there may be but one fold and one Shepherd, as thou thyself hast foretold." Thus prayed this pious priest of God, after having added another strayed sheep to the fold of his divine Master; and his soul was at peace. For two days the storm continued unabated, the whole country becoming like an undulating ocean of snow. Drift snow, mountain high, was accumulated in the valleys between hills; whole herds of sheep and cattle were suffocated; and the bodies of several teamsters, whose teams were overset, were dug out lifeless from under the drifts by the men who had assembled with their ox teams and shovels to open the interrupted communication with the city. Father O'Shane bemoaned his fate in doleful terms; the more so as Sunday was approaching, when he feared he should be absent from his congregation; and he also regretted that he had it not in his power, according to his promise to the widow O'Clery, to visit her next day, and provide for her poor orphans among the benevolent of his flock. And, well aware of the character of the hard-hearted Van Stingey, he shuddered for the fate of the children. The apprehensions of the good priest were not groundless; for no sooner was the body of Mrs. O'Clery consigned to its narrow, cold habitation, than the official, assisting the children into the sleigh that had borne their mother's body to the tomb, drove off in a rapid trot towards the poorhouse. "Have we far to go yet, sir?" said Paul, thinking that the "county house" was something different from the much dreaded poorhouse. "I am afraid Bridget will perish with cold, sir." "No fears of her; she's hardy, I guess." "Yes, sir, but her dress is so very light." "Well, she can pull that ere buffalo around her." "Ou, hou, hou!" cried Bridget, breathing on her little bare hands, which she kept pressed to her lips. "I hope, sir, you are not going to take us to the poorhouse," said Paul; "we don't want to go there. The priest that attended my mother--God rest her soul!--told us he would provide for us." "Indeed! How can he do so?" said Van Stingey. "Why, sir, I don't know; but perhaps he will write to my uncle, who is a vicar general in Ireland, and he will send us money to take us back home." "Is your uncle in the British sarvice, then, and a general in the army?" "No, sir, but he is a priest next to the bishop in station in the church." "That's it, eh? Wal, I guess you better not talk of going back, any how. You must live here in this free country, and learn to be a man and a Christian--a thing you could not be at home, in the old country." "I beg your pardon, sir," replied Paul; "the very best Christians are in Ireland, which was once called the 'Isle of Saints,' when all the people were Catholics; and where I came from, even now, they are all mostly Catholics. There are in the whole parish but two _peelers_, the minister and his wife, and the tithe proctor, or collector of tithes; in all, five Protestants." "You are a lad, I see," said the official, as he dismounted from the sleigh and ordered the children to enter their new home. "O, woe, woe, woe!" cried they, as they found themselves admitted as _paupers_, and enclosed within the precincts of the terrible poorhouse. "O Lord, what will we do?" cried they. "O sir, don't keep us here, or send word to the priest first. I will go to his house, myself," said Paul. "Shet up, ye little fools!" said the official; "this is a better place nor ye think. Ye ain't going to get no potatoes, nohow, but something better than ye ever were used to. Take these young 'uns to the stove in the kitchen," said he to an under official. And the sobs and groans of the destitute orphans were drowned in the uproarious rumbling of the gong that called the officers of the establishment to dinner, it being now noon. The repugnance of the Irishman to the poorhouse is proverbial. Neither prison, dungeon, nor death is invested with greater horror, in the minds of the peasantry of Ireland, than this institution. Solely founded, as they are told, for their special use and benefit, there are instances, countless, on record, where the affectionate mother has thanked Heaven, when by fever, plague, or hunger it deprived her of her darling infant, rather than that it should become an inmate of the poorhouse! "Is not this prejudice unreasonable and strange?" it will be asked. "And why is it that the Irishman shuns and abhors an institution which his English neighbor enjoys and petitions to enter?" The reasons are numerous, and the difference in the feelings of both obvious and palpable. It must be first remarked, that the Irish are a traditional people, and remarkably conservative of the customs and usages of their ancestors. They look back into the history of their country, or consult their fathers and grandfathers, and in vain look back for the existence of a poorhouse, or any necessity for its existence, before the advent of the "godly reformation" and the established church in their midst. They heard of such establishments as the ancient "_beataghs_," or houses of hospitality, which were provided for the stranger and destitute in every townland, the doors of which were open day and night, and on the boards of which cooked victuals for scores of men were continually ready. These were the substitute for the poorhouse in the days when England and all Europe sent their poor scholars to receive a gratuitous education among the inhabitants of the Island of Saints. There the poor and the hungry could come in and eat, and be filled, and go his way, without being questioned who he was, without being asked for a _pauper ticket_ to admit him, without being obliged or compelled to lead a life of celibacy, or running the risk of his soul's salvation, to keep his body from perishing of hunger. In a word, when Brian Boru expelled the Danes from Ireland, when Hugh O'Niel triumphed over the troops of Elizabeth, as well as when Dathi held the sceptre, or Nial of the hostages planted his colors on the Alps, there was enough to feed the poor of Ireland. There was no necessity for a poorhouse; and there is no need of it now, says the Irish peasant, if justice was done to Ireland. "Give us back our monasteries and abbeys, and we will bestow you the poorhouses." Besides these considerations, the English poorhouse has this advantage over the Irish one--that the former is conducted and presided over by Englishmen, who have a sympathy for, or at least are of, the same blood, religion, and race with its inmates. But in Ireland the case is different. The poorhouses, prison-like edifices, in Elizabethan style of architecture, presided over by Englishmen, generally, and nominees of the crown, are a monument of conquest and tyranny. The inmates being principally "mere Irish," and the cost of their support derived chiefly from the land, the landlords consider their health, comfort, or life of only secondary importance. Hence we find the number of deaths in these charnel houses averaging that of years of plague; and each pauper is allowed far less weekly for his support than the lord of the soil allows the meanest dog in his kennel. Add to these the separation of man and wife, the isolation of members of the same family, the dangers of perversion and proselytism to the thinning ranks of the "law church;" and then, if you can, blame the poor Irishman for his horror of the dreadful poorhouse of England. He saw hundreds of his neighbors enter the gates of the poorhouse, but he never saw one return back. Less active imaginations than that of the Irish peasant would be worked on so as to conclude that some means more _active_ than sickness or old age were had recourse to, for the purpose of lessening the taxes on land, by getting rid of the poor. In truth, the British poorhouse is a great government establishment, where the sons of the low squirearchy are provided for--a terrible mill, where the bodies and souls of Irishmen and women are ground up and annihilated--a labor-saving machine of political economy, introduced into the world by the robbers of the reformation, in order to get rid of surplus population, and in order that the Lazaruses of society might not disturb the false repose of their hypocrisy, by begging the crums that fall from their plunder-burdened tables! The American poorhouse, however, is of quite a different description, and the promptitude and unanimity of the public mind regarding the necessity of a law to provide for the support of the poor are among the most laudable traits in the American character. In America, the patrimony of the poor was never wrested from the church, to which God committed their care; the charities and bequests of ages were not plundered and squandered by the vilest of the human race, as in Britain; hospitals, churches, abbeys, monasteries, convents, and other endowed provisions for the poor, were not robbed and confiscated by the sectarians of the new world, (probably because they did not exist there;) and hence the essential difference between the English and American poorhouse. There is no part of the Scripture the reformation people so rigidly adhered to, or now pretend to adhere to, as the advice of Judas, "Let this be sold and given to the poor." They made the sale, but the poor they left unprovided for, till their numbers increased so as to threaten the ill-gotten goods of the plunderers, who at length passed laws compelling the poor to support the poor. And this was the origin of poorhouses--a true Protestant creation. CHAPTER V. THE O'CLERYS. The O'Clery family was an ancient and honored one in Ireland. Princes, chieftains, and warriors of the name were renowned before Charlemagne or Alfred ascended the throne, or before any of the petty princes of the heptarchy ruled over the barbarous Saxons. Like all the royal and noble houses of Europe, the O'Clerys, after ages of glory and prosperity, had their hour of decline and decay also. But it was a question whether the virtues of this renowned house were more brilliant or conspicuous in the zenith of its glory, or in its fallen or humbled state. The Irish church founded by Saint Patrick never wanted an O'Clery to adorn her sanctuary or to record her victories. The annals of the Four Masters will stand to the end of the world as a proud monument of the services rendered to the Irish church and to history by these illustrious annalists; and when the deeds of the most renowned knights and chieftains of this royal house shall have been obliterated by the merciless chisel of time, the authors of the Four Masters' Annals will become only brighter among the shining stars that adorn the literary firmament of old Ireland. The martyrology of the Irish church can attest the virtues of constancy and patriotism with which the O'Clerys bore their share of the wrongs of Erin and of her faithful sons. Whether or not the subjects of our narrative, the poor emigrant orphans, had any of this royal and noble blood flowing in their veins, is a thing that we cannot genealogically vouch. But that they were not degenerate sons of Erin, or faithless to their allegiance to the glorious old church of their fathers, we trust this history will amply demonstrate. At all events, the uncle of our hero, Paul O'Clery, held a very high station in the Irish hierarchy. Having, with eclat, finished his ecclesiastical and literary primary studies in the colleges of his native land, he subsequently repaired to Rome, where he won with distinction the title of "doctor in divinity and canon law," and carried the first premium from many French, German, and even Italian competitors. Hence, soon after his return from abroad, on account of his learning, as well as his tried virtues, he was appointed the vicar general of the diocese of Kil----, a promotion which, far from exciting the envy, gained the unanimous approval, of the diocesan clergy. During the horrors of the general landlord persecution of the Irish Catholics, (for it is nothing else than a persecution of Catholics,) the O'Clerys found their name on the roll of the proscribed, and got notice to quit the homestead of their fathers. The principal cause for this proscription by the landlord was, that Dr. O'Clery, in the newspapers, exposed the system of cruel and barbarous extermination which took place on the extensive estates of Lord Mandemon--a gentleman who said he thought it far more honorable, as well as profitable, to have his princely estates in Munster tenanted by fat cattle than by Irish Papists. His lordship had also the mortification to learn that all the meat, money, and clothing he had employed for the last five years could not make one single sincere convert to his rich "law establishment." When the "praties" were dear, and the crops failed, there were a few, to be sure, who would profess themselves ready to "ate the mate" on Friday; but as soon as plenty returned, the "new lights" went out, or returned to ask pardon of God, the priest, and the people; and Lord Mandemon and his soup were pitched to the "seventy-nine devils." This failure, this result, so often before seen and felt, and so certain to follow, was, in his zeal for proselytism, attributed by his lordship to Dr. O'Clery's zeal and learning. For, whenever or wherever he went among the peasantry to preach to them in their own sweet and loved dialect, the "jumpers, the new lights, and the soupers" disappeared like the locusts from Egypt when exorcised by the magic rod of Moses. Hence the hatred with which the O'Clerys were persecuted. Hence, also, the oath of Lord Mandemon, that he would never return to his home in England till every Papist on his estates was rooted out. This oath was kept by his lordship, probably the only true one he ever swore; for in less than a fortnight he fell a victim to the cholera, and expired on board the Princess Royal steamboat on her return to Liverpool. Arthur O'Clery, father to the subject of our tale, sold out a second farm he held near Limerick, turned all his effects into money, bade adieu to his beloved brother, Dr. O'Clery, who was averse to his emigration, and, in the autumn, set sail from Liverpool for New York, in the ship Hottinguer. He had all his family with him: they were comfortably provided with all necessaries, and, besides, had one thousand pounds, in hard cash, to start with in the new world. They were not long out at sea, when, owing to the crowd on board, the lack of proper arrangements, and room, or ventillation, as well as on account of the cruelly of the inhuman captain, ship fever and cholera broke out on board. The number of bodies consigned to the ocean from that unlucky vessel was from five to ten daily, and among the victims of the plague was Arthur O'Clery. He was the only one of the cabin passengers who was attacked by the epidemic, which, in the ardor of his charity, he contracted while attending on, and ministering to, the wants of the poor steerage passengers. Sad and impressive was the scene when the Rev. H. O'Q----, a young Irish priest on board, in the middle hold of the ship, where O'Clery had been removed by order of the captain, called on the six hundred surviving passengers to kneel while he was administering the rites of the church to the benefactor of them all. Never was a call on the piety and faith of any number of men more cheerfully obeyed. Instantaneously that mixed, nondescript crowd--Irish, English, Scotch, Welsh, Dutch--Catholic, Protestant, infidel--fell on their knees, and, if they did not pray, they paid that _outward homage_ to Religion which sometimes the most indifferent and irreligious cannot resist paying her. Infidelity is a great coward, as well as a false guide. In her hour of ease and satiety, she pretends to scorn the threats and judgments of the Most High, and, like Satan in his pandemonium, to make war on Heaven; but no sooner does the roaring of the thunderbolt shake the earth, or the vast abyss open its devouring throat to swallow her unhappy victims, than she hides her head in the caves of the earth, or, flying to some secure place, abandons her votaries to the forlorn hope of trusting to the weakness of their own minds for resources to extricate themselves from the evils that threaten them. It was so on board the ill-fated Hottinguer. Those who, under the influence of the security offered by the prosperous sailing of the few first days, were bold, independent, and defiant of danger, no sooner did they see their comrades thrown overboard, after a few hours' sickness, than their hearts failed within them, their tone of defiance was turned into despair, their mockery of religion ceased, and that priest of God, whom they ridiculed, insulted, and despised for the first few days, was now respected, confided in, and regarded by them with sentiments bordering on religious homage. Fervently did that priest, who thanked God that he was on hand, pray, not that God would restore him to his wife and children,--for all hope of recovery was now gone,--but that, in accordance with the anxious desire of the dying man, he should have the privilege of burial in a Christian, consecrated tomb. "Pray, father," said he, "that, if it be God's holy will, I may be buried in a consecrated soil. It seems to me a sort of profanation, that the cruel fishes and those monsters of the deep, which we see leaping around the vessel, should devour my flesh, united with, and I hope sanctified now by, the flesh and blood of my Lord." The priest did pray, and the people joined in that impulsive prayer of faith, and that prayer was heard; for, though O'Clery breathed his last on board, and, by the captain's orders, the sailors--poor fellows!--were standing around his berth, prepared, as soon as the last breath left him, to throw him overboard, yet he lingered for three days after; and they reached quarantine before that pure soul quitted its tenement of clay and winged its flight to heaven. The wife and her children had the body conveyed to shore and interred in the Catholic cemetery of New York, where a neat marble monument could be seen with these words inscribed:-- _"Pray for the soul of Arthur O'Clery, whose body lies underneath. Requiescat in pace. Amen."_ It was thus that the O'Clerys were deprived of their good and virtuous father, and the widow of her husband; but this, as already has been partly seen, was but the beginning of their woes; for, after their arrival in New York, an individual, who, during the voyage, ingratiated himself with the family by his attention around the sick man's bed, joined them at their lodgings. But in a few days they found him gone one morning, after their return from mass at Barclay Street Church, and with him the canvas bag, containing the thousand pounds in gold and Bank of England notes left by them in a trunk. Thus were six persons, strangers and destitute in a great city, reduced from competency to poverty at "one fell swoop" by the villany of a pretended friend and associate. "O Lord, pity me! One misfortune never comes alone," groaned the now poor and afflicted widow O'Clery, when she was informed by little Bridget that the "trunk was broke open," and all the things ransacked "through and fro." She soon saw that all she had was gone, and concluded that Cunningham, as he was absent from breakfast contrary to his wont, must be the thief. The police got immediate notice; advertisements were issued, and rewards offered, and in a day or two after Cunningham was arrested; but as none of the money was found on his person, and as there was no direct evidence of his guilt, the magistrate discharged him. The articles of dress in her well-supplied wardrobe were detained, in payment of her board bill, by the hotel keeper where she lodged in New York; and with the few shillings that remained in her purse, she, with her children, took passage on one of the Hudson River boats, hoping to make out certain acquaintances of her husband, whom she heard were settled in the vicinity of T----. The rest has been already told--namely, how she took sick and died after great sufferings; how her children were left destitute, and next to naked; how they were now reduced to the rank of paupers, and secured within the precincts of the county house. "Of all the things which we brought from home with us, we have nothing of value now left, Bridget," said Paul, "but this silver crucifix, which belonged to my grandfather. Glory be to God. Let us be glad that this has been left," said he, kissing it with religious affection. "This is all we have now left. Let us defend it." CHAPTER VI. THE COUNCIL. Father O'Shane was now several days weather bound and laid up sick in Vermont, where, with great anxiety, he waited the first opportunity to return home to his mission; and the orphans were safely lodged in the poorhouse, where our friend Paul, to calm the anxiety and dispel the grief of his younger companions, began to contrast, with an air of satisfaction, the aspect of things here with what he had heard of the horrors of the Irish poorhouse. "What nice men we have in America over the poorhouse," said he; "they are very kind to us." "Yes; but I don't like that man with the great beard," said Bridget; "he frightens me when I meet him. O, such a _feesage_; a robin redbreast could make her nest in it," said she, smiling. "He might be a nice man for all that, Bid. Most people here don't shave at all, you know, as we saw in New York. And did you notice that sailor that saved the boy who fell overboard, what a long beard he had? And he must be a brave, good man, to risk his own life to save another's." "Yes, Paul; but he was a Catholic, and from Ireland, too; for he made the sign of the cross on himself in Irish before he leaped out, for I was near him; and besides, I saw him going to confession to the same priest we went to the day after we landed." "And are not they all Catholics here, Paul?" said Patsy. "I seen crosses on three churches, the time I went with Mrs. Doherty for the priest for mother, God be good to her." "No, Patsy, they are not; for if they were, there would be more than one priest for this large town; and you heard Father O'Shane say that there was only himself for all the city and a great part of the country," said Paul. "I hope somebody will take us to mass on Sunday," said little Patrick; "and, Paul, will you ask the priest to allow me to answer mass? You know Father Doyle told us never to forget the lessons we learned of him." "I'd know are there any nuns here," said Bridget. "O, how beautiful the convent chapel in Limerick was! I hope I have not lost my beautiful little silver medals and crucifix they gave me when I was coming away. No; here they are, and my Agnus Dei, too," she said, kissing them. "God rest mother's soul, how glad she was when I got these from the holy nuns!" And the tears streamed down her fair cheeks in floods. "Hold your tongue, Bridget, again," said Paul, with emphasis. "Don't you know that mother told us not to grieve, but pray for her soul? And besides, in the 'Imitation of Christ,' which I read for you this morning and last night, it is said that grief kills devotion, and excessive, sorrow is a sin. You can serve mother, or rejoice her soul, by praying, but not by crying, Bridget." "O, how can I help it? 'Tis against me will, Paul," said she, wiping her eyes. "Always look attentively at that crucifix," said Paul, "and you need never grieve for any thing except sin. This is what Father Doyle used to say." "O Paul, we have no father or mother now." "Yes we have, Bridget--our Father in heaven, and the blessed virgin mother of God, our mother also," said the young preacher. "How well the priest did not call as he said he would." "May be he could not help it; he had to go far into the country, and the snow might stop him. You know he will find us out. The priest always visits the poorhouse in Ireland." While this conversation was going on between the members of this poor orphan family, Paul acting the meritorious part of a comforter, (I say acting, for his own noble soul was almost crushed with grief, which he thought it better to disguise than to have his little charge rendered quite stupid and almost dead from crying and sobbing;) while this was the way Paul entertained his little charge, in another part of the poorhouse, in a well-furnished room, were seated around a table containing the "_reliquiæ"_ or remnants of a good dinner, five persons, engaged in earnest chat about the late importation of orphans. "Really they are likely young 'uns, and no mistake," said Mr. Van Stingey, wiping his mouth with the corner of the tablecloth. "Dear me!" said a lady who formed one of the council. "Charles, if you saw them, they are perfect beauties, you would say. The oldest boy is as noble-looking a lad as ever you did see--Roman nose, raven hair, delightfully-carved mouth, and lips, and eyes, and eyelashes quite indescribable, so beautiful are they. The little girl is a perfect Venus; while the two younger children, Patrick and Eugene, are as if they came from the chisel of Powers, or some renowned artist of antiquity." "Why, my love," said Parson Burly, "you are quite classical in your description; whether or not it is a correct one, is another thing." "I assure you, Mr. Burly," said Van Stingey, "that your lady has not described them beyond what is true. They are almighty fine young 'uns." "I want you to adopt that eldest one, Mr. Burly," said the parson's wife, who was president of the council. "He would make such an elegant preacher, I am sure. You must also change the name of the second boy from Patrick, which is so Irish, to Ebenezer, Zerubabbel, or some Scripture name, or even classical one." "Why, madam, I am beginning to get jealous, and to think you don't sufficiently admire my powers of oratory," said her husband. "Well, my dear, putting aside jokes," she solemnly remarked, "you know how much we need Irish ministers to preach to the Irish amongst us, who are the best church attenders on earth, I believe. And it is notorious, that those whom we can take out from the ranks of Papacy while young become the greatest ornaments to our denomination. Witness Kirvoin, Maclown, Moffat, and several others." "Well, well, my fair refuter," said the parson, who really feared his wife would rivet her affections on the young orphan if adopted; "you know it would never do to keep that little fellow with us. How old did you say he was--about fifteen? Well, fifteen or sixteen--ya--you recollect how that old priest acted last July, at the village of Scurvy? A little girl I sent out to Brother Prim this priest smelt and hunted out; and actually broke in the room door where she was confined, and took her off by physical force to a Roman Catholic orphan house. These priests are terrible fellows; and your young fancy orphan, Paul, would soon find out the priest, and have his grievance redressed. And what is worse, this priest got Americans--ay, members of my own church--to applaud his conduct, and defend him from prosecution! The Irish are getting so powerful in this country," said the parson, after a pause, "from their admirable union of purpose and the perfect organization of their church, that I dread their influence. In fact, 'you catch a Tartar' when you get one of them into your family. Ten to one, instead of converting this young Papist, he would convert our whole family to his own creed." "O Burly," said the disappointed wife, "you are always a prophet of evils. I tell you, I must have that young lad, for I want him." "You do? Cynthia, my dear," said the parson, "we cannot have the lad in our family. We _dare not_, without the consent of the trustees, who pay us our salary. Do you understand _that_, my fair disputant?" said he, triumphantly. "Well, Burly, as soon as I recover the means my father willed me, I shall have that young man--already almost fully educated, as you can perceive--brought up for the church." "O, _then_ you can try it, madam," said the man in white neckcloth, in a sharp, sarcastic style; "but as for me, and I think my opinion is of some weight, I tell you much can never be made out of that shrewd boy." There was a solemn, ominous silence, for a moment, in the company. "Did you remark the sort of dignified and independent motions of the fellow," continued he, "when you had him here just now?" "Fellow!" said his wife, looking at her husband, in anger. "Is that a proper term to apply to the child?" "It is not an improper or inappropriate one, not more so than calling him 'child,'" said he. "I was just going to remark the coolness of his reply when you introduced my name as the parish clergyman. 'A Catholic clergyman, I hope, sir,' said he; 'as such, I am very glad to see you.' Did you observe how sad and demure he looked when told he was to be sent to school, where he could read the Bible, and become acquainted with the word of God?' O sir,' said he, 'much obliged to you; I have got a Bible already, and other good books of devotion, which we brought from home. I should be very glad to learn what is good,' said he; 'but I trust I have got my catechism well committed to memory; and having made my first communion and been confirmed, I was discharged from class, and appointed a Sunday school teacher, by our good priest, Father Doyle.' And on my telling him that he could be a teacher here of a better religion than that of his country, he shook his head, declining the honor of the post offered, and remarking that 'it was impossible to have a better religion than that which had God for its author--the Catholic religion.' With this bit he retired (ye all saw him, I need not repeat more) from our presence, a blush of mental triumph playing on his smooth cheek." "Sartain there was such a feelin'," said an old gray-headed Yankee, who sat at the head of the table, and who was guardian of the establishment. "You can't do nothin' with these Papists," continued he. "I have seed the attempts made time and agin, but allers fail. The very children, only five years of age, of that ere religion, refuse to eat flesh on Friday, or to disobey such other darned ceremonies of their church as they are brought up to." "Wal, Mr. Burly, madam, and my esteemed brother Valentine, my plan is this," said Van Stingey: "send them, separate or in couples, here and there, into the country, and there, with the farmers, they will soon get used to our church ways, and be gradually broke in." "That you can't do safe, neither, Van," said the boss of the house, "for they would raise such a dust as would bring half the city around us; and you know the people would never consent to any thing like cruelty towards one so young and interesting as these here are." "You say the truth there, sir," said the parson. "It would be cruel to separate the dear ones," said the wife; "wherever they are sent, let them go together. I could pledge my watch and wedding diamond ring to help to raise such beauties," said she, passionately. "Surely they cannot be Irish, or they must belong to some race different from the Celtic half savages which we have read inhabit Ireland." "You mistake, Cynthia, my dear," said the parson; "these are Irish, and genuine Celts, too, as one can tell from the hair and nose. I think, however, you exaggerate their beauty. Have you not read the European letters of Thurlow W---- and Horace G----, which described the middle and upper classes of the Irish as the most beautiful complexioned and dignified people in Europe or the world? Now, this is my mind, that you must get some farmers in a good Protestant neighborhood to adopt these children, so that they may all live in the same vicinity, if not in the same family; and by this means all unpleasant consequences will be obviated." "I say ditto to that," said the Nestor of the council, old Valentine; "but you must lose no time, for the eldest lad told me the priest promised to call for them; and if that gentleman gets them into his hands, I'll warrant all your plans will be frustrated." "That's just it. You have hit the nail on the head, friend Valentine," said Van Stingey. "I will take charge on them, and take them to that gentleman's house, in W---- county, who was here last week looking for a boy and a girl to raise; and _mebbee_ I will scare up somewhere else for the other two young critters." "Take 'em along, then, and see that you get your pay," said the boss, rising. "O, never mind, leave that to me," said the vile, wily knave, as he went to see to his arrangements for carrying the orphans to parts unknown. CHAPTER VII. A RUDE LOVER OF NATURE. Father O'Shane, who had suffered severely from the effects of exposure to the late violent storm, no sooner found himself a little recruited, and the roads passable, than he prepared to return to his residence in the city. He had, as conductor, a green young Irishman, lately arrived, who felt almost inspired by the unusual luxury, presented for the first time to his view, of a North American snowfall, and petitioned earnestly to accompany his reverence back to the city to enjoy the "glorious sport," as he called it, of a sleigh ride. The enthusiasm of the young native of the perennial green fields of Munster did not escape the notice of Father O'Shane, who himself was once not less enthusiastic, and now not altogether insensible, to the chaste and almost sublime beauty of Nature, when arrayed in her bridal robes of white on the advent of spring. "Well, Murty, how do you like this manner of travelling?" "Be gonnies, your reverence, there is nothing I like better. What a fine time it would be for tracking the hare, or hunting the fox!" "You are fond of sport, I perceive." "Bedad, sir, I would rather be out such a day as this, with dog and gun, than eating bread and honey. I wonder if they would put you to jail or transport you here, as they would at home, for fowling a bit in these woods?" "No, Murty, I believe not." "No," said Murty, doubtingly. "You don't tell me so, your reverence?" "I tell you that there are no game laws, or only very nominal ones; so that, when you come back, if you and your dog traverse yonder mountain from top to bottom, you need not be afraid of the rifle of the gamekeeper, or of a sentence to a free passage to Van Diemen's Land." "Murther! Must not they be very fine gentlemen here, to be so liberal? Signs by I shall, please God, one of these days, visit that old, grand mountain with the white head; and if there be a hare's form in his rough sides or his curly beard, I will ferret it out, and soon have pussy by the hind legs." "I can see, Murty, you are growing poetical in your description of old Mount Antoine," said the priest. "Your reverence, did you ever see such a grand sight? I can't help comparing that grand mountain there to the king of yon wild regions. The snow on the trees, on the summit, causes them to look like gray locks; and, looking down on the smaller mountains on every side, they appear like his subjects or his sons, which, in time, are to grow big like himself, affording shelter and refuge from the snares of the hunter to the wild animals of nature. O, how I like America!" said he, his enthusiasm still rising. "That's right, Murty; I am glad you do like it. Wait till summer or autumn, and then how beautiful these bleak hills will appear during these delightful seasons!" "O sir, it is a great, grand country! No tyrants, no landlords, no poverty." "No poverty, Murty, except what is purely accidental, or brought on by the improvidence of individuals. In the very best regulated society there must, of necessity, be poverty less or more," said the priest, by way of qualification. "Every thing is free, and there is liberty for all. The very fences, you see, sir, unlike our stone walls at home, give liberty to the winds and storms to blow through them. The mountains are free to the huntsman; the very snow is free to blow and form itself into those beautiful banks, and little mountains, and castles, and stacks, and curtains, and drapery that we see on every side of us as we glide along." The priest listened with astonishment. "Was there ever seen any thing so _purty_," continued the peasant, "as those ridges and mounds of snow? I have seen the grandest buildings in Ireland,--Marlborough Street Church, in Dublin, the stone carving and ceiling in Cashel of the Kings, the stucco work on the old Parliament House in College Green,--but I think I see work in these fantastic snow banks that beats them all hollow. And--glory be to God!--all this beauty, so dazzling, so chaste, was created by a storm, when all nature was in a rage, and men shut themselves up in houses from its violence! I am glad now," said he, "our landlord turned us out. I now forgive him for being the cause of our coming to this country of the brave and the free." "Was it a landlord who has been the occasion of so much enjoyment to you, Murty?" said Father O'Shane, drawing him out. "Yes, sir. It vexes me to think of it, much more to speak of it," said the simple youth, with a tear full created in his eye. "We, and our forefathers before us, had the farm of Lapardawn for more than three hundred years. A new landlord coming in possession of the estate, we got notice to quit, in the middle of winter. My father refused to yield the hearth of his forefathers without a struggle, and locked himself and family up. My mother was just after her confinement, and becoming short of provisions and even of water, she begged of the police who kept guard to hand her in a drink. They refused. She then begged, for God's sake, to have a messenger go for the priest. For two days, the police refused to let any body out of the house, unless we surrendered. My father, who had cut a hole in the roof of the house to catch at rain water for my dying mother, made his escape through it. A neighbor, who handed me a drink of water through a broken pane in a window, had his hand cut off by a stroke from the police sergeant's sabre. My poor mother died before the priest arrived. My oldest brother, seeing his mother dead, and that we had nothing now to guard, surrendered. We were all lodged in jail that night, and all our means were sold at auction. It was lucky for us we were put into jail; for, one week from that day, the landlord that was the cause of all our misery and of my mother's death was shot dead on the road from our farm to the town of Ennis. If we were out of jail, we would all have been accused of the cruel landlord's murder, and hanged; but we were, after one year in prison for the crime of defending our homestead, liberated, and came out in a body to America. And now I am glad of it, for two signs of tyranny I find wanting here--landlords and game laws. The absence of one allows me to trace the steps of the wild quadruped; and of the other, to trace my title to the soil which I shall possess, down to the middle of the earth and up to the sky, unfrowned on, or unawed by the landlord's tyranny or the 'peeler's' cruelty. This is partly why I like to see these mountains of snow," said he, "for I think that neither landlords nor 'peelers' could exist here. They would become buried under these snow banks, for it is by night that they are generally patrolling the highways, and plotting against the peace of innocent families; and such a storm as the late one could not but be fatal to the villains." These and the like sentiments are those which generally pervade the bosom of the Irish emigrant after landing on this enfranchised land. Wonder not, then, you natives of this God-provided country, that the foreigner is likely to become more republican than yourselves, and that his is a keener sense of enjoyment than yours, from the evils of his antecedent life. Do not, therefore, become jealous of his purer and more ardent love for this republic, the inheritance of the oppressed; but, instead of envying his growing influence in this country of his choice and adoption, receive him with open arms, and make him a participator with yourselves in the good things which you and your fathers have enjoyed for ages, and your claims to which are grounded on no better title than that of the emigrant; and which title is founded on the adventitious discovery of this continent by a Catholic and a foreigner, and on oppressions undergone by your fathers in their native lands. Wonder not, then, that the Irish Catholic is the best lover of this country, and that he feels himself at home here; for his sufferings in the cause of liberty and of conscience have been such as to give him the strongest title deed to the liberties and privileges, if not to the enjoyments and comforts, of this favored land. Every prejudice is unreasonable, but none more irrational than that which would throw obstacles in the way of the gallant emigrant towards procuring a home and a sanctuary in this land of refuge and freedom. The land is wild and uncultivated, with its womb groaning under the burden of plenty and fertility that have been dormant for ages upon ages, and that must remain so for ages to come, unless the thrifty hand of husbandry assist them into birth; and where are we to find, or when will the "nativists" be able to procure, as busy hands and stalwart arms, sufficiently numerous to bring into cultivation the millions of acres within the extent of our country, if the emigrant and foreigner are to be discouraged, and the mad clamor of the "nativists" is to prevail? It was not all native blood that was spilled in the establishment of the republic. It was not native genius alone that created the constitution, laws, and institutions of our country. It was not "natives," of course, that first discovered, settled, or established the several states that form the grand Union. It was by emigrants, by "furriners," that all these things were done. What, therefore, can be more ungrateful, if not more unjust, in the "nativists," than to attempt to rob the poor emigrant of the rewards of his labor and merit, in order that they may enjoy all the fruit of the latter's toil? This is the height of ingratitude and injustice; a far more glaring instance of both than that of the _reputed_ forefathers of these "nativists" when they robbed the old Britons of their homes and of those liberties which they were _hired_ to defend. What models of honesty, justice, and truth you are, most distinguished "nativists"! The foreigner built your house, after having first procured the site or the lot; they furnish the house with all useful, and necessary, and ornamental furniture; and these very emigrants are yet necessary to keep the house in order; and you come and threaten to turn them out, telling them you can now dispense with their services, and that they are "furriners"! And, what is more inconsistent and unjust still, by this policy of yours, if it could prevail, you would be doing the most effectual thing to annihilate yourselves, both physically, politically, morally, and socially. For, if you turned off all the "furriners," not only would you sink in wealth and resources,--your ships unmanned, your factories unworked, your canals and railroads undug, and your battles unfought,--but your very blood would corrupt, and turn into water! Your physical stature would soon be reduced to the standard of the Aztecs; and, what is worse, following the natural channel of your Anglo-Saxon instincts, you would become a godless race of Liliputians! Yes, followers of Mormon Smith, Joe Miller, Theodore Parker, and spiritual raps. O nativists, to what an abyss your mental intoxication was hurrying you, in your blind zeal against the emigrant and the foreigner! CHAPTER VIII. THE ORPHANS IN THEIR NEW HOME. After the arrival in the city of the wearied missionary, his first visit was to the scene of his late visit to the dying widow; and learning all the particulars there that came under the cognizance of Mrs. Doherty, he next drove rapidly to the poorhouse, where, as we have already stated, the _pious_ officials had arranged the details so as to disappoint the Popish priest of his benevolent designs, and to secure, if possible, the adhesion of the young and interesting orphans to what they called "Bible religion." When Father O'Shane called at the county house, he learned from an under official that the boss "_warn't to home_; and," said he, "the children hadn't been here mor'n a few hours, when a highly-respec'able farmer had taken them with him to bring up." He couldn't "tell nothin' about who the farmer was, or where he was from; but the children wor well done for, that's all." It was in vain the priest represented that the children were no paupers, but of highly-respectable connections, who were able and willing to provide for them. He didn't "know nothin' about that; but he knowed papers were signed, (as he was directed falsely to assert,) and that sartain the children could not now be claimed by any persons except their parents. They were now under the care of guardians." After repeated visits, continued for weeks and months, to the same establishment, Father O'Shane could gain no more satisfactory knowledge of the fate of the orphans. He was obliged to relinquish his search in despair, concluding that the children were kidnapped, and that, except by God's mercy, their faith and morals were doomed, under the influence of cold, contradictory infidelity or heresy. He mentioned the case to his congregation, earnestly soliciting their prayers for these poor orphans of Christ; and he oftentimes offered the holy sacrifice, to enlist the influence of heaven in their regard. Let it not be said we exaggerate this account of the conduct of the poorhouse officials; and from the improbability of such an instance of injustice and cruelty happening in our day, let not our readers conclude that such a case, and many such cases, happened not in times gone by. Then the Irish Catholic population of the state was not much more than what that of one county is now. Then an Irish Catholic could not get the office of constable or bailiff; now we have Catholic cabinet ministers, judges, senators, legislators, and aldermen. Then the ballot box was surrounded but by a few Irish naturalized citizens, and these not of such importance as to influence the election of a constable or poormaster; now the Irish adopted citizen, by the power he exercises in his vote, is solicited by candidates, from a town officer to the president; and whoever would attempt to reënact the kidnapping of Van Stingey, and many other officials of his class, in their days of petty power, would be sure to be compelled to retire forever from public life, and pass into the gloom and infamy of his depraved private circle. There were many exposures and wailings of the children of Israel on the waters of the river of Egypt, before Moses; and there was many an instance of the kidnapping of Irish Catholic children from their parents, or natural guardians, by the jealous Pharaohs of sectarianism, before the attempt made by Mr. Van Stingey to kidnap Paul O'Clery and his brethren. In their new home, however, up to this time, Paul and his little charge were well treated, as far as meat and clothing were concerned. Even in regard to religion, and the devotional exercises prescribed by its precepts, there was no obstacle thrown in their way; although the fidelity of Paul and his sister Bridget to their morning and night prayers was quite astonishing to their patrons. A few indirect, covert attacks were all that, for many months, it was thought prudent they should have to encounter from the family, named Prying, with whom they staid. The truth was, that Paul, the eldest of the children, was such a smart, watchful, prudent young lad, his younger brothers and sister were so accustomed to obey him, and he exercised such emphatic authority over them, that it was the advice of the most prudent of the preachers who interested themselves in his case, to let him alone for the present. The change intended to be brought about was to be left to time, conversation, and the influence of common school education to accomplish. His education, in Ireland, was principally religious and classical, rather than commercial; and he was just now acquiring, in his present trying noviceship, what was precisely wanting to his previous course. He and his brothers, who lived in the next farmer's house, together with Bridget, his sister, who was under the same roof with himself, obstinately refused to attend the Sunday school, the meeting house, or to join in the prayer with which school was daily opened. Hence they were more than once publicly prayed for by the fanatical Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Mr. Gulmore, at whose church the Prying family attended. There was a sufficiency of prayers now "put up," in Mr. Gulmore's opinion, to begin the work of more practical conversion. Accordingly, a "big dinner" was prepared, a turkey cooked, and Friday fixed upon--the appetite being chosen, after a very ancient pattern in paradise, as the channel through which to "open the eyes" of these blind young Papists! Some neighboring ministers were of opinion that it was too soon to begin; but they were but Methodist, Universalist, and other preachers, who were jealous of the influence and of the salary of Mr. Gulmore, and who, besides, did not think it exactly fair that all the children should be converted to Presbyterianism, while there were a dozen as good denominations around, "and better too." But the good-salaried disciple of John Calvin had no respect for such opinion; so "forthwith the good work must begin," as he authoritatively said. He should not be trifled with any longer, or have it said that, after all the prayers "put up," and pains taken, "they should still be left wallowing in the mire of Popery." "It should not be! It could not be! The power of the Lord must be made manifest. He could not any longer allow the light to remain under a bushel. It should shine, and he should then and there convert those obstinate young things to vital religion." "Some turkey, Paul, my dear?" said Gulmore, after having first served the ladies and senior members of the family. "Not any, sir, thank you," said Paul. "Not any!" repeated the parson, frowning. "Why so? That's not good manners, my lad." "If it be not, I am sorry, sir," said Paul. "I cannot be expected to be very polite, or to know the usages of this country, as yet. So I beg to be excused." "You should not refuse the gifts of God when offered you," replied _his reverence_. "But I do not think it would be good for me to use these gifts of God in the present instance." "You must eat meat, Paul, and use the good things of our glorious country, or you will fail and die." "I know I will die," said Paul; "and I guess eating turkey won't make me immortal." A loud laugh followed this remark from all but the parson and a female member of the family. This "raised his dander a _leetle_," as old uncle Jacob afterwards used to say. "That is more unmannerly still, Paul," said the parson. "You think you are smart; but I tell you, child, you are ignorant, and impudent to boot." "I should be sorry to make a saucy or impudent answer to any body, much more to a clergyman of any church; but I thought you were aware that it is counted very insulting to Catholics to offer them meat on Fridays, as if they were apostates who would sell their souls for a 'mess of pottage;' and I thought you were aware that we are Catholics, and that our religion forbids us to eat flesh on Friday." "I know, sir, the Romish faith forbids her votaries the use of meat; but, Paul, I thought you were now thoroughly weaned from such notions, from what you have seen since you came to this free and Protestant country." "All I have seen since I was unfortunately compelled to come to these parts, only confirms me in my attachment to the religion of our ancestors," said Paul. "My child, I love you," said the parson, seeing he had been committed by his temper, and now changing his air of haughtiness into that of affected kindness; "I love you in my soul, and that is why I want to teach you to know Jesus, and to cause you to give up the fooleries of Popery. What can be more foolish than to abstain from what God has given for man's use?" "I hope I appreciate that _love_, sir," said Paul; "but if you wish not to insult me, and if you do not want to cause me to doubt the sincerity of your love, you won't call any prescription of the church of Christ foolish. The Scriptures tell us that we may lawfully and meritoriously abstain from many good and useful gifts of God--as Samson abstained from wine; St. John the Baptist from flesh and the luxury of apparel; St. Paul fasted and chastised his body; the Jews were commanded to abstain from the use of pork and other meats. Finally, our Savior promises to reward those publicly who will fast or abstain from food." "Ah, poor, lost, ignorant one," exclaimed the parson, "you are in error; sunk in superstition!" "I hope your assertions do not prove me so." "Paul, child, don't you speak so to the minister," interrupted old Mrs. Prying. "He is for your good, and desires to make you a Christian." "Ma'am, I don't wish to insult any body, as I said before; but I can't hear my religion run down and misrepresented while I know the contrary to be the fact." "Well, madam, let me alone; I will soon catch the lad in his own Jesuit net. Paul, you _know_ the Bible, you think; where in the Bible do you find it ordered to fast from flesh on Fridays?" "Where in the Bible," said Paul, "do you find it ordered to keep Sunday holy instead of Saturday, the Sabbath? where are you ordered to build churches? where do you find authority for establishing feasts and fasts? where to hold synods or assemblies? where to baptize infants?" "O Paul, the Bible does not order these things expressly; but the Christian church does." "Well," said Paul, "it is only our church that forbids her children the use of flesh on Friday; and 'he that does not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.'" "But you ought not to obey the church in what is evidently wrong; and it must be wrong to forbid the use of meat made for man's use." "If it was wrong, God would not have forbidden the Jews the use of meat that we now use as a gift of God." "That was in the old law. You cannot find any such prohibition in the gospel." "I can. In the Acts of the Apostles, xv. 29, the use of blood and strangled meat is forbidden. Besides, our Lord fasted forty days from the use of all the good gifts of God in the shape of food. The Israelites fasted from flesh in the desert, and were terribly punished for asking for it; over seventy thousand of them having died as a punishment for their carnal desires." "Paul, I fear the Lord has deserted thee," said this ignorant hypocrite, when he saw himself refuted by this young boy. "Don't we read from the mouth of truth itself, that 'what entereth into the mouth defileth not'?" "I think I heard the teetotal lecturer on the road there say that a glass of brandy defiled a man; and I am sure a quart or two of it would cause a man to sin, and thus defile him. And as the apple in the garden defiled Eve, not by its nature, but by reason of the prohibition of God, so the meat on Friday does not defile of itself, but by reason of the prohibition of the church." "You should not obey the church, Paul, in all these things. It is slavery the most vile, so it is." "Is it slavery in one to obey his parents in what is good and useful?" "No." "Well, then, the church is my mother; and when she prohibits an indifferent thing, I, as a good child, am bound to obey her, particularly when I have the promise of Christ that she can never err--that 'the gates of hell can never prevail against her.' We have an instance in this very county," said Paul, now warming into the argument, "of the effects of a prohibitory law. A few years ago it was no harm to fish for pickerel in the lakes and brooks of this county; but some of the people petitioned the legislature, and got a law passed forbidding the fishing for such fish for twenty years; and now, whoever is detected in violating the law is fined or imprisoned. So it was no sin to eat meat on Friday; but the church, for wise reasons, and to encourage mortification, has forbidden its use; and so now, after the prohibition, just as after the passage of the law in regard to fishing, whoever knowingly violates the law disobeys the church; and he who disobeys the church, or his parents, offends God, and will be punished by imprisonment, death, or eternal condemnation." "That boy will never do any good, and is a dangerous viper in a family," said the parson, abruptly rising, and taking his hat. "Well done, my young paddy," said uncle Jacob, as he saw the dominie retire; "you have beaten the minister holler. Ha! ha! ha! I am really glad you silenced his gab, for he is 'tarnally blabbing about his religion; though I think he hain't much of it himself, except counterfeit stuff, like a bad bill,--ha! ha!--that he wants to pass." "I hope he is not angry," said Paul, timidly. "Pshaw! And who cares, Paul? Let him cool, if he is mad, the darned fool," said uncle Jacob. "I am glad to have the house shet of him." Paul and uncle Jacob, with whom he was of late becoming a great favorite, retired for the evening to the latter's bed room, where Paul was accustomed to read aloud for him out of his Catholic books of instruction. CHAPTER IX. THE PRYING FAMILY. The farms of the brothers Prying were situated in a beautiful valley. On the one side were the Vermont snow-crowned and cloud-capped mountains, rising up like eternal ramparts against all eastern hostile incursions of the elements. On the other, or the western side, were the pleasant hills of York State, which, in contrast with the mountains of Vermont, looked like so many tumuli of the deceased Indian giants of ages gone by. In the centre between, in a southerly course, ran a clear, silver brook, well stocked with an abundance of trout and other species of the finny tribe. On both sides of this stream were situated the extensive farms of the Pryings. They had abundance of woods from the elevated extremes on either side. The rivulet constituted a cooling retreat for cattle in summer, and in spring afforded an abundant source of irrigation to the rich meadows on both sides. Ephraim's family, where Paul and Bridget remained, consisted of Mrs. Prying, Amanda, the senior daughter, Melinda, and Mary, called after her grandmother, who was Irish. There were besides, Calvin, Wesley, Cassius, and Cyrus, younger members of the family, together with old uncle Jacob, an unmarried brother of Ephraim, the head of this family. We may as well here remark that Mr. Prying was, from the beginning, averse to receive these orphans into his house, seeing, as he said, "that he wanted no more such hands as they were;" but Amanda persuaded him, in order to have the glory of being instrumental in the conversion of the "interesting orphans," as they were called. There were frequent friendly contentions in the family to see who would have the special care of the new comers. Little Mary insisted on having Bridget to sleep with herself instead of her sister Melinda, whom she wanted to dispossess. Wesley, Calvin, and Cassius wanted to monopolize Paul, especially on Sundays, when each of them were about to separate for their respective meetings to hear the preacher. "Father," said Calvin, "won't Paul come with me? Our minister, Mr. Gulmore, is such a clever preacher, and our Sunday school the best and the largest." "I say he shan't, now, Calvin," replied Wesley. "Your minister, the old feller, is nothing, compared with ours, Mr. Barker." "Well, brothers," said Cassius, "I don't see the use of your jawing about it. But I say Paul had better come to our meeting--the very name, Universalist, signifying the same with Catholic, as I was telling Paul yesterday, while a-fishing, and as our minister said." "Well, boys," said uncle Jacob, laughing, "my advice to you is; to see first whether Paul is willing to go with any of ye to yer meetings. I think his mind is made up to stay at home, like myself." Amanda now stepped forward to inform this conference that Paul had been spoiled by their example; that he cried when told he must go to meeting; and that it was better now not to urge the matter further. In future, she intended to instruct Paul and Bridget herself; and she was resolved to cut off all intercourse between them and the younger members of the family. Our readers are aware that Amanda was the Miss Prying, a child of her father by a former marriage; and besides this, she was an old maid. In addition to the foregoing circumstances, she became pious, attended camp meetings, donation parties, and _quilting matches_ at young ministers' houses, who were just preparing to get a _rib_. And though she was praised as the best needle lady in the town, her epistles on love to young preachers were the most admirable mixture of classical and biblical composition that could be found. Though she had a good pair of hands at making pies, puddings, and other culinary preparations, though she was praised, flattered, and admired, yet nobody ever yet went beyond this. All was admiration, praise, flattery, no more. Again: Amanda, though a strict old school Presbyterian, in order to exhibit her liberality and prove that she had no objection to a partner from any of the other countless sects of Protestantism, be he Baptist, Methodist, or Unitarian--in order to prove her liberality, she attended the donations of the six ministers of her village, and each of the dominies received from her a neatly-worked handkerchief for pulpit use. Yet, though she was at once liberal and strict, pious and politic; though she induced one Sally Dwyer to join her church and declare she "got the change of heart;" though she was eternally working and planning to bring others to her way of thinking, and had some success in her proselyting efforts,--she never could, with all her art, biblical lore, and policy, succeed in causing any body to say, "I take thee, Amanda, to my wedded wife." This was the chief point; and here is just where she failed. What was the cause of it? She was not too old--not near so old as Miss Longface, whom the youthful parson Barker lately wedded. "And besides," said she, in a soliloquy, "when I was young, it was just the same bad luck. Is it that men are less numerous than ladies? There might be something in that, for she had seen it stated in their newspaper, 'The Home Journal,' that female births exceeded that of males by forty thousand annually in certain European kingdoms. The number of Popish priests also," she said, "who remain unmarried, adds greatly to the superfluity of the female sex. Hence there is no part of the wicked Popish system I regard so much contrary to God's holy word as celibacy. Celibacy!" she cried aloud; "one of the doctrines of devils, as any one can tell, who has been these twenty years in search of a mate, and could never yet find one! O horrid thought!" She had consulted the famous fortune teller at the state fair of Vermont, and, after having paid that "seer of future events" a fee of ten dollars, she found his prediction was false. For she was told she would be married within two years, and to a neighboring minister; but now it was twenty-six months since, and the only single minister around lately got married to Miss Longface, a very ignorant and unamiable person. But there was no taste, or judgment, or discernment nowadays in men, as this fact clearly proved. "Thunderation on them!" said she, in a rage. Such were the ideas that were passing through the brain of Amanda one Sunday morning, as she lounged on the sofa of her sitting room, when, upon her looking out towards the lawn in front, she perceived Paul and Bridget kneeling by a seat, at the foot of a large wild plum tree that stood at the end of the green plot in front of the house, and that had its branches bent within a few feet of the ground by the embraces of a rich grape vine that for years had grown around it and impeded its development. For a few moments she watched the movements of the orphans as they smote their breasts at the "Confiteor," or bowed their heads at the "Sanctus," accompanying the priests who, they knew, in thousands of churches, were engaged in offering sacrifice to God; and reading the "Prayers at Mass" out of the Key of Heaven manual of devotion. Instead of admiring this sincerity of devotion, or giving thanks to God for the grace of fidelity and piety that his mercy had vouchsafed to these children of grace, Amanda, as if she could not endure the sight of such happiness, or mortified at the miscarriage of her vain attempts to rob these innocent hearts of the treasure of true faith and piety which they possessed, still pale with rage in consequence of her ruminations about her own misfortune, the ill-tempered old maid there and then resolved to try another and a severer plan to effect her purpose of proselytism. "Confound yer impudence, ye little Popish paupers!" she said to herself. "I shall soon make ye give up these superstitious practices. Paul, Paul, dear," she said, tapping at the window, "come in out of that, come in Bridget, ye little fools; the sun will spoil yer features, cover ye with tan." "Yes, miss, in a few minutes; we are just finishing," said Paul. Ever since Paul came to this house, in obedience to the advice of his mother, as well as in accordance with the prescriptions of the excellent religious education he received at home in the diocesan seminary, he always read the "Prayers at Mass," accompanied by his sister Bridget, first; and after having read them with her at home, he went across the brook to Reuben Prying's, where his brothers lived, and taking them into the fields, or to the barn if the weather did not answer, he read for them the same devotions, causing them to answer "Amen" after the end of each prayer, and reading to them a chapter of the catechism for committal to memory. And to do justice to Reuben, whose wife was a southern lady, there was no obstacle thrown in the way of the children to prevent them from discharging their duties to their religion. On the contrary, the fidelity of Paul, and his watchfulness over the faith and morals of his younger brothers Patrick and Eugene, commanded the highest approbation of Mrs. Reuben Prying. And such was her horror of any thing like the domestic tyranny or intolerance of Amanda, that Mrs. Reuben always allowed the two young lads to say their own prayers in private, notwithstanding the advice of the ministers to the contrary. The only times that Pat and Eugene were ever asked into the parlor to pray was on some rare occasions, when Mrs. Reuben, through a laudable curiosity, and to serve as an example to her own children, caused the orphans to say their prayers aloud before retiring to bed. The two little fellows, one five and the other eight years of age, joining their hands before their breasts, repeated the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, the Apostles' Creed, the General Confession, the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, the Prayer of the Angel Guardian and Patron Saint, and Prayers for the Dead: these they repeated aloud, and correctly, to the astonishment of the other children and the edification of the mistress. "Ah, Reub, Ben, and Will," she said, "when will you be such good boys as Patsy and Geny? You can't say the Lord's Prayer yet." "I can tell," said Reub, blushing, "more than Pat can. I know how old Mathusalem was, who was the wife of Abraham, and who was the mother of Solomon, and the wife of Putiphar." "I don't know how to say so many prayers," said Ben, contemptuously; "but I can tell how many cents in ten dollars, how many states in the Union, and how large England is." "I can sing a hymn," said Will, "which I heard in the choir in the Methodist meeting house when I went there with cousin." "Let us hear you, Will," said his mother. "Mother, I have only a little of it," said Will. "Say all you remember," said she, "and sing it." "The ladies first said, ma," said he, commencing,-- 'O for a man--O for a man--O for a mansion in the skies.' "The men answered,-- 'Send down sal--send down sal-- Send down salvation to our souls.'" At this specimen of ludicrous poetical composition the mother burst out a-laughing, in which she was joined by the two arch Irish lads; and Will, discouraged, blushed and stopped. "I would rather not have any prayer than have that foolish hymn," said Ben. "O Will! O, you goose!" "Silence, boys!" said Mrs. Prying. "Pat and Eugene, can you not sing? Come, let us hear how you can sing. Commence. Don't be ashamed." "Will we sing, ma'am, what the Christian brothers taught us?" "Yes, Pat, any thing; don't be shy," said the lady. The lads began thus, with joined hands and uplifted eyes:-- "Ave Maria! hear the prayer Of thy poor helpless child! Beneath thy sweet maternal care Preserve me undefiled. "Ave Maria! do I sigh In deep affliction's hour. Nor to a suppliant heart deny Thy mediative power. "Ave Maria! for to thee, Whom God was pleased to choose The mother of his Son to be, No prayer will he refuse. "Ave Maria! then implore One only grace for me-- This heart to give forevermore To God alone and thee." "To bed, children, with you all," said the good lady, covering her face with her handkerchief, for the tears started from their source in her noble soul on hearing this delightful hymn sung by the poor orphans, whose countenances looked like those of angels' while chanting it. "God forgive those," she said to herself, in a half-audible tone, "that would rob these poor children of that divine religion that teaches her children such heavenly hymns." This incident recalled to her mind vividly the days of her girlhood, when, in the "sunny south," she heard Catholic hymns sung and Catholic devotion practised in the convent where she, though a Protestant, received her education. And probably her conscience, too, reproached her for the neglect of the good resolutions she formed while there. CHAPTER X. A RAY OF HOPE. Many times during what we shall call his captivity within the gates of the strangers Paul had contrived to write letters to Father O'Shane in the city of T----, as well as to his uncle in Ireland; but from some cause or other, to his innocent mind inexplicable, the letters never reached their destination, nor were they ever after heard of. The postmaster of S----, not generally supposed to be a very exact man, particularly when remitting money in letters for farmers' boys to their Irish friends in eastern or western parts, was ever ready to oblige, and with hearty good will entered into the views of, Parson Gulmore, when he called on him, according to the advice of Amanda, "to have Paul's letters seen to." And never mind they were "seen to" and secured. This disgraceful proceeding, so disreputable to all concerned, and so characteristic of the fidelity with which the business of "Uncle Sam" is managed, was not confined to the detention and destruction of the poor orphan's letters, but to the piracy of their contents too. There is no department of the public service in the United States so badly managed as the post-office department. Not only do robber postmasters continue in office after their exposure and their plunder of money letters, but they can be bribed to convey the epistles of individuals to interested parties, who would come at their secrets; and thus the most sacred and secret concerns of life are liable to exposure, and to be sold for gain. We knew a postmaster who for years continued to rob with impunity the letters that were deposited in his "den of thieves;" and when he was exposed and disgraced through the instrumentality of the writer of this tale, whole bushels of letters, directed to Ireland by poor emigrants to their fathers, wives, and sons, were found thrown aside in a nook of his office; the sole motive for this scandalous robbery being the plunder of the twenty-four cents paid on the letters to free them to Europe. Sadly did the mysterious miscarriage of his letters puzzle the ingenuous heart of poor Paul; though he had reason to suspect, from certain hints thrown out by Amanda, that she, somehow or other, was in possession of their contents. On a certain day, however, a circumstance convinced Paul that he could not now expect an answer from his letters to Father O'Shane; for Miss Amanda had just pointed out to him a paragraph in the newspaper stating that the Catholic priest of T---- had died of ship fever, taken by him in the discharge of his duties among the sick of his flock. "God rest his soul," said Paul, raising his eyes to heaven; "he was a good friend to us in our hour of need." "What's that you say, Paul?" said Amanda, with a frown. "Did I not tell you repeatedly, Paul, that it was useless to pray for the dead?" "I know _you told_ me that often, 'Mandy; but am I bound to believe you, when I know the church teaches me the contrary? In fact, the Bible says it is 'a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins.'" (Mac. xii. 42.) "Don't you call me 'Mandy, Paul," said the vain old maid; "my name is Miss A-man-day." "A-man-a-day," said Paul, with a sarcastic smile. "I beg pardon," said he, "miss; I must guard against that blunder in future, and say _A-man-a-day_." "Ah, you naughty boy!" she said, catching him by the hand. "Come here to me till I teach you the knowledge of God's word. Now, Paul, that passage you quoted I do not find in my Bible." "No," said Paul, "for your Bible is no other than an imperfect, mutilated Bible, corrupted by the men who made your religion. The Catholic church, from which the Protestants stole their piecemeal Bible, always regarded the book of Machabeus as the inspired word of God." "But, Paul, it is so foolish, this 'half-way house.'" "Then, miss, you must blame God, who created it, for the folly of his not consulting with some Protestant philosopher before he created such a 'half way.' For most certainly there was always, since the dawn of creation, a third place; as, for example, the place where the souls of the just were confined before Christ, who was the first to ascend into heaven, as himself says in his gospel. Now, the Bible does not say that this half way was 'foolish,' or abolished either. Besides, it is but reasonable that there should be a place to purify the frail and imperfect soul before admitting her to God's holy presence." "Where the tree falleth, there it lieth," said she. "Yes, fallen," said Paul, "it lieth there till it is taken away to another place. Where the soul falleth,--that is, whether in a state of grace or in sin,--there it will lie forever; but those who go to purgatory die in a state of grace, and so their eternal destiny is heaven--like those just souls who died before Christ; yet they are not fit for heaven immediately, for 'nothing defiled can enter therein.'" "You wrote to the priest, didn't you, to say masses for your mother's soul in purgatory? How do you know she is there?" said Amanda, unguardedly. "I hope she is in no worse place," said Paul, the fire kindling in his dark Celtic eye; "and whether in heaven or in hell,--which God forbid!--the mass can do no harm, but tend to the honor and glory of God, and I hope procure me and the celebrant merit. But, Amanda, how do you know that I wrote any such request to the priest? I know you are above reading my letters, though I should leave them open under your eye; but I am afraid that hypocritical-looking postmaster may have kept my letters, and given them to somebody. In Ireland, that crime deserved hanging as a punishment; and I do not know what I would do to any body I would detect in opening my letters, and pilfering my secrets," said he, raising himself up. "O, my dear Paul," said the old maid, perceiving her imprudence, "I only guessed at the contents of your letters. We Yankees are great at guessing, you know. Be silent; shut up, my good fellow," she added, going over to the window. "What crowd is that there below on the road?" An unusual sight in that part of the country now presented itself to view. Slowly moving along the road was a crowd of men and women--the men, as they came up, taking off their hats, and the women courtesying, in that way that only Catholics can courtesy, to a young gentleman, who, seated in a one-horse carriage, the top lowered down, seemed to be engaged, as he was, in earnest conversation about some subject of an absorbing interest to those around him. In truth, any body, even Amanda, who never saw one, could have guessed that this personage, surrounded by so many of the Irish railroad laborers lately settled in the vicinity, was no other than the Catholic priest. Paul's eye, so lately kindled into passion from the hints dropped by Amanda about the foul play regarding his letters, became immediately subdued into composure, and, taking out a small miniature reliquary and silver crucifix which he ever wore on his breast, he pressed them to his lips, saying to himself, "Glory be to God; and Mary, his virgin mother, be ever blessed. I see the priest, if he is alive." And instantly he was over the fence and on the road. "There is one of 'em," said Mrs. Murphy, "your reverence; and it would be a charity to do something for the poor children, for they were well reared." Paul could not, owing to the tears that rushed on him in floods, dare for some time to join the crowd to offer his respects to the representative of religion; and it was a full quarter of an hour before he could say, "Welcome to these parts, your reverence." "Thank you, my child," said the priest, reaching him his hand. "Forgive me, sir," said the poor youth; "I can't but weep, 'tis so long since I saw a priest or heard mass." There was not a dry eye in the crowd as the young lad clung to the priest's hand, embracing it, and crying aloud, "O my uncle! my uncle!" "Take him into the shanty and calm him a little," said the stalwart missionary. "Poor little fellow! poor child! poor child!" "O, God help the orphan!" said Mrs. Murphy again, fearing she had not touched his reverence's heart. "It would be the charity of God to do something for them. The men would be all willing to subscribe." "We will do all we can," said his reverence. "God will provide for them, if they be what you represent. Meet me here to-morrow, at six o'clock. We will have mass and confessions here in the shanty, as we could procure no better place. Give word around through the entire neighborhood. Good by for the present," said he, moving along towards the village of S----. "God speed your reverence," answered a hundred voices, as they returned the adieu. This was the first night since the death of his beloved mother, and that was over two years, that the slightest ray of hope penetrated the burdened but confiding soul of Paul. For himself he did not much care. He could have escaped any day, and repudiated the iniquitous contract by which the villanous poormaster had sold him and his brethren; but what was to become of his younger sister and brothers? He knew how to plough, mow, cradle, and farm it, as well as any body of his age. He knew how to read, count, write, and even defend his religion, against all opponents, as he did last winter at the Lyceum; but what was to become of Bridget, Patrick, and little Eugene, who had yet many years to serve? This was what puzzled him. But now the priest had come for the first time to this remote region, and _he_ knew what to do, and would not desert the orphan, for no priest ever had done so. He felt there was to be now a change, and he felt assured that it would be for his good. "Thank God," said he, "I saw the priest at last. I return thee thanks, my God, and thee, my mother in heaven, now my only mother, and I thank all the heavenly citizens and all heaven, for this dawn of hope that I feel in my soul. O Lord, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Fervent and pious were the prayers offered to God on this night by Paul, as he thanked him for having seen one in whom he could confide as a friend, as well as because he was preparing to go to his religious duties on the morrow. Let it not be said that it was superstition in Paul to thank God so fervently for having permitted him once more to converse with his priest. What can be imagined a more worthy cause for thanksgiving than the meeting with a true friend? What better gift can we receive from God than a friend? And who ever, in need, has failed to find the good priest a friend in all emergencies? CHAPTER XI. VAN STINGEY AGAIN.--HOW HE GETS RICH AND ENDS. After a year or two in office, our friend Van Stingey found Fortune rather adverse to him, a thing not unusual with the worshippers of that fickle goddess; for not only was he put out of office by the influence of the "furren" vote thrown against him, but his farther promotion even in the church became almost problematical. His was now a rather unpleasant situation. He was not only defeated at the ballot box by the "Irish element," according as Mrs. Doherty foretold, but he was in disgrace with many of his regular church-going brethren. This latter trial was caused by the well-known fact that a negro girl, who was put under this _religious_ man's care by the abolitionists, and who was now two years in his family, had just given birth to a young mulatto child in his house. Yes, and worse; the miserable yellow thing not only was born, and in health, under the roof of this _religious teacher_, but he was mortified to find that it had his very nose on its face, and could not by any possibility be fathered on any body else. Thus were the prospects of this pious gentleman blasted in one day. He got religion, but now it failed him. He was of the true nativist stamp in politics; but here again his defeat was signal and complete, and all through the suffrages of foreigners. What was he to do for a living? He must give up religion and politics, and take to some other pursuit. Loafing or living on his neighbors was now impossible, as he was in disgrace with many; and besides, he had a wife and family to support. Peddling was so common, that nothing could now be made in that line; and besides, it took some capital to start with--a thing that was out of the question in our ex-official's case. The only chance now open for him was the railroad, and to the railroads he said he would betake himself as soon as he could. On the railroad he saw men of little talent, of less honesty, and of no capital, amass not only a competency, but wealth, in a few years; and our official was very anxious to try his luck in that line of business. Accordingly, when the Northern Railroad was about to be let, Van Stingey, in company with four others, put in their estimate, which was the very lowest, and they thus succeeded in getting ten miles of the road. The partners of Van Stingey were one Purse, one Mr. Kitchins, one Timens, generally called Blind Bill, one Whinny, together with Mr. Lofin, an Irishman. They had the job now, but had neither horses, carts, shovels, nor any of the various implements necessary to carry on the work. A council was held among these five worthies to see what was to be done. They had neither money, nor means, nor credit to begin with, and how were they to fulfil their contract? Most of them were novices in this sort of business; but there was Mr. P. Lofin, whose experience was something, and who suggested a plan which could not but succeed, if his advice was followed. The plan was, that they should advertise for three thousand men and several hundred horses, and on the strength of their advertisements, and their certificate of having obtained such a respectable contract, try to borrow some provisions on three months' credit. In a few days, the public places of the cities of T---- and A---- were posted up with large placards, and advertisements were inserted in all the daily papers, which read thus:-- WANTED. Three thousand men to work on the Northern Railroad at one dollar a day of twelve hours. Men who wish to work extra time will receive extra wages. Wanted, also, six hundred horses to hire, at three dollars a day for every team, on the same work. P. LOFIN, VAN STINGEY, KITCHINS, & CO. In a few days, not only did the three thousand men make their appearance, but twice that number were now located on the site of the proposed line. But how were so many men to live? There was some delay in proceeding with the works, and Van Stingey and Co., having represented themselves as very independent and wealthy contractors, said that, as they did not like to be hard on the men, they would give them free sites for their shanties, which the men could afterwards have without the necessity of having to pay so much a month for their use, as was the custom with other but less honorable contractors than Van Stingey, Purse, Lofin, & Co. This bait took "capitally," as Van used to say, and not only were two hundred shanties built, but the praise of the "ginerous contractors" was in every mouth; and "Hurrah for Lofin, Van Stingey, & Co.," became a regular toast among the men, as they went to spend a shilling in the company's grocery store. The shanties were now up, and the horses, three hundred in number, all ready for work; but a week, and another, and a third passed on, and not a sod of ground was broke on the ten miles of our independent company's contract. Here was now a sad and alarming spectacle. Thousands of men, women, and children, seduced into a wilderness by the specious promises of these vile knaves; and now, after having spent every penny they had earned for years, brought to the very verge of starvation. Some were obliged to trade off and sell their clothes for food; others had to open small retail groceries to keep themselves and their neighbors from starving. The more independent in circumstances were obliged to mortgage their horses and carts for provisions and fodder; and all had, as far as their means went, to patronize the new store opened by the contractors, who retailed provisions and groceries, to those who had any thing to lose, at a profit of one hundred and a quarter per cent. on their original cost. For three months this was the state of things on the contract of our _honorable_ company. Works not yet commenced, men and horses half starving, occasional murmurs among the most knowing of the hands--which murmurs were, however, soon allayed by the representations of the bosses and their countryman Mr. Lofin, who pledged _his honor_ as a "gintlemon that the whault lied intirely with the directors, and the _faurmuns_, who refused to settle for the right uv way." The mystery was soon cleared up by the appearance on the ground of Messrs. Van Stingey, Lofin, & Whinny, with fifteen constables, who laid an injunction on all the shanties, and quietly, revolver in hand, drove off the three hundred horses to the county town, to secure those contractors in their pay for the debt into which they brought all those men whom they got to deal in their store, or who had any property. This is the way thousands of men were deceived, betrayed, and robbed of all they possessed in the wide world. And this is the way in which Messrs. Van Stingey, Timens, Kitchins, Whinny, & Lofin supplied themselves with horses, carts, shanties, and all other necessaries for carrying on the work according to agreement. The plan had so far succeeded; the only question now was, how to deprive these poor men of all legal redress, and have them exterminated from the neighborhood. This was not difficult to effect with poor men who were half starved, and who had to look out for work somewhere else for the support of their families. Those men who had the means left had quitted this cursed ground already, and Mr. P. Lofin struck on an expedient by which others, the more bold, were soon compelled to follow them. He proceeded some eighty or a hundred miles into the State of Massachusetts, where he represented to several hundred men from the part of Ireland to which himself belonged, which was Connaught, that several of their countrymen were driven off and ill treated by Munster men and _far-downs_, and that now they had not only a chance of defending the _honor_ of the _province_, but, by driving off their _far-up_ and _far-down_ enemies, they could have a year's job, and a dollar a day. This was enough; one thousand men immediately started for the scene of action, breathing vengeance against their fellow-countrymen, and determined on establishing the "anshint ghilory of Connaught." Every unfortunate Munster or Ulster man they met on their route was knocked down, and left senseless on the road; and shouts of victory were heard, and shots were fired, in anticipation of the triumph that awaited them. Lofin, the head mover in all these disgraceful scenes, now drove off to the capital of the state; and--will it be believed?--this vile, low wretch, who could neither read nor write, succeeded in getting the loan of _one thousand muskets_ out of the state arsenal to enable him to carry out his murderous and swindling scheme! A few days previous to this, Lofin got some few boards on his work set fire to, in order to have a case made out for the authorities, and by this means, and through the influence of political wirepullers, he succeeded in getting the arms of the state placed in the hands of his ignorant dupes, for the murder of their plundered countrymen. During these troublesome times, the house of Father Ugo, the priest of these parts, was literally besieged with weeping women and enraged men, stating their grievances, and asking for advice and counsel; for they had no other friend. "Surely," said his reverence to one Hannohan, whose eight horses were seized, and who had used some violence in defending his property, "surely the law will not sanction such barefaced plunder. I am witness myself of the cruelty to which many of you have been subjected by these villanous contractors. I know the decision of the law will be in your favor." "Law!" said poor Hannohan. "God help us if we have to look to _law_ for justice; go to law with Old Nick, and the court held in the low countries! Besides, we are going to be attacked and butchered in our beds by night. You know Mr. Lofin's men are all up and armed every night, firing rounds, and shouting till our wives and children are almost scared to death." "What can I do?" said the priest. "You know I have been censured before for interfering when some of the men were on a strike for higher wages; and I can't expect to have any influence with such men as you have to deal with. They are a lawless and hardened set of knaves." "God help us, then, your reverence," said Hannohan; "I and my family may as well go into the poorhouse or starve, if you can't influence that Mr. Lofin, who is a Catholic, to let me have my eight horses and carts, for I owe him not one single cent." "He may call himself a Catholic, Mike," said Father Ugo; "but he cannot be a Catholic, or even a believer in God's justice, if he is guilty of all those villanies which are laid to his charge. It would be no use for me to speak to such an abandoned scoundrel and robber as, by all accounts, he is." Poor Hannohan got the benefit of law, which resulted in his losing his eight horses and carts: a warrant was issued for his capture, for threatening the robbers of his property with chastisement. He was taken in a few days, and lodged in prison, where he died in a fortnight of the injuries inflicted on him by the drunken constables, who succeeded in arresting him after a two days' chase through the woods. No doubt _the good Catholic_, Mr. Lofin, rested quiet when he heard of the death of this formidable opponent. And I suppose, by way of appeasing the public indignation,--for I do not think he had any dread of the anger of Heaven,--his name appeared, a few days after, at the head of a list of subscriptions for the support of an orphanage in the city. And well he might spend a little of his profits in _charitable_ objects, for he and his partners had, by the late manoeuvre got up under Lofin's auspices, saved not less than five thousand nine hundred dollars' worth of property in horses, carts, harness, and shanties! We have heard of robbers in Italy and Spain, who, after they rob and murder the rich, are very _liberal_ to the poor, although, like your railroad-contract robber the poor Italian brigand has not the chance of having his name published in the newspapers, or read out from the pulpit, as a good, charitable, and humane gentleman. Of the two charities, I think that of the obscure brigand is the most worthy and laudable. One Sunday evening, as Father Ugo was returning from service in the country, where he officiated every two weeks, he came up with a large and enraged crowd of people on both sides of the road on which he travelled. On one side of the way about one hundred carts were placed in a line, so as to form a rampart and protect some two hundred men, who, with loaded muskets, crouched behind the carts as if watching for an object to fire at. An occasional shot was fired from this rampart, and the volley was returned slowly but deliberately from an old house in front, on which this large body of men were making an assault. While the priest stood at a distance, looking on at this horrid contest, he was perceived by the people in the house, who at once despatched a messenger to inform his reverence of the danger they were in, assailed by so many men resolved on their extermination. At no small risk, leaving the messenger in charge of his horse, he entered between the ranks of the combatants, and, with crucifix in hand uplifted, he implored the assailants, in the name of Christ, to desist from their cruel warfare, and take some other means and time than the Lord's day for getting possession of that old house about which the contention arose. By a great deal of difficulty, and after a speech of an hour, he succeeded in quelling this cruel and disgraceful riot, and before he left the ground he had all the arms secured in one pile, and conveyed to an adjacent farmer's house for security. After this the work went on peacefully. Van Stingey & Co. made money, and were now rich; the poor priest had every thing but the thanks of the contractors for his pains, and he concluded, from his experience of this and other railroads and public works in America, that, of all the men living, the railroad and day laborer of this "free country" is the most ill treated and oppressed. He has to work from dark to dark; he has to take _store pay_ for his wages; and he has to obey the nod, look, and arbitrary commands of the lowest, cruellest, and most brutal class of men on earth. I ask any man, Is not this slavery? Van Stingey was now rich--had horses, wagons, and a splendid mansion. He took another, and a third contract, in which he was very successful. One day, however, he was on his work, and a blast having failed to go off, Van ordered his men to return to the dump. They refused. He stamped and swore, and then and there discharged all the "darned paddies," who were not fools enough to get killed. So himself and his nephew, who bossed for him, returned to the "cut," where they were no sooner arrived than the blast went off, and poor Van Stingey was blown into atoms. Thus perished, at the height of his success and of his guilt, the meanest and most worthless of the human race--the mocker and robber of the poor, the persecutor and kidnapper of Paul O'Clery and his brethren, the merciless swindler and defrauder of the laborer's wages, and, finally, the hypocritical sensualist and drunkard. We boast of our progress, and advertise, as proof of it, the number of railroads in operation, their extent, and the rapidity of the motion over their iron surface; but the trials, tears, labors, sufferings, and injustice which our indifference or avarice has inflicted on those thousands of our fellow-creatures whose hands have built them never occur to our minds or cause us a single regret, while glorying in the advancement of our "great country." "How can we help _that_?" answers Uncle Sam. "It is the contractors that are unjust and cruel, and the men themselves that are not 'wide awake enough' in allowing themselves to be so imposed upon." The whole fault is yours, "Uncle," and lies at the doors of the people, who, having the power to protect the laborer by law, neglect to exercise that power, and, by this their neglect of duty, create your Van Stingeys, your Lofins, your Blind Bill Timenses, your Whinnys, and other villains, who are a disgrace to our country, and whose crimes, encouraged by our silence and tolerance, will ultimately bring the vengeance of Heaven on us and our children. _Quod avertat Deus_. It has been remarked by some, that if the tears shed by emigrants on the bosom and on the banks of the great Father of Waters, the Mississippi, were preserved in a great reservoir, they would form a lake many fathoms in depth and many miles in circumference. With less exaggeration can it be stated, if the number of men killed, murdered, and otherwise cut off, on the railroads of the Union, by the ill treatment, neglect, cruelty, avarice, and malice of contractors, storekeepers, overseers, and bosses,--if all these men's dead bodies were placed within three feet of one another, or even side by side, they would cover, from end to end, the ten thousand miles of railroad that are within the United States. And if the tears shed on the Mississippi would make a lake the size of the Lakes of Killarney, the tears shed on the railroads would form a body of salt, burning water, as great in bulk as Lakes Superior and Ontario together. If there be any irresponsible, cruel, barbarous despotism on earth, in savage or civilized life, it is emphatically in the discipline that prevails on the railroad _régime_. There is no man daring enough to speak a word in favor of the cruelly-oppressed railroad man, except an odd priest here and there; and even he has often to do it at the risk of having a revolver presented at him, or having his character maligned by the slanders of the moneyed ruffians whose crimes and excesses he may feel it his duty to reprimand. Father Ugo was not the man to wink at the cruel treatment to which, in the part of the railroad that ran through his mission, his poor fellow-men and fellow-Christians were submitted; and he had, consequently, often to experience no small share of the malice, and a _tolerable_ share of outrage, in the shape of threats and insulting language, from our independent company, Lofin, Van Stingey, Whinny, & Co. CHAPTER XII. MASS IN A SHANTY. There was great bustle and preparation in the valley of R---- Creek, on Ascension Thursday. Hired men were up at _three_ o'clock that morning to do "chores," and hired girls were busy the night before in arranging the household, so that the female _bosses_ of the several farm-houses would be able to find all things in order. Many and violent also were the arguments that passed between Catholic servants and their heretical masters and mistresses, on one hand to ignore, and on the other to assert, the right to worship according to one's conscience. Yes, to their shame be it told, the Protestant sects in America, as they do in all countries where they have sway or are tolerated, practically deny that article of the federal constitution that guarantees the right to every citizen to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or individual judgment. With the word _liberty_ ever on their lips, like the lion's skin on the ass, to deceive, the sects, great and small, from the Church of England down, down, down to the Mormons or Transcendentalists, through the grades of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, all play the tyrant in their own way. All act the despot, and would exercise spiritual tyranny, if in their power. For proof of this, the history of the "Blue Laws" in the land of the Pilgrims is only to be consulted on this side of the Atlantic; and at the other side, modern as well as by-gone records show, that, wherever Protestantism had the power, _there_ the few were oppressed by the many. Every sovereign, from Elizabeth down to Victoria, acted the tyrant over the Catholics; and in Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and the Protestant Swiss cantons, persecution is now a part of the laws of these several states. Persecution is not sanctioned by the laws of the United States, if we except the prescriptive code of New Hampshire, which comes under that genus; but if it be not legalized, we are not to thank Protestantism for that. Wherever it has sway in the family, in the town council, or the assembly, there the cloven foot of intolerance and persecution is seen from under the sanctimonious gown it puts on. Indeed, although the compulsion of the conscience is not enforced by State laws, it is attempted, as far as practicable, where its effects are more galling, and its existence more intolerable,--namely, in the family at home, or in the camp or barrack abroad. Catholic servants are not only denied the right to attend their duties in many families, but actually forced to hear the disgusting ranting or ludicrous prayer of any impostor who may take on himself the office of preacher. And Catholic soldiers are punished by fine and severe corporal chastisements for refusing to attend the service of an heretical chaplain. And no senator, zealous for liberty, raises his voice on behalf of the Catholic soldier, and of the Catholic servant girl, while they are exposed to a persecution such as no Catholic government, king, or despot ever attempted to force on the consciences of their dissenting subjects, not even Queen Mary, of England, excepted; for the so-called persecution by Catholic princes has never been to compel men to adopt a new religion. Protestants in Europe and here attempt to compel the adoption of their false tenets by those who are neither desirous nor willing to adopt them, and who already profess a true religion. This is what makes a vast difference between the persecution your "Madiai" suffer, and this ten times worse persecution which many an otherwise honest and kind-hearted American farmer allows to take place in his family. The Day of Judgment alone will reveal to light what trials, crosses, and real persecution Catholic servant men and women have to endure in remote and country places from the bigotry, hypocrisy, and cruelty of ignorant, unfeeling farmers and their wives, goaded on, no doubt, and urged, by low, base, and brutal parsons, who have scarcely enough to eat, and who envy the priest the comparative independence which the liberality and true Catholic charity of his flock enable him to maintain. By these remarks I am not to be understood as saying that good-nature, justice, and even generosity, do not govern the conduct of the American people. I am aware of their kindness, hospitality, and philanthropy; but these fine traits of character are obscured, perverted, and rendered abortive, whenever the demon of sectarian influence touches them with her black rod. And, like the Jews, while they are persecuting the Holy One of God in his humble members, they think they are doing a service to God. Such is the effect of the poison, in the shape of religious instruction, infused into the minds of this noble people by the lying and ignorant teachers that they allow to instruct them. The American people are generally so busy, so intent in making a fortune or a livelihood, that they have not time, as they cannot have the inclination, to pay much attention to religious training. Hence it is in the science of the soul and salvation, as in that of medical science, the number of impostors and quacks is infinite. The following dialogue between an Irish Catholic servant and her _evangelical_ mistress will serve faintly to illustrate what is the weekly, if not daily, recurrence in tens of thousands of families all over this "free country": "You can't go, that's the amount of it, Anne," said Mrs. Warren to an Irish Catholic servant maid of hers, who heard of the priest's being at the shanties on this morning. "Why so, ma'am?" said Anne. "All the girls of the country around are allowed to go; but I never get a Sunday or holy day to myself. It is too bad." "Why don't you come with us to our meeting, where all the decent folks go, and none of your Irish are present?" "Many decent folks go to 'Old Harry!'" cried Anne, in anger. "Is that the reason I must go too?" "Anne, your obstinacy in refusing to join our family worship has made me resolve not to let you go to hear the old priest. And your refusal to attend to the sermon of our preacher, Mr. Scullion, has also displeased me much. I mean to punish you according." "Why should I go hear the old sinner's stuff," said Anne, "when your own sons laugh at him and say he is a fool? Besides, I am told he is ever abusing the Catholics, and I heartily despise his nonsensical, lying cant." "Well, Anne, I am determined to punish you for it," calmly replied the mistress. "So you can't see the priest to-day. That settles it." "I beg your pardon, ma'am; the priest I will see, please God, let what will happen." "You must leave this house, then." "Small loss, madam. America is wide, thank God!" answered Anne. "Don't you know Mr. Scullion is a brother of mine?" "I don't care, ma'am, if he was your father. I know he is ignorant or malicious, either one or the other, or maybe both, or he would not speak of the Catholic Church as he does. Oh, dear," she cried, bursting into tears of anger, "what a 'free country' it is! The Protestants in Ireland were decent. They came, attended by the peelers, to their tenants, telling them they must conform to the will of the landlord, or quit their homes; but here ye say all religions are equal, and yet ye try to compel us to go to listen to low, ignorant preachers, who know they are lying about the Church of Christ. Ye want us to change the religion of St. Patrick and of the martyrs for such ridiculous churches as ye have here. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" said the poor girl, as she contrasted her present situation with what it was when she was at home at her father's, where she heard Mass daily, and knew not what it was to suffer persecution for conscience' sake. While scenes such as we have here described were taking place in the farmers' houses, and such scenes are not occasional nor unusual, all was busy preparation at the shanties. The largest shanty in the "patch" was cleared of all sorts of lumber. Forms, chairs, tables, pots, flour and beef barrels, molasses casks, and other necessary stores were all put outside doors. The walls, if so we can call them, of the shanty, were then hung round with newspapers, white linen tablecloths, and other choice tapestry, while a good large shawl, spread in front of the altar, served as a carpet on which his reverence was to kneel and stand while officiating. Green boughs were cut in a neighboring wood lot and planted around the entrance by the men, while around the altar and over it were wreaths of wild flowers and blossoms, gathered by the little girls of the "patch" in the adjacent meadows, in order to prepare a decent place for the holy Mass. At an early hour the priest made his appearance, and was very much pleased to see the transformation which the piety of these poor, hard-working people wrought in the appearance of the humble shanty. For fifteen miles along the line the crowds were gathering, and the works were suspended for the day. The overseers and contractors, to do them justice, had no objection to this occasional interruption of their profits. At all events, they knew it was a holy day; and even they, with all their irresponsible control over their men, had ample proof that, even in the wild deserts and savage woods of America, the Irish Catholic "remembers" the Sabbaths and festivals of his God or his Church. Long before the hour of Mass, the shanty was crowded, and many were the comments and remarks made on the physical powers and other external accomplishments of the new priest. Some remarked that his reverence,--God bless him!--need not be afraid of travelling alone through these lonesome glens, for it would require "a good man to handle him; that it would." "That's thrue," said another; "he would be able to 'settle bread' on a half-dozen Yankees any day; that is, provided they did not use any weapon but the arm that God gave 'em." "But you know," said a third, "these Yankees always carry a _rewolwer_ or two in their pockets, the treacherous rogues. Look how they killed that Irish peddler, and robbed him, and fired six shots into Michael Gasty's house the other night, and he in bed quietly sleeping." This and other such narratives and comments were the order of the day outside the door, only where those who were careless or not preparing for their duties were congregated. Inside, a large crowd of women and rough-fisted men gathered around the door of the temporary confessional, and it was near noon before the priest ascended the temporary altar to offer up the "victim of peace" for the assembled sons of toil. Upon his reverence asking if there was anybody to answer or serve Mass, several presented themselves; but he accepted the services of Paul, because he had been accustomed from his childhood to wait round the altar, and he was the most intelligent of those who offered to assist the priest while celebrating. The substance of the priest's discourse was, that they should not forget that it was God's will that the holy sacrifice should be offered in "every place, from the rising to the setting of the sun," and that probably they were made the instruments which he made use of for the _literal_ fulfilment of that famous prophecy; for if they were not here employed on these public works, probably the holy sacrifice would not be, for years and years to come, offered up in such places as this. That they should all regard themselves as missionaries engaged in God's service to spread the knowledge of the true religion in this virgin soil among a people who had lost the true mode of God's worship, though a generous and successful race of men. That they should guard against drunkenness and faction fights, for these crimes brought their proper punishment both here and hereafter; and that they should, by pure morals and fidelity to their religion, rather than by controversy or disputation, make a favorable impression on, and confute the errors of, those opponents of their faith among whom their lot was cast. In fine, that they should lose no opportunity of receiving the sacraments, for, without their use, salvation was very difficult, if not absolutely impossible. Let them not regret the loss of this day, or think it too much to dedicate it to God's service: that was the chief end for which they were created. When population was small, and a livelihood easily obtained, and men had to work but little, God had appointed one day in the week to rest and service. Now, when the cares, distractions, and labors of life had increased a thousandfold, it seemed not too much if, instead of one day, two or more days were devoted to rest and worship. And if the Church had her way unrestricted, she, by her festivals and holy days, would do a great deal towards alleviating the present hardships of labor, and men would be taught to be content with a competency, and employers would treat their men with kindness and justice combined. "You, poor fellows, have to work hard, frequently for years, without having a chance to frequent the sacraments. Thank God, then, and be grateful for this opportunity, and spend this day as becometh Christians. You are exposed to dangers from accidents, and frequently from the influence of evil-advising men. In Religion and her resources alone you can find the only safeguard against the effects of the former, and the best security against the wiles of your enemies: keep the commandments, and hear the Church." On this day no less than ninety-five received, and the effects of this one visit even were felt by the overseers and employers of these men for months to come. Even Anne Council, the girl whom we introduced as disputing with her ignorant mistress about "the freedom of worship,"--and which dispute was then decided in Anne's favor by the interference of the boss, who remonstrated with his wife on her imprudence in resolving to discharge her maid in the midst of their hurry, while there was no chance of having her place supplied,--even Anne, brought to a better sense by the advice of the priest administered in confession, when she came home asked her saucy mistress's pardon for speaking back to her this morning. "I forgive you, Anne," she said; "though I am sure there is not a _lady_ in the hollow that would put up with your impudence but myself." "I know I am hot," answered Anne, smothering her anger at this second provocation in being called _impudent_. "The priest told us to be obedient to those even who are not amiable nor kind; to serve them for God's sake, as a punishment for our sins." "Now," said Mr. Warren to his wife, "you see Anne has rather improved by her visit to the priest, which you thought to prevent. Were you and I to be _at her_ for six months, we could not get her to acknowledge as much as she now has. The fact is, I am certain those much-abused priests are far ahead of our dominies in knowledge of religion and human nature. It is impossible otherwise to account for the influence they exercise over the ungovernable Irish race, and over those millions whom they instruct and rule." "It's all priestcraft," said his wife. "I don't know, Sarah, what craft it is, but I wish our ministers learned a little of the same craft; for they are fast losing all influence over the minds of the people, and especially over that of the youth. That we can all see." "That's because people are daily getting worse," said this female philosopher. "Worse! Then whose fault is it that they are? What have we ministers for, but to prevent this state of things? There are six of them in the small village of S----, and it can't be beat in the Union for blacklegs and rowdies. Would we have so many wild, irreligious young men, and women, too, if, instead of six preachers, we had six Catholic priests? I would like to see one of your young ones show such signs of a superior mind and training, such manliness and fortitude, as that Irish Catholic lad, Paul, down at Prying's. They have had all the ministers within fifty miles of you to convert him, but they could no more move him than they could Mount Antoine. In fact, he beat them all to pieces in Scripture and argument. Take no more pains about religion, wife," said the honest Yankee; "let Anne alone. I won't have her disturbed any more on the subject. If there be any religion on earth, those very people have it whom you want to bring round to the exact pattern of your favorite minister's manner of doubting. It's ridiculous, wife," said he, rising, and calling his men to the fields; "it's ridiculous to try to convert these Catholics, who appear to have some religion, to the countless systems of NO RELIGION that are so numerous on all sides around us. I say it's ridiculous," said he, departing. CHAPTER XIII. THE TEMPTER AT THE WOMAN. It was arranged among the Pryings and their advisers, one day in August, that, as Amanda said Paul was an incorrigible young man, he should be sent off to the State fair of Vermont, and, in the meantime, a certain "true blue" Presbyterian minister, named Grinoble, should try his hand at converting Paul's little sister Bridget. It was, some thought, wrong to begin with Paul, as all experience, but especially scriptural testimony, taught that temptation was more likely to succeed when woman was the subject or the instrument. So thought Parson Grinoble; and, with true serpent wisdom, he concluded that it was through the woman, the weaker sex, that, in this instance, Popery was to be conquered. Besides, this old hand at proselytism read somewhat of the epistles of St. Paul, and read there of the success of his predecessors in unbelief in seducing "silly women," and ensnaring their confiding souls within the meshes of their wily nets. So thought Mr. Grinoble, and he began to act on it on the day in question, by going into the kitchen and addressing himself to Bridget, as she was peeling apples for cooking, in the following manner: "Come here, my dear, and shake hands," said his dominieship to the girl. She walked over shyly, holding the knife in one hand, and stretching forward for the other. "Sit down here beside me, on the settle, my dear." "I must do what 'Mandy ordered me, sir," she said, excusingly. "Oh, don't you fear Amanda," he said; "I will be your security, my little woman, that she won't be displeased. Dear me, what nice hair and purty curls you have! and such beautiful teeth! Don't you think Miss Amanda is jealous of your charms? eh? Why do you turn away your head, my pet?" "I don't like such talk, sir," she answered. "My Prayer Book, in the 'Table of Sins,' says it is a sin to listen to praise or flattery." "Well said, my little lady," said the tempter. "You are right, Bridget; I was only trying you. I do not wish you to sin. You know I am the minister. I love you, and wish to see you a good Christian," said he, caressing her. "I thank you, sir," was her answer. "Now, my little good one, I want to tell you some news. I have a message for you,--a letter from a friend." "Please show it, sir," she said, impatiently; "perhaps it is from my uncle, in Ireland, to whom Paul often wrote, but never got an answer back." "No, my dear, it is from your father," said the tempter. "My father is dead, sir," she quickly rejoined. "It can't be from him, anyhow, God rest his soul." "It is from your Father in heaven,--behold it!" said he, in a dramatic accent, and pulling out of his breast-pocket a small octodecimo Bible. "Queer letter carrier, and purty heavy letter," grinned a young fellow, who was sitting by, waiting for the return of the boss to employ him. "Christ sent you this by me," said the dominie, presenting the Bible. "It will teach you the knowledge of the Lord, and the true spirit of his gospel." "Never knew before that the Lord kept a post-office," said the young Celt; "but I'm sure he never sent the like of you to be letter-carrier,--too slow, too stupid, entirely, entirely; and not very honest, maybe." "I am not addressing you, sir," said the parson, gruffly. "How do you like that, Bridget?" said he, plying his arts. "It is very nicely bound, sir," said she; "but I dare not take it without acquainting my brother Paul." "Now, my little favorite," said the representative of the serpent, "if your uncle at home left you all his property, would you not like to be able to read the _will_, or would you wait for Paul's leave to read a document by which you inherited so much wealth?" "Perhaps not, sir," she answered, "particularly if he did not forbid me to do so." "Very well, this is the will, the testament of God to all men, to me, to you. Now, Bridget, learn this will, read it, study its contents, without consent of priest or brother. Don't you see how proper this advice is?" said he, thinking he had her little reasoning powers conquered. "Yes, old fellow," said the young man at the table; "but if that will was disputed, which would you do,--submit it to an able lawyer, or go into court yourself without advice or counsel? You surely would fee a lawyer, if money or property was at stake. Well, you '_omadawn_,'" said our young stranger, "don't you see that, though that Bible is the will, the devil, and his small heretical attorneys--Luther, Calvin, Wesley--dispute the will, and the Church is the able advocate, and judge, too, that will conquer the devil, and put to shame his agents, and secure the stake, which is heaven, and the salvation of the soul? Let the child alone," said he, boldly, "as you see she doesn't want your biblical pills, or, 'be the tinker that mended _Fion-vic Couls' pot_,' I will turn you out of doors, if I were to hang for it after. Let the child alone this minute," said he, firmly. "Who are you, sir?" said the indignant parson, turning to view his antagonist. "How dare you interrupt me when I am not addressing you?" "I am an Irishman and a Catholic," said he; "and furthermore, if you wish to know my name, it is, sir, Murty O'Dwyer, Tipperary man and all." The reader will recollect the rollicking young attendant who drove Father O'Shane in the snowdrifts from Vermont, a specimen of whose oratory we have given in a preceding chapter. The antagonist of Parson Grinoble was no other than the same young man. He had rambled up to this neighborhood in search of work, and hearing that Mr. Prying was in need of a hay hand, he waited his return from the Vermont State fair. The minister Grinoble returned to the parlor to report progress to Amanda, and to represent the controversial rencontre which he had with O'Dwyer, while Murty learned with wonder and indignation from Bridget, that they were the children which cost Father O'Shane so much vain search, and that they were kept in continual annoyance by all sorts of male and female religious quacks and mountebanks, all bent on the work of perversion. "Oh, thunder and age!" said he; "and ye are widow O'Clery's children, God rest her soul! What a murthur Father O'Shane could not find ye out before he died! The Lord have mercy on him." "We have heard he died," said Bridget. "Is it long since, sir?" "Almost two years. He published ye in the Boston _Pilot_, and all the newspapers. He even offered a reward for yer discovery. Oh, _mille murther_! what a pity I did not know ye were so near home!" "I suppose uncle wrote to him, and sent us money to take us home again?" added pensive Bridget. "Money!" said the disinterested young man; "what money? I would give all I earned since I came to this queer country myself to have ye found out. We all thought ye were lost, drowned, or killed on the railroad cars. I am glad I have found ye out; ye will have to leave right off. I will take ye away myself to-morrow." "Oh, no, sir!" said Bridget; "we can't leave this till our time is served out or our board paid,--two dollars a week for nearly three years. The priest, not long since, came here to see if he could get my brother and me off, but they told him they would not let us go. And besides that, they insulted his reverence by telling him, if he dared to come to try to kidnap us, they would tar and feather, or shoot him, the Lord save us." "I wish to God I was present," said Murty; "I would settle bread on some of them; that I would, and no mistake," said he, bringing his clenched fist down on the table, "if I heard them insult the minister of Christ in any shape or form. Oh, America! America!" said he, in an undervoice, "I am deceived in you. I thought you were a second paradise, where all was peace, and comfort, and justice, and prosperity, and true liberty. But alas! I find all my ideas of your character erroneous and false. All the crimes of the old world are not only here, where we thought the very soil was virgin pure and unstained, but here in the most odious forms. The poor at home were naked, and hungry, and ground; but most of them were _innocent_, and _an innocent man is not entirely miserable_. The poor here, besides their poverty and wretched slavery, working eighteen out of the twenty-four hours, are almost all wicked in addition. The crimes in the old country, that aristocratic institutions kept up in the inaccessible palaces of the rich,--like the panther's den on the summit of yonder mountain,--here are familiar to the lowest and vulgarest of the populace. In the old country, the few and the rich were unjust, cruel, wicked; it was so in Ireland. Here the vices of the few are ingrafted on the many, and, like the small-pox, they do not become weaker, but stronger, by universal propagation. I wish I never saw you, America," said he, musing, his head resting against the wall; "I wish I was in the grave with my two sisters and mother, rather than here to witness the slavery, corruption, and vice of America." The remainder of his musings were lost in the sighs and emotions that proceeded from his manly bosom. CHAPTER XIV. THE FRUITS OF THE CROSS. Paul was now a free man, the term of apprenticeship having expired. It was his right now, according to the terms of the implied contract, not only to receive support and clothing, but wages; and Mr. Prying was very willing to keep him in the house and give him a man's wages; but this conflicted with Amanda's plan and that of her advisers; consequently, Paul was reluctantly obliged to part with the society of his sister Bridget, who had yet a part of her term to serve, and to look out among the neighboring farmers for a situation. This he soon found in a gentleman's family named Clarke, who was very glad to receive such a modest and intelligent young man into his family. This Mr. Clarke was not a farmer by profession, but a lawyer, and editor of a daily journal in the capital of Vermont, and only spent a few days in the summer and fall with his family at the farm. Paul's chief occupation was to attend young Master Clarke in his sports of fishing, fowling, and riding on horseback. The duties of his present situation afforded Paul not only time and leisure to keep up his accustomed religious exercises, but, in addition, he was able to revise what he had previously studied, and to add considerably to his stock of useful knowledge. The equal terms and familiarity in which he stood in his relation with his young employer afforded him an opportunity of revising Virgil, Sallust, Lucian, and other classical authors, the use of which he was so long obliged to discontinue. Mr. Clarke was delighted when he learned from his son that Paul knew Greek and Latin much better than his former teacher in the academy. And this information he knew to be correct, from the fact that he found his son had learned more during vacation, in company with Paul, than he did during the whole year before in college. He therefore advanced Paul's wages by one-third, and prolonged his son's stay in the country beyond the usual period. This generous and kind-hearted man was also sensibly affected when Paul, at his request, related how he came to know Latin; how he was nephew of the grand vicar of Kil----; how he had spent five years in college; how his father was obliged to emigrate with his family; how he had died on the voyage; how they were robbed of a thousand pounds; how his mother sunk under her trials; how he and his brethren were kidnapped out hither; how the priest of T---- had advertised for them; and how, "I suppose," said he, "they gave us up in despair; thinking, probably, that we were lost in some of the late steamboat disasters; but here we are yet, thank God!" Mr. Clarke, with the instinct of a true-hearted Yankee, immediately saw into the snare laid for the faith of the young orphans; and he thanked his God mentally that he had come to the knowledge of these facts, for he was the man to expose and reprobate such foul play. "I now well remember, Paul," said he, "the advertisements respecting you and your brothers and sister. I shall see to this business, I promise you. In the meantime, be you and Joe good friends. Don't spend too much time at fishing and gunning, but study a good deal. Good-by, Joe, my son. Good-by, Paul. I shall soon return again to see you." Paul took every favorable opportunity to visit his sister and brothers, to console and strengthen them against the temptations to which he knew they were exposed. "Now, Patsy, my boy," he said to the elder of his younger brothers, "every time you look at that cross--show it to me--have you lost it?" "No, sir-ee; I never put it off my neck since mother put it on," said Patrick, pulling it out of his bosom. "Every time you look at that crucifix," continued Paul, "think how our Lord God Himself suffered; how, when he was a boy like you, he was good, obeyed his parents, and was subject to them. Now, you have no parents here but one, the Catholic Church; and if you obey not her counsels and precepts, you will not be rewarded by Christ, whose image you wear around your neck. Say the Six Precepts of the Church for me, Pat." "First. I am the Lord thy God--" "Oh, Pat, you are saying the ten commandments of God. Your little brother Eugene can say _them_. I examined you in these before." "Oh, I forgot. 1st. To hear Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation. 2d. To fast and abstain on the days commanded. 3d. To confess our sins at least once a year. 4th. To receive communion at Easter. 5th. To contribute to the support of our pastors. 6th. Not to solemnize marriage within forbidden degrees, nor clandestinely." "The first precept, Patrick, we cannot keep here, as we are not near the church. But the second, 'to abstain on the days commanded,' we can keep. Do you ever eat meat on Friday, Pat?" "Never but once, through mistake," said Pat. "I thought it was Thursday. Mr. Prying is always wanting me to eat it every day, and so was a gentleman whom he called the _priest_,--sure he is not a right priest, is he, Paul?" "Not at all, Pat; he is only a Protestant minister." "A minister!" said Pat, in astonishment. "Why did they call him a priest? He wanted me and Eugene to eat meat on Friday; but I said I could not, it would make me sick. Then Mrs. Prying told him to let me be; that she could not allow any interference with our religion; and since that, the minister never returned to our house, or nobody said a word about it. I think she is very good. She often cries when she hears me and Eugene speaking of father and mother, God rest their souls! Paul," said Pat, introducing a new subject, "ain't there a hell to punish the wicked, as well as a heaven to reward the good?" "Certainly, Pat; does not the Catechism say so?" "Yes, but yesterday, Cassius Prying tried to persuade me that there was no hell. He said all would go to heaven, in the end. I told him it was no such thing. He said the minister said so." "Oh, Patrick, my boy, beware of Cassius; you must not listen to his talk, for it is wicked. God tells us there is a hell, and we must believe all he teaches us by his church and his word, or we will be condemned to hell forever." "Oh, the Lord save us! I won't hear to Cassius no more." "That's a good boy, Patsy; mind to watch Eugene, and make him do as you do. We will all soon be going home to uncle's, please God." "How soon, Paul? I am tired of being in 'Merica." "Very soon, please God. Good-by, and be good: learn this, the eighth chapter of the Catechism, next." "I will, Paul, with God's help." This is the way Paul, our hero, took care of the responsibility God had thrown on his tender shoulders at the age of fifteen. Never did missionary or priest labor, by prayer, and prudence, and anxiety, to save souls to Christ, as Paul did to save his brothers. He was to them the true Joseph, who not only kept their bodies from starving, but preserved their souls from a worse than Egyptian captivity. And not only did his exertions produce the desired effect on the immediate objects of his solicitude, but God added as the reward of his zeal other souls, "not of this fold." Old uncle Jacob was all but disconsolate at the loss of Paul. He was his bed-fellow for years, and every night and morning was witness of his piety and punctuality in prayer. And although poor uncle Jacob himself had long since learned to doubt of all forms of faith, he could not be indifferent to the example set him by Paul's steady devotion. The poor old man, besides, led a very innocent life, and the grace of God had few obstacles to contend with in its influx into his empty but innocent soul. He was often heard to say in presence of even Mr. Gulmore, the minister, and Amanda, who might be called the female parson, that, if any religion was worth having, it was that one which made Paul so victorious in his arguments, and so pure and pious in his conduct. "That was the young one," said uncle, his voice trembling with feeling, for he loved Paul as a son, "that was the child that deserved to be called one; that knowed what he owed to God, and man too." "He was as cunning as a fox, and as full of the spirit of Popery as an egg is of meat," said Mr. Grinoble bitterly. "I know him to be as innocent as a dove," said uncle Jacob, warmly, "and believe him to be as full of the Spirit of God as Samuel was in the temple. There, now." "Then, uncle Jacob, I see you are beginning to believe in the Bible," sarcastically added the parson. "I am glad to find your mind inclined in that way. I hope you will soon get religion and the change of heart." "I hope and pray to the Lord," said the old man, in a voice little removed from that of one in tears, "to change my heart, and give me religion, as I now believe there is such a thing on earth. But, Mr. Grinoble, your hard and cruel religion, I trust, shall never be mine. God forbid! _It_ will never change my heart." "Uncle, don't you talk that way," said Amanda. "This is very unpleasant. Take no notice of him, sir," said she, addressing the parson, who appeared to be disconcerted at this pointed attack of uncle Jacob. "Amanda, I will talk so, I must talk so," said poor uncle, rising. "How can ye reconcile it to religion, to justice, or to charity, the snares and plots laid by you, miss, in company with those _men of God_, to rob that poor child Paul, and his little sister and brothers, of their ancient, noble, and holy religion? Fie, fie, fie! Is it such conduct you call religion? It is the very reverse. It resembled more the conduct of the serpent in paradise, than that of the meek disciples of Jesus Christ. It was more like the religious profession of Herod, to get the Child at Bethlehem into his clutches, than anything else we read of, your conduct was. There is more Bible for you, Mr. Grinoble," said he, slamming the door after him, and retiring to his room. "'Tis not much use attempting to convert such an old hardened sinner," said Grinoble, smothering his mortification at the rebuff of uncle Jacob. "That Paul has ruined him," said Amanda. "I would not be a bit surprised if he died a Papist yet." "Sure you would not let the Popish priest visit him, on any account?" said the tolerant parson. "I fear pa would, for you know uncle Jacob left him this farm, and more than half what he possesses in money and stock. Come, tea is ready." Poor uncle Prying, as we have said already, was the senior brother of Ephraim and Reuben Prying, and was now about seventy-two years of age. During the last twenty years of his life he labored under a slight asthmatic affection, which lately increased in violence, and, joined with a disease of the liver, which physicians said he suffered from, now seriously endangered his life. Since he was eighteen years old, Mr. Jacob Prying never went inside a meeting-house or professed any religion; a conclusion which he partly was drove to by the hypocrisy of a certain minister in his neighborhood, who wanted to have Mr. Jacob married to a daughter of his, who, two days before the marriage, he found out, accidentally, had been seduced by an ex-senator in Boston. This piece of deception on the part of the religious teacher, and the treachery of the _maid_ herself, so disgusted Jacob Prying, that he registered a vow in heaven that he never again would allow himself to become the victim of hypocrisy or of female dissimulation. The parsons, all round, because he was proof against their transparent baits, to fill their meeting-houses, cried him down as an infidel, whose heart was hardened, and who despised the Bible. Uncle Jacob never attempted to dispel the prejudices raised against him by the malice of despised dominies; but his heart refuted their lies, for it was open to every noble and humane influence, and, above all, undefiled from the corruption of the world. Hence, in his hour of sickness, in his hour of trial and need, the Almighty rewarded him for his natural good parts, and sent His angel to conduct him, by the simple means herein recorded, to the bosom of that holy religion, outside which there is nothing but bitterness and woe, and without which "it is impossible to please God." Knowing the nature of the enemies he had to contend with, poor Mr. Jacob Prying was silent on the subject of his religious doubts till the advent of Paul to the farm. Like the ancient noble Roman, who, under the garb of folly, concealed his profound heroic wisdom, uncle Jacob was content to be called an infidel and unbeliever, so that he might preserve his heart undefiled, and ready for that precious pearl "of great price" which his heart sighed for, and which he was about now to receive; becoming, in his latter days, a further illustration of the Divine narrative that "God adds daily to the Church those who are to be saved." CHAPTER XV. THE CONVERSION. "The Lord be praised; I am glad to hear it," said Paul, one day, as he sat by the bedside of uncle Jacob, who was now in the last stage of his disease. "Paul," said the dying man, "while I was robust, and independent in means, I relied too much on these gifts of God, and too little on the Giver of them. But now, when this frail wall, that shuts the soul in from her world of kindred spirits, is nearly worn down, and the glorious light of eternity shines through the chinks of this earthen rampart, in all directions I see the necessity of having the soul prepared, thoroughly washed, before she goes into a world of such purity and justice; and you have convinced me, or, rather, God has taught me, that it is only in that religion of which God alone is the Author that the means of purification can be found. So, Paul, in God's name, take a team, and go for the priest of God immediately; there is no time to be lost. 'Tis consoling to reflect that there is a priest of God now to be had on earth, as well as in the days of the ancient patriarchs. How merciful God was," said he, soliloquizing, "in leaving us on earth a priest, a representative of his divine Son, to prepare the soul for the terrible voyage of eternity! All eternity is not too long to thank him for this blessing." Paul communicated the wishes of his dying brother to Mr. Ephraim Prying, who answered, "Certainly, Paul; why not? Go for the priest; take the best team--that black mare, there, is the fastest traveller. O my poor brother, why will you leave us?" said he, as he rushed up to his brother's bed room. It soon went abroad that uncle Jacob was at the point of death; and all the friends and many neighbors were assembled around the bed, and among others Mr. Barker, the Methodist preacher, who thought, as the Presbyterian dominie's nostrums were rejected by Jacob, his own, as being more novel, might have the desired effect. And though these several ministers were jealous each of the influence of his neighbor, yet any thing with them was preferable to the priest. Let uncle Jacob turn Turk, Jew, or Heathen, any thing but a Papist, and the six sectarian teachers of the village of S---- were content. "Now, brother Jacob," said his roaring reverence, after a long-winded prayer, in which he professed to command great influence with the powers above, "how do you feel? Tell us your experience, and what you see." "I am afraid, if I tell ye what I think and feel," said the feeble invalid, "ye may not like to hear it, and I do not wish to give offence. I have something else now to occupy my time besides talking for your entertainment." "O, by all means, brother," said the reverend roarer, "tell what you experience; we will not be displeased, but I hope edified. I have prayed earnestly to the Lord Jesus for thee, and he has answered me--I have been heard." "Well, my experience and conviction are, that there is no real religion, but superstition or infidelity, in all the sects that I ever yet knew around here. My experience is, that I led a very worthless and careless life, for which I expect God's pardon; but I fear ye parsons will have a hard account to settle for the contradiction and confusion ye have introduced into the Christian religion. Ye first attempted to make an infidel of me, by your glaring contradictions and hypocritical pretensions; and now, on the very brink of eternity, ye would deceive my soul into the delusion that I am fit for glory direct, in the blossom of my sins, 'unhouselled, unanointed, and unannealed.' Retire from my presence, ye deceivers, and make way for the minister of God's church, who can absolve me from my sins in the person of Christ, give me his true body to repair the ruins in my own body and soul, and strengthen me, by the oil of faith, against the terrible struggle that I must encounter, and the awful journey over which I must pass. O Lord," he cried, "forgive these persecutors of my soul; and, O virgin mother of Jesus, obtain for me to confess my sins and repent ere I die." All were astonished at the foregoing impassioned speech of uncle Jacob. The parson retired like an evil spirit exorcised by the powerful words of holy writ. The room was empty, and the priest was soon after at the dying man's bedside. After a full, sincere, and humble confession, conditional baptism was administered; and, confirmed by all the rites of the church, purified by penance, strengthened by the holy eucharist, and healed by the holy unction of heaven, that pure soul passed away to God in two days after, having become speechless in about an hour after the administration of the sacrament. "Now," said the priest, addressing Paul, "did I not tell you God had some mysterious design in view by the succession of trials which he enabled you to pass through? But for you, probably, this good soul would not have heard of the Catholic church; but for your mother's death you could not be out here, where the malice of those who wanted to rob you of your faith sent you. It is owing to the robbery of the money you possessed that your mother died; and, finally, but for the cruelty of the landlord and his injustice, you might be now at home in Ireland, and probably studying in Maynooth College. See how God brings good from evil. See how, as he made the hardness of Pharaoh's heart contribute to the glory and miraculous power of Moses and Aaron, he continually makes use of the tyranny of the landlords of Ireland--not inferior to the cruelty of Pharaoh or Herod--to contribute to the spread of the faith, without which there is no salvation, among the generous and naturally good people of this vast country." "I understand it all now," said Paul, "and thank God for all that has happened to us." "That's right, my boy; you will be yet a priest, perhaps, yourself. I must now prepare to return." As Father Ugo passed down stairs, he was met by Mrs. and Mr. Prying, who invited him to the parlor, and by a good deal of persuasion prevailed on him to remain there over night, rather than go to the hotel six miles off. Even the bigoted Amanda was very anxious to have an argument with a real priest--that mysterious sort of being whom she never saw, but heard so much about. Father Ugo was a robust, brave-looking man, of unaffected manners, bordering on plainness, though highly educated, and accustomed in Europe, where he was chaplain to Lord C----d, to the most aristocratic society. Perhaps it was owing to his knowledge of the vanity of aristocratic airs that he affected such a plainness of manners, being thoroughly tired of the odd, unmeaning ceremonials of fashion. It must be confessed, at any rate, that he entertained no small contempt for the mushroom aristocratic imitations that he witnessed in America; and this made him a little sarcastic, and therefore rather rude, in his association with what he called "the monkey aristocracy" of the new world. Such being the sentiments of Father Ugo, the reader ought not to be surprised that his reluctance to enter into a theological discussion with Amanda was great, and his answers to that indefatigable _she bore_ rather curt and ironical. After a good deal of conversation about the weather, crops, the telegraph, railroads, thunder storms, electricity, and such other subjects as were suggested by the climate and state of the weather, Mr. Prying left the room, wondering where this priest got his knowledge, and how could he be one of that low, canting, Scripture-phrase class to which all ministers he ever knew belonged, and in which he thought the priest must have exceeded the ministers in degree as much as the Green Mountain exceeded the little knoll in front of his house. "That's a well-read, intelligent fellow," said he to his wife. "We allers heard they knowed nothing but ignorance and idolatry," she carelessly remarked. "I guess those who represented the Catholic priests as such are the most ignorant," was the remark of Ephraim. "Well, sir," said Amanda, who was now alone with the priest in the parlor, "there are many admirable things in your religion; there are indeed." "I am glad you think so; but are not all its institutions admirable and perfect?" said the priest. "I can't concede that, by any means," she replied, with a consciousness of her logical powers. "For instance, there's celibacy; why don't you priests get married? I think this very wrong; the Bible calls it the 'doctrine of devils' to encourage that institution." "I am astonished, if you think so, miss," said the priest, "you have not got married yourself before this, for you appear to be of age." "O, that, perhaps, is my own choice," she said, coughing with embarrassment. "Well, it is my fixed and determined choice," rejoined Father Ugo, "to lead a single, unmarried life, free from care and anxiety." "I think you are mistaken, sir," she said; "the single life is one of much more care and anxiety than the married. Witness pa and ma; how happy _they_ have lived for thirty-five years in this our homestead." "Although such may have been _your_ experience, miss," said Dr. Ugo, "I must beg leave to decline accepting it as an authority, particularly when I have my own experience, though not so venerable as yours, to balance it. Besides, does not the inspired St. Paul tell us that those who are married are divided, and have heavier cares; while those who lead a single, chaste life, as he did, would be better able to serve God free from anxiety?" "O, Paul," she replied, "was very poor authority on the subject, being a bachelor when he wrote that passage. Probably in after life his opinions underwent a change on the subject. I am aware of his oddity in that way." "Do you joke, miss?" said the priest, solemnly. "If you do not joke, I have no hesitation in saying you blaspheme, in thus trifling with the words of the Holy Ghost." "I am serious, sir," she said; "it is your church that is guilty of misinterpretation of God's word, and, in addition, denies its 'free use' to the people." "I hope my church, miss, will never allow her children to trifle with God's holy word as you have now been guilty of," said the priest. "What's this? At theology again, Amanda? I think you have met your match at last, daughter," said Mr. Prying. "This young lady has taken to the study of Scripture and theology," continued he; "she and the several ministers who visit here are ever at controversy, and she seldom comes off second best, I tell you." "Don't you speak so, father," she said; "no, I don't, neither. I have been arguing with this gentleman about celibacy, and we can't agree about the interpretation of a text; that's all. But this is the birthright of every American citizen, the right to differ; the right to read the word of God, and to interpret it each for himself, without let or hinderance." "I have no great desire, nor does it at all accord with my notions of propriety, I assure you," said the priest, "to enter into controversial disputations around the fireside, in a family whose hospitality I am enjoying, and especially when a lady is my antagonist." "O you need not be particular," said this female bore; "we are used to such discussions. I had a few questions to put to you as a Catholic priest, of which I had taken notes, and my object is information on those points, as much as the refutation of your church doctrines." "Any information you require I am ready to afford, if in my power; but I have a horror--I suppose from the invariable habit of my past life--of introducing either political or religious discussions into the fireside family circle." "We are always disputing here," she said. "I am a Presbyterian, Cassius a Universalist, Wesley a Methodist, and Cyrus has taken to the spiritual rapping, and is a 'medium.' So you see controversy is no novelty here." "In Europe, miss," said the priest, "we never introduce----" "In Europe," she said, interrupting Father Ugo, "there is nothing but tyranny, despotism, poverty, and superstition. We despise the customs of Europe, sir. I am told," she added, after a glance at her notes, "that priests in general, and you in particular, forbid Catholics to attend the meetings, or join in the prayers or worship, of other denominations. Is this true, or how can you reconcile it with liberty or religion?" "Certainly," said the priest, "it is our duty to guard the Catholics from such immoral customs. We do not believe any of the sectarian denominations, into which I regret to learn your family is divided, derive their existence or institutions from God, or contain the _ordinary means_ of salvation. And while under this belief, in which we are joined by millions upon millions of Christians, living and dead, how can we join your prayer or worship, when we know it to be spurious and illegitimate?" "I shall, before I am done with you, sir," she replied, "prove your church idolatrous, and all Papists idolaters; and this is one of the proofs, this horrid opinion of yours, sir." "It is not my _opinion_ at all, miss," said he, coolly; "it is my _faith_, and that of God's church in all ages. Now, on the very plea that we all are idolaters, as you call us, for this very reason you should except your hired help from joining in your 'long prayers.' For if you have any faith in God, or believe you address him in prayer, why should you insult and mock him by taking an unenlightened, Papistical idolater to join your petitions? If you were to go to ask a favor of a king, or of the president, would you deem it prudent to take one to accompany you who was guilty of high treason? Would not this lead to your certain rejection from the presence of majesty or excellency with disgrace and punishment? Now, Catholics, if they be idolaters, are guilty of treason against Heaven. Do not, then, insult heaven and its divine Majesty, by asking them to join in your 'holy prayers.'" This "nonplussed" the self-confident and vain Amanda; all she could answer was, that "that was fine Jesuitism." "Meditate well on it," said the priest, "and repent, if you have been guilty of violating the laws of God, the laws of your country, and the dictates of reason, by compelling Catholics to join in your, to them, repulsive and unlawful worship. Forgive me, miss; I must be off. Good by. God bless you," said he, departing. CHAPTER XVI. THE ENLIGHTENED CITIZENS. "Any news this morning, squire?" said Mr. Wakely, the tavern keeper, to his _honor_ Squire Wilson, as he entered the bar room with a cigar in his mouth. "Wal, nothin' except this report of the turning of old uncle Jacob Prying, if we can give credit to such a rumor." "I seed the priest riding past here two days since," said the tavern man, "and his team half dead from driving. There can be little doubt of Jac's conversion to the Romish faith. I asked that young lad Paul, who used to stop at Prying's, and he said it was true." "'Tis really astonishing," said Benjamin Lifford, the Quaker. "I'd have let him die without a minister, if he did not content himself with the inflooence of the speerit. These is how I would sarve thee, Jacob." "I consider Mr. Prying rather simple to allow such a man as the priest to come into his house at all," said his _honor_ Squire Wilson, the Universalist. "Had it been my brother," said old Elder Fussel, "I would pay no attention to the dying request of old uncle Jacob. That would be the way to bring him to." "That would be cruel," said High Sheriff Walter, "seeing that Jacob left him all his property, real and personal. Besides, this is a free country, and I say a man ought to be allowed to embrace any religion he has a mind to. That's my creed, at all events." "Yes," said Mr. Ebenezer White, the Methodist class leader, "_pervided_ the creed he wanted to jine was the religion of the Bible; otherwise not." "Do not the Roman Catholics ground their doctrines on the Bible?" said the sheriff. "That they do, and their Bible contains many books that yours does not contain." "Nonsense, sheriff!" said his enlightened _honor_. "The Papists never read the Bible. I have a boy, Thomas Noonan,--you know him,--and he neither will read it himself, nor listen to it read. The priest won't allow him. No Catholic is allowed to have or read a Bible." "You state what is not true," said a loud, emphatic voice from behind the stove. It was the voice of Murty O'Dwyer. "I guess, squire, you are in error there," said the sheriff. "My boy, you know, Patrick, a very strict Catholic, every month at confession with the priest, has a Bible with him in my house, which Bible the priest gave him. I have read the book time and again. Nay, I heard the priest preach out of our Bible last summer." "Is it not astonishing," began Murty again, "that, though ye all differ in opinion, ye agree in hating and maligning the church of Christ? Though ye can't 'join in love,' ye know well how to 'join in hate.' Here are unbaptized Quakers, groaning Methodists, blaspheming Presbyterians, faithless Universalists and Unitarians, and humbug spiritual rappers; and yet ye not only coincide in hating the pope, but ye are all intolerant and cruel save this gentleman here," said he, pointing to Mr. Walter. "Now, will any body tell me whence is this hatred?" said the Irishman, pausing. "Is it grounded on knowledge or well-formed opinion? No; for ye are all grossly ignorant of the principles and facts of Catholicity, as ye have shown by your statements about the Bible. In truth, it is impossible to evade the conclusion that ye hate the church for the same cause that the devil envied and hated our first parents; namely, because he saw them the heirs of that bliss which he and his rebellious crew had lost." "Take care what you say, my man; the law does not suffer any person to disparage the Bible so," said the squire, threateningly. "I am not afraid, sir, to speak my mind, whatever you, as the representative of the law, may threaten. 'Tis really amazing that ye should be so busy and troubled about Catholics, take such pains in kidnapping Catholic children, and forcing Catholic servants to go to listen to your disgusting prayers and bellowing preachers, when your own children are beyond your control; go to bed like cattle, without ever bending a knee in prayer; and if they go to 'meeting,' as it is properly called, it is only to mock the 'old fool' who holds forth to them." "There is some truth in what he says," added the sheriff, looking at the squire. "Agree among yourselves first," said the Irish peasant, "before you commence to convert Catholics. Convert the rowdies that crowd your village and city tavern bar rooms before you extend your zeal to those who are in no need of it, or on whom it will be all spent in vain. Agree about the meaning of one single text in your Bible before you hand it to us for our study." "We all agree it's the word of God." "Well, the word of God cannot contradict itself, and yet the religious system of each of you contradicts that of his neighbor. One man says Christ is God; another denies this; and both quote Scripture in proof. This man says bishops are necessary and divinely appointed; the next man denies this totally. The Quaker denies what the disciple of Calvin or Knox believes, while the Universalist ignores what the latter professes; and now the Mormons, spiritual rappers, and Transcendentalists explode the Bible altogether. The Catholic church, with those countless millions of her children that constitute her body, has been reading the Bible and studying it these nineteen hundred years, and never yet, with all her learning, could find two opposite meanings to one single text; never once contradicted herself." "You don't say the Catholics are allowed the use of the Bible, do you? or that there was any Bible in the world but the one Luther found in the monastery hid, in the year 1517?" said the elder, who did not well hear, as he was somewhat deaf. "Do you seriously believe that we Catholics have not leave to use the Bible? I tell you we have, and always had, the unquestioned right to its proper use. Even before the art of printing was discovered by a Catholic, and when books were scarce, a Bible, in large, plain writing, was chained to a stand or desk in each parish church in most countries, so that all who wished could read. I saw one of these stands, which turned on a pivot, in an old Catholic church in Yorkshire, England, where it remains to this day. And as regards the absurdity that Luther found the only copy of the Bible extant in a monastery or university, that story is refuted by the fact that there were millions of Bibles, and countless editions of it, printed before Luther was born. Indeed, I have just read in this Protestant paper, here, that there is a Bible in Cincinnati, printed in 1470; that is, nearly fifty years before Luther began to revolt." "Why, Betsey Darcy, that jined our kirk at the late revivals, told us, public, in the meeting house, that the priests in Ireland would not allow any Catholic to read the Bible; and she said that was the first one she ever saw which I handed to her," said the pious elder. "Don't you believe her, elder," said Murty, "for I saw that same girl handle a true Protestant Bible in Ireland, when she attempted to father her illegitimate child on an honest man, but when she was, instead, convicted of perjury the most gross. She has had two other fatherless children since she came to 'free America;' and now, after having been rejected from the humblest society of Catholics on account of her immoralities, she, of course, takes refuge among the impeccable saints of Presbyterianism, where she ranks high in the scale of sanctity." "Sartin," said the sheriff; "she is a hard one, I do believe. I saw her drunk at the donation visit of dominie Grinoble, last winter." "Yes," said Murty, "when you get such a convert as this unfortunate reprobate, you boast and write tracts to herald the conquest; but such conversions as those of Spencer, Brownson, Wilberforce, Newman, Lords Camden, or Freeling, are as nothing in your eyes. You stuff your ears when you hear of them, cautiously keep them out of hearing of your sons and daughters, and these glorious conversions never appear in your shabby, lying newspapers. I do really pity the blindness of Protestants," said he, rising and walking out of doors. Next day after these events, the funeral of uncle Jacob took place, and these ministers, whom, while he lived, he could not endure, and who heartily hated him, came, when he was dead, to offer their services over his remains. If any thing was required to show the meanness and inconsistency of Protestantism and its teachers in this country, it is the readiness with which they will officiate over the body of a man dead, over whose soul, while living, they could exert not the smallest influence. We have known several instances where Methodist and Presbyterian hirelings, in consideration of the fee of three or five dollars paid them, preached long sermons, and opened the gates of _their Elysium_ to the souls of men who became converted from the sects to which these hireling parsons belonged. Nay, in cases where the deceased committed suicide by hanging or poisoning, we heard parsons officiate, and promise the friends, for certain, that the soul of the suicide was in glory, because sometime ago he happened to get religion, or join the Sons of Temperance, or conform to some other requirement of fanaticism. Thus, in the present case of uncle Jacob, Mr. Barker, the Methodist, and Parson Grinoble, the Presbyterian, and Mr. Gulmore, another style of Presbyterianism, all three vied to see who would _be hired_ to do the last service to him whom, while alive, they all despised. Mr. Gulmore, however, had the best luck, and accordingly mounted the pulpit to pass sentence on the departed soul of uncle Jacob. He descanted for a considerable time on the virtues of the deceased while young, told all he knew of his religious experience, not forgetting the virtues of the entire family, and what they had done for religion by circulation of tracts, by subscription to Bible societies, by adopting and raising of destitute orphans, and other good deeds, all tending to the honor of Calvinism. "The only instance of any thing like want of belief that happened for a hundred years in the family," said he, "was the seduction of our brother to the ranks of Popery. His faith was weak, my friends," he continued; "but if he did not believe strongly, _we believed_, and our faith saved him. His soul is in glory, I have no doubt. The faith of his family and all our faith saved him. Glory be to the Lord. Amen." The conclusion of this discourse was applied to the warning of the faithful against the influence of the Papists; the necessity and obligation incumbent on all to compel their Catholic servants to join their prayer and other meetings; and, above all, to take care that all Popish books and publications, should be excluded from their houses. "We are fallen on dangerous times, my friends," he said; "and if the friends of the Bible and free religion do not combine their efforts against the common enemy, our institutions are doomed, and the glory of our country is extinguished forever." The reader is not to imagine that Mr. Gulmore and men of his class are so brutally ignorant as some would imagine. When, therefore, we hear them speak of our _institutions_ being in danger, they mean the _institutions_ of heresy and sectarianism; namely, parsons, and their wives and children, and countless sects and contradictions in creed--institutions that, sure enough, are in imminent danger, and doomed to fall before the irresistible and unerring progress of Catholicity. But will this divinely decreed result be injurious to the progress or prosperity of the republic? On the contrary, there can never be a real union among the States till the minds of the people, north and south, are united in faith and sentiment. And by the annihilation of sectarianism and its castes, the people will be freed from a very burdensome tax now going to the support of a large and lazy body of men, women, and children, whose only object in existence seems to be to eat and consume, and who, besides, by their idleness and habits, keep up a system of detraction, jealousy, and discord among otherwise well-disposed citizens, that, like so many cancers, are eating into the very vitals of the public morals. Let not the American citizen, therefore, bewail the certain decline and rapid decay of the _institutions_ of sectarianism, but rather pray for the dawn of that glorious approaching day when, as we are but a one people and a united nation, we may have but one religion, and a country that will know no sectional divisions. CHAPTER XVII. "HE AND HIS WHOLE HOUSE BELIEVED." Paul, now, though full of anxiety and care on account of his young charge, was comparatively well off. His good fortune removed him from the neighborhood of all that was low, fanatical, and cruel in New York, to the capital of Vermont. And he felt the change for the better, sensibly, in quitting the birthplace of "Millerism," and going into a comparatively enlightened region. He thought there were, as he said, some gentlemen and ladies here in Vermont; but he could never see one of either species, properly so called, where he lately lived. The truth was, Mr. Clarke, his present employer, was a well-bred, full-blooded Yankee; and though his notions of Catholicity were such as he gleaned from the rabid discourses of half-educated preachers, and a few anti-Popery tracts which he read, his gentle and noble mind could not sanction for an instant any thing like persecution on account of religion. Hence, besides the favorable impression which the talents of Paul made on him, he considered it time to show him some kindness, to compensate for the ill treatment he underwent under the machinations of Parson Gulmore and Amanda Prying, and their clerical associates. "Paul," said Mr. Clarke, on Saturday night, at supper, "I am glad you are beginning to like this part of the country. I will endeavor to convince you that all America is not like your late home in York: all parsons are not like Mr. Gulmore, whose conduct in regard to your letters I cannot sufficiently condemn; nor are all young ladies of the same temper as Miss Amanda Prying." "I do not blame Amanda much, sir," said the youth, fearing that he might be led to any thing bordering on detraction; "she was very kind to me in all things, except that she wanted to keep me from mass, and tried to force my sister and myself to attend Mr. Gulmore's church." "That was very wrong of her, Paul. I do not think Miss Martha, here, will be so cruel as to require you to do any thing against your will; nor would she interfere with your letters to your friends, as I have no doubt Amanda has interfered. Well, Martha," said the good-natured father, looking with pride towards his eldest daughter, a bright girl of sixteen, "are you going to force Paul with you to church; to compel him, whether he likes it or not, to eat flesh meat on days forbidden by his church? And will you forbid him to write to his uncle, who, I doubt not, is a very respectable gentleman in Ireland?" "God forbid, father, that I should be guilty of half that. However, we shall be very glad if Paul comes to our meeting house, seeing we often go to hear the priest, Father O'C----, of the Catholic church." "I should be very sorry to disoblige any body, but especially one so amiable as yourself, miss," said Paul; "but I do not think I can conscientiously go to any church except the Catholic church." Mr. and Mrs. Clarke smiled, and a significant glance passed between them at the gallantry of this speech. "Why, Paul," said he, "I think you are a leetle too particular. It would do you no harm to hear our preacher, Mr. Holdforth; I do not see what can be wrong in it, no more than our going to hear the priest." "The only difference is," said Paul, quickly, "that our religion and service being right, and yours being wrong, you can attend our service without scruple, but I could not attend yours without sin. It would be a loss of time, a bad way to spend the Sabbath, or Sunday; the sin of curiosity, or the danger of being an encourager of, or countenancing, a false worship, unauthorized by God or his church." "Ah, Paul," said the editor, "this is taking a high ground, and rather a new one to me; and besides, this is not very logical, for this is what we want to see. This is just the question in dispute between the Roman Catholic church and the Protestant; viz., to which of the two belongs true and lawful worship." "You are a lawyer, sir," said Paul, "and you must know well the evidence is all in favor of the Catholic church--being that founded by Christ, and ruled and guided by the apostles. For, go back to the very apostolic ages, and you will find the rites and the ceremonies of the church, recorded in the writings of the ancient fathers,--as, for instance, in the works of Tertullian, Ireneus, Ignatius,--to be the very same as those now practised in the Catholic church in this country and all over the world." "I confess, Paul," said he, "that the external evidences are rather favorable to Catholicity; but we principally depend on internal evidence, or the feelings of our minds." "That," said Paul, "is no evidence at all; for you have to do with external facts. Institutions, history, monuments, testimony of men, customs, and habits, are the only evidence you can bring to bear on this controversy. How would you like to try a criminal by internal evidence--to tell a jury that you had 'internal evidence' of the innocence or guilt of the man accused? How could you discover whether or not Cæsar lived by the light of internal evidence? Is it by internal evidence you learn that such cities as Rome, Paris, or Constantinople exist? No, sir; it is by _external_ evidence, which is altogether in favor of our church; and this is more valuable than all the internal evidence that ever existed in the minds of fanatics, from Simon Magus to John Wesley, or from the Gnostics to the spiritual rappers." "Husband," said Mrs. Clarke, "I am afraid of your reputation in this argument about religion." "Madam, it is not _reputation_ I seek, but truth; and if I can find it in the Catholic church, I shall embrace it myself, and all my family." "You may bid adieu to most of your subscribers, then, after you become a Roman Catholic," said madam. "My dear wife," said he, impressively, "you ought to know me sufficiently well to be convinced that not only the success of my journal, but even the entire of my means, with my personal feelings, would be willingly sacrificed by me, in order to secure for myself, and for you all, what is infinitely beyond all earthly or temporal considerations; namely, the salvation of our immortal souls." "I did not want to insinuate, my dear, for a moment, that you could be influenced by such a consideration as the success of your journal in a matter of such everlasting importance. I only dropped the remark casually and without reflection," said madam. In order to explain more fully the seriousness of Mr. Clarke's desire to learn more and more regarding the Catholic church, and to account for his rather too easy concession to the arguments of Paul, we think it right to state that he had lately become a member of a literary and religious society established in his native city, under the presidentship of a minister of an Episcopal church. The object of this society, partly religious and partly literary, was to infuse a new spirit into the thinning ranks of Episcopalianism, by searching for, and bringing to light, in the popular form of lectures and dissertations, the evidences in favor of Protestantism, which, they supposed, were to be found in the writings of the primitive or ante-Nicene sages of the church. We do not think it would be appropriate to class this society under the appellative "Puseyite," for they had no direct connection or communication with that now rather celebrated school of schismatics, but undoubtedly the objects of both were analogous. Mr. Clarke's occupation was so much confined to the business of his lawyer's office, and his time so much engrossed by the attention required of him as an editor, that he had very little leisure to attend the regular meetings of the society, of which he was elected an honorary member; and hence, while he was at home and at the table, the whole discourse was on religion; for these were his only leisure hours. Paul he found not only well instructed in his religion, but capable of explaining very satisfactorily to him various points connected with such an important matter as that on which his mind of late turned its attention, and on which he desired the fullest information. Great was the joy and consolation of Paul, after the dialogue given above; and long and fervent were his thanksgivings to God, for choosing him so far to be the instrument in bringing his employer to the resolution of _examining_ Catholic doctrines. For who ever seriously examined and did not find the truth? "No," said Paul to himself, "never did any body examine into or compare the relative claims of the Catholic church and her countless opponents to be considered divine, that did not decide in favor of the former." And well knowing that Mr. Clarke was a man not to be turned aside from his resolution by any human motives or selfish considerations, Paul wisely concluded that "he and his whole house" would become reconciled to the church. And so they were. Mr. Clarke was the first member of the "Literary and Religious Society of Vermont" who became a convert. The next was the reverend president of the society; afterward one and another, till the entire society, consisting of some fifty members, submitted themselves to the sweet yoke of faith; and now there is a church, a resident priest, in that very locality, and using the very meeting house where the ex-Episcopalian minister preached. Under God, all these conversions were owing to the tact, prudence, and other admirable virtues, as well as the thorough Catholic education, of Paul. To this very day, Mr. Clarke, the Rev. Mr. Strongly, and many other members of the society acknowledge that it is to the circumstance of Paul's living in Mr. Clarke's family that he owed his conversion, and that the secession of Mr. Clarke from their ranks was what principally hastened the conversion of the whole society. Thus God frequently makes use of what appears to us very inadequate means to the most glorious results. Thus are the weak and humble of his church made use of, like David, to subdue her enemies, and bring them under the salutary sway of her dominion. And while this servant boy and that hired girl are acting the hypocrite in attending this master's meeting, or joining his long prayers, or eating meat on Friday, in violation of the precepts of the church, they are becoming stumbling blocks on his way to salvation--resisting the design of God, who wishes all men to be saved, as well as ruining their own souls. "He that despiseth small things shall fall by little and little." While these events were the order of the day in Vermont, the proselytizers in York were not idle. Amanda now, since Paul had not only left the house, but even went away from the neighborhood, thought she, and her coadjutors the parsons, would have little difficulty in converting Bridget. But the latter now, besides having once a month an opportunity of hearing mass,--the new priest, Father Ugo, having made it a rule to visit the railroad laborers as often as he could, and being pretty well grounded in the catechism,--in addition to these very important aids to combat temptation, Bridget had also Murty O'Dwyer, who was hired in the house, to take up the cudgels for her against Amanda and Parson Gulmore. "Prepare, Bridget, to come with me this evening to Sabbath school," said the persevering Amanda. "I want to show them how well you can read, and also I want them to admire these nice flowers of your hat, and your pretty new dress, to see how smart you look." "Why, miss, if that be all you want, I can't go, for that would be a sin. Vanity, you know," said the little roguish girl, looking sarcastically at Amanda. "I am the best judge of that, missy," said the old maid. "Go on and prepare: you must come. You are getting very ugly since you got the habit of seeing that old priest of late." "I beg your pardon, miss. It is not for the priest's advice I refuse joining your worship, but because God forbids it and the church. Before the priest ever came here, I refused, during more than two years, to go to Protestant meetings or Sunday schools, which cost me many a tear and a scolding; and the priest's advice has not made me more determined than I was before never to put my foot inside your ugly meeting house or Sunday schools." "If I asked you to go to the priest to pay him a quarter to pardon your sins, you naughty Irish girl, you," said Amanda, in a passion, "how readily you would obey me, you naughty thing, you!" "You're welcome to your joke, miss," answered Bridget; "but if you are in earnest, I must say that it is not true that Father Ugo, or any other priest that ever lived, charged any money for hearing confession. Confession was ordained by Christ, our Lord; and those who do not go to confession cannot lead a pure life of virtue, nor preserve the love of God in their souls." "Indeed, miss!" said Amanda, with a sneer. "I see the priest has been giving you a lesson. As if none but Papists knew what purity or virtue was--the low set of Irish that they are!" "Our books of devotion say as much," said Bridget; "and it stands to reason, for if Catholics who frequent confession have enough to do to keep themselves undefiled, how much more difficult is it for those who do not confess at all? Besides, by confession restitution is enforced, and whatever your neighbor loses by fraud is restored." "Is it not strange, then, that the Irish Papist who robbed your mother of the money does not think of restoring it? And you say he had the priest's certificate of confession in his pocket?" "That is not the fault of confession, miss. May be he would make restitution yet, if God give him grace." "I have been listening to you, miss, this half hour," interposed Murty, who now entered from the back kitchen where he was smoking, "and I am really shocked to find you tamper so with the virtue of this innocent girl. You first attempt to reach her pure soul through her vanity, by praising her dress and accomplishments; and she nobly rejects the temptation. Next you attempt to conquer her fortitude, by maligning and ridiculing the most sacred institutions of her holy religion; and here again you fail. It is the strangest thing in the world, in my mind, that you should continually annoy that poor orphan, and stranger again, that her noble fortitude, her piety, her faith, fidelity, and other heroic virtues have not converted you, and those who have been for years witness of them, to something like admiration of them." "But she is so obstinate, Murt," said the old maid. "Yes," said he, "and in that she is right. Yourself had an opportunity of information on all these subjects, and, I understand, discussed them at length with the priest in person. You ought to know better, then, than to repeat to this child a pure fable, that you dare not hint in the presence of the priest; namely, that he levies a tax of two shillings or half a dollar on every penitent whose confession he hears." "That is generally believed," said she, ashamed that her violent attack on Bridget had been overheard by one whose good opinion, of late, she was rather anxious to secure, for a delicate reason that shan't be mentioned here. "It is generally _talked_, but not _believed_, dear miss, unless by the idiots and children into whose minds it is continually dinned by malicious persons, who know that their occupation would be gone if the truth were known, and who struggle to shut out the light and knowledge of Catholicity from the souls of their wretched hearers with the same cruelty that the tyrant shuts out the light of heaven from the dungeon of his captive. I thought this was a free country," he continued; "but I find the most odious of tyrannies, domestic tyranny, and the tyranny of opinion, established here. I, myself, have been its victim in no less than six instances. Yes, miss, I was turned out of employment, and cheated out of my wages, as I would not say my prayers with, or square my creed in accordance with, the notions of my eccentric and fanatical employers." "That was too bad, Murt," said she, laughing. "Ha, ha, ha!" "It was almost as bad as your own attempt to rob these orphan children of the faith of their fathers. For they were young, innocent, and helpless; but for me, I am able to work, and can defy any tyrant your country affords," said he, in a passion. "There is not, I believe," he added, "on earth, a more odious tyranny, except the landlord tyranny in Ireland, than that of your sectarian Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Nothingarian tyranny in America." "You Irish should learn to correspond with the institutions of the country, and should not attempt to introduce Popery into this Protestant land." "Protestant land!" said Murty. "We never dream of this being a Protestant land when we land on its shores. We look on it as the land of liberty, where no form of religion is dominant, and where all are equally protected. Protestant land! Why, this sounds odd in a world first discovered and trod on by Catholics. This sounds bad in a republic established by the aid of Catholic arms, blood, and treasure, despite of the tyranny of Protestant England. This slang of Protestant land is intolerable in a people against whose liberties no Catholic sword was ever unsheathed, though the founder of the sect of which your friend Mr. Barker is preacher, John Wesley, offered George III. the services of his forty thousand Methodists to put down the American rebellion. What American, what republican, then, of spirit or intelligence, can for an hour profess himself a follower in religion of such a fanatic as Wesley, with this well-known fact staring him in the face? How noble the conduct of Catholic France, or Catholic Ireland, when compared with Protestant England or Protestant Germany, at the time of the revolution! The two former Catholic nations sent their men, ships, money, clothing, and provisions, to aid your insurgent ancestors; Germany and England sent their armed vessels, their cannon, and their hireling soldiery, to burn the homesteads, desolate the fields, and murder the wives and children of your forefathers." "I am afraid, Murt," she said, "you will convert me to your notions." This was said with a tenderness that could not be mistaken. "I fear not, miss; you are too old for that," said he, meaningly. "I am not so very old as you suppose. I am not so old as uncle Jacob, yet," she said, perceiving that her meaning was understood by Murty; "and he became a Papist before he died." "God gave him the grace, and I pray that you may receive a like grace; but I suppose you allude to a different sort of conversion?" said he. The truth was, Amanda, having failed to secure the permanent regard of any of her numerous admirers, was foolish enough, as most old maids are, to suppose that some green, young, inexperienced lover would be most likely to be caught in her net. Hence she had her mind fixed on Murty, whom she regarded, as he really was, a young man of talent, and whose dependent and menial condition she considered as calculated to balance the disparity in their age, and as likely to insure her success. This was why she felt so mortified at being detected by him in her late attempt on the faith and resolution of Bridget, having, since her designs on Murty, promised to let the orphans have their own way, after having attempted to convince him that she was quite indifferent on the subject of religion, and "that she would be very glad to know more from him about the Catholic church." The detection of her insincerity in this instance, and of the falsity of her professions, put an end to all her further hopes regarding the gallant young Irishman, who could not tolerate a falsehood in any body, but especially in a lady, and who ever after avoided her society as much as possible. His presence, however, in the house was a sure guaranty to Bridget of full religious toleration, Amanda's fiery zeal for religion being succeeded by a flame of a somewhat different nature. CHAPTER XVIII. "TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION." We devote this chapter of our narrative to the record of a very strange succession of circumstances, no less so, however, than true. They may serve as an illustration of the wonderful and mysterious workings of Religion on the soul, and, at the same time, afford an instance of the absolute insufficiency of speculative belief or theoretic religion, without the every-day practice of her sublime and simple lessons. One morning, in the town of Sheffield, England, one John Cunningham, after confession and communion, called on the Catholic pastor of that town, for the purpose of procuring a line of commendation, or testimonial of character, that might be of use to him, as he thought, to get him employment in some part of the new world, to which he was preparing to emigrate. The poor fellow then little dreamed that a priest's recommendatory paper, instead of a dollar bill, was the worst possible substitute in certain parts of America; and, if of any conceivable effect, was likely to prove an occasion to him of such annoyances, on account of his faith, as we have described in these pages. "The character," however, he succeeded in procuring, and written in no niggard terms. If it offended in any thing, it was in being too favorable to the bearer. It was by means of this paper, with the respectable name of Rev. Dr. H---- at its foot, that Cunningham succeeded in ingratiating himself into the confidence and favor of the O'Clerys during the voyage, as well as by his attention to Mr. Arthur O'Clery during his fatal sickness. The reverend gentleman whose signature stood at the foot of the "character" was well known to the O'Clery family; and hence, undoubtedly, originated the intimacy, strengthened by his asserting falsely that he was a relative of the priest, which subsequently enabled him to rob the poor widow and her orphans of their entire means. Accomplished villain as he was, Religion had not yet lost her whole sway over his soul, and by way of punishing himself, but in reality, making bad worse, the second day after his liberation from arrest consequent on the theft, he listed in the United States army, and was hurried off forthwith to the field of battle, in Florida. The gnawing worm of remorse still followed him on board of ship, and in barrack, and on the scorching plains of the south. He had less dread of the sabre, or grape, or rifle of the enemy, than of the thought that he had robbed the poor widow, and availed himself of the confidence of confession to elicit from his too confiding director the paper that principally enabled him to do so. He had plundered an honest family of their all, and it was of no use to him. The injury done was severely felt by not only one, but several. The pleasure, comfort, or happiness to him was nothing at all. Unhappy man, what was he to do? He could not help it now; the enemy was before him, and he could not turn his back, and the money was lost forever. He feared death would deprive him of the means of making restitution, for he had a presentiment he would fall on this very day. First, that sin he committed in Liverpool, when, in an evil hour, yielding to the advice and example of wicked companions, he took to drink in order to smother the thought of it; and drink caused him to rob the widow, and to shun further the thought of these crimes he enlisted in the army; but yet, here, in the very ranks, with drums beating, and music playing, amid the shouts of Indians and din of battle, the sins were uppermost still in his mind. How horrid must be the feelings of poor Cunningham, with death staring him in the face, and yet he expected nothing but judgment after death! In vain did he look around for the tall and venerable form of Father McEl----, to cast himself at his knees, and ask for advice, blessing, and forgiveness. He was nowhere now to be found. O misery unspeakable! And but yesterday, but this very morning, four hours ago, that father went through the ranks, encouraging the men, and exciting them to contrition. Ah, yes! But yesterday Cunningham had got some drink, and, not perceiving the danger, refused to confess. But now, if he could see the priest! "O God!" said he, "where is the priest?" Some of his comrades, who heard this exclamation expressed aloud, laughed; others taunted him on his evil conscience. However, down on his knees he fell, as if unconscious of the presence of his comrades, and promised, if God spared him, on the first opportunity, that he would not only restore the stolen treasure, but, if necessary, travel the whole Union in search of those whom he robbed; and ask their forgiveness for the injury done them. He had scarcely risen into the ranks of his comrades when the hostile fire opened on the plains of Tampa, and a bullet from the rifle of the enemy shattered his arm to pieces. A few hours decided that well-known victory of the Americans, and Cunningham had not long to remain on the field, exposed to the scorching sun, when he was conveyed to the hospital. Though the pain he felt in his arm was great, that which rankled in his bosom was greater; and on his reaching the hospital, he called out for Father McEl----, before he would allow the surgeon to inspect his arm. After the amputation of the limb he recovered, got his discharge, came back to New York, and, in company with a respectable Catholic citizen, went out about seven miles east of Brooklyn, and there, at the foot of a maple tree, they dug out of the ground, three feet deep, the bag sure enough, containing every sovereign and note of the money stolen from the widow O'Clery. They went with it right straight to the priest of St. Peter's Church, who, upon hearing the recital of the now penitent thief, promised that he should suffer no legal consequences, and inserted advertisements in the papers to find out where the O'Clerys might be. This information was communicated to Paul by Mr. Clarke, and to Bridget by Father Ugo, on the same day. This news, when made known, created the most intense excitement. Amanda was now very polite to Bridget, whom she marked out in her own mind as a suitable wife for her eldest brother Calvin. Paul was declared to be a young "likely gentleman," of real genius. The two younger brothers, Patrick and Eugene, were lauded, flattered, and admired. In fine, the sudden change which took place in the relation in which they stood in the house of bondage was such as to cause Murty to remark to Paul,--who lost no time in coming to pay for his brothers' and sister's board, although the term of servitude of Bridget was now almost expired,--"Paul, I see that it is not our faith that is so much hated by these goodly Christians as our poverty." "There may be some truth in that," replied Paul. "Ever," continued Murty, "since it appeared in our papers here that you had your thousand pounds restored to you, all mouths are full of your praise. You were uncommon children, and it was cruel of the minister Gulmore to conspire against you. It was infamous in him, they now say, to have your letters 'burked' in the post office, as it appears from Amanda, who has turned informer on the parson, because he did not marry her after his first wife's death. Before this ye were paupers, Irish, and Papists; now, you and your sister and brothers are noble and likely young people." "O Murty," said Paul, "I can see the hand of God in all this. Where I have lived for the last three years, several families, together with my friend and former employer, Mr. Clarke, have been converted. The very minister, Mr. Strongly, has embraced the true faith; and another parson, Rev. Mr. H----, I am sure, only waits instruction to enter the gate of life within the true church." "Thank God!" said Murty O'Dwyer. "I thought these Yankees never could be good Catholics, they are so fond of money, trading, cheating, and legal swindling, such as assigning, and mortgaging, and the like." "O, bless you, Murty, all Yankees are not alike. There are no better Catholics on earth than Americans, when they once get the faith. Mr. Clarke, and my friends in Vermont, who consider me as instrumental in bringing them to the true faith, have paid for my education in the college of G----, after they found that I was resolved to embrace the clerical state." "That was very generous of them, indeed, sir," said Murty, assuming a little less familiarity; "those here, in this neighborhood, cannot be much blamed for their bigotry; they know no better, imposed on for ages by such fellows as Miller, Scullion, Barker, Gulmore, Grinoble, Scaly, and the like." "But it is not so in the cities, Murty," continued Paul; "and it will not be so here long; for now railroads are building, light, and liberality, and, I trust, charity, are extending their influence. We must do our part, by being good, and virtuous, and prudent; try to gain them by our good example, rather than by argumentative or angry discussion. 'They know not what they do' when they contemn, or attempt to stop the progress of, our faith. They are a naturally good and kind-hearted people; as witness how they assist the sick and give hospitality. Such virtues must ultimately gain for them the grace of conversion. The greatest obstacle in their way is the low cunning of the unprincipled parsons, who, from being peddlers, and poor, shiftless mechanics, without any proper discipline or preparation, take to the less laborious trade of preaching. Pray for them, Murty--pray for them." "I have a far stronger inclination to curse them," said Murty. "Fie, fie, Murty; that is not Christian." "That I know," said Murty; "but have you heard that I have been cheated out of near two hundred dollars by my employer, and all through the influence of a villanous parson who got divorced from his wife, on account of a short answer I made him?" "What was the answer, Murty? I suppose it must be droll." "One day," said Murty, "this Parson Boorman dined where I worked for two years, and, to convert me from the error of my ways for observing abstinence on Friday, commenced saying, 'Don't you see, Murty, how foolish and unreasonable you act? You eat butter and use milk that come from the cow, and you refuse to eat her flesh. It's all the same, my Irish friend,' continued the dominie, pitying my ignorance. 'I have no great desire, Mr. Dominie,' said I, 'now, for controversy, being fatigued after my hard day's work; though it takes but little learning to refute your profound logic. If there is no difference between drinking milk and eating flesh, then you may as well eat your mother's flesh, parson, as suck her breast; and as you, I expect, have done the latter, therefore, dominie, you must be a cannibal. How do you like this?' said I. "'O,' said the dominie, 'the butter, you know, that comes from the cow, what do you say to that?' 'I say, parson, that there is another substance besides butter that comes from the cow, and you would not like to dine on it.' At this the whole company laughed outright in his face, and from that time to this the dominie never ceased to persecute me." "That was a very queer way you took to silence the dominie," said Paul; "but I presume, after that ludicrous answer, you met with very little religious controversy afterwards." "That's true," said Murty; "but I have suffered the loss of my wages through the unrelenting malice of the Presbyterian dominie." "Never mind, Murty; do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute and calumniate you. For your kindness to Bridget while I was away, I feel bound to give you some remuneration. Have courage, have courage, and think better of the Yankees. The more you know of them, the better you will like them. They have their faults,--as what nation has not?--but they have their virtues also." This conversation took place between Paul and Murty in the farm house of Mr. Clarke, where he had just arrived, as well to spend the vacation as to make arrangements regarding the future of his brothers and sister. Murty, upon hearing of his arrival, lost not a moment's time in going across lots from the Pryings' farm to that of Mr. Clarke, thinking he might be the first to communicate to Paul the joyous intelligence regarding the recovery of the lost money, and the pleasing change in the opinion of all regarding him and his brethren. Paul could not but feel grateful for the kindness of his friend Murty; but he was too well practised in Christian perfection to indulge in any thing like excessive joy, and too well accustomed to refer every thing to God to claim any merit, or take any pleasure, in the flattering eulogies of all his acquaintances, as repeated by Murty. CHAPTER XIX. WHAT HAPPENED TO LITTLE EUGENE O'CLERY. Fortune now began to smile on Paul O'Clery, and to make amends for the long course of ill usage to which she had subjected himself and his kindred. He had not only enjoyed the sympathy of friends, and his talents had not only gained him the good will and respect of his superiors and classfellows, but he now unexpectedly found himself in possession of a handsome sum of money, the fruit of the honest industry of his parents. The true Catholic training which Paul received from his very infancy taught him the impropriety of immoderate joy or gladness, and the severe trials of the last few years had chastened his naturally hilarious and pleasant mind to a temper of habitual calm and reserve bordering on melancholy. It must be confessed, in this instance, however, that his spirit felt unusually buoyant and glad, as he returned, under present circumstances, to the scene of his late trials and humiliation. There are few persons born, however propitious the position of their horoscope, who have not, some time or other, to experience the feeling attendant on a transition from an inferior condition to one of more respect and honor. It will not, therefore, be difficult to imagine what were the sentiments of our young hero on his return from the south, on this occasion. He was a slave; he is now a freeman. He was a menial; he is now a gentleman. He was the subject on which the hypocrite and the impostor sought to try the success of their well-taught deceptions; now, his virtues, his manners, and his success are in the mouths of all men; and those who plotted against his soul are ready to do homage to his accomplishments. When St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, returned to the house of his former master, who held him in slavery,--the glorious prelate and saint to the hut of the slave,--what must have been the feelings of his exalted and inspired soul? Not those of hatred, vanity, or earthly exultation, but those of charity, thanksgiving, and apostolic zeal, if not those of gratitude, to his pagan master. Kindred to these was the mental exultation of Paul O'Clery, on approaching the valley of R---- Creek, the scene of the most meritorious part of his life, and still the novitiate of those who were the most dear to him on earth. He determined not only to redeem his sister and brothers, by paying the customary sum for whatever clothing and board they had received, but resolved, as soon as possible, to have them placed in a suitable educational establishment. Bridget was already free, and by right entitled to something handsome in remuneration of the services she had rendered in the family in which she was so long a menial; but Paul was determined that she should not only refuse accepting what was to fall to her share, and what in justice she could claim, but said every thing should be paid for--board, lodging, and even her "_common-school_" education. "This last item," he said, "was not of the most choice description,--that is, the 'common-school' learning,--but such as it is I am unwilling to accept it gratuitously." He had come to the same conclusion regarding Patrick and Eugene. O, it was on account of these latter children, principally, that Paul rejoiced and thanked God that restitution had been made of the stolen money; for he had a burden of care and anxiety on his mind on account of these two children. It was so difficult a work, especially as himself could not be with them, to save young boys like them from the contagious vice so prevalent in this country; and, above all, so hard to preserve young boys in the atmosphere of your "common schools." Bridget might be said to be safe, for she could remove to a better and more Christian neighborhood, or return to her friends in the old country; but Patrick, and, above all, Eugene, who were in the hands of utter strangers, how were they to be saved from the universal corruption, when deprived of the continual guardianship of their faithful brother? These were the considerations, and not the sole recovery of the money restored to him, that contributed to the increase of the joy, and gratitude, and thanksgiving in the heart of Paul that now pervaded it. Alas! that this joy and these pleasant anticipations of future prospects were of such short duration! In order to understand the following statement of facts in relation to the fate of poor Eugene O'Clery, it is necessary here to observe that, just after Paul had, by means of the support received from his convert friends in Vermont, been enabled to enter college, a gentleman, who stated that he took a great interest in Paul, from what he learned from the Rev. Mr. Strongly about him, wrote him a long letter. The burden of the epistle was, that the writer was a minister, with views not far removed from those of the Rev. Mr. Strongly, the convert to the Catholic church; that he had heard a good deal about Paul and his trials and success; that he lately visited at Mr. Reuben Prying's, where his two little brothers now remained; that he pitied them, but especially the younger, for that they lacked the opportunity of a better and more _Catholic_ education; that, in fine, he, Dr. Dilman, if Paul consented, would take the younger, Eugene, with him into the city, where his education could be attended to, and where he, at least, might be saved from the influence of the barbarous mannerism and irreligious taint of these country "common schools." His reverence the doctor furthermore added, that Mr. Prying had no objection to the arrangement he proposed, and that he had conquered the repugnance that Mrs. Prying had to the separation of the brothers by the very flattering terms on which he offered _to do_ for the child. In a postscript of this letter, it was stated by this veracious _Christian minister_, as he signed himself, that he would send Paul quarterly or monthly bulletins of Eugene's progress in science and virtue, and, above all, that his faith should not be tampered with in the slightest. The effect of such an artful piece of diplomacy may be easily conceived. The bait of the parson took, and Paul was for once overreached. The unsuspecting youth took this gentleman to be a clergyman of the same stamp with his friends Rev. Messrs. Strongly and H----. And the fact that Parson Dilman was acquainted with the former honorable men, was enough to throw Paul off his guard. The parson's talk, too, about "_Catholic education_," and the "barbarous" common schools, served still to deceive, not only Paul, but even the professors of the college to whom the epistle of Parson Dilman was submitted for advice and direction. Paul was enthusiastic in the praise of his two reverend convert friends in Vermont, (who were the only two Protestant parsons he intimately knew before or after conversion,) and hence, when questioned by the professors about what he might know of his correspondent, he answered that he knew nothing; but the fact of his intimacy and acquaintance with the ex-parsons Strongly and H----, his friends and patrons, was "a good sign of his honesty and honor." The shrewd Jesuit professors smiling at the poor child's credulous and confiding disposition, told him that, as he had such an opinion of the worth and honor of the fraternity of dominies, he might commit his brother to the charge of one, and especially as he stood in very great danger to his faith and morals where he was at present. His situation might be ameliorated, but could not be much worse; but the good fathers declined taking the responsibility of giving a decision on the subject. "The letter promised what was fair and honorable, but there might be deception," said they. "Deception, reverend fathers!" said Paul. "I can't suspect any such thing in one so intimate with my dearest and best friends, the converted clergymen in Vermont." "Well," said the sons of Ignatius, whose wise experience had taught them to have little faith in heretical parsons, "you can use your own discretion, my child." Paul, acting on the impulse of his own feelings, thinking it would be a rash judgment in him to suspect evil design in one who professed himself favorable to Catholicity, and, besides, was of the same sentiments in religion, or nearly the same, with his convert friends in Vermont, immediately wrote in answer to Dr. Dilman, consenting to have Eugene go with him. But there was to be no legal binding in the matter, and honor was to be the only bond under which his younger brother was to be held bound. The day now arrived for Eugene to part--alas! that it should be forever--from the society of his brother and sister. At first, some opposition was made by Patrick and Bridget; but when shown the letter of their brother Paul, they were reconciled to what they thought the temporary separation. Eugene himself was calmed, and his sorrow turned into joy, by being told that he was going towards where Paul was, and that, like enough, he would meet him on his way. "Can I see Paul there?" said he, drying the tears that stood in his eyes. "Sartain you can. Don't you like that, Bob?" said Reuben, who was in the plot with Dilman. "Well, I'll go, then," said the child. "Good by, Bid; good by, Pat. You stay there till Paul and I come to see ye." All the household of Reuben embraced Eugene, and made him some little present, before he set out. An abundance of tears were shed by young and old, as the melancholy and thoughtful face of Eugene was seen by them for the last time. Truth compels us to say a word or two in reference to the antecedents of this reverend doctor of Presbyterianism into whose _protection_ this innocent lamb was taken. Dr. Dilman was about sixty years old at this time; and after having lived in some manner with his first wife for near thirty years, had lately taken out a bill of divorce by law against the "old woman," to make room for a young _religious lady_ in his reverend bed. During his long life, he had changed his creed no less than nine times. He was first an Episcopalian; but having been refused ordination in that sect, on account of some peccadilloes of his youth, he joined the Methodists, from whom he received conversion and a call. Being a man of undoubted talent, and thinking the Methodists were too slow in promoting him, he became a Baptist. His next hop was to the Universalists, whom, because he found too penurious, he deserted for the Congregationalists, from whom he got a call to a southern pro-slavery church, where, after amassing considerable wealth in cash and "human chattels," he resigned his charge, came to the north again to recruit his sinking constitution, and, after trying two or three other minor sects, he settled down an old-school anti-slavery Presbyterian. Poor man! his star has gone down now, and his memory will soon be forgotten; but the anecdotes and tales that his extraordinary life illustrated will not be forgotten for generations to come. The passage in his study, through which he used to admit his "Cressida" from a secret door communicating with his "basement church," is now shown as a specimen of his skill. The transformations and metamorphoses he used to undergo, like Jupiter of old, in order to pass unobserved to the retreats of his "Europas," on the sides and on the summits of the classically-sounding hills of the city of his ministry,--all these things, and more, are known to the poorest retailers of interesting stories and anecdotes. In a word, he was as impure as Caligula, as cruel as Nero or Calvin himself, and as violent as Luther or John Knox. Yet it is a melancholy fact in connection with, and illustrative of, the spirit of the Protestantisms of the United States, that for twenty years and more, with all this guilt, with all the crimes in the calendar on his head, with the full knowledge of all his sins of impurity, hypocrisy, intolerance, and cruelty to his wife, this _reverend gentleman_ was the most popular, well-supported, and _respected_ minister in the whole state in which he resided. He was a good preacher, an eloquent expounder of the word, a smart man; that was enough. Protestantism could not afford to lose him now, when she was so spare of the giants to which she owes her existence. This was the Rev. Dr. Dilman who took Eugene under his care about whom Reuben Prying remarked, after he had left the house, that the doctor was a "real smart man." "Your church, Murty," said he, "can't scare up such a grand preacher as that. Did you hear that lecture he delivered last winter against Popery? He is an honor to our church, I can tell you." "Why so?" said Murty; "what has he done that you esteem him so high?" "Nothin', but bein' so eloquent and talented, and able to address such a feeling prayer _to his hearers_." "Bless you, I know one much more talented than ever he will be," said Murty. "I guess not, Murty," said he, shaking his head; "who is it?" "Why, the devil," said Murty, "beats him all to pieces. Your parson only opposes the pope, you say; whereas the devil opposes both the pope and the Almighty. What is any of your ministers to great 'Ould Harry'? I bet you are beat now. Ha! ha! ha!" said the Irishman, laughing. "You are a curious feller, Murty," said Mr. Prying. "Am I not right?" said Murty. "You praise your minister, _not_ because he is good, charitable, humane, chaste, or pious, (all which he possibly may be,) but solely because he is talented or endowed with genius. Well, then, I tell you this gains him no merit, for he received this gift from God. He may abuse it; and, at any rate, the devil, the very enemy of God, is endowed with more genius than he and all the Protestant parsons living put together. I think this is fair _arguing_, Mr. Prying, don't you?" "Let's drop it, Murty," said Mr. Prying, not liking to hear any more of such "arguing," particularly as the children were present, and seemed much to enjoy the home-spun comparison between the Dominie Dilman and "Old Harry." This was the first time they were observed to laugh since the departure of poor Eugene. Meanwhile, poor Eugene arrived in the city of the parsonage of his reverend protector, where he was received with apparent affection by that gentleman's wife. During the first three days after his arrival, several of the "saints," male and female, of the doctor's church, came to see the new acquisition, as well as to congratulate the parson on the success of his plan. The little orphan was flattered, caressed, and encouraged by the promise of nice clothes and other presents. And it would be unnatural to expect that the innocent heart of a child of his age, now between eight and nine years, could remain insensible to the caresses and favors bestowed. The little lad felt quite content; nay, a gradual sunshine began to spread over the calm melancholy of his angelic face. They first imposed on the child by telling him that his reverend protector was the priest. He believed it for some time; but when, after two weeks were elapsed, he was permitted to go to church, he was perfectly surprised at "the quare way the priest said mass." He saw no candles lighted on the altar. He heard no little bell rung at various parts of the service. He saw no persons "bless themselves" there, either. "I suppose," said he to himself, "they would not tell a lie; but that was a very strange mass I was at to-day." Friday came round soon after, and then little Eugene learned where he stood. Then he saw what hypocrites the self-styled priest, his wife, and all in his house were. He had perceived his reverence help himself plentifully to fat meat; and Eugene was invited to eat it himself, but declined, saying, "I would be a Protestant if I eat meat on Friday; and I fear ye are all here Protestants." A suppressed laugh was all that his remark could elicit from these worthies whose gluttony gave him such scandal. Eugene's eyes were further opened by some boys at school, who laughed heartily at his expense when he asked about the "strange mass" that he had heard on Sunday. "What mass?" said they; "sure it is only the Popish priests that offer mass, and it is a wicked thing to go to mass." The poor child, on seeing the snare laid for him, burst into tears and wept aloud, calling for his brother Paul by name, and crying, "O woe! woe! woe!" The school madam was attracted by the lamentable cries of the lad, and, learning the cause of them, reprimanded the impudent boys, and tried to console him. Her attempts were, however, in vain. The child seeing himself sold and betrayed, his candid soul fell back to its former melancholy, and he drooped under the weight of the injustice of which he was the victim. From that day forward he refused to attend either the night prayers of the "false priest," or to go to any of his meetings, and to the hour of his death this resolution could never be shaken by all the wiles of his persecutors. Several new arts and schemes were tried to vanquish his resolution, but all to no purpose. He was alternately coaxed and threatened, but all attempts either to flatter or force him proved ineffectual. He was several times locked up in a dark room, which was the terror of a young nephew of the parson, who was in the house, but which had far less terror for this young confessor than the smiles of his false friends. He was heard by young Sam, who often went to the door of the dread prison, chanting his favorite hymn, thus:-- "Ave Maria! hear the prayer Of thy poor, helpless child; Beneath thy sweet, maternal care, Preserve me undefiled." And when spoken to through the keyhole, he answered that he was not a bit afraid of "Spookes," and that there was plenty of light for him to say his prayers. Even the parson himself, in company with his wife, went to listen at the door of where their prisoner was confined, and for a moment their hard hearts even were softened by the sweet, plaintive chant of the "Ave Maria." "Are you sorry for your disobedience, now, Eugene?" said the parson; "and will you attend prayers and meeting when you are told?" "I can't promise to do what would displease God, and what my brother Paul and the priest told me not to do, sir," said the child. "Don't you know, Eugene, the priest is a wicked man, and the Lord will punish you in a dark dungeon, darker than that room you are in, if you do not do what I tell you?" added the persecuting parson. All this talk was lost on poor Eugene, who continued chanting his little hymn, or repeating the "Hail Mary" and "Holy Mary," for his father and mother's souls. In a word, after a series of whippings, confinements, and scoldings, after compelling him either to eat flesh on Friday, or fast all day without any other food, Parson Dilman, out of sheer shame, gave him up, and confessed himself vanquished by the Catholic child. He did not give him up for good, however, but, by way of making more sure of his victim, he sent him out into the country, to undergo the treatment of a more zealous and perfect disciplinarian than himself. This pious Christian was no other than Shaw Gulvert, who was known to be a prodigy of sanctity, and had a world of zeal in reconciling obstinate heretics, or pagans, (as he called all but his own sect,) to the true standard of old Presbyterianism. He could boast of having most of the Old Testament by heart, making a prayer or "asking a blessing" of one hour's duration in the delivery; and by these virtues, and others he knew how to practise, every person who lived in his house, or came within the influence of his zeal, was sure "to get religion in no time." 'Tis true, he met some unlucky converts, and one or two very obstinate Papists whom he did not convert at all; but he soon despatched and discharged these latter. And he was especially mortified at the conduct of one Tipperary man, named Burk, who had the audacity to bring the priest to say mass in a house which the latter rented from him. The house has ever since been locked up, the pious Christian, Mr. Shaw Gulvert, preferring to let it rot and totter in ruin, rather than run the risk of having a Catholic tenant, who, like Burk, would be wicked enough to allow the priest inside the threshold. This is the gentleman who is intrusted with the conversion of poor Eugene O'Clery, the Irish emigrant orphan; and he set about the work in right earnest fashion. CHAPTER XX. THE SAME, CONTINUED. During the first two months, Eugene had comparatively but little to fear from the bigotry of his protector at Greenditch; but he was not indebted for this limited peace to the generosity of Mr. Shaw Gulvert. Indeed, that ignorant and cruel man dared not to execute his designs regarding the little confessor of the cross, while his two hired men, named Devlin, were in his house to enlighten his ignorance and reprimand his audacity. These two young men, brothers, were hired for a year by Gulvert, under the impression that they were native born; but after the contract between them was signed, and especially when Friday came on, Mr. Gulvert found he was _gulled_, and ran off to the parson, one Waistcoat, to see what was to be done. The young men told him not to be alarmed if he thought their presence would endanger his peace of mind, or that any dangerous consequences were to be apprehended from two such formidable soldiers of the Pope as they were; that he could easily get rid of them by paying them their year's wages, and they would go elsewhere to work; but that, while in his house, they insisted on perfect religious and mental independence. "And in future," said they, "we expect to see cooked and on the table, on Fridays and fast days, such food as we can partake of without scruple of conscience, or violating the rules of the Catholic religion, of which we are unworthy members." "This is strange," said Gulvert; "why did you not tell me ye belonged to Rome, and were Irish?" "Why did we not tell you? Because you did not ask us. And besides, boss, you hired us to work, and not to worship or believe according to your notion." "I have never before kept a Papist to work for me," said he, drawing a heavy sigh. "Well, boss, you can't know much about them, then. Perhaps you will be agreeably disappointed, and find that, if we do not join your very long prayers, we will _work_ as well as the most red-hot Presbyterian." "I am much in doubt about that," said the boss. "Why so, boss? Can we not handle the plough, use the scythe, or the cradle as well as if we were of your school of heresy?" "I allow; but the good book says that 'men don't gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles;' so I am afraid my crops would not prosper, if religious men were not employed in my fields." "O, you need not be alarmed, boss. God makes his sun to shine on the good and the bad; and though we Papists appear very wicked in your pious Presbyterian eyes, or in those of your amiable Methodist lady here, we will guaranty your crops will be as good as those of your neighbors, otherwise we will ask no pay. Ain't this fair?" "Yes; but the good book, you know. The Bible says so plainly," answered the wife, "that men gather not grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." "Bless you, madam," said the elder Devlin, "you are mistaken in the meaning of that text, which has a figurative sense, and has no reference to corn, pumpkins, rye, or any other crop that your farm produces." She shook her head in dissent to this speech, and in a most sanctified tone said, "Our minister, Dr. Waistcoat, always applied that text to the Papists when advising us against employing Romanist hired help." "That only proved him a booby, madam," said Devlin. "That text partly alludes to the Presbyterian sect, and partly to the Methodist, to which you belong." "I would like to see how you can show that," said she, affecting great learning in such interpretations. "As clear as mud, madam," resumed Devlin. "The Presbyterian religion is the 'thorn' tree on which no 'grapes' grow; for that sect reject the Holy Eucharist, containing the blood of Christ, of which the grape is a figure. It is full of thorns, for it persecutes and stings the head of the Savior in his representative the pope; and it produces no 'grape,' no sacrament, no good works, no refreshing food or drink. Again: the 'thistle,' that produces no figs, is the Methodist religion; because, though it has plenty of stings and prickles to wound the hand that touches it, the very ass that goes the road can bite off its head. Or, in other words, though ye Methodists are malicious enough, all your malice is harmless to the church, and a very fool can refute or crop the most formidable of your arguments." This queer _private interpretation_ disconcerted the _learned_ boss and his better half, and during the remainder of the service of the Devlins they did not hear much more about the religious interpretations of these professors of two contradictory sectarian creeds. The Devlins showed, not only to the boss and his wife, that they knew more about the Bible than themselves, but the minister, Mr. Waistcoat, was soon convinced, by conversation with them, that they were not to be duped. The consequence was, that the persecution to which Eugene was subjected was arrested for a time; and it was not till after the Devlins were paid off that this innocent child was again subjected to a series of punishments and brutal treatment without parallel in the records of modern persecution. Every Friday that the young confessor refused, after the example of holy Eleazer, "to eat flesh, or go over to the life of the heathens," (2 Mac. vi. 24.) he was compelled to go without food till the Sunday following. He was flogged with a "black snake," till the blood flowed in rills, every time he refused going to meeting. He was compelled to stand out under rain and storm, scorching sun and chilling frost, during the time the family spent in prayer. Yes, tied with a thong to the pump by his little soft, white hands, the juvenile martyr had to bear the merciless violence of the elements, or consent to share in the blasphemous prayers of his persecutors! And, O God! worse than all, they robbed him of his rosary, and of the little bunch of shamrocks which were the only legacy of his dying mother to him, and which his sister Bridget and he took so much pains to keep alive in a small glass vase brought from Ireland. The "_Agnus Dei_" and "_Gospel_" which it is usual with Irish Catholic children to wear around the neck, were also forcibly stripped off his person and put into the stove. All his much-prized memorials were now gone--his beads, or rosary, with the crucifix attached, to remind him of his Redeemer; his little vase of shamrocks, to remind him of Ireland and St. Patrick; and his "Gospel of St. John," and "Agnus Dei," to recall to his mind his dignity and obligations as a believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and his confidence in the Lamb of God who took away his sins. These constituted all the riches and treasure of Eugene, and of these he was plundered and stripped ere he was confined in the old deserted house that stood a few rods away from the dwelling house, and where soon all the persecutions he suffered were terminated. One evening in October, the team of Mr. Gulvert broke loose from the post to which they were tied while he was at meeting, and, taking fright, rushed along at full speed on a narrow by-road by the river that ran through the village, till, coming in contact with the root of a tree that protruded from the road, the horses and wagon were precipitated over a fall of some twenty feet into the channel of the river beneath. As the night was dark, and the road the animals took in their furious course was not known, it was not till next morning that the fate of the team was discovered, though not only Gulvert himself, but his hired help, including his servant girl and wife even, were out all night on the search for them. If the most unexpected calamity had visited these _enlightened_ Christians--if two of their children, instead of two of their horses, had met with a sudden death,--their grief could not be more heartrending or despairing than on this occasion. The whole family was in an uproar. There were wringing of hands, lamentable cries, and bewailings the most bitter, of the death of the best team in the town of Greenditch. The very children, down to the youngest of six years old, joined their tears to those of their parents and the adult members of the family. Not a wink was slept, not a morsel of victuals cooked, nor even a fire kindled in Mr. Culvert's house that night, and it was more than a week before the pious Mrs. Gulvert could be consoled or prevailed on to show herself down stairs. She was either really sick, or affected sickness, so that it was doubted whether or not she could survive the loss of her "darling team." O, what a loss was there! "The team would fetch two hundred dollars between two brothers, and it was only last month the new wagon cost seventy or eighty dollars; and all now gone." "What a misfortune that I went out to hear that preacher at all on the Sabbath!" said Gulvert. "Had I remained at home, or walked down to meeting, I would be three hundred dollars richer to-day than I am now." "Pa, where were the two Paddies, Pete and Bill, that they did not mind the team while you were in meeting?" said young Harry. "Hang the cusses, Harry! They wanted to hear the preacher, too," answered the father. "If I were you, pa," said little Libby, "I would keep the price of the hosses out of Pete and Bill's wages, the ugly fellows, that did not mind and keep the team from running away." "That would be but sarving 'em right, Lib," said her mother, heaving a sigh. "Yes, wife," said Gulvert, "that I would gladly do; but you know they are in my debt. I will be glad enough if they wait to work out the money that I have advanced them." "You didn't _advance_ them money, did you, Gulvert?" said his wife. "Yes, I did that," said he, "by the advice of that old fool Parson Waistcoat, who expected, as he succeeded in converting Pete and Bill Kurney, that he would also convert the rest of their friends, if they were out here from Popish Ireland." "O Gulvert," said his better half, sobbing again anew, "you will kill me! I cannot live with you, that is the amount of it! How dare you, sir, lend money, or dispose, of my means, without first having consulted me! I lay my death at your door!" she added, in a sharp, angry tone. "Dear wife, don't blame me----" "Away, old man!" she interrupted, "away, and leave me here to despair! I fear I will never again leave this bed; and if I find myself able, I shall never after spend a day in your house, but go back to my native state, and take out a bill of divorce against a man who knows nothing but to spend and squander the means of his family." "O ma," said Libby, "do go away from father, the ugly fool, and I will go with you, won't I?" "He ain't nothing else, sis," said she, "but a poor ugly fool, a shiftless, good-for-nothing old man. O, me! O, me! I could easily have known that this would be the case, from the dreams I had for two nights." "I had a dream too, ma," said sis, who, though only going in her eighth year, was perfectly well versed in all the arcana of the science of interpretation. "I dreamed I saw you crying, ma," continued Lib, "and that there was blood on the stairs, and all way up garret, and that Shaw, my father, had spilt the blood all round." "That's just it, sis," said her mother; "the blood signifies the death of our 'darling team;' my crying is on account of them; and Shaw, the fool, your father, was the cause of all this trouble, and that is why he appeared to you to spill the blood. My dream was not so clear as yours, but I could have guessed that something was going to be the matter." Poor Gulvert was in great pain, in consequence, among other things, of the oft-repeated threat of his wife to separate from him; and, to give vent to his sorrowful reflections, he went up garret as quietly as he could, and folding himself up in several heavy "comforters," or padded quilts, he forgot his grief by falling into a sound sleep. Meantime Pete and Bill Kurney, the two Irish converts of Parson Waistcoat, seeing things in confusion, thought that now was the time for them to free themselves forever from the hypocrisy, as well as bad board, of Mr. Culvert; and, to add to the grief of Mrs. Gulvert, next morning they were not to be had. These knowing fellows, hearing of Gulvert's character, put themselves in his way, and being questioned as to the nature of their doctrines, and finding them suitable to his taste, he hired them, and brought them home to work on his farm. They not only became "converts" during the first week in his house, but went to meeting regularly, where they were complimented on their highmindedness and independence in shaking off Popery, and got frequent chances to tell their experience. Besides their hypocrisy, these were thorough scoundrels; for they not only robbed their employer of the two hundred dollars which he had advanced them to bring out their parents from the old country, but in addition to this, and to the severity of the punishments which their apostasy occasioned Eugene, these consummate miscreants seduced the two sisters of Mr. Gulvert, one of them an old maid, whom they imposed upon by their lying representations and profane discourses. Here was a little more of the natural fruit of Mr. Gulvert's great zeal for his sect. His two hired men were gone, without having served one eighth of the two years they had agreed to work for the money advanced to them; both his sisters, _pious things_, yielding to temptation, were in a fair road to disgrace; and, to cap the climax of the unfortunate man's guilt and remorse, Eugene O'Clery, neglected in his prison in the old house, on the morning of All Saints' day, first of November, was found dead on its damp floor! Yes, this spotless, innocent, and almost infant but heroic confessor of Christ, after a course of worse than pagan persecution continued for more than two years, in the midst of legions of blessed spirits passed out of this world, to add to the joy and glory of heaven by his heroic virtues. O ye mock philanthropists, ye lovers, on the lip, of freedom of conscience, where was your voice, where your sympathy, where your indignation, where your meetings, speeches, and resolutions, when this Catholic child, this destitute orphan, this noble son of Catholic Ireland, this spotless confessor and glorious martyr of Christ, was being sacrificed, like his divine Master, to the demon of cruel sectarianism? O, the blood of this innocent Abel, of this infant martyr, shed by the cruel Herod of Presbyterianism, will cry to Heaven for vengeance on your heads, and bring a curse on your hypocrisy and dissimulation. The news of Eugene's death, communicated by the servant maid, created a sudden fear, but very little sympathy, in the brutal family of Mr. Gulvert. Overwhelmed by the loss of their "darling team," and confounded by the loss of the money which the mock converts succeeded in cheating them of, they had neither tears nor sympathy to spare for such a trifle as the death of a "little Papist child." The servant girl, however, who was a Scotch lassie, called Jane McHardy, cried bitterly over the death of the "poor orphan laddie," and, in company with two neighboring workmen, or cotters, who _passed_ for Protestant Irishmen, watched around the corpse all night, and on the day of its interment in the pagan cemetery, situated in a barren corner of Gulvert's farm, they lingered for a considerable time around the spot, to the scandal of the religious people who assembled to take a look at the "face of the dead," and who began to suspect that those two pretended Protestants were Catholics in disguise. Their suspicions were well founded, as their subsequent conduct proved; for the two cotters, on the Sunday following Eugene's death, went to the meeting house for the last time, where they, in giving their experience, boldly professed themselves Catholics, asked pardon of the people for having deceived and imposed on the public, inveighing, at the same time, against the system of persecution and underhand proselytism that prevailed, and which produced the death of Eugene O'Clery. "Your ministers think they have great merit," said the Irish cotters, whose names were Lee and Twohy, "when they succeed in causing a lax Catholic to trample on every precept of his religion and to perjure himself; but as God is just, and as those who counsel to evil partake of its guilt, and will have to suffer its punishment, so will all the sins that your minister's cruel advice led us to commit be laid to his charge before the just tribunal of Christ." After this speech, the two Irish Catholic cotters retired from the meeting, and ever since these two men have proved, by their repentance, zeal, humility, and perseverance, that, though they fell from the external practice of their faith, they did so influenced by the evil advice and misrepresentations of persons who took advantage of their inexperience and poverty to lead them astray. They were gradually, however, becoming reconciled to the hard life of hypocrisy and sin which they were induced to enter on, and might have forever continued in the reprobate path on which, in an evil hour, they walked, had not the cruel martyrdom of the holy orphan child aroused them from their slumbers. Thus, as of old, does the "blood of martyrs become the seed of new Christians;" and thus is Erin, even in America, still true to her Heaven-appointed destiny--which is, that of being a missionary and a martyr in the new world as well as in the old. CHAPTER XXI. "Considerate, et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus." "Attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow." LAM. JER. There was a complete suspension of the ordinary occupations on the farm of Gulvert for near ten days, owing to the trials with which his family was visited. The wife was still confined to her room, and continually threatening her husband with the divorce, who, on his part, had no heart to conduct the necessary work of his farm, he felt so dispirited at the loss of his team and of the money out of which "his converts" had tricked him. Add to this that there were very ugly rumors going the round of the neighborhood in reference to the ill usage the little Irish orphan met with. While he was living and in suffering, there was nobody to sympathize with him or to say a word in his favor; but now, when that sympathy could do him no good, according to the custom of modern philanthropy, there was an abundance on hand, and the conduct of Shaw Gulvert, as the agent of Parson Waistcoat, was censured by a thousand tongues. This is characteristic of Protestant charity: when one is dying of hunger, or forced to beg a crum of bread, she shuts her ears, and points to the prison or poorhouse, as the only proper retreat for whoever is compelled to commit the _sin_ of mendicity; but no sooner does the victim of her own neglect or misdirected benevolence die, no sooner is he out of the reach of all human relief, than the heralds of Protestant charity gather round his tomb, to proffer their assistance, aid, and liberality--like the Jews building the tombs of the prophets put to death by their own malice. This was the case in the instance here related. Some were for having the body of the martyred Eugene exhumed, to see if there were any marks of violence visible. Some proposed to raise a collection to have a monument raised on his grave, and all unanimously condemned Gulvert's cruelty to the "dear little child." What principally turned the current and force of public opinion against Gulvert was, that he was impudent enough to go and demand restitution of Parson Waistcoat, of the money that, on account of his recommendation, he advanced to the runaway converts. And the parson, to be revenged on Gulvert, on next meeting day called on the congregation for their prayers, to save said Gulvert from the relapsing gulf into which he had fallen. The parson, enraged at being held accountable for the money lost by Gulvert, through his own "want of godliness," as he termed it, and incensed on account of Gulvert's declaration of deserting his church, held him up continually as a stray sheep, and already, if not lost, far advanced on the broad way to perdition. In the midst of this excitement, the progress of public feeling against Gulvert was suddenly checked by the following afflicting and sudden accidents. The wife of Gulvert, being a Boston lady, of course was altogether in favor of the Sons of Temperance; but, by some means or other, she happened always to keep a little in the house for medicinal purposes. It was well known, among the well informed, that this lady, having been "jilted," or, in other words, deceived, by a merchant in her native city, who promised to marry her, was subject to frequent melancholy attacks, and on these occasions especially did she make use of "medicinal brandy." She suffered from one of these periodical attacks now, and, consequently, the medicinal glass was always within her reach. On the small stand by her bed stood two tumblers, one containing the medicinal "eau de vie," and the other was half full of vinegar. She ordered Jane, on this fatal day, to pour a little laudanum into that tumbler that contained the vinegar, to see if, by applying it to her temples, it would not allay the terrible headache which she said had tormented her. Instead of pouring the poison into the vinegar glass, where would the Scotch Abigail empty the cruet but into the tumbler with the brandy in it? Her mistress soon after quaffed off the liquor into which the poisonous drug had been poured, and in an hour after she was a lifeless corpse. This was not all; for, on the day of the funeral, young Harry, Mr. Gulvert's son and heir, in order to show his devotion to his beloved parent's remains, was all the morning busy in collecting flowers with which to deck the room where she was laid in state, and, attempting to reach a flower that grew out of the side of a deep, deserted well, in the lower end of the garden, the little fellow fell in and was drowned. "When the feet of them who buried" Mrs. Gulvert "were at the door," they found out the corpse of Harry was at the bottom of the well. It was a long time before any body could be induced to go into that well, as well because it was very deep as on account of the prevalent report in the neighborhood that Gulvert's father had killed a negro and cast him into the well, with heavy weights attached to him. After several unsuccessful attempts to raise the body, they at length succeeded, by the aid and undaunted courage of a young man who was just after riding up to the crowd, and who, on learning the cause of such a gathering, generously volunteered to go into the well, notwithstanding the hints he received from some of the bystanders that the "nigger" was at the bottom. In a few minutes Paul O'Clery was at the bottom of the "enchanted well," and, amid shouts of "Bravo!" and "Well done!" almost instantly returned, with the lifeless body of little Harry in his arms. But what's this that he finds tangled in the drowned child's hands? It is surely the beads of his beloved mother, which she bequeathed as her dying legacy to his youngest brother Eugene. How did it get into the well? He trembled visibly as it struck his mind that possibly Eugene might have fallen in too. "Are you sure there is nobody else in?" said he to the bystanders. "No, there ain't nobody else in," said Gulvert; "all we have left, now, are around here." "And how came this relic to get into the well?" said Paul. "I think I saw this before." "That? O, that's a toy that a young Papist orphan which we had used to say his prayers on." "And where is that orphan now? O, tell me, where is he? For God's sake tell me, where is my beloved brother?" exclaimed Paul. "He is dead." "O, don't mock me, but tell me the truth. I assure you I am a brother of the orphan child, Eugene O'Clery. What has become of him?" "We do not joke, my young gentleman," said an aged man in the crowd. "Your brother, the orphan you allude to, died suddenly on the night of the first of this month, and was interred in yon mound on the second of the month." "O Lord! O Lord! grant me patience. O my brother! O Eugene! O beloved child of our hearts! what has become of you? Did you die on your bed, or meet with an accident? or how did these beads you loved so well come into this horrid, pestiferous well? O, woe is me! Why did I ever let you out of my sight? Why did I not remain in servitude and slavery, rather than let you into the care of the cruel, false-hearted stranger? O villanous deceiver! O infamous prevaricator! Parson Dilman, why did I listen to your seductive promises?" The reader may imagine, for we cannot adequately describe, the burden of woe and grief which took possession of the soul of Paul when he found that his darling brother, on whose account he suffered so much anxiety and came such a distance, was gone forever from his sight. And when he learned how he died; how, after countless tortures, by whippings, by hunger, and by confinement, the delicate martyr of Christ was allowed to perish on the damp floor of an old, deserted house; how he was deprived of the memorials of his faith and country; how he was buried with as little ceremony, and as much indifference, as if he had been an irrational animal,--when he learned all these circumstances from the two Irish cotters, Lee and Twohy, it took him to pray continually not to yield to feelings of hatred and revenge. A circumstance related to him, however, by the peasants, whose hospitality Paul consented to avail himself of for a few days, served to reconcile him to Eugene's fate, and to inspire him with the most exalted sentiments of forgiveness and good will towards the murderers of his brother. Every night since Eugene's burial a bright column of light was seen rising from his tomb, and terminating in the heavens above, where the column became gradually wider, till it became like a wide circle of glory, similar to that which appears around the moon on a winter's night, when the atmosphere is at the snowing temperature. In the centre of the circle appeared a beautiful cross of most perfect proportions, and so bright in the bright circle that it was perfectly dazzling, and the sight could with difficulty be fixed on it for an instant. This phenomenon was seen by the two Irish cotters frequently, and all the neighbors around had observed the lower part of the column, but concluded that it was phosphorus, which, they said, from some cause or other, either the nature of the soil or from the bodies interred there, ascended to the clouds, attracted by some atmospheric body there. Paul, too, was blessed with this happy sight, but without indulging in the gratification of a too curious or protracted observation of this vision; and being fully convinced that it was no phosphoric combination of natural phenomena, concluded to take off the body of his beloved brother, and have it interred, in a Christian manner, in the same consecrated tomb in which the remains of his father reposed. He was also fortunate enough, by the payment of a liberal bonus, to succeed in raising the body of his mother, whose tomb he was able to find out, by a measurement which, on the day of her interment, he had made, and from certain stones placed by him at the head of her coffin. Thus, by the piety of a son and a brother, were the three bodies of these members of this pious and renowned family united again after a temporary separation. "Lovely and comely in their life, even in death they were not divided." In a Catholic cemetery, in the vicinity of New York, can now be seen a beautiful monument of Italian marble, with the names, ages, and places of the nativity of Arthur O'Clery, and his wife Cecilia, and their son Eugene, inscribed in a neat cruciform slab in one of the faces of the monument. In another slab are carved, in "bold relief," the little vase of shamrocks brought by the family from Ireland, together with the _Rosary and Cross_, suspended from the hand of the virgin holding the child. On the third square of the tomb is conspicuous a figure of Erin, holding in her right hand a crucifix, and with the left hand pointing it to her children, with the words, "_Sola spes nostra, ubi crux ibi patria_"--"This is our only hope; wherever the cross is honored, call that your country." After having seen to the proper execution of all things in reference to the tomb of his family, Paul O'Clery, with a heavy heart, returned to acquaint his little brother Patrick and sister Bridget about the fate of Eugene. He did not forget, however, before quitting the last resting-place of his parents and brother, to have the grave fenced round with a neat iron rail; and fixing all inside the fence in the form of two pretty flower beds, he, with his own hands, carefully planted the roots of the shamrocks which were brought from Ireland, and which he luckily found in Mr. Gulvert's kitchen garden, where they had been thrown, after having been taken from Eugene. And to this very day these shamrocks flourish--neither frost, nor cold, nor parching heat, nor inclement seasons being able to retard their growth; as if their verdure and flourishing vegetation were supplied from the pure and genuine Irish clay to which the bodies of the three O'Clerys have been long since reduced. Paul now saw his people reduced by more than one half. When they left Ireland, they were seven in number; now they were only three. He was too well trained in Christian resignation, however, to repine at what evidently appeared to him the dispensation of Heaven. After the example of holy Job, therefore, he praised the Lord, to whom, if he deprived him of his good parents, he was also indebted for being placed under the care of such patterns of virtue. These several trials, and the consequent distractions in which they involved him, made him more disgusted than ever with the world; and his desire to consecrate himself to God in the holy priesthood became stronger and stronger every day. The Almighty seemed to have some special mission in view for this spotless child of St. Patrick, when his mercy had conducted him, like the children in the fiery furnace, so early through such meritorious trials and sufferings, as it requires the most faithful correspondence with grace to endure, and it falls to the lot of a few to encounter. The end of all his difficulties and trials had now arrived. From this day forward the breeze that bore him along in his ecclesiastical voyage became fairer and fairer, till, advancing from virtue to virtue, and honor to honor, he became the glory of the church, and exercised such influence on the destinies of his countrymen and of those committed to his charge, that he might adopt the language of Joseph to his brethren: "God hath sent me before you into Egypt, that you may be preserved on the earth, and have _food to live_." (Gen. xlv. 7.) But this is anticipating what naturally should have its place at the conclusion of our narrative. CHAPTER XXII. THE DESERTED HOME OF THE ORPHANS. "Now," said Murty O'Dwyer, one Sunday evening, as all the members of the Prying family were seated around the tea table, "will any body doubt the usefulness of confession? The very robber who, while under the influence of drink and evil advice, plundered the widow O'Clery and her orphans of their money, has returned from the scorching plains of the south, in obedience to the advice of the priest to whom he confessed, to make restitution; and he has made it." "It beats all I ever heard," said Mr. Prying. "That is only an ordinary occurrence with Catholics," rejoined Murty. "Thousands of dollars, and I might say millions of money, are yearly restored to those to whom it belongs, through the influence of this divine institution." "I wonder what has Paul done with the rest of the money, after paying for the board of himself and his sister and brothers?" said Calvin. "He has given me two hundred of it," said Murty, "to compensate me for what I lost on account of the malice of Dominie Boorman, the Presbyterian, because I could not believe according to his cruel code of irreligion. He paid one hundred dollars for masses for the soul of poor Cunningham, who died of fever and ague one week after his having made the restitution. Two thousand, I believe, Paul paid into the convent where his sister Bridget has gone to become a nun. And the rest, I believe, he spent in raising an elegant monument over his parents and beloved Eugene's remains. O, yes, I forgot; he paid five hundred dollars towards the new Catholic church, S.A., where his convert friends reside." "It is to me the strangest thing on earth," said old Mrs. Prying, "how liberal these Catholics are in paying to the support of their religion. Where on earth do they get the means to put up such costly buildings as they have erected in scores, within my own knowledge, these past five years?" "So far from this being strange," said Murty, "madam, it is the most natural thing in the world. We know the Catholic religion is true. We know it has God for its Author, and that through its teachings all men must be saved that will be saved. Knowing this, we understand the merit of supporting such an institution. What is the whole world to a man if he lose his soul? and how can a man save his soul, if true religion be wanting?" "Ah, what a noble critter that Bridget O'Clery was!" said Calvin, changing the subject to her whose image stood uppermost in his mind, "What a pity," he continued, "that she should ever become a nun! Do nuns ever get married, Murty?" "Don't you know so much yet, Calvin? Certainly, they never do get married. They vow to consecrate their hearts forever to God. In fact, they anticipate, here in this life, what all the blessed do in the next life--to live in God, and for God. I think the life of a holy nun," said Murty, kindling into enthusiasm, "is superior to that of an angel, and the merit far greater." Here it is as well to state that Calvin Prying, of late years, lost all that zeal for stiff Presbyterianism that possessed him in his younger days,--an ordinary occurrence with American Protestant young men,--and that, instead of his former zeal, he now had the utmost indifference, if not contempt, for the teachers of the hard creed of his cruel namesake of Geneva. He had a heart, too; and though a phlegmatic and a rude one, it could not remain insensible to the chaste charms and virtuous beauty of Bridget O'Clery. For years this feeling was growing on him--the exhortations, and lectures, and advices of little Parson Gulmore to the contrary notwithstanding. In a word, though she was "Irish" and a pauper, in the slang of parsons and officials, and though the vulgar little dominie was continually ridiculing the Irish and the Catholics, Calvin saw that Bridget was beautiful in countenance, and light as a humming bird in heart--circumstances which insensibly made an impression on the rude material of which his own was made, creating there a feeling of love bordering on admiration and distant esteem. No sooner, however, did it reach his ears that the money was restored to the orphans, and he was told that Bridget was likely to have a portion of some thousands of dollars, than his former esteem and admiration, as if by magic art, was turned into love. And now, who dare say word against her? and how low, contemptible, and wicked the counsels of Parson Gulmore, who attempted to prejudice him against such a treasure, such a model of every virtue, such an angel, as she "always appeared to him to be"! He would have cheerfully "accepted the hand" of the poor "Irish" orphan when that hand had some thousands of gold dollars in its beauteous grasp. The Yankee is not remarkable for having an eye for the beautiful in nature or art; but when _dimes_ and _dollars_ are in prospective, none is more penetrating or sharpsighted than he. Beautiful paintings, cathedrals, the noblest creations of the chisel, the most enchanting landscapes have just as much attraction for his genius as they can be made available "for making money," and no more. It was from the same principle that Calvin Prying's love for Bridget O'Clery originated. Hence he was highly enraged at the idea of her going into a convent, and had a strong notion in his head to call a "public mass meeting," and pass resolutions against the constitutionality of allowing young ladies of respectable fortunes to enter convents. Indeed, he so far succeeded in creating an excitement in his favor about deterring Bridget from entering the convent, as to get, by the payment of a small sum, one of the daily papers of the city to write an article in his favor, entitled "_Abduction_!" During a few days, the editor of the same filthy sheet repeated his scurrilous attacks on Catholicity, not forgetting to squirt a good deal of his dirt on the Rev. Dr. Ugo, whom he blamed for encouraging the girl's vocation, and thus depriving the _hungry_ Presbyterian Calvin of a fair wife and a handsome fortune. There was no great tumult created, however. Election was approaching, and that absorbed all the excitable matter of the people, in spite of the newspapers. The disputes and defences of the faith which Murty O'Dwyer had to maintain since the departure of the young, "beautiful Irish girl," as Bridget was called, were many and critical; but an event now happened, that fanned the latent but active anti-Catholic fire into a furious flame. One evening, at supper, after the news arrived at R---- Valley that Paul O'Clery was not only a priest, but stationed in the second city then in the Union, Amanda, casting her malicious eye at her youngest sister Mary, on whose calm cheek she saw, and seemed to envy, the innocent blush that started there, on having heard the paragraph alluding to Paul read and commented on, thus addressed her:-- "Ah, Mary, what do you say, now, to Paul, who is forever estranged from you? for he is not only a priest, but a missionary among the 'Irish,' and, of course, can never care about you again." "I am glad to hear he is a priest," said Mary, in a gentle voice; "for I believe he will be more happy so than in any other situation in life. I am sure I wish him happy, for he was ever good and amiable." "But yet," rejoined the old maid, "he never made you any return for all your fondness for him. He never writes you any loving letters, nor cares whether you are living or dead, or else he would write, or send you some tokens of friendship." "You know a little too much, Amanda," said Mary. "I never asked him to write; and I know he loves me so far as to pray for me, and that's all he ever pretended to; and as for presents, I do not covet them, as I have got this beautiful one, a miniature of the mother of God, set in gold, which Paul presented to me when here last. See it here," she said, drawing it from her bosom. "I would not give this for all the presents in New York." "Idolatry! idolatry!" cried out Amanda. "Idolatry!" cried out Calvin and the rest of the family. "Idolatry! yes, as the Lord liveth," groaned a hollow, dramatic voice, as he entered by the woodshed way to the dining room. It was that of Rev. Mr. Gulmore, who after a long absence, hearing the Romanizing tendencies that threatened to desolate this once stanch Presbyterian family, came, he said, "with his sickle," to cut down the cockles, and "weed out this once fertile but now overgrown garden." "What is this I have been hearing?" thundered the little thick man, stamping on the floor. "Is it possible that my senses deceive me? or have I heard and seen the daughter of my friend, my Orthodox--once Orthodox--friend, draw forth her idolatrous bawble from her American bosom, and defend its use and veneration with her tongue? Is this true? Tell me! Speak!" There was a short pause after this short declamation, delivered in the most passionate form. At length, Mr. Prying, senior, coolly answered, "Yes, Mr. Gulmore, I 'spect Mary is lost to your church, and inclined to the Catholic system." "O Lord, forbid it!" cried the little thick man in white choker. "It cannot be; we cannot allow it. I shall storm heaven with prayers. I shall do violence to the Lord. I shall catch hold of him, and not let him go till he give back this lamb to my bosom." Such were only _some_ of the expressions, blasphemously familiar, which this clerical mountebank made use of during a full half hour, that he almost electrified the whole company by his half-mad gesticulations and discourses. At length, when his legs began to fail, he got on his knees, or rather on his _heels_--a posture the Irish call "on his _grugg_." He prayed, and roared, and screamed, and he cried, as it were, shedding tears, to the alarm of the oldest members of the family, who feared he might burst a blood vessel, as he was a short-necked, plethoric, chunk of a man; and to the infinite amusement of Murty O'Dwyer and the younger members of the family, who, from the violence of the laughter that seized them, were in danger of meeting that fate from which the former wanted to save the parson. This levity on the part of the youngsters did not escape the notice of his _weeping_ reverence; and he no sooner recovered himself than he administered a sharp reprimand to all concerned, but especially to Murty. "I pity men of your country," said he, addressing Murty,--who, it must be recollected, had made very great improvement in his education since we first introduced him to our readers,--"I pity men of your country, on account of the ignorance in which they are kept by the soul-destroying system of Popery that binds them down." "Indeed, Mr. Gulmore," said Murty, "I am sorry you don't take some other means, besides those not very enlightened prayers you have volunteered to favor us with, to dispel and instruct our ignorance." "Why, thou Papist boor, durst thou deny the power of prayer?" "No, sir. I have great faith in prayer, especially the prayer of a 'just man;' but God forbid that I should regard your eccentric, indeed, I might say blasphemous, effusions as prayer! You talk of the 'ignorance' of my countrymen! Ah, sir, I have no hesitation in saying the most ignorant among them would be ashamed of such silly-acting and disgusting cant as you have just now delivered." "I blame you not," deluded Papist; "you have not felt the 'power of prayer,' brought up in all the ignorance and idolatry of the 'scarlet lady.' But it is not for you I prayed or wrestled with the Lord, but for my beloved dove, this innocent victim of your idolatry and the hellish arts of your church. Do you not feel the change of heart, Mary, my love?" he said, approaching near to the girl. "Tell me, have I gained thee? Has the Lord heard my groanings, and sighs, and petitions for thy restoration to the creed of our Protestant fathers? Do, Mary dear, tell me the feelings of thy heart! Do, love, comfort me by the assurance that I have gained thee!" "Mr. Gulmore," answered the good child, "I thought you had long since ceased visiting us, and we hoped never again to be annoyed by your ministrations. Your conduct in combining with my step-sister here, in conjunction with the late postmaster of S----, to prevent Paul from holding correspondence, has disgusted, not only me, but even father, beyond the limits of reconciliation; and whatever I may think of your religion, be assured I have no two opinions about yourself." "O, she is lost, I greatly fear! Fallen is an angel from heaven! Save, save, O Lord!" cried the parson, as Mary Prying rose up from her seat and left the room. The foregoing rebuke of the spirited girl brought this craven-hearted dominie at once to his senses, and during the remainder of the evening he was more rational in conduct and discourse, seeing that Mary was the darling of her father, who would allow the parson to make no reflections on the motives that actuated her in the steps she was about to take. "I am afraid, parson," said Murty, breaking the embarrassing silence that continued for a few minutes, "I am afraid the lady has eluded the forceful grasp of your powerful prayer. I guess she will become a nun, too, notwithstanding your great efforts to make her sing "But I won't be a nun; I can't be a nun; I'm so fond of pleasure that I can't be a nun." "I greatly fear, yer riverince," said he, affecting the broadest Irish brogue, "y'ill have to phray a great deal yet afore you convart her from her resolution." "We must submit to the decree of the Lord in all that he has planned from the beginning of the world, Murty," said the parson, resignedly. "Think the Lord has decreed Mary for the nunnery, reverend and learned sir?" said Murty, affecting great politeness. "Not exactly, Murty; but the Lord, by his inscrutable decree before the creation, has passed sentence on all accountable beings: some he has delivered over to irremediable wrath, and others he has predestined to glory and bliss eternal; and no efforts of men can reverse these irrevocable decrees." "O, dreadful!" said Murty. "I always heard that God willed all men to be saved; that it was in every man's power to avoid evil, and do good; that the giving of the commandments supposed the perfect liberty of men; and that, supposing the grace of God, all men had the means of salvation within their reach. If your system were true, all efforts of man to save himself would be useless, and all your pulpits and sermons would be worse than useless; for they would be a gross imposition, and a loss of time." "There is where you are in error, Murty," said the parson. "Churches, pulpits, Bibles, and ministers are the machinery the Lord makes use of to secure the perseverance of the elect." "That talk appears to me silly," rejoined Murty. "The elect are to be saved, or they are not; if they are to be saved by the decree of God, then there is no use of you and your machinery; if they can lose their 'election,' and become reprobate, then your theory is contradictory, absurd, and grossly perversive of the gospel. Take your choice of the horns of the dilemma." The parson here entered into a very unintelligible explanation of a subject which constitutes, in defiance of common sense and of the plainest teaching of the gospel, the leading dogma of Presbyterianism; namely, foreordination, or the eternal decree of every man's election or reprobation, irrespective of free will, good works, or even the all-saving merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. "How contradictory the tenets of sectarianism!" said Murty. "You, that accuse Catholicity of teaching absurd and incredible doctrines, are yourselves enslaved by the most incredible and contradictory creeds. It is the same in every sect. Take the Methodists, and they are the very contrary of what their name signifies. Instead of following any _method_ in their mad orgies, they would seem to be, _intellectually_, the successors of the ancient bacchanalians. They would carry man back to his primitive _woods_, and, by the medium of plenty of 'straw,' would annihilate the distinctions between the sexes, by introducing a promiscuous intercourse, and legalizing, by custom, the most indecent practices." "You have been at a camp meeting then, I see," said the parson, glad that attention was turned from his own sect to one that was a rival of it. "Yes, sir, I have, I regret to be obliged to confess," said Murty; "and I must say that the Methodists, by their conduct there, showed themselves more ingenious in inventing the means of election than those of the church of Calvin." "How so, Murty? In what do they exceed the Presbyterians?" "Why, in this, that they have beat you hollow in securing salvation. You make use of churches, pulpits, parsons, Bibles, and anti-Popery lectures to secure the election for the brethren; but the Methodists secure the same gift by means of some 'straw.' At the camp meeting held last year at M----ville, of which the Irish laborer who spent a night there said, 'that there were more _souls made there_ than convarted,'--at that meeting, where there were twenty thousand persons present, I heard a preacher cry out, 'More straw! more straw! Fifty souls lost for the want of straw!' Now," continued Murty, "this is what I call progress, to make as much out of a good bed of straw as you do out of all your church machinery for saving souls." "Ha! ha! ha!" said the parson, turning to Mrs. Prying. "He is right; I saw and heard them myself at such absurdities." "Then," said Murty, "you or any other Americans who are aware of such gross impositions on the credulity of your people, and of their gross ignorance, should be the last persons on earth to reproach the Irish or any other people with ignorance, superstition, credulity, or fanaticism. Good night, parson, and every time you are tempted to reproach an Irishman with ignorance, think of 'More straw! more straw! Fifty souls lost for the want of straw!' and that this sermon was preached in enlightened America of Bibles!" After the departure of Murty from the room, Gulmore, to make amends for his senseless conduct in his attempts to convert Mary Prying, became very complaisant, and, for the want of a better subject, resumed the subject of the extravagances of the Methodists where Murty left off. He knew, also, that old Mrs. Prying had an antipathy to that sect. "The Irishman is an amusing fellow, I perceive," commenced he; "he is not far wrong in his description of the Methodists, I can tell you." "I never could bear that denomination," said Mrs. Prying, "especially since the time that Morefat carried on over in Vermont; and I am still more displeased since that Minister Barker seduced Amanda to his meeting, together with others of our regular members." "They are a horrid set!" said the dominie. "Did you not hear of the donation party at brother Funny's, last new year's?" "No. Do you mean the talk about Miss Talebearer?" "Worse than that, although nothing secret. Nothing that the whole town has not heard. You know Mr. Funny was rather poor, having been but a few months on the 'circuit;' and so Mrs. Plumpcheek, wife to Aaron Plumpcheek, while he was off in Virginia, went to the party, and there offered to kiss every man that would pay her a dollar for the proceeds of the donation! The consequence was, that she realized seventy-five dollars in hard cash, though most of the boys paid her but two shillings. And thus poor Brother Funny made a handsome sum by the _free charms_ of Mrs. Plumpcheek! Ever since her husband is made jealous, and I think he has reason." Sectarians, you who are so loud in your pretended zeal for education and morals, you who talk so much and loudly about the corruption of Popery at home and abroad, why do you not cast the beam out of your own impure eyes, and then you may see in your own land of plenty, carried on under the _sanction of what you call religion_, scenes such as the annals of paganism can scarcely parallel. We can prove the facts related above by Parson Gulmore to be literally true, and to have happened annually for years under the sanction of _religious_ ministers, and exposed to the cognizance of fathers and mothers accompanied by their _daughters_ and _sons_. We publish these things reluctantly, on account of our readers; but we must tell the truth, though it be piecemeal and in fractional parts, rather than in the full view of its naked reality. Is it not time to say to these hypocritical sects, "Physicians, heal yourselves"? Look into the conduct and constitutions of your own bodies ere you turn censors on others. The corruptions and deformities of your own bodies will take all your zeal, all your energy, and all your lives, to correct, purify, and eradicate, leaving the Catholic church to reform whatever abuses may have crept into the lives or morals of her children by the ordinary resources, which are ample, and always within her reach. Really, the hypocrisy, audacity, and malice of the Pharisees of old, in persecuting Jesus Christ in the flesh, were not equalled, in degree or intensity, to the malice and hypocrisy of sectarians, under every Protestant title, in their unrelenting hatred of the same divine Person in his mystical body here on earth! 'Tis all nonsense to reproach _Catholics_ with conduct similar, or as gross, as these instances of immorality which we justly charge on the Protestant sects. Catholics, as individuals, may be, and have been, guilty of grave crimes and scandalous immoralities; but does the church countenance or connive at their conduct? No; we say, emphatically, No. On the contrary, she condemns vice in every shape, and denounces, like another Baptist in the wilderness, the wrath of Heaven on the workers of iniquity. Is there one of her precepts, counsels, or rules, that guards not against sin and its occasions? According to the accusations of her enemies themselves, who reproach her, with too much severity, of imposing too many restrictions on the passions, is she not continually preaching up to her followers the necessity of self-denial, humility, purity, charity, prayer, fastings, watchings, and, above all, OF SHUNNING THE OCCASIONS OF SIN? Hence, in the whole volume of her history for eighteen centuries and better, we read not of one _camp meeting_ sanctioned by her, nor that she ever authorized her ministers to _feel "for the change of heart_" in young ladies, to proclaim the use of "more straw" for the conversion of both sexes, or to raise funds by the abominable practices of the "donation parties" for the support of her institutions. And mind, these scandals the sectarian churches sanction and carry on under the sun of heaven, by day as well as by night, exposed to the jeers and ridicule of one another, and to the condemnation of the Catholic church. When they are such in "the greenwood, what would they be not in the dry"? If, like the Catholic church, they had the world to themselves for "a thousand years and more," what abominations would their spurious churches have not only tolerated, but have instituted and approved? If they have produced Mormons, Transcendentalists, Universalists, and spiritual rappers, in the nineteenth century, what monsters would they not have produced in the ninth? In the "dark ages," the Catholic church saved the world, preserved literature, civilized real barbarians, and, above all, practised, as well as preached, a PURE MORALITY. The Protestant sects in this enlightened age, by their novelties, by their dissensions, and, above all, by the low standard of morals which they inculcate, threaten to throw the world back again to the dark chaos from which Catholicity has drawn it, and to substitute for the glory of Christianity the miserable philosophism and superstition of the degenerate days of paganism. In proof of these statements, we refer any candid mind to the "spiritual rappers," "women's rights," "Mormonism," "gold hunting, and other manias," which, within the last few years, have sprung from the sectarian systems and their teaching, and from no other source. We are horrified at the morals and tenets of the Gnostic sects, the Manicheans, the Albigenses, and other defunct heresies of old; but we doubt if any thing more impious, immoral, or absurd happened under the auspices of these by-gone sects than the blasphemies, delusions, and corruptions carried on under the cloak of your "camp meetings," "revivals," "mediums," "spiritual wife system," and other modern _reproductions_ of the Protestant Christian churches, falsely so called. CHAPTER XXIII. IN WHICH THE SCENE OF OUR TALE IS CHANGED. The events recorded in the foregoing chapters, as you are aware, good reader, happened principally among the poor and humble of life; and this was in accordance with the scope of our narrative, having no higher ambition than to chronicle the lowly annals of that numerous class of the community. _Nunc paulo majora._ Now we must introduce you into high life. We turn our eyes to one of those grand mansions of the rich,--one of those palaces of the "upper ten,"--where few of the humble are privileged to enter, much less to be introduced or admitted on terms of familiarity. It is our privilege to introduce you, friend of the blistered hand and dusty coat, but of the honest heart, into that palace of the merchant prince of the second city in the Union, in order that you may see and judge for yourselves whether or not more happiness dwells there than in your homely residence. See the imposing structure, with the neatly-mowed lawn in front. Observe the taste and artistic skill with which the walks, the little hedges, and the shrubberies are laid out. You can yet get but an imperfect view of the proud edifice itself, which seems as if a monarch, that looks down with dignity and authority on the countless array of ordinary buildings that extend as far as the eye can reach on every side. The gates, as you enter the enclosure, are of massive iron, painted green, and, by the help of machinery, yield to the gentlest pressure of the hand, as if some spirit of the ancient fabled Olympus kept guard at their hinges. It is a complete "_rus in urbi_," inside the outer wall. Here the luxuriant grape vine creeps along in graceful festoons, groaning under the pressure of her full paps; there the lofty and beauteous palm spreads his cooling and protecting branches. On one side see the fruitful lemon and orange trees, bending under the weight of their golden and emerald productions; on the other the fragrant apple, the sweet pear, and mellow peach borrow support from the strong granite wall to bring their burdens to maturity. Behold there two fountains casting their crystal and refreshing contents aloft, as if making restitution to the thirsting atmosphere for what they stole from him under ground. The water falls back again, however, and is received by the marble basin at the base, to form a neat pond, where gold and silver fish sport and gambol. A little at a distance, to the rear, the fragrance of honey and the busy hum of the bee are perceived by your grateful senses. The place looks like an earthly paradise; every thing there seems to laugh without restraint, from the creeping rose fastened to the hedge to the tall, princely-looking mountain ash, with its bunches of red berries. The only one living thing that seemed pensive and sad there was a lovely, delicate fawn, which rested, with her head drooping, at the foot of a rose bush, on the summit of the little green mound which was the centre of this delightful spot. Perhaps the lovely creature is after being weaned from the udder of its affectionate dam; or, perhaps, she grieves for the absence of some favorite in the palace of whom she is the pet. But that the creature grieves is evident, for you could see the two moist tracks furrowed on the smooth face, from the tears that have flowed there. But the inside of the "great house," who can describe it? From the ground floor to the uppermost attic, the rooms presented that waste of furniture, in the shape of sofas, ottomans, easy chairs, couches, carpets, tapestries, curtains, paintings, pier glasses, plate, and a thousand other articles contributive of ease and luxury, which the most extravagant expenditure could procure or vanity suggest. In truth, the interior was the exact counterpart of the exterior, in the artistic arrangement and splendor of every thing. To the eye of an observer, on an ordinary occasion, every thing appeared gorgeous in the extreme; but on the occasion we describe, when preparation was making for a grand reception, all was joy, mirth, luxury, and happiness. Servants of every color and hue were seen moving through the labyrinths of the saloons and chambers of this great palace, uncovering the long-concealed splendors of valuable articles, and arranging every thing for the most advantageous show. And "Now through the palace chambers moving lights And busy shapes proclaim the toilet's rites; From room to room the ready handmaids hie, Some skilled to wreathe the headdress tastefully, Or hang the veil, in negligence of shade, O'er the warm blushes of the youthful maid." Splendid services of gold and silver plate met the eye in every direction, on their way to the grand dining room; while, from the remotest part of the building, the sense of smelling was simultaneously assailed by several currents of delightful culinary exhalations, which, like the winds in the cave of Æolus, struggled for egress from their confined birthplace. This is one of those occasions on which the Dives of this sumptuous palace, Mr. Goldrich, intends to celebrate his birthday; and as he can't tell where he was born, nor can he show any genuine images of his ancestry, (except that he came down a scion from the great "Anglo-Saxon race,") he is determined to make amends for this calamity he could not help, and the want of taste in his father, whoever he was, by spending an ordinary fortune in the present celebration, and thus combine the splendors of all the possible past anniversaries of his birth in one grand, unrivalled celebration to-day. "And here, at once, the glittering saloon Bursts on the sight, boundless and bright as noon." The select music of splendid bands now announced the movements of guests towards the grand banquet room. In pairs they enter, and singular; the short procession is now at an end, and the places are filled up with the scanty number of twoscore guests, male and female. You would have supposed, from the preparation, that the inhabitants of the entire city were invited; but no, the exact number was forty, besides the members of the rich man's family. And this happened not by accident, or because of the penury or avarice of Mr. Goldrich, but because in the whole city there were no more than twenty families who ranked in the sphere of the "upper ten" in which "mine host" moved. These shining figures, that you can scarcely look at without risk to your eyes from their jewelry, are the ladies who leave us in doubt which they love most to exhibit--their charms, or the richness of their ornaments. Among that bright array of female beauty there is missed the fair form of one who was, heretofore, an ordinary occupant of an honorable place at the family table. It was the chair of the rosy-cheeked Alia that was unoccupied at this splendid circle. The presiding queen of the feast, Madam Goldrich, apologized for the absence of "poor Alia," by representing her indisposed; and at the announcement of this dispiriting intelligence, disappointment marked the countenances of the guests, for Alia was the brightest star that shone in that brilliant galaxy of fashion. Being the oldest among the children of Mr. Goldrich, Alia possessed all that graceful and dignified superiority over those whom she regarded as her younger sisters, which are the acknowledged privileges of age in every well-regulated family, and which her superior talent seemed naturally to enforce. Years rolled on, and the dear child lived in blissful ignorance of her origin and desolate condition, till the jealousy of her younger sisters excited her suspicions, and she began to mistrust the genuineness, as she felt the coldness, of that parental affection which the pretended authors of her existence so long counterfeited. During many months, if not years, these suspicions preyed on the poor girl's mind; and though she never dared to mention them to any save old Judy, the negro woman, she felt satisfied that her sisters and herself could not belong to the same stock or the same race. The transparent delicacy of her complexion, the rosy tint on her cheek, unrivalled by the costly paint of her sisters, the shining blackness of her splendid hair,--all these circumstances pointed her out and proclaimed her as of a different race to those whom she hitherto regarded as her kindred. Long had she mused on the cause of this disparity, and much had she suffered, in the depth of her soul, from the representations and suggestions of her active imagination in reference to her origin, and many were the tears shed by her while oppressed with these doubts. But the events of this day, added to the late insolent conduct of her sisters, which provoked the reprimand of her peevish mother guardian, who told her to curb her "Irish temper,"--these cleared up all her doubts; and, filled with a melancholy joy at a revelation she owed to the jealousy and vanity of a proud mother and her daughters, Alia retired to her room to give vent to her feelings in sobs and tears. "Thank God," she cried, "I know what I am, or ought to be. Thank God I am Irish, too, for I often wished I belonged to that much-abused and persecuted people. But O, where shall I find my parents? or how came my lot to be cast in this proud palace, which, alas! I too long regarded as my home? O, who, who will restore this poor 'exile of Erin,' to the home of her unknown parents? How gladly would I exchange all the splendor of this place for the homeliest cot in that land of the shamrock and the cross; ay, the poorest 'cabin, fast by the wild-wood,' in the land of St. Patrick, and my unknown ancestors." Such were the soliloquies of poor, despised Alia, in her room on the third floor, where old aunt Judy, the negro, having missed her favorite from the grand company, after having sought her in vain in the lower saloons of the house, just entered her room. "Dere, now, Miss Ali', am poor aunt Judy half kilt from sarching for you all over. What make you be here, and all the gran' gem'men asking for you?" "Ah, aunt Judy, why have you all along denied of me all knowledge of my extraction, parentage, and race? Did you not know that I was Irish? and yet you always denied that I was, though I have suspected I was, and you must have known it, having lived so long in the family. This is not what I expected from you, aunt Judy," she said, casting a look of gentle reproach at the old negro. "O, dear, miss--O, dear," cried the poor affectionate creature, bursting into tears; "don't blame dis ole nigger, but massa and missus, and Miss Sillerman, sister to the missus who died last year. They forbid aunt Jude to tell who rosy-faced Ali' was. I was bound to swear not to tell. If they knowed I did hab a _parle_ vit you on de subject, they would turn poor ole Jude out de door to die in the poor _maison_." This poor negro woman was a native of St. Domingo, and, at the time of the revolution there, came to New Orleans, in care of a child belonging to one of the white planters who was murdered--which child, by the way, has since become a pious and eminent clergyman. By some accident or other she fell in with the Goldriches, in their commercial visits to New Orleans, and, though brought up a Catholic, the poor thing forgot all practice of her religion, and this accounts for her evasions and denials to the repeated questions of Alia regarding her parentage and birth. "'Pon my fait, miss," she ever said, "I know nothing about you, 'cept that you are the rose-cheeked Ali', the _fleur de lis_ of the flock." Promises, and flattering presents, and all other persuasive arts of Alia to get the secret out of Judy proved useless. She had promised to keep it, and no human authority, she thought, could ever cause her to violate that promise. Although Judy had, through fear of displeasing her patrons, given up all public practice of her religion, she nevertheless never denied that she was a "Catholique," and never omitted to recite full five decades of the beads after going to bed. She declared she could not fall asleep till she complied with this rather lazy effort of prayer. Besides these rather faint evidences of her faith, she often told her loved Ali' that she intended calling in the priest at the hour of her death; and she confided to the honor of the young lady this secret desire of hers, and elicited many promises from her Ali' to send for his reverence when she would perceive her end approach. "This is rather a singular notion of yours," Alia used to say. "If you are a Catholic, and believe your faith the best, or the only true one, why do you not practise its teachings, and fulfil all the requirements of your church? I am sure neither father nor mother would blame you." "O miss, I feard, I feard," the poor, timid soul would answer. "But tink of vat I tol' you; when I go to die, send for the _bon_ priest, who know how to do the '_parle Française_,' and I pray for you when I go to heaven." "I shall do that for you, poor aunt Judy, or even attend you now, while you are in health, to the Catholic church, where you can go to the sacraments, and become a member again of that church which you have so long neglected, but which yet seems still to retain a strong hold of your affections and heart. Won't this be the best course, aunt Judy? I will attend you to the church of that zealous young Irish priest whom I see so often hurrying along here to his sick calls up town; and as I suspect I am 'Irish' myself, I hope he will not be displeased at my call." "O, you no Irish, miss, at all, but good Yankee. But tish better not go for de priest till he come to me when I go to die. Now I have religion here in _mon coeur_; ven I die, I profess her open." "Well, Judy, act as you wish; but it appears to me your conduct is singular. I shall do my part, however; and if there is a priest to be had in the city when you take to your death bed, you must have him to attend you." It was by such communings and conversations as the foregoing, during the leisure hours of aunt Judy and her loved Ali', that mutual confidence and disinterested friendship grew into maturity between them--the childish and helpless simplicity of the one, and kind and good-natured condescension of the other, producing the like effects in the hearts of both respectively--that is, disinterested friendship. Yet strong as this friendship was, and enthusiastic as was the love of Judy for her "rosy-cheeked" favorite, they were not sufficient to cause her to reveal the secret of her birth and adoption, even at this hour of Alia's deepest grief and affliction. There were two causes for this her unaccountable silence. Firstly, she had promised not to mention the slightest circumstance connected with the adopted child, and she feared punishment from the anger of her proud massa, whose disgrace might be the consequence. And again, having been in the habit of hearing all sorts of reflections on the "Irish," whom some mad abolitionists would gladly enslave in place of the blacks, poor Judy thought to save Alia from the mortification of finding herself "Irish," by her equivocation and falsehood. CHAPTER XXIV. SHOWS HOW THE CROSS AND SHAMROCK WERE PERMANENTLY UNITED AFTER A LONG SEPARATION. Paul O'Clery had been appointed pastor of one of the principal churches in the second city in the Union, as we have before mentioned, and already the evidences of the "care of souls" with which he was charged for several years began to manifest themselves on his placid brow. His was a life of unceasing activity. The visitations of the sick, the calls of charity, the hearing of confessions, together with the instruction of youth and the preaching of God's word,--these, the ordinary lot of pastors, constituted but a share, and not the largest one, of his onerous duties. Ever mindful of his own destitute condition while an orphan deprived of both parents, all the orphans of the thickly-inhabited district that constituted his mission became objects of his special care. And at a time when such an institution as a Catholic orphanage was regarded as visionary, or the ephemeral creation of a too ardent zeal, this good pastor succeeded in founding and supporting an asylum which has since become of incalculable value, not only to the Catholics as a body, but to the inhabitants of the whole city and state. A house of refuge for repentant Magdalens, placed under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, commanded his next care. In a word, the founding of schools, hospitals, confraternities, guilds, and other pious institutions exercised all of his time that was not devoted to his strictly ecclesiastical duties; so that his sister Bridget, known in religion as Sister St. John of the Cross, complained a good deal of his want of charity in not having visited her but once in seven years. "Ad majorem Dei gloriam,"--"To the greater glory of God,"--was this pious Levite's motto; and he was dead to all the ties of flesh and blood, and heedless of all calls save those of charity to his God and his neighbor. In the pulpit, the spontaneous eloquence of his heart chained the attention of his hearers; and his discourses, though rather inclined to asceticism than controversial, went to the hearts, and convinced the understandings, of unbelievers of the divinity of the doctrine he preached. No class of his fellow-creatures was excluded from the influence of his boundless zeal. Protestants--to whom he was very mild, on account of his knowledge of the ignorant prejudices in which they are bound by the malice of their teachers--heard him, and became converts to the church of God. Even the neglected negro race claimed and received a full measure of his zeal. He established a school for the children of these neglected sons of Africa, and never lost an opportunity of visiting them at the death bed or in the hour of serious sickness. It was on occasion of one of these visits that God rewarded his priest, even in this world, by the joyous disclosure which we here record, and which, next to his grace of vocation to the priesthood, of all the manifestations of God's mercy to him, claimed his sincerest gratitude and thanksgiving. After the end of the grand "birthday banquet," which lasted for a day and two nights, Alia's position at the palace became more disagreeable than ever. The young girls frowned on her and shunned her society, and Madame Goldrich, after she had got over the fatigue of the party, read her a smart lesson on her "ill manners and Irish temper," because she dared to absent herself, to the disappointment of the guests, from a table at which she was denied her proper and usual place. "Alia, this conduct of yours must be reformed, and that quick, or your separation from this family, to which you do not belong, must soon take place. I ain't goin' to let you take precedence of my children no longer." To this vulgar speech of the "princess, our hostess," as she was flatteringly toasted by a John Bull guest who was there, Alia answered not a word, but, having retired to her room, fell on her knees and prayed long and fervently to the God of her fathers to assist her by his inspirations, and direct her to the best, in her present perplexity. Having unburdened her bosom of a load of grief by a copious effusion of tears, and felt in her spirit that calm resignation which a sense of its own forlorn condition and a total reliance on God are calculated to inspire even in the unregenerate and imperfect soul, Alia now proceeded to the chamber of old Judy, whose expected illness had at last arrived, having been ill now for three days. On perceiving her entrance into the room, the old negress appealed to her in most supplicating terms to fulfil her promise to send for "de priest, for now de hour am come. O Ali', angel, dear," she cried, "do not let me die without the 'bon Dieu,' or I lost foreber. O, haste! O, haste!" Alia lost no time, but, taking pen and paper, wrote as follows to the bishop of the diocese:-- "The Right Rev. Catholic bishop is respectfully informed that there is a negro woman lying dangerously ill at Mr. Goldrich's, who, being a Catholic, desires the last rites of that church. Being a native of St. Domingo, the French is her vernacular tongue; for which cause it will be desirable, if possible, to send, a clergyman who can speak that language." A young negro lad was the bearer of this despatch, and he returned in less than an hour, attended by Rev. Paul O'Clery, whom the bishop sent to answer this urgent call, all those of the episcopal residence having been out since early morning attending on the sick in their respective localities. In order to avoid any further cause of displeasure to Mrs. Goldrich, Alia had given the negro lad instructions to bring the priest in through a private door that communicated with the garden, rather than attract attention by entering the hall door. She had a full view of the countenance of the young priest, through the window, while he was crossing that part of the garden that lay next the houses of the city, and, strange! her heart throbbed, and an indescribable sensation passed over her frame. "How happy," she thought, "must be the sister of such a gentleman as that! how different her lot from mine!" The priest entered, and was received with a very polite bow by Alia, which was returned profoundly. Declining to take a seat, on account of his many other urgent calls, he was escorted to old Judy's chamber by his fair guide, who, on the way thither, explained to him what sort of a person she was, and how odd in her notions about religion. Having conducted him to her bedside, she made a polite bow, and retired, asking if her services were further needed. The priest answered, "No; that he believed all the requirements for this holy but melancholy service were prepared, and that he supposed he had to thank her for the nice arrangements he observed." "Yes, mon pere," said old Judy, in half French, half English, "there is the '_chandel_,' the '_eau-benite_,' the '_la croix_,' and the rest, that I keep many year for my deathday." It was only when she retired from the chamber that the priest caught a full view of the fair Alia; and now "A strange emotion worked within him, more Than mere compassion ever worked before." He saw in this interesting stranger the strongest resemblance to his own sister Bridget. There were the same raven hair, the same candid and large eyes, the same broad and well-set teeth so peculiar to the O'Clerys, and the same form almost to a line. The groans and urgent call of his penitent Judy, however, soon recalled his mind from its reveries, and he banished all thoughts of Alia, as temptations, or, at least, speculations, which it was for the present useless to entertain. He put on his stole, and after a short aspiration for light and grace to discharge his duty to the sick woman, was just in the act of repeating the prayer, "_Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis_,"--"May the Lord be in your heart and lips,"--when the creature, raising herself up in her bed, prevented him, saying, "Mon pere, I vant, before I begin the confession, to tell you a secret that burden my mind long time." She then proceeded to tell how that young lady he had just seen had been adopted, or rather kidnapped, by the family she now lived with; how her name was changed from Aloysia to Alia; how this scheme was planned and carried out by Miss Sillerman, Mrs. Goldrich's sister, who died not long since; how, till of late, she was brought up as one of the family; how carefully she was instructed in all the ways of the Presbyterians; and, above all, how they endeavored to conceal her family name, for fear of being claimed by her friends. "But, mon pere," said she, in continuation, "though I forget the family name of this young, lubly lady, I have an article here (loosing an old-fashioned workbag) which may tell her family name." With that she handed Father Paul a neat ruby necklace, with a rather heavy gold clasp, on which were carved deeply a cross, interwoven with shamrocks, with these words, in italics, "_The O'C---- Arms_." This was enough for Paul O'Clery; he had no doubt of having seen and conversed with his own dear, long-lost sister, a few moments before. He sunk down on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and tried as well as he could to suppress the emotions that pervaded his bosom. After having prepared old Judy for heaven,--having first prevailed on her to make these disclosures in presence of witnesses, on condition that the circumstances of her revelation should not be published till after her death,--the priest retired from that palace, promising to call again, accompanied with another gentleman, in the afternoon. Lest his feelings should betray him, he retired from the house with as little delay as was consistent with politeness; and he trembled all over as he a second time returned the greeting of his dear Aloysia, as she conducted him to the door. With as little delay as possible, he sought the office of his legal adviser, and, accompanied by a judge of the Supreme Court of eminent character, and the legal adviser, and a third, all Protestant gentlemen, he sought the sick chamber of the old negress again, and there her deposition, and a confirmation of her previous account of Alia's bringing up and captivity, were obtained. They had scarcely concluded her testimony, when poor Judy bid farewell to the world and its crosses, and the priest had the satisfaction of bidding God speed to her soul in its passage to eternity, having read for her the last benediction a second time. The presence of so many strangers in the house naturally created some surprise among the inmates, and shortly the death chamber of Judy was filled with the members of the family, of both sexes. An explanation of this unusual and unauthorized proceeding was demanded by Mrs. Goldrich, which the eminent judge consented to give, provided an _adjournment_ to a more appropriate court was agreed to. His honor was in the act of unravelling the mysterious but well-connected development of old Judy--a work of supererogation on his part, as far as madam was concerned--when the fair-faced Alia herself made her appearance; and her reverend brother Paul, no longer able to check his feelings, sprang forward, and, seizing her white hand, kissed it, saying, "My dearest sister Aloysia, welcome to the embrace of your brother! 'You were lost, and I have found you; you were dead, and are again come to life! Rejoice, and be glad.'" This was too much happiness for Alia to bear up against without momentarily yielding to the shock, and she sank, as if lifeless, on a couch. She was soon restored, however, and surrounded by the seemingly affectionate caresses of her envious _mother_ and jealous sisters. She had to hear all their arguments to persuade her to prefer her present splendid misery to the equivocal boon of having found out a poor, destitute brother, though it was not yet clear whether she could call him by that name. Appearances were deceitful. Father Paul listened meekly to the smooth discourses and flattering promises of the rich lady and her children, not doubting, if she were an O'Clery, which side she would choose. "You are young, my dear Aloysia, but yet at or near the age of mature understanding; and I know a brother cannot command you as a parent could in this 'free country.' You have your choice--the traditional glory of the old family of O'Clery, two brothers, and a sister as fair as yourself, together with the old faith of St. Patrick,--the glorious CROSS and the immortal SHAMROCK,--all these balanced against this grand palace, probably great earthly comforts, and a religion that 'is not fit for a gentleman.' Have your choice; choose boldly, and at once, and free your brother from suspense." "Are you my brother?" she said, wildly, "or do I dream? Have I a brother on earth, and one so worthy as thou? O, I have no second choice," she cried, falling at his feet, and wetting them with her tears. "Plant this Cross in my bosom, And this Shamrock in my hair; And these are the only ornaments I ever again shall wear." The spirited girl prepared immediately to quit the splendid palace, and she came to the resolution of taking nothing with her, either of dress, or trinkets, or jewelry. "Naked and bare I came into this family, and with one single dress shall I leave it," said she, "feeling sufficiently enriched in what I have this day found--a brother, with the Cross and Shamrock of the O'Clerys. O, what complete changes! Instead of Alia, I am Aloysia; instead of Goldrich, I am O'Clery." Paul did not think it prudent to allow his sister to quit the house of her rich patrons so quickly, especially as Mr. Goldrich was from home, and till the public should be satisfied, and all doubts about her identity resolved. There was some opposition made by the parsons, one of whom, a Mr. Cashman, was long fishing for the fair hand of Aloysia; but this little dust raised by the "white necks" was soon hushed, when the record of the baptism of Miss O'Clery was produced, and when the book of heraldry was consulted to verify the armorial bearings of the O'Clerys, which were, as we said, carved on the clasp of her necklace; and, above all, when, on the left-hand ring finger of the young lady, the same impression of a ring appeared which several persons testified having seen on it when an infant. CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSION. During the _dénouement_ of the events recorded in the preceding chapter, and the discussion of them by the various _religious_ newspapers,--each of which, like a well-trained spaniel, tried to bark so as to secure the approbation of those from whom it derived its food,--Father O'Clery continued in the discharge of his ordinary duties as if nothing strange had happened. He addressed one letter on the subject to the leading secular journals of the city, showing, by the most convincing chain of evidence, the identity of the lady passing so long for a daughter of Mr. Goldrich with his own younger and long-lost sister, and satisfying all but fanatics and bigots of his prudence, and the propriety of the steps taken by him for her recovery. Mr. Goldrich, in the mean time, returned home, and though he could not but feel astonished at the developments which took place in his absence respecting his adopted daughter, he was too shrewd and too keen a man of business to make himself a tool in the hands of bigoted parsons, or to deny the validity of the evidence proving her to be no other than Aloysia O'Clery. This was enough. What now was become of all the talking, writing, swearing, and preaching of the dominies? To what purpose was this big talk, loud exclamations, puzzling interrogatories, and flaming articles of the Babylonian press? For a whole month nothing was published by the editors but "leaders," "articles," "paragraphs," "communications," "reports," "speeches," "lectures," "sermons," "mass meetings," "resolutions," "protests," and "letters of correspondents," regarding this "Popish plot," "this Romanist aggression," "this priestly insolence," and a thousand other names, threats, and unflattering epithets against persons and institutions, whose only connection with the case of Miss O'Clery was, that they belonged to the Catholic church, or dared to speak the truth, or claim their rights. Now the hundred-headed Cerberus of the press is silenced, and skulks into its dark lair, beaten and silenced, but not ashamed of the filthy dribblings of its lying tongue. Now all the talk, articles, and "leaders" go for nothing, since Mr. Goldrich acknowledges "the priest is right; she is his sister." But did not that clamorous press, that bellowed and hallooed on the rabble to rob, murder, and destroy,--did it not recall its words, apologize for its naughty language, and retract every charge groundlessly made? Like a convicted felon, did it cry _peccavi_--I have sinned, been misled, or misinformed? No; not a sign of repentance has been manifested, not an apology made, not a word of retraction uttered by these self-styled philosophers of the press, who think they are responsible to no law, human or divine, and who say they have a world to redeem, and nations and peoples to regenerate. We have read countless folios of calumnies, misrepresentations, and black libels on every thing sacred and venerable on earth, by the American press, during several years that we have read newspapers; but we never yet found one editor to retract, apologize, or mend his manners and language, except when compelled by the cudgel or by the law. What an anomaly does the observation of the conduct of the world present to us! They refuse "to hear the church," or be guided by the teaching of men who have spent their lives in preparing and qualifying themselves for the office of public teaching; and they submit themselves blindly and without control to the guidance of men whom they know not, who have not always the best moral characters, and whose training, in most instances, does any thing but qualify them for the dangerous office they fill. The instance which is here given of the almost unanimous hostility of the press to the cause of justice, truth, and honor, illustrates what we say; and the obvious conclusion is, that the "fourth estate" itself needs reclaiming--the great modern reformer needs reformation. Soon after Mr. Goldrich's return home, he called on Father Paul O'Clery, and, with a great deal of good nature, congratulated him on his very providential discovery of his sister, "my dear adopted child. And now, reverend sir," said he, affectionately, "I beg to tender you the hospitalities of our house. As your sister has been for so many years one of the family,--and not the least loved one, I assure you,--I hope I may, without impropriety, by right of relationship by adoption, claim you as a member also." Father Paul answered by assuring him he appreciated his kindness; that he acknowledged the honorable connection in full; and that, though this very affectionate advance had not taken place, Mr. Goldrich would ever be regarded by him with feelings of veneration and love, on account of his affectionate kindness to his sister, in giving her such a superior education, and treating her on terms of equality with his own children. The highminded and liberal gentleman, after having shed tears at the idea of losing his dear adopted girl, departed, having previously extorted a promise from Father Paul to attend a great party in honor of Aloysia, at the palace, on the evening of the next day. In the mean time, Aloysia's room was besieged with crowds of anxious visitors and voluntary condolers on her resolution of renouncing wealth, pleasure, and Protestantism, for poverty, Popery, and penance. Rich merchants came, offering to settle annuities on her for life; rich widows came, with their tracts and Bibles in one hand, and their real estate deeds and scrip in the other, hoping to conquer her resolution; and eloquent parsons, with their "sweet speeches and flattering discourses," were chasing one another, like clouds driven by the winds, to and from the well-furnished boudoir, all charged with the same apostolic office of saving a soul, a beautiful, interesting one, from falling into that world-wide "net" of Popery with which St. Peter and his successors have never ceased to "catch men," since the days of Jesus Christ. All the discourses, prayers, entreaties, threats, crocodile tears, flatteries, misrepresentations, legacies, settlements, and other seductive allurements have miscarried, this time. A Catholic Aloysia was baptized, and a Catholic she is resolved to live and die, with God's grace. The "big dinner" was prepared at the rich man's house, where Father Paul through courtesy attended, and where he was obliged to defend, in a speech of some length, the violent assault of that Parson Cashman, who we told was fishing for the hand of Aloysia, but who now, because she rejected him with scorn, had the bad taste to insult the whole company by his _champagne_-inspired attack on Ireland, her creed, and her children. Paul completely refuted his charge of ignorance of the Irish, by contrasting their religious knowledge with that of the English and Americans; in the former one of which countries there are seven or eight millions of pagans, and in the later so many thousands who follow such impostors as Miller, Smith, spiritual rappers, Transcendentalists, Fourierites, and other impostors notorious for their crimes. "The reverend gentleman forgets," said he, "that Ireland was once, and for ages, the most enlightened country on earth, and deserved to be called "the Island of Saints;" and that whatever of ignorance, poverty, and crime--which, thank God, is little--she is afflicted with, was inherited by her from the curse introduced into her by the upas tree of Protestantism. Ah, sir, the eulogy of England comes with a bad grace from the lips of a son of America, which she oppressed, and which, but for Catholic arms, might be now, instead of a great republic, a badly-ruled province of Protestant England. Study history, sir; study history; and you will soon think better of Ireland and Catholicity, and less of England and her persecuting Protestantism." And with that he retired. The remaining part of our tale is soon told. Paul O'Clery, from being a good priest, became, in addition, a great man; his virtues, learning, and genius soon attracted the notice of the princes of God's church. He was consecrated bishop, "_in partibus infidelium_," and he is now a pillar of God's church, and an ornament in his sanctuary, as archbishop in one of the great cities of British India, in Asia. Behold, my young readers, how the church opens the gates of her treasures, and encourages the promotion of the humblest of her children. Virtue and genius are the only titles to nobility which she regards. Every office in her gift (and she has stations too high for angels) is open to the humblest aspirant to perfection. How many scores of young men might be now shining lamps in God's sanctuary, instead of being degraded to the level of the drudges of the earth and the slaves of the world, if they only resisted the glittering bait of temptation at first, and took as their model Paul O'Clery, the orphan boy! What became of Aloysia, do you wish to know? She joined her sister Bridget in the nunnery, and after atoning by her tears and repentance for the _material_ heresy of her youth, she lately fell a victim to fever, contracted by her in caring for the poor negro slaves of New Orleans. She preferred to die a saint than live a princess. Eugene, as you already know, died a martyr for his faith, having been persecuted to death by Parson Dilman and Mr. Shaw Gulvert of evil memory. Patrick returned to Ireland, where he has lately purchased an estate under the encumbered estates law--the very same estate on which his father lived under Lord Mandemon. You recollect Van Stingey, the first persecutor of the orphan family, was blown up by powder, and perished miserably. Amanda Prying met a fate little better. Having been in the habit of imbibing strong drafts of chloroform, for purposes of intoxication, she was found dead in bed one December morning, after having imbibed too strong a dose. The youngest child of Reuben Prying met with his death in this way: Willy, the youngest but one, hearing that somebody was to be hanged, asked his pa how the operation was performed. The father, of course, believing that "knowledge was power," taught the child how to act the hangman, and the lesson was not taught in vain; for, the next day, Willy, experimenting on the "knowledge" communicated, hanged his younger brother, Lory, dead. Thus perished the darling son of him who combined with the parson to kill Eugene O'Clery. I forgot to say that Mary Prying, the innocent, good girl, and the admirer of Paul, became a convert, and is now a nun, called Sister Mary Magdalen. But what of the Parsons Grinoble, Gulmore, Barker, Scullion, and the others, who had a hand in robbing the orphans of their faith? They are all alive yet, and, according to their limited capacities, doing all the harm it is possible for them to do, in propagating error and disseminating discord. And your friend Dr. Ugo, who was instrumental in saving the orphans, is yet living, and battling for the faith, never omitting to inculcate fidelity to the CROSS and attachment to the SHAMROCK on all his beloved parishioners and hearers. Amen! 
11111	----	ONLY AN IRISH BOY Or, Andy Burke's Fortunes by Horatio Alger, Jr. Author of "Paul the Peddler," "Phil the Fiddler," "Strive and Succeed," "Slow and Sure," "Try and Trust," etc. CONTENTS Chapter I. ANDY BURKE II. A SKIRMISH III. ANDY AND HIS MOTHER IV. MRS. PRESTON V. A PROFITABLE JOB VI. THE TWO OLD MAIDS VII. ANDY OBTAINS A PLACE VIII. THE MIDNIGHT ALARM IX. WHAT FOLLOWED X. ANDY'S DEBUT AT SCHOOL XI. A GAME OF BALL XII. A LITTLE DIFFICULTY XIII. GODFREY'S REBELLION XIV. MR. STONE IS CALLED TO ACCOUNT XV. MRS. PRESTON'S DISCOMFITURE XVI. THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT XVII. INTRODUCES AN ADVENTURER XVIII. RIDING WITH A HIGHWAYMAN XIX. BAFFLED A ROBBER XX. HOW THE NEWS WAS RECEIVED XXI. A MODEL WIFE XXII. COLONEL PRESTON'S RECOVERY XXIII. MRS. BURKE HAS GOOD FORTUNE XXIV. ANDY'S JOURNEY XXV. THE MERCHANT FROM PORTLAND XXVI. SPINNING THE WEB XXVII. THE DROP GAME XXVIII. THE GUEST OF TWO HOTELS XXIX. A STARTLING EVENT XXX. COLONEL PRESTON'S WILL XXXI. MRS. PRESTON'S INTENTIONS XXXII. MRS. PRESTON'S REVENGE XXXIII. ANDY LOSES HIS PLACE XXXIV. THE WILL AT LAST XXXV. MRS. PRESTON IS UNPLEASANTLY SURPRISED XXXVI. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL ONLY AN IRISH BOY CHAPTER I ANDY BURKE "John, saddle my horse, and bring him around to the door." The speaker was a boy of fifteen, handsomely dressed, and, to judge from his air and tone, a person of considerable consequence, in his own opinion, at least. The person addressed was employed in the stable of his father, Colonel Anthony Preston, and so inferior in social condition that Master Godfrey always addressed him in imperious tones. John looked up and answered, respectfully: "Master Godfrey, your horse is sick of the disease, and your father left orders that he wasn't to go out on no account." "It's my horse," said Godfrey; "I intend to take him out." "Maybe it's yours, but your father paid for him." "None of your impudence, John," answered Godfrey, angrily. "Am I master, or are you, I should like to know!" "Neither, I'm thinking," said John, with a twinkle in his eye. "It's your father that's the master." "I'm master of the horse, anyway, so saddle him at once." "The colonel would blame me," objected John. "If you don't, I'll report you and get you dismissed." "I'll take the risk, Master Godfrey," said the servant, good-humoredly. "The colonel won't be so unreasonable as to send me away for obeying his own orders." Here John was right, and Godfrey knew it, and this vexed him the more. He had an inordinate opinion of himself and his own consequence, and felt humiliated at being disobeyed by a servant, without being able to punish him for his audacity. This feeling was increased by the presence of a third party, who was standing just outside the fence. As this third party is our hero, I must take a separate paragraph to describe him. He was about the age of Godfrey, possibly a little shorter and stouter. He had a freckled face, full of good humor, but at the same time resolute and determined. He appeared to be one who had a will of his own, but not inclined to interfere with others, though ready to stand up for his own rights. In dress he compared very unfavorably with the young aristocrat, who was biting his lips with vexation. In fact, though he is my hero, his dress was far from heroic. He had no vest, and his coat was ragged, as well as his pants. He had on a pair of shoes two or three times too large for him. They had not been made to order, but had been given him by a gentleman of nearly double his size, and fitted him too much. He wore a straw hat, for it was summer, but the brim was semi-detached, and a part of his brown hair found its way through it. Now Godfrey was just in the mood for picking a quarrel with somebody, and as there was no excuse for quarreling any further with John, he was rather glad to pitch into the young stranger. "Who are you?" he demanded, in his usual imperious tone, and with a contraction of the brow. "Only an Irish boy!" answered the other, with a droll look and a slight brogue. "Then what business have you leaning against my fence?" again demanded Godfrey, imperiously. "Shure, I didn't know it was your fence." "Then you know now. Quit leaning against it." "Why should I, now? I don't hurt it, do I?" "No matter--I told you to go away. We don't want any beggars here." "Shure, I don't see any," said the other boy, demurely. "What are you but a beggar?" "Shure, I'm a gintleman of indepindent fortune." "You look like it," said Godfrey, disdainfully. "Where do you keep it?" "Here!" said the Irish boy, tapping a bundle which he carried over his shoulder, wrapped in a red cotton handkerchief, with a stick thrust through beneath the knot. "What's your name?" "Andy Burke. What's yours?" "I don't feel under any obligations to answer your questions," said Godfrey, haughtily. "Don't you? Then what made you ask me?" "That's different. You are only an Irish boy." "And who are you?" "I am the only son of Colonel Anthony Preston," returned Godfrey, impressively. "Are you, now? I thought you was a royal duke, or maybe Queen Victoria's oldest boy." "Fellow, you are becoming impertinent." "Faith, I didn't mean it. You look so proud and gintale that it's jist a mistake I made." "You knew that we had no dukes in America," said Godfrey, suspiciously. "If we had, now, you'd be one of them," said Andy. "Why? What makes you say so?" "You're jist the picture of the Earl of Barleycorn's ildest son that I saw before I left Ireland." Godfrey possessed so large a share of ridiculous pride that he felt pleased with the compliment, though he was not clear about its sincerity. "Where do you live?" he asked, with a slight lowering of his tone. "Where do I live? Shure, I don't live anywhere now, but I'm going to live in the village. My mother came here a month ago." "Why didn't you come with her?" "I was workin' with a farmer, but the work gave out and I came home. Maybe I'll find work here." "I think I know where your mother lives," said John, who had heard the conversation. "She lives up the road a mile or so, in a little house with two rooms. It's where old Jake Barlow used to live." "Thank you, sir. I guess I'll be goin', then, as my mother'll be expectin' me. Do you know if she's well?" and a look of anxiety came over the boy's honest, good-natured face. The question was addressed to John, but of this Godfrey was not quite sure. He thought the inquiry was made of him, and his pride was touched. "What should I know of your mother, you beggar?" he said, with a sneer. "I don't associate with such low people." "Do you mane my mother?" said Andy, quickly, and he, too, looked angry and threatening. "Yes, I do. What are you going to do about it?" demanded Godfrey. "You'd better take it back," said Andy, his good-humored face now dark with passion. "Do you think I am afraid of such a beggar as you?" sneered Godfrey. "You appear to forget that you are speaking to a gentleman." "Shure, I didn't know it," returned Andy, hotly. "You're no gentleman if you insult my mother, and if you'll come out here for a minute I'll give you a bating." "John," said Godfrey, angrily, "will you drive that beggar away?" Now, John's sympathies were rather with Andy than with his young master. He had no great admiration for Godfrey, having witnessed during the year he had been in his father's employ too much of the boy's arrogance and selfishness to feel much attachment for him. Had he taken any part in the present quarrel, he would have preferred espousing the cause of the Irish boy; but that would not have been polite, and he therefore determined to preserve his neutrality. "That ain't my business, Master Godfrey," he said. "You must fight your own battles." "Go away from here," said Godfrey, imperiously advancing toward that part of the fence against which Andy Burke was leaning. "Will you take back what you said agin' my mother?" "No, I won't." "Then you're a blackguard, if you are a rich man's son." The blood rushed to Godfrey's face on the instant. This was a palpable insult. What! he, a rich man's son, the only son and heir of Colonel Anthony Preston, with his broad acres and ample bank account--he to be called a blackguard by a low Irish boy. His passion got the better of him, and he ran through the gate, his eyes flashing fire, bent on exterminating his impudent adversary. CHAPTER II A SKIRMISH Andy Burke was not the boy to run away from an opponent of his own size and age. Neither did he propose to submit quietly to the thrashing which Godfrey designed to give him. He dropped his stick and bundle, and squared off scientifically at his aristocratic foe. Godfrey paused an instant before him. "I'm going to give you a thrashing," he said; "the worst thrashing you ever had." "Are you, now?" asked Andy, undismayed. "Come on, thin; I'm ready for you." "You're an impudent young ruffian." "So are you." Godfrey's aristocratic blood boiled at this retort, and he struck out at Andy, but the latter knew what was coming, and, swift as a flash, warded it off, and fetched Godfrey a blow full upon his nose, which started the blood. Now, the pain and the sight of the blood combined filled him with added fury, and he attempted to seize Andy around the waist and throw him. But here again he was foiled. The young Irish boy evaded his grasp, and, seizing him in turn, by an adroit movement of the foot, tripped him up. Godfrey fell heavily on his back. Andy withdrew a little, and did not offer to hold him down, as Godfrey would have been sure to do under similar circumstances. "Have you got enough?" he asked. "That wasn't fair," exclaimed Godfrey, jumping up hastily, deeply mortified because he had been worsted in the presence of John, who, sooth to say, rather enjoyed his young master's overthrow. He rushed impetuously at Andy, but he was blinded by his own impetuosity, and his adversary, who kept cool and self-possessed, had, of course, the advantage. So the engagement terminated as before--Godfrey was stretched once more on the sidewalk. He was about to renew the assault, however, when there was an interruption. This interruption came in the form of Colonel Preston himself, who was returning from a business meeting of citizens interested in establishing a savings bank in the village. "What's all this, Godfrey?" he called out, in a commanding tone. Godfrey knew that when his father spoke he must obey, and he therefore desisted from the contemplated attack. He looked up at his father and said, sulkily: "I was punishing this Irish boy for his impertinence." John grinned a little at this way of putting it, and his father said: "It looked very much as if he were punishing you." "I didn't get fair hold," said Godfrey, sulkily. "So he was impertinent, was he? What did he say?" "He said I was no gentleman." Andy Burke listened attentively to what was said, but didn't attempt to justify himself as yet. "I have sometimes had suspicions of that myself," said his father, quietly. Though Godfrey was an only son, his father was sensible enough to be fully aware of his faults. If he was indulged, it was his mother, not his father, that was in fault. Colonel Preston was a fair and just man, and had sensible views about home discipline; but he was overruled by his wife, whose character may be judged from the fact that her son closely resembled her. She was vain, haughty, and proud of putting on airs. She considered herself quite the finest lady in the village, but condescended to associate with the wives of the minister, the doctor, and a few of the richer inhabitants, but even with them she took care to show that she regarded herself superior to them all. She was, therefore, unpopular, as was her son among his companions. However, these two stood by each other, and Mrs. Preston was sure to defend Godfrey in all he did, and complained because his father did not do the same. "I didn't think you'd turn against me, and let a low boy insult me," complained Godfrey. "Why do you call him low?" "Because he's only an Irish boy." "Some of our most distinguished men have been Irish boys or of Irish descent. I don't think you have proved your point." "He's a beggar." "I'm not a beggar," exclaimed Andy, speaking for the first time. "I never begged a penny in all my life." "Look at his rags," said Godfrey, scornfully. "You would be in rags, too, if you had to buy your own clothes. I think I should respect you very much more under the circumstances," returned his father. "The colonel's a-givin' it to him," thought John, with a grin. "'Twon't do the young master any harm." "What is your name?" inquired Colonel Preston, turning now to our hero, as his son seemed to have no more to say. "Andy Burke." "Do you live here?" "I've just come to town, sir. My mother lives here." "Where does she live?" "I don't know, sir, just. He knows," pointing out John. "I calcerlate his mother lives in old Jake Barlow's house," said John. "Oh, the Widow Burke. Yes, I know. I believe Mrs. Preston employs her sometimes. Well, Andy, if that's your name, how is it that I catch you fighting with my son? That is not very creditable, unless you have good cause." "He called my mother a low woman," said Andy, "and then he run up and hit me." "Did you do that, Godfrey?" "He was putting on too many airs. He talked as if he was my equal." "He appears to be more than your equal in strength," said his father. "Well, was that all?" "It was about all." "Then I think he did perfectly right, and I hope you'll profit by the lesson you have received." "He is a gentleman," thought Andy. "He ain't hard on a boy because he's poor." Colonel Preston went into the house, but Godfrey lingered behind a moment. He wanted to have a parting shot at his adversary. He could fight with words, if not with blows. "Look here!" he said, imperiously; "don't let me see you round here again." "Why not?" "I don't want to see you." "Then you can look the other way," said Andy, independently. "This is my house." "I thought it was your father's." "That's the same thing. You'd better stay at home with your mother." "Thank you," said Andy; "you're very kind. May I come along the road sometimes?" "If you do, walk on the other side." Andy laughed. He was no longer provoked, but amused. "Then, by the same token, you'd better not come by my mother's house," he said, good-humoredly. "I don't want to come near your miserable shanty," said Godfrey, disdainfully. "You may come, if you keep on the other side of the road," said Andy, slyly. Godfrey was getting disgusted; for in the war of words, as well as of blows, his ragged opponent seemed to be getting the better of him. He turned on his heel and entered the house. He was sure of one who would sympathize with him in his dislike and contempt for Andy--this was, of course, his mother. Besides, he had another idea. He knew that Mrs. Burke had been employed by his mother, occasionally, to assist in the house. It occurred to him that it would be a fine piece of revenge to induce her to dispense hereafter with the poor woman's services. Bent on accomplishing this creditable retaliation, he left his young opponent master of the field. "I must be goin'," said Andy, as he picked up his bundle and suspended it from his stick. "Will I find the house where my mother lives, easy?" The question was, of course, addressed to John, who had just turned to go to the stable. "You can't miss it," answered John. "It's a mile up the road, stands a little way back. There's a few hills of potatoes in the front yard. How long since you saw your mother?" "It's three months." "Does she know you are coming to-day?" "No. I would have wrote to her, but my fingers isn't very ready with the pen." "Nor mine either," said John. "I'd rather take a licking any time than write a letter. Come round and see us some time." "The boy'll lick me," said Andy, laughing. "I guess you can manage him." Andy smiled, for it was his own conviction, also. With his bundle on his shoulder he trudged on, light of heart, for he was about to see his mother and sister, both of whom he warmly loved. CHAPTER III ANDY AND HIS MOTHER The house in which the Widow Burke and her daughter lived was a very humble one. It had not been painted for many years, and the original coat had worn off, leaving it dark and time-stained. But when Mrs. Burke came to town, a short time before, it was the only dwelling she could hire that was held at a rent within her means. So she and Mary, who was now eleven years old, had moved in their scanty furniture and made it look as much like a home as possible. Mrs. Burke had not always been as poor as now. She was the daughter of an Irish tradesman, and had received quite a good education. In due time she married a small farmer, who was considered to be in fair circumstances, but there came a bad year, and misfortunes of various kinds came together. The last and heaviest of all was fever, which prostrated her husband on a bed of sickness. Though his wife watched over him night and day with all the devotion of love, it was all of no avail. He died, and she found herself left with about a hundred pounds--after his debts were paid. She was advised to go to America with her two children, and did so. That was five years before. They had lived in various places--but the little sum she had left over, after the passage of the three was paid, had long since melted away, and she was forced to get a living as she could. Since she had come to Crampton, leaving Andy at work for a farmer in the place where they had last lived, she had obtained what sewing she could from the families in the village, and had besides obtained a chance to help about the ironing at Colonel Preston's. Washing was too hard for her, for her strength was not great. At the time of our introduction she was engaged in making a shirt, one of half a dozen which she had engaged to make for Dr. Plympton, the village doctor. She had no idea that Andy was so near, having heard nothing of his having left his place, but it was of him she was speaking. "I wish I could see Andy," she sighed, looking up from her work. "So do I, mother." "The sight of him would do my eyes good, he's such a lively lad, Andy is--always in good spirits." "Shure, he's got a good heart, mother dear. It wouldn't be so lonely like if he was here." "I would send for him if there was anything to do, Mary; but we are so poor that we must all of us stay where we can get work." "When do you go to Colonel Preston's, mother? Is it to-morrow?" "Yes, my dear." "I'm always lonely when you are away." "Perhaps you would come with me, Mary, dear. Mrs. Preston wouldn't object, I'm thinkin'." "If Andy was at home I wouldn't feel so lonely." While she was speaking Andy himself had crept under the window, and heard her words. He was planning a surprise, but waited for the last moment to announce himself. He waited to hear what reply his mother would say. "I think we'll see him soon, Mary, dear." "What makes you say so, mother?" "I don't know. I've got a feeling in my bones that we'll soon meet. The blessed saints grant that it may be so." "Your bones are right this time, mother," said a merry voice. And Andy, popping up from his stooping position, showed himself at the window. There was a simultaneous scream from Mary and her mother. "Is it you, Andy?" exclaimed Mary. "It isn't nobody else," said Andy, rather ungrammatically. "Come in, Andy, my darling--come in, and tell me if you are well," said his mother, dropping the shirt on which she was at work, and rising to her feet. "I'll be with you in a jiffy," said Andy. And, with a light leap, he cleared the window sill, and stood in the presence of his mother and sister, who vied with each other in hugging the returned prodigal. "You'll choke me, Sister Mary," said Andy, good-humoredly. "Maybe you think I'm your beau." "Don't speak to her of beaux, and she only eleven years old," said his mother. "But you haven't told us why you came." "Faith, mother, it was because the work gave out, and I thought I'd pack my trunk and come and see you and Mary. That's all." "We are glad to see you, Andy, dear, but," continued his mother, taking a survey of her son's appearance for the first time, "you're lookin' like a beggar, with your clothes all in rags." Andy laughed. "Faith, it's about so, mother. There was no one to mend 'em for me, and I'm more used to the hoe than the needle." "I will sew up some of the holes when you're gone to bed, Andy. Are you sure you're well, lad?" "Well, mother? Jist wait till you see me atin', mother. You'll think I've got a healthy appetite." "I never thought, Andy. The poor lad must be hungry. Mary, see what there is in the closet." "There's nothing but some bread, mother," said Mary. Indeed bread and potatoes were the main living of the mother and daughter, adopted because they were cheap. They seldom ventured on the extravagance of meat, and that was one reason, doubtless, for Mrs. Burke's want of strength and sometimes feeling faint and dizzy while working at her needle. "Is there no meat in the house, Mary?" "Not a bit, mother." "Then go and see if there's an egg outside." The widow kept a few hens, having a henhouse in one corner of the back yard. The eggs she usually sold, but Andy was at home now, and needed something hearty, so they must be more extravagant than usual. Mary went out, and quickly returned with a couple of eggs. "Here they are, mother, two of them. The black hen was settin' on them, but I drove her away, and you can hear her cackling. Shure, Andy needs them more than she does." "Will you have them boiled or fried, Andy?" asked his mother. "Any way, mother. I'm hungry enough to ate 'em raw. It's hungry work walkin' ten miles wid a bundle on your back, let alone the fightin'." "Fighting!" exclaimed Mrs. Burke, pausing in drawing out the table. "Fightin', Andy?" chimed in Mary, in chorus. "Yes, mother," said Andy. "And who did you fight with?" asked the widow, anxiously. "With a boy that feels as big as a king; maybe bigger." "What's his name?" "I heard his father call him Godfrey." "What, Godfrey Preston?" exclaimed Mrs. Burke in something like consternation. "Yes, that's the name. He lives in a big house a mile up the road." "What made you fight with him, Andy?" inquired his mother, anxiously. "He began it." "What could he have against you? He didn't know you." "He thought as I only was an Irish boy he could insult me, and call me names, but I was too much for him." "I hope you didn't hurt him?" "I throwed him twice, mother, but then his father came up and that put a stop to the fight." "And what did his father say?" "He took my part, mother, when he found out how it was, and scolded his son. Shure, he's a gentleman." "Yes, Colonel Preston is a gentleman." "And that's where he isn't like his son, I'm thinkin'." "No. Godfrey isn't like his father. It's his mother he favors." "Faith, and I don't call it favoring," said Andy. Is the old lady as ugly and big-feelin' as the son?" "She's rather a hard woman, Andy. I go up to work there one day every week." "Do you, mother?" said Andy, not wholly pleased to hear that his mother was employed by the mother of his young enemy. "Yes, Andy." "What is it you do?" "I help about the ironing. To-morrow's my day for going there." "I wish you could stay at home, and not go out to work, mother," said Andy, soberly. "You don't look strong, mother, dear. I'm afraid you're not well." "Oh, yes, Andy, I am quite well. I shall be better, too, now that you are at home. I missed you very much. It seemed lonely without you." "I must find out some way to earn money, mother," said Andy. "I'm young and strong, and I ought to support you." "You can help me, Andy," said Mrs. Burke, cheerfully. She took up the shirt and resumed her sewing. "I'm afraid you're too steady at the work, mother," said Andy. "I shall be ironing to-morrow. It's a change from sewing, Andy. Mary, it's time to take off the eggs." Andy was soon partaking of the frugal meal set before him. He enjoyed it, simple as it was, and left not a particle of the egg or a crumb of the bread. CHAPTER IV MRS. PRESTON Whenever Godfrey Preston had any difficulty with his father, he always went to his mother, and from her, right or wrong, he was sure to obtain sympathy. So in the present instance, failing to receive from his father that moral support to which he deemed himself entitled, on entering the house he sought out his mother. Mrs. Preston, who was rather a spare lady, with thin lips and a sharp, hatchet-like face, was in her own room. She looked up as Godfrey entered. "Well, Godfrey, what's the matter?" she asked, seeing on her son's face an unmistakable expression of discontent. "Matter enough, mother. Father's always against me." "I know it. He appears to forget that you are his son. What is it now?" "He came up just as I was thrashing a boy down in the yard." "What boy?" "Nobody you know, mother. It was only an Irish boy." "What was your reason for punishing him?" asked Mrs. Preston, adopting Godfrey's version of the affair. "He was impudent to me. He was leaning against the fence, and I ordered him away. He was a ragged boy, with a bundle on a stick. Of course, when he wouldn't move, I went out and thrashed him." "Was your father there?" "He came up in the midst of it, and, instead of taking my part, he took the part of the Irish boy." "I don't see how Mr. Preston can be so unfair," said his wife. "It is his duty to stand by his family." "I felt ashamed to have him scold me before the impudent boy. Of course, he enjoyed it, and I suppose he will think he can be impudent to me again." "No doubt. I will speak to your father about it. He really shouldn't be so inconsiderate. But what is that stain on your coat, Godfrey? I should think you had been down on your back on the ground." "Oh," said Godfrey, rather embarrassed, "I happened to slip as I was wrestling with the fellow, and fell on my back. However, I was up again directly and gave it to him, I can tell you. If father hadn't stopped me I'd have laid him out," he continued, in a swaggering tone. It will be seen that Godfrey did not always confine himself to the truth. Indeed, he found it rather hard at all times to admit either that he had been in the wrong or had been worsted. Even if his mother sometimes suspected that his accounts were a trifle distorted, she forbore to question their accuracy. Mother and son had a sort of tacit compact by which they stood by each other, and made common cause against Colonel Preston. "Don't you know the boy? Doesn't he live in the neighborhood?" asked Mrs. Preston, after a pause. "He's just come into the town, but I'll tell you who he is. He's the son of that woman that comes to work for you once a week." "Mrs. Burke?" "Yes; he told me that his name was Andy Burke." "He ought to know his place too well to be impudent to one in your position." "So I think." "I shall speak to Mrs. Burke about her son's bad behavior." "I wish you'd discharge her. That's a good way to punish the boy." "I shouldn't object to doing that, Godfrey, but Mrs. Burke is a capital hand at ironing shirts. Yours and your father's never looked so nice as they have since she has been here." Godfrey looked a little discontented. Being essentially mean, he thought it would be an excellent plan to strike the son through the mother. "You might threaten her, mother, a little. Tell her to make her boy behave himself, or you'll discharge her." "I will certainly speak to her on the subject, Godfrey." At the table Mrs. Preston introduced the subject of Godfrey's wrongs. "I am surprised, Mr. Preston, that you took part against Godfrey when he was rudely assaulted this morning." "I thought Godfrey in the wrong, my dear. That was my reason." "You generally appear to think your own son in the wrong. You are ready to take part with any stranger against him," said Mrs. Preston, in a complaining manner. "I don't think you are quite right just there," said her husband, good-humoredly. "I must say, however, that Godfrey generally is in the wrong." "You are very unjust to him." "I don't mean to be. I would be glad to praise him, but he is so overbearing to those whom he considers his inferiors, that I am frequently ashamed of his manner of treating others." "The boy has some reason to feel proud. He must maintain his position." "What is his position?" "I don't think you need to ask. As our son he is entitled to a degree of consideration." "He will receive consideration enough if he deserves it, but this is a republic, and all are supposed to be on an equality." Mrs. Preston tossed her head. "That's well enough to say, but don't you consider yourself above a man that goes round sawing wood for a living?" "At any rate I would treat him with courtesy. Because I am richer, and have a better education, it is no reason why I should treat him with contempt." "Then I don't share your sentiments," said Mrs. Preston. "I am thankful that I know my position better. I mean to uphold the dignity of the family, and I hope my son will do the same." Colonel Preston shrugged his shoulders as his wife swept from the room. He knew of old her sentiments on this subject, and he was aware that she was not likely to become a convert to his more democratic ideas. "I am afraid she will spoil Godfrey," he thought. "The boy is getting intolerable. I am glad this Irish boy gave him a lesson. He seems a fine-spirited lad. I will help him if I can." "Ellen," said Mrs. Preston the next morning, "when Mrs. Burke comes let me know." "Yes, ma'am." "She's come," announced Ellen, half an hour later. Mrs. Preston rose from her seat and went into the laundry. "Good-morning, Mrs. Preston," said Mrs. Burke. "Good-morning," returned the other, stiffly. "Mrs. Burke, I hear that your son behaved very badly to my Godfrey yesterday." "It isn't like Andy, ma'am," said the mother, quietly. "He's a good, well-behaved lad." "Godfrey tells me that he made a brutal assault upon him, quite forgetting his superior position." "Are you sure Master Godfrey didn't strike him first?" asked the mother. "Even if he had, your son shouldn't have struck back." "Why not?" asked Mrs. Burke, her eyes flashing with spirit, meek as she generally was. "Because it was improper," said Mrs. Preston, decisively. "I don't see that, ma'am. Andy isn't the boy to stand still and be struck." "Do I understand," said Mrs. Preston, in a freezing tone, "that you uphold your son in his atrocious conduct?" "Yes, ma'am. I stand up for Andy, for he's a good boy, and if he struck Master Godfrey it was because he was struck first." "That is enough," said Mrs. Preston, angrily. "I shall not require your services after to-day, Mrs. Burke." "Just as you like, ma'am," said Mrs. Burke, with quiet pride, but she thought, with a sinking heart, of the gap which this would make in her scanty income. CHAPTER V A PROFITABLE JOB After finishing her work at Colonel Preston's Mrs. Burke went home. She did not see Mrs. Preston again, for the latter sent her the money for her services by Ellen. "Mrs. Preston says you're not to come next week," said Ellen. "She told me so herself this morning. She is angry because I took the part of my boy against Master Godfrey." "Godfrey's the hatefulest boy I ever see," said Ellen, whose grammar was a little defective. "He's always putting on airs." "He struck my Andy, and Andy struck him back." "I'm glad he did," said Ellen, emphatically. "I hope he'll do it again." "I don't want the boys to fight. Andy's a peaceable lad; and he'll be quiet if he's let alone. But he's just like his poor father, and he won't let anybody trample on him." "That's where he's right," said Ellen. "I'm sorry you're not coming again, Mrs. Burke." "So am I, Ellen, for I need the money, but I'll stand by my boy." "You iron real beautiful. I've heard Mrs. Preston say so often. She won't get nobody that'll suit her so well." "If you hear of anybody else that wants help, Ellen, will you send them to me?" This Ellen faithfully promised, and Mrs. Burke went home, sorry to have lost her engagement, but not sorry to have stood up for Andy, of whom she was proud. Andy was at home when she returned. He had found enough to do at home to occupy him so far. The next day he meant to go out in search of employment. When his mother got back she found him cutting some brush which he had obtained from the neighboring woods. "There, mother," he said, pointing to a considerable pile, "you'll have enough sticks to last you a good while." "Thank you, Andy, dear. That'll save Mary and me a good deal of trouble." There was nothing in her words, but something in her tone, which led Andy to ask: "What's the matter, mother? Has anything happened?" "I've got through working for Mrs. Preston, Andy." "Got through? For to-day, you mean?" "No; I'm not going to work there again." "Why not?" "She complained of you, Andy." "What did she say, mother?" asked our hero, listening with attention. "She said you ought not to have struck Godfrey." "Did you tell her he struck me first?" "Yes, I did." "And what did she say, thin?" "She said that you ought not to have struck him back." "And what did you say, mother?" "I said my Andy wasn't the boy to stand still and let anybody beat him." "Good for you, mother! Bully for you! That's where you hit the nail on the head. And what did the ould lady say then?" "She told me I needn't come there again to work." "I'm glad you're not goin', mother. I don't want you to work for the likes of her. Let her do her own ironin', the ould spalpeen!" In general, Andy's speech was tolerably clear of the brogue, but whenever he became a little excited, as at present, it was more marked. He was more angry at the slight to his mother than he would have been at anything, however contemptuous, said to himself. He had that chivalrous feeling of respect for his mother which every boy of his age ought to have, more especially if that mother is a widow. "But, Andy, I'm very sorry for the money I'll lose." "How much is it, mother?" "Seventy-five cents." "I'll make it up, mother." "I know you will if you can, Andy; but work is hard to get, and the pay is small." "You might go back and tell Mrs. Preston that I'm a dirty spalpeen, and maybe she'd take you back, mother." "I wouldn't slander my own boy like that if she'd take me back twenty times." "That's the way to talk, mother," said Andy, well pleased. "Don't you be afeared--we'll get along somehow. More by token, here's three dollars I brought home with me yisterday." Andy pulled out from his pocket six silver half-dollars, and offered them to his mother. "Where did you get them, Andy?" she asked, in surprise. "Where did I get them? One way and another, by overwork. We won't starve while them last, will we?" Andy's cheerful tone had its effect upon his mother. "Perhaps you're right, Andy," she said, smiling. "At any rate we won't cry till it's time." "To-morrow I'll go out and see if I can find work." "Suppose you don't find it, Andy?" suggested his sister. "Then I'll take in washing," said Andy, laughing. "It's an iligant washer I'd make, wouldn't I now?" "Nobody'd hire you more than once, Andy." By and by they had supper. If they had been alone they would have got along on bread and tea; but "Andy needs meat, for he's a growing boy," said his mother. And so Mary was dispatched to the butcher's for a pound and a half of beefsteak, which made the meal considerably more attractive. Mrs. Burke felt that it was extravagant, particularly just as her income was diminished, but she couldn't bear to stint Andy. At first she was not going to eat, herself, meaning to save a part for Andy's breakfast; but our hero found her out, and declared he wouldn't eat a bit if his mother did not eat, too. So she was forced to take her share, and it did her good, for no one can keep up a decent share of strength on bread and tea alone. The next morning Andy went out in search of work. He had no very definite idea where to go, or to whom to apply, but he concluded to put in an application anywhere he could. He paused in front of the house of Deacon Jones, a hard-fisted old farmer, whose reputation for parsimony was well known throughout the village, but of this Andy, being a newcomer, was ignorant. "Wouldn't you like to hire a good strong boy?" he asked, entering the yard. The deacon looked up. "Ever worked on a farm?" "Yes." "Can you milk?" "Yes." "Where did you work?" "In Carver." "What's your name?" "Andy Burke." "Where do you live?" "With my mother, Mrs. Burke, a little way down the road." "I know--the Widder Burke." "Have you got any work for me?" "Wait a minute, I'll see." The deacon brought out an old scythe from the barn, and felt of the edge. There was not much danger in so doing, for it was as dull as a hoe. "This scythe needs sharpening," he said. "Come and turn the grindstone." "Well, here's a job, anyhow," thought Andy. "Wonder what he'll give me." He sat down and began to turn the grindstone. The deacon bore on heavily, and this made it hard turning. His arms ached, and the perspiration stood on his brow. It was certainly pretty hard work, but then he must be prepared for that, and after all he was earning money for his mother. Still the time did seem long. The scythe was so intolerably dull that it took a long time to make any impression upon it. "Kinder hard turnin', ain't it?" said the deacon. "Yes," said Andy. "This scythe ain't been sharpened for ever so long. It's as dull as a hoe." However, time and patience work wonders, and at length the deacon, after a careful inspection of the blade of the scythe, released Andy from his toil of an hour and a half, with the remark: "I reckon that'll do." He put the scythe in its place and came out. Andy lingered respectfully for the remuneration of his labor. "He ought to give me a quarter," he thought. But the deacon showed no disposition to pay him, and Andy became impatient. "I guess I'll be goin'," he said. "All right. I ain't got anything more for you to do," said the deacon. "I'll take my pay now," said Andy, desperately. "Pay? What for?" inquired the deacon, innocently. "For turning the grindstone." "You don't mean ter say you expect anything for that?" said the deacon in a tone of surprise. "Yes I do," said Andy. "I can't work an hour and a half for nothing." "I didn't expect to pay for such a trifle," said the old man, fumbling in his pocket. Finally he brought out two cents, one of the kind popularly known as bung-towns, which are not generally recognized as true currency. "There," said he in an injured tone. "I'll pay you, though I didn't think you'd charge anything for any little help like that." Andy looked at the proffered compensation with mingled astonishment and disgust. "Never mind," he said. "You can keep it. You need it more'n I do, I'm thinkin'!" "Don't you want it?" asked the deacon, surprised. "No, I don't. I'm a poor boy, but I don't work an hour and a half for two cents, one of 'em bad. I'd rather take no pay at all." "That's a cur'us boy," said the deacon, slowly sliding the pennies back into his pocket. "I calc'late he expected more just for a little job like that. Does he think I'm made of money?" As Andy went out of the yard, the idea dawned upon the deacon that he had saved two cents, and his face was luminous with satisfaction. CHAPTER VI THE TWO OLD MAIDS "He's the meanest man I ever saw," thought Andy. "Does he think I work on nothing a year, and find myself? Divil a bit of work will I do for him agin, if I know it." But better luck was in store for Andy. Quarter of a mile farther on, in a two-story house, old-fashioned but neat, lived two maiden ladies of very uncertain age, Misses Priscilla and Sophia Grant. I am not aware that any relationship existed between them and our distinguished ex-President. Nevertheless, they were of very respectable family and connections, and of independent property, owning bank stock which brought them in an annual income of about twelve hundred dollars, in addition to the house they occupied, and half a dozen acres of land thereunto pertaining. Now, this was not a colossal fortune, but in a country place like Crampton it made them ladies of large property. Priscilla was the elder of the two, and general manager. Sophia contented herself with being the echo of her stronger-minded sister, and was very apt to assent to her remarks, either by repeating them, or by saying: "Just so." She was a mild, inoffensive creature, but very charitable and amiable, and so little given to opposition that there was always the greatest harmony between them. They kept a gardener and out-of-door servant of all work, who cultivated the land, sawed and split their wood, ran of errands, and made himself generally useful. He had one drawback, unfortunately. He would occasionally indulge to excess in certain fiery alcoholic compounds sold at the village tavern, and, as natural consequence, get drunk. He had usually the good sense to keep out of the way while under the influence of liquor, and hitherto the good ladies had borne with and retained him in their employ. But a crisis had arrived. That morning he had come for orders while inebriated, and in his drunken folly had actually gone so far as to call Miss Priscilla darling and offer to kiss her. Miss Priscilla was, of course, horrified, and so expressed herself. "Law, Sophia," she said, "I came near fainting away. The idea of his offering to kiss me." "Just so," said Sophia. "So presuming." "Just so." "Of course, I couldn't think of employing him any longer." "Couldn't think of it." "He might have asked to kiss me again." "Just so." "Or you!" "Just so," said Sophia, in some excitement of manner. "The neighbors would talk." "Just so." "So I told him that I was very sorry, but it would be necessary for him to find work somewhere else." "But who will do our work?" inquired Sophia, with a rare, original suggestion. "We must get somebody else." "So we must," acquiesced Sophia, as if she had suddenly received light on a very dark subject. "But I don't know who we can get." "Just so." At that moment there was a knock at the door. Priscilla answered it in person. They kept no domestic servant, only a gardener. "I've brought the load of wood you ordered, ma'am," said the teamster. "Where shall I put it?" "In the backyard. John--no, John has left us. I will show you, myself." She put on a cape-bonnet and indicated the place in the yard where she wanted the wood dumped. Then she returned to the house. "It's very awkward that John should have acted so," she said, in a tone of annoyance. "I don't know who is to saw and split that wood." "We couldn't do it," said Sophia, with another original suggestion. "Of course not. That would be perfectly absurd." "Just so." "I don't believe there is enough wood sawed and split to last through the day." "We must have some split." "Of course. But I really don't know of anyone in the neighborhood that we could get." "John." "John has gone away. You know why." "Perhaps he wouldn't kiss us if we told him not to," suggested Sophia. "I am afraid you are a goose," said Priscilla, composedly. "Just so," slipped out of Sophia's mouth from force of habit, but her sister was so used to hearing it that she took no particular notice of it on the present occasion. It was just at this time that Andy, released from his severe and unrequited labor for Deacon Jones, came by. He saw the wood being unloaded in the back yard, and an idea struck him. "Maybe I can get the chance of sawin' and splittin' that wood. I'll try, anyway. I wonder who lives there?" He immediately opened the front gate, and marching up to the front door, knocked vigorously. "There's somebody at the door," said Sophia. "Perhaps it's John come back," said Priscilla. "I am afraid of going to open it. He might want to kiss me again." "I'll go," said Sophia, rising with unwonted alacrity. "He might want to kiss you." "I'll tell him not to." "We'll both go," said Priscilla, decisively. Accordingly, the two sisters, for mutual protection, both went to the door, and opened it guardedly. Their courage returned when they saw that it was only a boy. "What do you want?" asked Priscilla. "Just so," chimed in Sophia. "You've got a load of wood in the back yard," commenced Andy. "Just so," said Sophia. "Do you want it sawed and split?" "Just so," answered the younger sister, brightening up. "Can you do it?" inquired Priscilla. "Try me and see," answered Andy. "You're not a man." "Just so," chimed in her sister. "Faith, and I soon will be," said Andy. "I can saw and split wood as well as any man you ever saw." "What is your name?" "Andy Burke." "Are you a--Hibernian?" inquired Priscilla. "I don't know what you mane by that same," said Andy, perplexed. "To what nation do you belong?" "Oh, that's what you want, ma'am. I'm only an Irish boy." "And you say your name is Burke?" "Yes, ma'am." "Are you related to Burke, the great orator? He was an Irishman, I believe." "Just so," said Sophia. "He was my great-grandfather, ma'am," answered Andy, who had never heard of the eminent orator, but thought the claim would improve his chances of obtaining the job of sawing and splitting wood. "Your great-grandfather!" exclaimed Priscilla, in astonishment. "Really, this is most extraordinary. And you are poor?" "If I wasn't I wouldn't be goin' round sawin' wood, ma'am." "Just so," said Sophia. "To think that the grandson of the great Burke should come to us for employment," said Priscilla, who was in some respects easily taken in. "I think we must hire him, Sophia." "Just so." "Perhaps he could take John's place altogether." "Just so." "I must find out whether he understands gardening." "Just so." Andy stood by, waiting patiently for the decision, and hoping that it might be favorable. Of course, it was wrong for him to tell a lie, but he thought his engagement depended upon it, and, although a very good boy in the main, he was not altogether perfect, as my readers are destined to find out. CHAPTER VII ANDY OBTAINS A PLACE "Do you understand the care of a garden?" asked Miss Priscilla. "Yes," answered Andy, promptly. "Then you are used to agricultural labor?" "I've been workin' on a farm all summer." "Our man has just left us, and we must hire somebody else." "Just so," chimed in Sophia. "And if you are competent----" "Just so." "Try me," said Andy. "I really think we'd better, Sophia," said Priscilla, turning to her sister. "Just so." "We'll try you for a week. What compensation do you require?" "Is it wages you mane?" Of course, Sophia was the speaker. "How much did you give the man you had before me?" asked Andy, shrewdly. "Twenty-five dollars a month and board." "That'll suit me," said Andy, audaciously. At the farmer's for whom he had been working he had received board and a dollar a week. "But you are a boy. Men folks get more than boys." "I'll do as much work as he did any day," said Andy, stoutly. "I really don't know what to say. I think we'll give you five dollars the first week, and then we will decide about the future." "Just so," said Sophia. "I'm to eat here?" inquired Andy. "Yes, you will make your home here. We will put you in John's room." "When shall I begin?" "We shall need some wood split at once." "All right, ma'am; but it's dinner time. I'll just go home and get a bite to keep up my strength." "You can have your dinner here. It will be ready in half an hour." "Just so." "All right," said Andy; "I'm agreeable." "Do you live in the village?" "I do now. My mother lives up the road a bit." "Very well. Go and split some wood, and we'll call you in to dinner. You'll find the ax and the saw in the shed." Andy found the articles referred to, and straight-way went to work. He was really a "smart boy to work," as the phrase is, and he went to work with a will. He was greatly elated at having secured so profitable a job. He meant to give satisfaction, so as to keep it. Five dollars a week and board seemed to him a magnificent income, and compared very favorably with his wages at Farmer Belknap's, where he had been working all summer. "It's lucky I came here," he said to himself, as he plied the saw energetically; "but what queer old ladies they are, especially the one that's always sayin' 'just so.' If I'd tell her I'd got fifty-seven grand-children I'll bet she'd say, 'Just so.'" Miss Sophia was looking out of the back window to see how their new "man" worked. Occasionally Priscilla, as she was setting the table, glanced out of the window in passing. "He takes hold as if he knew how," she observed. "Just so," responded her sister. "I think he works faster than John." "Just so." "It's very strange that he should be the great-grandson of the great Burke." "Just so." "And that he should be sawing wood for us, too." "Just so." "I think we must be kind to him, sister." "Just so. He won't try to kiss you, Priscilla," said Sophia, with a sudden thought. "You are a goose, sister," said Priscilla. "Just so," assented the other, from force of habit. In due time dinner was ready, and Andy was summoned from the woodpile. He was in nowise sorry for the summons. He had a hearty appetite at all times, and just now it was increased by his unrequited labor in turning the grindstone for Deacon Jones, as well as by the half-hour he had spent at his new task. The Misses Grant did their own work, as I have before observed. They were excellent cooks, and the dinner now upon the table, though plain, was very savory and inviting. Andy's eyes fairly danced with satisfaction as they rested on the roast beef and vegetables, which emitted an odor of a highly satisfactory character. At the farmer's where he had last worked, the table had been plentifully supplied, but the cooking was very rudimentary. "Sit down, Andrew," said Miss Priscilla. "I think that is your name." "They call me 'Andy,' ma'am." "That means Andrew. Shall I give you some meat?" "Thank you, ma'am." "Will you have it rare or well done?" "Well done, ma'am. I have it rare enough, anyhow." "Sophia, Andrew has made a joke," said Priscilla, with a decorous smile. "Just so, Priscilla," and Sophia smiled also. "I suppose your family has been reduced to poverty, Andrew, or you would not be seeking employment of this character?" "True for you, ma'am," said Andy, with his mouth full. "How was your family property lost?" "Faith, ma'am, by speculation," said Andy, hazarding a guess. "That is very sad. Sophia, we must never speculate." "Just so, Priscilla." "Or we might lose all our money." "And have to saw wood for a living," said Sophia, with another brilliant idea. Andy was so amused at the picture thus suggested that he came near choking, but recovered himself, after a violent attack of coughing. "I am afraid, Sophia, we should scarcely make a living in that way," said Priscilla, with a smile. "Just so," acquiesced her sister. "How long have you been in this country, Andrew?" "Six years, ma'am." Andy kept at work industriously. His appetite proved to be quite equal to the emergency, but his evident enjoyment of the dinner only gratified the ladies, who, though eccentric, were kind-hearted, and not in the least mean. "What will I do, ma'am?" asked our hero. "You may go on sawing wood." So Andy resumed work, and worked faithfully during the afternoon. By this time there was a large pile of wood ready for the stove. At half-past four Miss Priscilla appeared at the door. "Andrew," she said. "Yes, ma'am." "Do you feel tired?" "A little, ma'am." "Does your mother know where you are?" "No, ma'am." "Would you like to go home and tell her?" "Yes, ma'am, I would." "You can go now or after supper, as you prefer." "Then I'll go now." "But remember, we want you to come back and sleep here. We do not feel safe without a man in the house." Andy felt rather flattered at being referred to as a man. "I'll be back any time you name, ma'am," he said. "Then be here at nine o'clock." "Very well, ma'am." Andy put on his coat and hurried home. He wanted to tell his mother and Mary the good news about his engagement at such unexpected good wages. Mrs. Burke looked up inquiringly as he entered the house. "Where have you been, Andy?" she asked. "I thought I had lost you." "You don't lose me so easy, mother. Shure, I've been at work." "At work?" "Yes--I've got a place." "What, already? You are lucky, Andy." "You'll think so, mother. How much do you think I get besides board, mind?" "A dollar a week?" "What do you say to three dollars?" "You're a lucky boy, Andy. I'm glad for you." "What do you say to five dollars a week, mother?" asked Andy, in exultation. "You're jokin' now, Andy," said his sister. "I don't believe you've got a place at all." "I have, thin, and it's five dollars a week I'm to get. Ask the ould maids I'm workin' for." "The Miss Grants?" "I expect so. They're mighty queer old ladies. One of 'm is always sayin' 'just so.'" "That is Miss Sophia Grant." "Just so," said Andy, mimicking her. "You mustn't do that, Andy. Then it's them you're workin' for?" "Yes, and they're mighty kind. I'm goin' back to sleep there to-night. They want a man to purtect them." Mary laughed. "Do you call yourself a man, Andy? What could you do if a burglar tried to get in?" "I'd give him what Paddy did the drum," said Andy. "Supper is ready," announced his mother. It was a cheerful meal. Andy had done much better than his mother expected, and it seemed likely that they would get along in spite of her being discharged by Mrs. Preston. CHAPTER VIII THE MIDNIGHT ALARM "It's time for me to be goin' back," said Andy, as the clock indicated twenty minutes to nine. "I wish you could sleep at home, Andy," said his mother. "They want me to purtect them," said our hero, with a little importance. "I'll pack my clothes in a handkerchief." "I've got a little carpetbag," said his mother. "That looks more respectable. When you have earned enough money, you must have a new suit of clothes." "How much will they cost, mother?" "I think we can get a cheap suit for fifteen or twenty dollars. When you have got the money, we will call on the tailor and see." "Shure, I'll feel like a gentleman with a suit like that." "Mary, go and get the carpetbag. I've packed Andy's clothes all ready for him." Mary soon reappeared with the carpetbag, and Andy set out on his return. Presently, as the clock struck nine, he knocked at the door of the Misses Grant. The elder opened the door for him. "You are punctual, Andrew," she said, approvingly. "Yes, ma'am." "Are those your clothes?" pointing to the bag he carried. "What few I've got, ma'am. I'm goin' to buy some more when I've got money enough." "That is right. We want you to look respectable." "Just so," remarked Sophia, who felt that it was time for her to speak. Then a brilliant idea seized her. "If he was a girl, we could give him some of our dresses." "But he isn't," said matter-of-fact Priscilla. "Or if we were men," continued Sophia, with another brilliant idea. "But we are not." "Just so," assented her sister, now brought to the end of her suggestions. By this time Andy was in the house, holding his cap in one hand, and his carpetbag in the other. "Do you feel tired?" asked Priscilla. "Yes, ma'am." "Then, perhaps you would like to go to bed?" "I would, if it's just the same to you, ma'am." "Very well, follow me, and I will show you your room. Sophia, perhaps you had better come, too." They went up the front stairs. The house proper had two rooms on the lower floor, and the two chambers over them. But there was, besides, an extension behind, used as a kitchen, and over this was the room which had been used by John, the former servant. "This is your room, Andrew," said Miss Priscilla. "Sophia, will you lift the latch?" The door being opened, revealed a small chamber, with the ceiling partly sloping. There were two windows. It was very plainly furnished, but looked very comfortable. Andy glanced about him with a look of satisfaction. It was considerably more attractive than the bed in the attic which he had occupied at the house of the farmer for whom he had last worked. "We've put the feather bed at the bottom, as it's summer," said Miss Priscilla. "All right, ma'am." "There's one thing you've forgotten, Priscilla," suggested Sophia. "What is that?" "The gun." "Oh, yes. I am glad you reminded me of it. Andrew, can you fire off a gun?" "Yes, ma'am," said Andrew, glibly. He had never done it, but he had seen a gun fired, and always wanted to make a trial himself. "As you are the only menfolks in the house, we should expect you to fire at any robbers that tried to enter the house." "Do you expect any, ma'am?" asked Andy, eagerly. "No; but some might come. Of course, we cannot fire guns--it would be improper, as we are ladies." "Just so," interrupted Sophia. "So we shall leave that to you. Do you think you would dare to?" "Would I dare, is it?" asked Andy. "Shure, I'd be glad of the chance." "I see you are brave. I'll show you the gun now." She went to the closet in the corner of the room, and pointed out a big, unwieldy musket to Andy. It was in the corner. "Is it loaded, ma'am?" he asked. "Yes; it has been loaded for a year or more. John never had occasion to use it, and I hope you won't. If any robber should come," added the kind-hearted spinster, "perhaps you had better only shoot him in the arm, and not kill him." "Just as you say, ma'am." "I believe that is all I have to say. Sophia, shall we go to our own room?" "Just so." So the two maidens withdrew, and Andy was left to his own reflections. He undressed himself quickly, and deposited himself in the bed, which proved to be very comfortable. He went to bed, but there was one thing that prevented his going to sleep. This was the gun. He had never even had one in his hand, and now there was one at his absolute disposal. It made him feel a sense of his importance to feel that, upon him, young as he was, devolved the duty of defending the house and its occupants from burglary. "And why not? Shure, I'm 'most a man," reflected Andy. "I can shoot off a gun as well as anybody. I wonder will robbers come to-night!" thought Andy. He rather wished they would, so that he might have an excuse for firing the gun. However, of this there seemed very little chance, for had not Miss Priscilla said that it had been loaded for more than a year, and during all that time John had never had occasion to use it? This seemed rather discouraging. "I wonder would they let me go out gunning with it?" thought Andy. Somehow or other, he could not get his mind off the gun, and, after a lapse of an hour, he was as wide awake as ever. Meanwhile, Priscilla and Sophia were both asleep, not being interested in the gun. Finally it occurred to Andy that he would get up and look at the gun. He wanted to make sure that he understood how to fire it. It was important that he should do so, he reasoned to himself, for might not a burglar come that very night? Then, suppose he was unable to fire the gun, and in consequence of his ignorance, both he and the two ladies should be murdered in their beds. Of course, this was not to be thought of, so Andy got out of bed, and, finding a match, lit the candle and put it on the bureau, or chest of drawers, as they called it in the country. Then he stepped softly to the closet and took out the gun. "Murder! how heavy it is!" thought Andy. "I didn't think it was half as heavy. There must be a pound of bullets inside. Now," he said to himself, "suppose a big thafe was to poke his dirty head in at the winder and say, 'Give me all your money, or I'll break your head'--I'd put up with the gun and point at him this way." Here Andy brought the gun into position with some difficulty and put his finger near the trigger. "And I'd say," continued Andy, rehearsing his part, "'Jump down, you thafe, or I'll put a bullet through your head.'" At that unlucky moment his finger accidentally pulled the trigger, and instantly there was a tremendous report, the noise being increased by the shattering of the window panes by the bullet. Probably the charge was too heavy, for the gun "kicked," and Andy, to his astonishment, found himself lying flat on his back on the floor, with the gun lying beside him. "Oh, murder!" ejaculated the bewildered boy, "is it dead I am? Shure, the divil's in the gun. What will the ould wimmen say? They'll think it's bloody burglars gettin' into the house. Shure, I'll slip on my pants, for they'll be coming to see what's happened." He picked himself up, and slipped on his pants. He had scarcely got them on when the trembling voice of Miss Priscilla was heard at the door. CHAPTER IX WHAT FOLLOWED The report of the gun, as may be supposed, had aroused both the ladies from their sleep. "Did you hear it?" ejaculated Miss Priscilla, clutching her sister by the arm. "Just so," muttered Sophia, in bewilderment. "It's the gun." "Burglars!" exclaimed Sophia, in alarm. "I am afraid so. What shall we do?" "Run away," suggested Sophia. "No, we must not leave the boy to be murdered." "Perhaps he has shot them?" said Sophia, with a gleam of hope. "At any rate, it is our duty to go and see what has happened." "I'm afraid," whimpered Sophia, covering up her head. "Then you can stay here," said the more courageous Priscilla. "I will go." "And leave me alone?" "I must." "I'll go too, then," said Sophia, her teeth chattering with fear. So they crept out of bed, and throwing shawls over their shoulders, advanced into the entry, trembling with excitement and fear. "If we should find Andy weltering in his gore?" suggested Priscilla. "Don't say such horrid things, or I shall scream," said her sister. Then came the tremulous knock mentioned at the close of the last chapter. Andy opened the door in person, and met the gaze of the two Miss Grants, Sophia almost ready to drop with fright. "Do you see any gore, Priscilla?" she asked, tremulously. "Are you hurt, Andrew?" asked the elder sister. "No, ma'am." "Did you fire the gun?" "Yes, ma'am." "What made you? Did any burglars try to get in?" "Not exactly, ma'am," said Andy; "but I thought there might be some." "Did you see any?" "Not exactly," said Andy, a little embarrassed; "but I heard a noise." "Just so," said Sophia. "Why didn't you wait till they appeared at the window, Andrew?" "Because, ma'am, they would fire at me first. I wanted to scare 'em away." "Perhaps you were right. You don't see any traces of them outside, do you?" "You can look for yourself, ma'am." The two ladies went to the window, which as already explained, had suffered from the discharge, and peered out timidly, but, of course, saw no burglars. "Are you sure there were any burglars, Andrew?" asked Priscilla. "No, ma'am, I couldn't swear to it." "Well, no harm has been done." "Except breakin' the winder, ma'am." "Never mind; we will have that mended to-morrow." "Were you afraid, Andrew?" asked Miss Sophia. "Not a bit," answered Andy, valiantly. "I ain't afraid of burglars, as long as I have a gun. I'm a match for 'em." "How brave he is!" exclaimed the timid lady. "We might have been killed in our beds. I'm glad we hired him, Priscilla." "As there is nothing more to do, we had better go to bed." "Just so." "That's a bully way to get out of a scrape," said Andy to himself, as the ladies filed out of his chamber. "I expected they'd scold me. Plague take the old gun--it kicks as bad as a mule. Oh, Andy, you're a lucky boy to get off so well." The next day Andy obtained permission to take out the gun in the afternoon when his chores were done. "I want to get used to it, ma'am," he said. "It kicked last night." "Dear me, did it?" asked Sophia. "I didn't know guns kicked. What do they kick with? They haven't got any legs." Andy explained as well as he could what he meant by the gun's kicking, and said it was because it had not been used for a good while, and needed to be taken out. "It needs exercise, just like horses, ma'am," he said. "That is singular, Andrew," said Priscilla. "Just so," observed her sister. "It's a fact, ma'am," said Andy. "It gets skittish, just like horses--but if I take it out sometimes, it'll be all right." "Very well, you may take it, only be careful." "Oh, I'll be careful, ma'am," said Andy, with alacrity. "Now, I'll have some fun," he said to himself. He found a supply of powder and some shot in the closet, and proceeded to appropriate them. "Come back in time for supper, Andrew," said Miss Priscilla. "Yes, ma'am, I'm always on hand at meal times," answered our hero. "That's because he's hungry," said Sophia, brilliantly. "You're right, ma'am," said Andy; "my stomach always tells me when it's supper time." "It's as good as a watch," said Priscilla, smiling. "And a good deal cheaper," observed Sophia, with another brilliant idea. Andy started up the road with his gun over his shoulder. It was his intention after going a little distance to strike into the fields, and make for some woods not far away, where he thought there would be a good chance for birds or squirrels. He hadn't gone many steps before he encountered Godfrey Preston, his antagonist of three days previous. Now, Godfrey hadn't seen or heard anything of Andy since that day. He had learned from his mother with great satisfaction that she had discharged Mrs. Burke from her employment, as this, he imagined, would trouble Andy. But of Andy himself he knew nothing, and was not aware that he had already secured a place. When he saw our hero coming along, his curiosity led him to stop and find out, if he could, where he was going with the gun he carried on his shoulder, and where he obtained it. So he looked intently at Andy, waiting for him to speak, but Andy preferred to leave that to him. "Whose gun is that?" asked Godfrey, in the tone of one who was entitled to ask the question. "Shure, it belongs to the owner," said Andy, with a smile. "Of course, I know that," said Godfrey, impatiently. "I'm not quite a fool." "Not quite," repeated Andy, emphasizing the last word in a way which made Godfrey color. "What do you mean?" he said. "What do I mane? It was only your words I repeated." "Then, don't trouble yourself to repeat them--do you hear?" "Thank you; I won't." "You didn't tell me whose gun that is." "No, I didn't." "Very likely you stole it," said Godfrey, provoked. "Maybe you'll go and tell the owner." "How can I when you haven't told me whose it is?" "No more I did," said Andy with apparent innocence. "Where are you going with it?" "Goin' out shootin'." "So I supposed." "Did you, now? Then what made you ask?" returned Andy. "You are an impudent fellow," said Godfrey, provoked. "I never am impudent to gentlemen," said Andy, pointedly. "Do you mean to say that I am not a gentleman?" demanded the other, angrily. "Suit yourself," said Andy, coolly. "You're only an Irish boy." "Shure, I knew that before. Why can't you tell me some news? I'm an Irish boy and I'm proud of the same. I'll never go back on ould Ireland." "The Irish are a low set." "Are they now? Maybe you never heard of Burke, the great orator." "What of him?" "Shure, he was an Irishman; and isn't my name Andy Burke, and wasn't he my great-grandfather?" "He must be proud of his great-grandson," said Godfrey, sarcastically. "I never axed him, but no doubt you're right. But it's time I was goin', or I shan't get any birds. Would you like to come with me?" "No, I am particular about the company I keep." "I'm not, or I wouldn't have invited you," said Andy, who was rather quicker witted than his opponent. "I should like to know where he got that gun," said Godfrey to himself, following with his eyes the retreating figure of our hero. "I am sure that isn't his gun. Ten to one he stole it from somebody." But Godfrey's curiosity was not destined to be gratified that afternoon, as it might have been if he had seen Andy turning into the yard of the Misses Grant two hours afterward. He had not shot anything, but he had got used to firing the gun, and was not likely to be caught again in any such adventure as that recorded in the last chapter. CHAPTER X ANDY'S DEBUT AT SCHOOL The first of September came, and with it came the opening of the fall schools. On the first day, when Andy, at work in the yard, saw the boys and the girls go by with their books, he felt a longing to go, too. He knew very well that his education had been very much neglected, and that he knew less of books than a boy of his age ought to do. "I wish I could go to school this term," he said to himself; "but it's no use wishin'. Mother needs my wages, and I must keep on workin'." The same thought had come to the Misses Grant. Andy had been in their employ now for six weeks, and by his unfailing good humor and readiness to oblige, had won their favor. They felt interested in his progress, and, at the same moment that the thought referred to passed though Andy's mind, Miss Priscilla said to her sister: "The fall school begins to-day. There's Godfrey Preston just passed with some books under his arm." "Just so." "I suppose Andrew would like to be going to school with other boys of his age." "Just so." "Don't you think we could spare him to go half the day?" "Just so," said Sophia, with alacrity. "There isn't so much work to do now as there was in the summer, and he could do his chores early in the morning. He could go to school in the forenoon and work in the afternoon." "Just so, Priscilla. Shall we give him less wages?" "No, I think not. He needs the money to give his mother." "Call him in and tell him," suggested Sophia. "It will do at dinner time." "Just so." When the dinner was over, and Andy rose from the table, Miss Priscilla introduced the subject. "Are you a good scholar, Andrew?" "I'm a mighty poor one, ma'am." "Did you ever study much?" "No, ma'am, I've had to work ever since I was so high," indicating a point about two feet from the ground. "Dear me," said Sophia, "you must have been very small." "Yes, ma'am, I was very small of my size." "I've been thinking, Andrew, that perhaps we could spare you half the day, so that you could go to school in the forenoon--you could learn something in three hours--should you like it?" "Would I like it, ma'am? Wouldn't I, though? I don't want to grow up a poor, ignorant crathur, hardly able to read and write." "Then you can go to school to-morrow, and ask the teacher if he will take you for half the day. You can get up early, and get your chores done before school." "Oh, yes, ma'am, I can do that easy." "I think we have some schoolbooks in the house. Some years ago we had a nephew stay with us, and go to school. I think his books are still in the closet." "Thank you, ma'am. It'll save me buyin', and I haven't got any money to spare." "We shall give you the same wages, Andrew, though you will work less." "Thank you, ma'am. You're very kind." "Try to improve your time in school, as becomes the great-grandson of such a distinguished orator." "I'll try, ma'am," said Andy, looking a little queer at this allusion to the great Edmund Burke. In fact, he was ashamed of having deceived the kind old ladies, but didn't like now to own up to the deception lest they should lose confidence in him. But he determined hereafter to speak the truth, and not resort to deception. The next morning, at twenty minutes of nine, Andy left the house provided with books, and joyfully took his way to the schoolhouse, which was a quarter of a mile distant. As he ascended the small hill on which it stood, he attracted the attention of a group of boys who had already arrived. Among them was his old adversary, Godfrey Preston. "Is that Irish boy coming to school?" he said in a tone of disgust. "What? Andy Burke? I hope so," said Charles Fleming, "he's a good fellow." "He's only an Irish boy," said Godfrey, with a sneer. "And I am only an American boy," said Charles, good-humoredly. "You can associate with him if you want to; I shan't," said Godfrey. "That's where I agree with you, Godfrey," said Ben Travers, who made himself rather a toady of Godfrey's. Andy had now come up, so that Charles Fleming did not reply, but called out, cordially: "Are you coming to school, Andy?" "Yes," said Andy. "I'm glad of it." "Thank you," said Andy. "What's the matter with them fellows," as Godfrey and Bill Travers walked off haughtily, tossing their heads. Charles Fleming laughed. "They don't think we are good enough for their company," he said. "I'm not anxious for it," said Andy. "I like yours better." "I didn't think you could get away from work to come to school. Are you working for Miss Grant now?" "Yes, but she lets me come to school half the day. She's a bully ould lady." "Well, half a loaf's better than no bread. Will you sit with me? I've got no one at my desk. Say yes." "It's just what I'd like, Charlie, but maybe Godfrey Preston wants to sit with me. I wouldn't like to disappoint him," said Andy, with sly humor. "Sit with me till he invites you, then." "That'll be a long day." They went into the schoolhouse, and Andy deposited his books in the desk next to Charlie Fleming's. He couldn't have wished for a better or more agreeable companion. Charlie was the son of Dr. Fleming, the village physician, and was a general favorite in the town on account of his sunny, attractive manner. But, with all his affability, he was independent and resolute, if need be. He was one of the leaders of the school. Godfrey aspired also to be a leader, and was to some extent on account of his father's wealth and high standing, for, as we have seen, Colonel Preston was not like his son. Still, it is doubtful whether anyone was much attached to Godfrey. He was too selfish in disposition, and offensively consequential in manner, to inspire devoted friendship. Ben Travers, however, flattered him, and followed him about, simply because he was the son of a rich man. Such cases occur sometimes among American schoolboys, but generally they are too democratic and sensible to attach importance to social distinctions in the schoolroom, or in the playground. When the teacher--a certain Ebenezer Stone, a man of thirty or upward--entered, Andy went up to him and asked permission to attend school a part of the time. As there had been such cases in former terms, no objection was offered by the teacher, and Andy went back to his seat, a regularly admitted member of the school. It was found necessary to put him in a low class to begin with. He was naturally bright, but, as we know, his opportunities of learning had been very limited, and he could not be expected to know much. But Andy was old enough now to understand the worth of knowledge, and he devoted himself so earnestly to study that in the course of three weeks he was promoted to a higher class. This, however, is anticipating. When recess came, the scholars poured out upon the playround. Charles Fleming and Godfrey Preston happened to pass out side by side. "I see you've taken that Irish boy to sit with you," he said. "You mean Andy Burke? Yes, I invited him to be my desk-fellow." "I congratulate you on your high-toned and aristocratic associate," observed Godfrey, sarcastically. "Thank you. I am glad to have him with me." "I wouldn't condescend to take him into my seat." "Nor do I. There isn't any condescension about it." "He works for a living." "So does my father, and so does yours. Are you going to cut your father's acquaintance for that reason?" "My father could live without work." "He doesn't choose to, and that's where he shows his good sense." "It's a different kind of work from sawing and splitting wood, and such low labor." "It strikes me, Godfrey, that you ought to have been born somewhere else than in America. In this country labor is considered honorable. You ought to be living under a monarchy." "I don't believe in associating with inferiors." "I don't look upon Andy Burke as my inferior," said Charlie. "He is poor, to be sure, but he is a good fellow, and helps support his mother and sister, as I would do in his place." "Charlie Fleming," was heard from the playground, "come and choose up for baseball." Without waiting for an answer, Charlie ran to the field alongside the schoolhouse, where the game was to take place. CHAPTER XI A GAME OF BALL "Come here," said Conrad Fletcher; "come here, Charlie, and choose up for a game. We must make haste, or recess will be over." "All right, Conrad." The first choice devolved upon Conrad. He chose Ephraim Pinkham, noted as a catcher. "I take Elmer Rhodes," said Charlie. "John Parker," said Conrad. "Henry Strauss." "Godfrey Preston," was Conrad's next choice. "Can you play, Andy?" asked Charlie. "Yes," said Andy. "Then, I take you." "I've a good mind to resign," said Godfrey, in a low voice, to Ben Travers. "I don't fancy playing with that Irish boy." However, he was too fond of playing to give up his place, notwithstanding his antipathy to Andy. Charlie Fleming's side went in first, and Charlie himself went to the bat. The pitcher was Godfrey. He was really a fair pitcher, and considered himself very superior. Charlie finally succeeded in hitting the ball, but rather feebly, and narrowly escaped losing his first base. He saved it, however. Next at the bat was Elmer Rhodes. He hit one or two fouls, but not a fair ball. Finally he was put out on three strikes; meanwhile, however, Charlie Fleming got round to third base. Henry Strauss succeeded in striking the ball, but it was caught by center field, rapidly sent to first base, before Henry could reach it, then thrown to the catcher in time to prevent Charlie Fleming from getting in. He ran half-way to home base, but seeing his danger, ran back to third base. Next Andy took the bat. "Knock me in, Andy," called out Charlie Fleming. "All right" said Andy, quietly. "Not if I can prevent it," said Godfrey to himself, and he determined by sending poor balls, to get our hero out on three strikes. The first ball, therefore, he sent about six feet to the right of the batter. Andy stood in position, but, of course, was far too wise to attempt hitting any such ball. The next ball went several feet above his head. Of this, too, he took no notice. The third would have hit him if he had not dodged. "Why don't you knock at the balls?" asked Godfrey. "I will, when you give better ones," said Andy, coolly. "I don't believe you know how to bat," said Godfrey, with a sneer. "I don't believe you know how to pitch," returned Andy. "How's that?" sending another ball whizzing by his left ear. "I want them waist-high," said Andy. "My waist is about two feet lower than my ears." Godfrey now resolved to put in a ball waist-high, but so swiftly that Andy could not hit it; but he had never seen Andy play. Our hero had a wonderfully quick eye and steady hand, and struck the ball with such force to left field, that not only Charlie Fleming got in, without difficulty, but Andy himself made a home run. "That's a splendid hit," exclaimed Charlie, with enthusiasm. "I didn't think you could play so well." "I've played before to-day," said Andy, composedly. "I told you I would get you in, and I meant what I said." Godfrey looked chagrined at the result. He meant to demonstrate that Andy was no player, but had only contributed to his brilliant success; for, had he not sent in so swift a ball, the knock would not have been so forcible. As there were but six on a side, two outs were considered all out. "Who will catch?" asked Charlie Fleming; "I want to pitch." "I will," said Andy. "All right! If you can catch as you can bat, we'll cut down their score." Andy soon showed that he was no novice at catching. He rarely let a ball pass him. When Godfrey's turn came to bat, one was already out, and Andy determined to put Godfrey out if it was a possible thing. One strike had been called, when Godfrey struck a foul which was almost impossible to catch. But now Andy ran, made a bound into the air, and caught it--a very brilliant piece of play, by which Godfrey and his side were put out. The boys on both sides applauded, for it was a piece of brilliant fielding which not one of them was capable of. That is, all applauded but Godfrey. He threw down his bat spitefully, and said to Fleming: "You didn't give me good balls." "I gave you much better than you gave Andy," said Charlie. "That's so!" chimed in two other boys. "I won't play any more," said Godfrey. Just then the bell rang, so that the game was brought to a close. Andy received the compliments of the boys on his brilliant playing. He received them modestly, and admitted that he probably couldn't make such a catch again. It was very disagreeable to Godfrey to hear Andy praised. He was rather proud of his ball-playing, and he saw that Andy was altogether his superior, at any rate in the opinion of the boys. However, he ingeniously contrived to mingle a compliment with a sneer. "You're more used to baseball than to books," he said. "True for you," said Andy. "You're a head taller than any of the boys in your class." "I know that," said Andy. "I haven't been to school as much as you." "I should be ashamed if I didn't know more." "So you ought," said Andy, "for you've been to school all your life. I hope to know more soon." "Anyway, you can play ball," said Charlie Fleming. "I'd rather be a good scholar." "I'll help you, if you want any help." "Thank you, Charlie." They had now entered the schoolroom, and Andy took up his book and studied hard. He was determined to rise to a higher class as soon as possible, for it was not agreeable to him to reflect that he was the oldest and largest boy in his present class. "Very well," said the teacher, when his recitation was over. "If you continue to recite in this way, you will soon be promoted." "I'll do my best, sir," said Andy, who listened to these words with pleasure. "I wish you were coming in the afternoon, too, Andy," said his friend, Charlie Fleming, as they walked home together. "So do I, Charlie, but I must work for my mother." "That's right, Andy; I'd do the same in your place. I haven't such foolish ideas about work as Godfrey Preston." "He ain't very fond of me," said Andy, laughing. "No; nor of anybody else. He only likes Godfrey Preston." "We got into a fight the first day I ever saw him." "What was it about?" "He called my mother names, and hit me. So I knocked him flat." "You served him right. He's disgustingly conceited. Nobody likes him." "Ben Travers goes around with him all the time." "Ben likes him because he is rich. If he should lose his property, you'd see how soon he would leave him. That isn't a friend worth having." "I've got one consolation," said Andy, laughing; "nobody likes me for my money." "But someone likes you for yourself, Andy," said Charlie. "Who?" "Myself, to be sure." "And I like you as much, Charlie," said Andy, warmly. "You're ten times as good a fellow as Godfrey." "I hope so," said Charlie. "That isn't saying very much, Andy." So the friendship was cemented, nor did it end there. Charlie spoke of Andy's good qualities at home, and some time afterward Andy was surprised by an invitation to spend the evening at Dr. Fleming's. He felt a little bashful, but finally went--nor was he at all sorry for so doing. The whole family was a delightful one, and Andy was welcomed as a warm friend of Charlie's, and, in the pleasant atmosphere of the doctor's fireside, he quite forgot that there was one who looked down upon him as an inferior being. Dr. Fleming had himself been a poor boy. By a lucky chance--or Providence, rather--he had been put in the way of obtaining an education, and he was not disposed now, in his prosperity, to forget his days of early struggle. Andy found that, in spite of the three hours taken up at school, he was able to do all that was required of him by the Misses Grant. They were glad to hear of his success at school, and continued to pay him five dollars a week for his services. This money he regularly carried to his mother, after paying for the new clothes, of which he stood so much in need. CHAPTER XII A LITTLE DIFFICULTY It has already been said that Godfrey Preston was a conceited and arrogant boy. He had a very high idea of his own importance, and expected that others would acknowledge it; but he was not altogether successful. He would like to have had Andy Burke look up to him as a member of a superior class, and in that case might have condescended to patronize him, as a chieftain might in the case of a humble retainer. But Andy didn't want to be patronized by Godfrey. He never showed by his manner that he felt beneath him socially, and this greatly vexed Godfrey. "His mother used to iron at our house," he said to Ben Travers one day; "but my mother discharged her. I don't see why the boys treat him as an equal. I won't, for my part." "Of course, he isn't your equal," said the subservient Ben. "That's a good joke." "He acts as if he was," said Godfrey, discontentedly. "It's only his impudence." "You are right," said Godfrey, rather liking this explanation. "He is one of the most impudent boys I know. I wish my father would send me to a fashionable school, where I shouldn't meet such fellows. That's the worst of these public schools--you meet all sorts of persons in them." "Of course you do." "I suppose this Burke will be a hod-carrier, or something of that kind, when he is a man." "While you are a member of Congress." "Very likely," said Godfrey, loftily; "and he will claim that he was an old schoolmate of mine. It is disgusting." "Of course it is. However, we needn't notice him." "I don't mean to." But in the course of the next week there was an occurrence which compelled Godfrey to "notice" his detested schoolfellow. Among the scholars was a very pleasant boy of twelve, named Alfred Parker. He was the son of a poor widow, and was universally liked for his amiable and obliging disposition. One morning, before school, he was engaged in some game which required him to run. He accidentally ran against Godfrey, who was just coming up the hill, with considerable force. Now, it was very evident that it was wholly unintentional; but Godfrey was greatly incensed. "What do you mean by that, you little scamp?" he exclaimed, furiously. "Excuse me, Godfrey; I didn't mean to run into you." "That don't go down." "Indeed, I didn't. I didn't see you." "I can't help it. You ought to have been more careful. Take that, to make you more careful." As he said this, he seized him by the collar, and, tripping him, laid him flat on his back. "For shame, Godfrey!" said another boy standing by; but as it was a small boy, Godfrey only answered: "If you say that again, I'll serve you the same way." Alfred tried to get up, but Godfrey put his knee on his breast. "Let me up, Godfrey," said Alfred, piteously. "I can't breathe. You hurt me." "I'll teach you to run into me," said the bully. "I didn't mean to." "I want to make sure of your not doing it again." "Do let me up," said Alfred. In return, Godfrey only pressed more heavily, and the little fellow began to cry. But help was near at hand. Andy Burke happened to come up the hill just then, and saw what was going on. He had a natural chivalry that prompted him always to take the weaker side. But besides this, he liked Alfred for his good qualities, and disliked Godfrey for his bad ones. He did not hesitate a moment, therefore, but ran up, and, seizing Godfrey by the collar with a powerful grasp, jerked him on his back in the twinkling of an eye. Then, completely turning the tables, he put his knee on Godfrey's breast, and said: "Now, you know how it is yourself. How do you like it?" "Let me up," demanded Godfrey, furiously. "That's what Alfred asked you to do," said Andy, coolly. "Why didn't you do it?" "Because I didn't choose," answered the prostrate boy, almost foaming at the mouth with rage and humiliation. "Then I don't choose to let you up." "You shall suffer for this," said Godfrey, struggling, but in vain. "Not from your hands. Oh, you needn't try so hard to get up. I can hold you here all day if I choose." "You're a low Irish boy!" "You're lower than I am just now," said Andy. "Let me up." "Why didn't you let Alfred up?" "He ran against me." "Did he mean to?" "No, I didn't, Andy," said Alfred, who was standing near. "I told Godfrey so, but he threw me over, and pressed on my breast so hard that it hurt me." "In this way," said Andy, increasing the pressure on his prostrate enemy. Godfrey renewed his struggles, but in vain. "Please let him up now, Andy," said Alfred, generously. "If he'll promise not to touch you any more, I will." "I won't promise," said Godfrey. "I won't promise anything to a low beggar." "Then you must feel the low beggar's knee," said Andy. "You wouldn't have got me down if I had been looking. You got the advantage of me." "Did I? Well, then, I'll give you a chance." Andy rose to his feet, and Godfrey, relieved from the pressure, arose, too. No sooner was he up than he flew like an enraged tiger at our hero, but Andy was quite his equal in strength, and, being cool, had the advantage. The result was that in a few seconds he found himself once more on his back. "You see," said Andy, "it isn't safe for you to attack me. I won't keep you down any longer, but if you touch Alfred again, I'll give you something worse." Godfrey arose from the ground, and shook his fist at Andy. "I'll make you remember this," he said. "I want you to remember it yourself," said Andy. Godfrey didn't answer, but made his way to the schoolroom, sullenly. "Thank you, Andy," said Alfred, gratefully, "for saving me from Godfrey. He hurt me a good deal." "He's a brute," said Andy, warmly. "Don't be afraid of him, Alfred, but come and tell me if he touches you again. I'll give him something he won't like." "You must be very strong, Andy," said the little boy, admiringly. "You knocked him over just as easy." Andy laughed. "Did you ever know an Irish boy that couldn't fight?" he asked. "I'm better with my fists than with my brains, Alfred." "That's because you never went to school much. You're getting on fast, Andy." "I'm tryin', Alfred," he said. "It's a shame for a big boy like me not to know as much as a little boy like you." "You'll soon get ahead of me, Andy." Meanwhile Godfrey had taken his place in school, feeling far from comfortable. He was outraged by the thought that Andy, whom he regarded as so much beneath him, should have had the audacity to throw him down, and put his knees on his breast. It made him grind his teeth when he thought of it. What should he do about it? He wanted to be revenged in some way, and he meant to be. Finally he decided to report Andy to the teacher, and, if possible, induce him to punish him. "The teacher knows that my father's a man of influence," he said to himself. "He will believe me before that ragamuffin. If he don't, I'll try to get him turned away." When, therefore, the bell rang for recess, and the rest of the scholars hurried to the playground, Godfrey lingered behind. He waited till all the boys were gone, and then went up to the teacher. "Well, Godfrey, what is it?" asked the master. "Mr. Stone, I want to make a complaint against Andrew Burke," said Godfrey. "What has he done?" "He is a brute," said Godfrey, in an excited manner. "He dared to come up behind my back before school began, and knock me down. Then he put his knee on my chest, and wouldn't let me up." "What made him do it?" "He knows I don't like him, and am not willing to associate with him." "Was that all the reason?" asked the teacher, keenly. "I suppose so," said Godfrey. "I was not aware that Andy Burke was quarrelsome," said the teacher. "He behaves well in school." "Because he knows he must." "Very well; I will inquire into the matter after recess." Godfrey went back to his seat, triumphant. He didn't doubt that his enemy would be severely punished. CHAPTER XIII GODFREY'S REBELLION Having made his complaint, Godfrey waited impatiently for the recess to close, in order that he might see retribution fall upon the head of Andy. He had not long to wait. Meanwhile, however, he was missed in the playground. "Where's Godfrey?" asked one of the boys. "He don't want to come out. He got a licking from Andy Burke." "I ain't much sorry. It'll cure him of some of his airs." "I don't know about that. It comes natural to him to put on airs." "If anybody has insulted Godfrey," remarked Ben Travers, his toady, "he had better look out for himself." "Do you hear that, Andy? Ben Travers says you must look out for yourself." "Who's goin' to punish me?" asked Andy. "If it's Ben, let him come on." But Ben showed no disposition to "come on." He could talk and threaten, but when words were to be succeeded by blows he never was on hand. In fact he was a coward, and ought to have kept quiet, but it is just that class that are usually most noisy. Andy had no idea that Godfrey would complain to the teacher in a matter where he was so clearly in the wrong, nor would he if he had not relied upon his father's position to carry him through. "Mr. Stone is a poor man," he thought, "and he won't dare to take the part of a low Irish boy against the only son and heir of Colonel Preston. He knows on which side his bread is buttered, and he won't be such a fool as to offend my father." While he said this he knew that it was very doubtful whether his father would espouse his cause, but then Mr. Stone would probably suppose he would, which would answer the same purpose on the present occasion. When Andy re-entered the schoolroom with the rest of the boys at the termination of recess, he saw Godfrey in his seat. The latter darted at him a glance of malicious triumph. When the noise of entering was over, Mr. Stone said: "Andrew Burke, come forward!" Considerably surprised, Andy came forward, and looked up with a modest self-possession into the teacher's face. "A complaint has been entered against you, Andrew," Mr. Stone began. "What is it, sir?" asked Andy. "You are charged by Godfrey Preston with violently assaulting and throwing him down, just before school commenced. Is this true?" "Yes, sir," answered Andy, promptly. "You are charged with kneeling down upon him, and preventing his getting up." "That is true," said Andy, quite composedly. "I am surprised that you should have acted in this manner," said Mr. Stone. "I did not think you quarrelsome or a bully." "I hope I am not," said Andy. "Did Godfrey tell you why I knocked him over?" "He said it was because he would not associate with you." Andy laughed. "I hope you'll excuse my laughing, sir," he said, respectfully; "but I'd rather associate with any of the boys than with Godfrey. I like him least of all." "Then, that is the reason you attacked him, is it?" "No, sir." "Then, what was it?" "If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to have you ask Alfred Parker." "Alfred Parker," called out the teacher, "come forward." Alfred obeyed. "Do you know why Andrew attacked Godfrey Preston?" "Yes, sir; it was on my account." "On your account! Explain." "This morning, before school, I was playing with another boy, and accidentally ran into Godfrey. He got mad, and threw me over violently. Then he pressed his knee on my breast till I could hardly breathe. I begged him to let me up, but he would not, though he knew that it was only an accident. While I was lying on the ground, Andy Burke came up. He no sooner saw me than he ran up, and threw Godfrey off, and got on him in the same manner, and I think he served him right." As he uttered these last words, Godfrey scowled ominously, but Andy's face brightened up. He was glad that Alfred was brave enough to speak up for him. "This alters the case considerably," said the teacher. "Is there any other boy who witnessed the affair, and can substantiate what has been said? If so, let him raise his hand." Herman Reynolds raised his hand. "Well, Herman, what do you know about it? Were you present?" "Yes, sir, I was. It was just as Alfred said it was." "What have you to say, Godfrey?" asked Mr. Stone, sternly. "I don't mean to be insulted by an Irish boy," said Godfrey, haughtily. "Remember where you are, sir, and speak in a more becoming manner. Did you attack Alfred Parker, as he says?" "He had no business to run into me." "Answer my question." "Yes, I did." "And did you kneel on his breast?" "Yes." "Oblige me by saying, 'Yes, sir.'" "Yes, sir," said Godfrey, reluctantly. "Why do you complain, then, of being treated in a similar manner by Andrew?" "He has no business to touch me." "If he had not interfered when he saw you maltreating his young schoolfellow, I should have been ashamed of him," said the teacher. This so far chimed in with the sentiment of the boys that they almost involuntarily applauded; and one boy, arising, exclaimed: "Three cheers for the teacher!" The three cheers were given with a will, and, though they were, strictly speaking, out of order, Mr. Stone was a sensible man, and the only notice he took of it was to say: "Thank you, boys. I am glad to find that you agree with me on this point, and that your sympathies are with the weak and oppressed. Godfrey Preston, your complaint is dismissed. I advise you to cease acting the part of a bully, or you may get another similar lesson. Andrew, when you exert your strength, I hope it will always be in as just a cause. You may take your seat, and you also, Alfred." The boys would have applauded again, but Mr. Stone said, waving his hand: "Once is enough, boys. Time is precious, and we must now go on with our lessons. First class in arithmetic." Godfrey had been equally surprised and angry at the turn that affairs had taken. He was boiling with indignation, and nervously moved about in his seat. After a slight pause, having apparently taken his determination, he took his cap, and walked toward the door. Mr. Stone's attention was drawn to him. "Where are you going, Godfrey?" he demanded, quickly. "Home," said Godfrey. "You will wait till the end of school." "I would rather not, sir." "It makes no difference what you would rather do, or rather not do. Are you sick?" "No, sir." "Then you have no good cause for leaving, and I shall not permit you to do so." "I have been insulted, sir, and I don't wish to stay." "By whom?" demanded the teacher, sharply. Godfrey would like to have said, "By you," but he saw the teacher's keen eye fixed upon him, and he didn't dare to do it. He hesitated. "By whom?" repeated Mr. Stone. "By Andrew Burke." "That is no good reason for your leaving school, or would not be, if it were true, but it is not. He has only meted out to you the same punishment you undertook to inflict upon a smaller boy. Take your seat." "My father will take me away from school," said Godfrey, angrily. "We shall none of us mourn for your absence. Take your seat." This last remark of the teacher still further incensed Godfrey, and led him temporarily to forget himself. Though he had been bidden to take his seat, he resolved to leave the schoolroom, and made a rush for the door. But Mr. Stone was there before him. He seized Godfrey by the collar and dragged him, shaking him as he proceeded, to his seat, on which he placed him with some emphasis. "That is the way I treat rebels," he said. "You forget yourself, Preston. The next time you make up your mind to resist my commands, count in advance on a much severer lesson." Godfrey was pale with passion, and his hands twitched convulsively. He only wished he had Mr. Stone in his power for five minutes. He would treat him worse than he did Alfred Parker. But a boy in a passion is not a very pleasant spectacle. It is enough to say that Godfrey was compelled to stay in school for the remainder of the forenoon. As soon as he could get away, he ran home, determined to enlist his mother in his cause. CHAPTER XIV MR. STONE IS CALLED TO ACCOUNT At home Godfrey gave a highly colored narrative of the outrageous manner in which he had been abused, for so he chose to represent it. He gave this account to his mother, for his father was not at home. Indeed, he was absent for a day or two in a distant city. Mrs. Preston was indignant. "It is an outrage, Godfrey," she said, compressing her thin lips. "How did Mr. Stone dare to treat you in this way?" "I was surprised, myself," said Godfrey. "Had he no more respect for your father's prominent position?" "It looks as if he didn't." "He is evidently unfit to keep the school. I shall try to persuade your father to have him turned away." "I wish he might be," said Godfrey. "It would teach him to treat me with proper respect. Anybody would think that Irish boy was the son of the most important man in town." Both Godfrey and his mother appeared to take it for granted that a teacher should treat his pupils according to their social position. This is certainly very far from proper, as all my youthful readers will, I hope, agree. "I don't want to go back to school this afternoon, mother," said Godfrey. "I don't wonder," said his mother. "I will tell you what I will do. I will send a letter to Mr. Stone by you, asking him to call here this evening. I will then take occasion to express my opinion of his conduct." "That's good, mother," said Godfrey, joyfully. He knew that his mother had a sharp tongue, and he longed to hear his mother "give it" to the teacher whom he hated. "Then, you think I had better go to school this afternoon?" "Yes, with the note. If Mr. Stone does not apologize, you need not go to-morrow. I will go upstairs and write it at once." The note was quickly written, and, putting it carefully in his inside pocket, Godfrey went to school. As he entered the schoolroom he stepped up to the desk and handed the note to Mr. Stone. "Here is a note from my mother," he said, superciliously. "Very well," said the teacher, taking it gravely. As it was not quite time to summon the pupils, he opened it at once. This was what he read: "MR. STONE: Sir--My son Godfrey informs me that you have treated him in a very unjust manner, for which I find it impossible to account. I shall be glad if you can find time to call at my house this evening, in order that I may hear from your lips an explanation of the occurrence. Yours, in haste, "Lucinda Preston." "Preston," said Mr. Stone, after reading this note, "you may say to your mother that I will call this evening." He did not appear in the least disturbed by the contents of the note he had received from the richest and--in her own eyes--the most important lady in the village. In fact, he had a large share of self-respect and independence, and was not likely to submit to browbeating from anyone. He tried to be just in his treatment of the scholars under his charge, and if he ever failed, it was from misunderstanding or ignorance, not from design. In the present instance he felt that he had done right, and resolved to maintain the justice of his conduct. Nothing of importance occurred in the afternoon. Godfrey was very quiet and orderly. He felt that he could afford to wait. With malicious joy, he looked forward to the scolding Mr. Stone was to get from his mother. "He won't dare to talk to her," he said to himself. "I hope she'll make him apologize to me. He ought to do it before the school." Evidently Godfrey had a very inadequate idea of the teacher's pluck, if he thought such a thing possible. School was dismissed, and Godfrey went home. He dropped a hint to Ben Travers, that his mother was going "to haul Mr. Stone over the coals," as he expressed it. "Are you going to be there?" asked Ben, when Godfrey had finished. "Yes," said Godfrey. "It'll be my turn then." "Perhaps Mr. Stone will have something to say," said Ben, doubtfully. "He won't dare to," said Godfrey, confidently. "He knows my father could get him kicked out of school." "He's rather spunky, the master is," said Ben, who, toady as he was, understood the character of Mr. Stone considerably better than Godfrey did. "I'll tell you all about it to-morrow morning," said Godfrey. "All right." "I expect he'll apologize to me for what he did." "Maybe he will," answered Ben, but he thought it highly improbable. "Did you give my note to Mr. Stone?" asked his mother. "Yes." "What did he say?" "He said he'd come around." "How did he appear?" "He looked a little nervous," said Godfrey, speaking not according to facts, but according to his wishes. "I thought so," said Mrs. Preston, with a look of satisfaction. "He will find that he has made a mistake in treating you so outrageously." "Give it to him right and left, mother," said Godfrey, with more force than elegance. "You might express yourself more properly, my son," said Mrs. Preston. "I shall endeavor to impress upon his mind the impropriety of his conduct." At half-past seven, Mr. Stone rang the bell at Mrs. Preston's door, and was ushered in without delay. "Good-evening, Mrs. Preston," he said, bowing. "Your son brought me a note this afternoon, requesting me to call. I have complied with your request." "Be seated, Mr. Stone," said the lady frigidly, not offering her hand. "Thank you," said the teacher, with equal ceremony, and did as invited. "I suppose you can guess the object of my request," said Mrs. Preston. "I think you stated it in your note." "I desire an explanation of the manner in which you treated my son this forenoon, Mr. Stone." "Pardon me, madam; your son is in the room." "Well, sir?" "I decline discussing the matter before him." "I cannot understand why you should object to his presence." "I am his teacher, and he is subject to my authority. You apparently desire to find fault with the manner in which I have exercised that authority. It is improper that the discussion upon this point should take place before him." "May I stay in the room, mother?" asked Godfrey, who was alarmed lest he should miss the spectacle of Mr. Stone's humiliation. "I really don't see why not," returned his mother. "Madam," said Mr. Stone, rising, "I will bid you good-evening." "What, sir; before we have spoken on the subject?" "I distinctly decline to speak before your son, for the reasons already given." "This is very singular, sir. However, I will humor your whims. Godfrey, you may leave the room." "Can't I stay?" "I am compelled to send you out." Godfrey went out, though with a very ill grace. "Now, madam," said the teacher, "I have no objection to telling you that I first reprimanded your son for brutal treatment of a younger schoolmate, and then forcibly carried him back to his seat, when he endeavored to leave the schoolroom without my permission." It was Mrs. Preston's turn to be surprised. She had expected to overawe the teacher, and instead of that found him firmly and independently defending his course. "Mr. Stone," she said, "my son tells me that you praised an Irish boy in your school for a violent and brutal assault which he made upon him." "I did not praise him for that. I praised him for promptly interfering to prevent Godfrey from abusing a boy smaller and younger than himself." "Godfrey had good cause for punishing the boy you refer to. He acted in self-defense." "He has doubtless misrepresented the affair to you, madam, as he did to me." "You take this Andrew Burke's word against his?" "I form my judgment upon the testimony of an eyewitness, and from what I know of your son's character." "From your own statement, this low Irish boy----" "To whom do you refer, madam?" "To the Irish boy." "I have yet to learn that he is low." "Do you mean to compare him with my son?" "In wealth, no. Otherwise, you mustn't blame me for saying that I hold him entirely equal in respectability, and in some important points his superior." "Really, sir, your language is most extraordinary." At this moment there was an interruption. Godfrey had been listening at the keyhole, but finding that difficult, had opened the door slightly, but in his interest managed to stumble against it. The door flew open, and he fell forward upon his knees on the carpet of the sitting-room. CHAPTER XV MRS. PRESTON'S DISCOMFITURE Godfrey rose to his feet, red with mortification. His mother looked disconcerted. Mr. Stone said nothing, but glanced significantly from Godfrey to Mrs. Preston. "What is the matter, Godfrey?" she asked, rather sharply. "It was an accident," said Godfrey, rather sheepishly. "You can go out and shut the door, and take care not to let such an accident happen again. For some unknown reason, Mr. Stone prefers that you should not be present, and, therefore, you must go." For once, Godfrey found nothing to say, but withdrew in silence. "You appear to have formed a prejudice against Godfrey, Mr. Stone," said Mrs. Preston. "I may have formed an unfavorable judgment of him on some points," said the teacher. "I judge of him by his conduct." "To say that Andrew Burke is his superior is insulting to him and his family, as well as ludicrous." "I beg pardon, Mrs. Preston, but I must dissent from both your statements. Andrew Burke possesses some excellent qualities in which Godfrey is deficient." "He is a poor working boy." "He is none the worse for that." "He should remember his position, and treat my son with proper respect." "I venture to say that Godfrey will receive all the respect to which he is entitled. May I ask if you expect him to be treated with deference, because his father is richer than those of the other boys?" "It seems to me only proper." "Do you expect me to treat him any better on that account?" "I think my son's social position should command respect." "Then, Mrs. Preston, I entirely disagree with you," said Mr. Stone, firmly. "As a teacher, I have nothing whatever to do with the social position of the children who come to me as pupils. From me a poor boy will receive the same instruction, and the same treatment precisely as the son of rich parents. If he behaves as he should, he will always find in me a friend, as well as a teacher. Your son Godfrey shall have no just complaint to make of my treatment. I will give him credit for good conduct and faithful study, but no more than to Andrew Burke, or to any other pupil under the same circumstances." "Mr. Stone, I am surprised at your singular style of talking. You wish to do away with all social distinctions." "I certainly do, madam, in my schoolroom, at least. There must be social differences, I am aware. We cannot all be equally rich or honored, but whatever may be the world's rule, I mean to maintain strict impartiality in my schoolroom." "Will you require Andy Burke to apologize to Godfrey?" "Why should I?" "For his violent assault upon him." "Certainly not. He was justified in his conduct." "If my son was doing wrong, the Irish boy, instead of interfering, should have waited till you came, and then reported the matter to you." "And, meanwhile, stood by and seen Alfred Parker inhumanly treated?" "I presume the matter has been greatly exaggerated." "I do not, madam." "Do I understand that you decline to make reparation to my son?" "Reparation for what?" "For the manner in which he has been treated." "I must have talked to little purpose, if I have not made it clear that your son has only received his deserts. Of course, he is entitled to no reparation, as you term it." "Then, Mr. Stone," said Mrs. Preston, her thin lips compressed with indignation, "since Godfrey cannot meet with fair treatment, I shall be compelled to withdraw him from your school." "That must be as you please, madam," said the teacher, quite unmoved by the threatened withdrawal of his richest pupil. "I shall report to Colonel Preston your treatment of his son." "I have no objection, madam." "You are pursuing a very unwise course in alienating your wealthiest patrons." "I have no patrons, madam," said Mr. Stone, proudly. "I return faithful service for the moderate wages I receive, and the obligation, if there is any, is on the part of those whose children I instruct." "Really," thought Mrs. Preston, "this man is very independent for a poor teacher." She resolved upon another shot, not in the best of taste. "You must not be surprised, Mr. Stone," she said, "if the school trustees refuse to employ you again." "You mistake me utterly," said the teacher, with dignity, "if you suppose that any such threat or consideration will make me swerve from my duty. However, though I did not propose to mention it, I will state that this is the last term I shall teach in this village. I have been engaged at double the salary in a neighboring city." Mrs. Preston was disappointed to hear this. It was certainly vexatious that the man who had treated her son with so little consideration, who had actually taken the part of a working boy against him, should be promoted to a better situation. She had thought to make him feel that he was in her power, but she now saw that her anticipations were not to be realized. As she did not speak, Mr. Stone considered the interview closed, and rose. "Good-evening, Mrs. Preston," he said. "Good-evening, sir," she responded, coldly. He bowed and withdrew. When Godfrey, who was not far off, though he had not thought it best to play the part of eavesdropper again, heard the door close, he hurried into the room. "Well, mother, what did he say?" he inquired, eagerly. "He obstinately refused to make any reparation to you." "Did you tell him what you thought of his treatment of me?" said Godfrey, rather surprised that his mother's remonstrance had produced no greater effect. "Yes, I expressed my opinion very plainly. I must say that he's a very impudent man. The idea of a poor teacher putting on such airs!" continued Mrs. Preston, tossing her head. "What did he say?" "That that Irish boy was superior to you." "I'd like to knock him over," said Godfrey, wrathfully. Mrs. Preston was a lady, and it is not to be supposed that she should join in her son's wish. Still, it did not occur to her that she should mourn very much if Mr. Stone met with a reverse. She would like to see his pride humbled, not reflecting that her own was greater and less justifiable. "You ought to have told him that he would lose his school," said Godfrey. "That would have frightened him, for he is a poor man, and depends on the money he gets for teaching." "He is not going to teach here after this term." "Good! Did he tell you that?" "Yes." "He is afraid of me, after all." "You are mistaken, Godfrey. He is offered considerably higher pay in another place." Godfrey's countenance fell. It was as disagreeable to him as to his mother to learn that Mr. Stone was to be promoted in his profession. "Shall I have to go to school again, mother?" he asked, after a pause. "No," said Mrs. Preston, with energy. "Upon that I have determined. While Mr. Stone is teacher, you shall not go back. I will take care to let it be known in the neighborhood why I keep you at home. I hope the next teacher will be a man who understands the respect due to social position. I don't care to have you put on an equality with such boys as Andrew Burke. He is no fit associate for you." "That is what I think, mother," said Godfrey. "The low beggar! I'd like to come up with him. Perhaps, I shall have a chance some day." When Colonel Preston returned home, the whole story was told to him; but, colored though it was, he guessed how matters actually stood, and was far from becoming his son's partisan. He privately went to Mr. Stone and obtained his version of the affair. "You did right, Mr. Stone," he said, at the end. "If my son chooses to act the bully, he must take the consequences. Mrs. Preston does not look upon it in the same light, and insists upon my taking Godfrey from school. For the sake of peace, I must do so, but you must not construe it as showing any disapproval on my part of your course in the matter." "Thank you, Colonel Preston," said the teacher, warmly. "I can only regret Mrs. Preston's displeasure. Your approval I highly value, and it will encourage me in the path of duty." CHAPTER XVI THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT Godfrey didn't return to school at all. He fancied that it would be more aristocratic to go to a boarding school, and, his mother concurring in this view, he was entered as a scholar at the Melville Academy, situated in Melville, twelve miles distant. Once a fortnight he came home to spend the Sunday. On these occasions he flourished about with a tiny cane, and put on more airs than ever. No one missed him much, outside of his own family. Andy found the school considerably more agreeable after his departure. We will now suppose twelve months to have passed. During this time Andy has grown considerably, and is now quite a stout boy. He has improved also in education. The Misses Grant, taking a kind interest in his progress, managed to spare him half the day in succeeding terms, so that he continued to attend school. Knowing that he had but three hours to learn, when the others had six, he was all the more diligent, and was quite up to the average standard for boys of his age. The fact is, Andy was an observing boy, and he realized that education was essential to success in life. Mr. Stone, before going away, talked with him on this subject and gave him some advice, which Andy determined to follow. As may be inferred from what I have said, Andy was still working for the Misses Grant. He had grown accustomed to their ways, and succeeded in giving them perfect satisfaction, and accomplished quite as much work as John, his predecessor, though the latter was a man. As Christmas approached, Miss Priscilla said one day to her sister: "Don't you think, Sophia, it would be well to give Andrew a Christmas present?" "Just so," returned Sophia, approvingly. "He has been very faithful and obliging all the time he has been with us." "Just so." "I have been thinking what would be a good thing to give him." "A pair of spectacles," suggested Sophia, rather absent-mindedly. "Sophia, you are a goose." "Just so," acquiesced her sister, meekly. "Such a gift would be very inappropriate." "Just so." "A pair of boots," was the next suggestion. "That would be better. Boots would be very useful, but I think it would be well to give him something that would contribute to his amusement. Of course, we must consult his taste, and not out own. We are not boys." "Just so," said Sophia, promptly. "And he is not a lady," she added, enlarging upon the idea. "Of course not. Now, the question is, what do boys like?" "Just so," said Sophia, but this admission did not throw much light upon the character of the present to be bought. Just then Andy himself helped them to a decision. He entered, cap in hand, and said: "If you can spare me, Miss Grant, I would like to go skating on the pond." "Have you a pair of skates, Andrew?" "No, ma'am," said Andy; "but one of the boys will lend me a pair." "Yes, Andrew; you can go, if you will be home early." "Yes, ma'am--thank you." As he went out, Miss Priscilla said: "I have it." "What?" asked Sophia, alarmed. "I mean that I have found out what to give to Andrew." "What is it?" "A pair of skates." "Just so," said Sophia. "He will like them." "So I think. Suppose we go to the store while he is away, and buy him a pair." "Won't he need to try them on?" asked her sister. "No," said Priscilla. "They don't need to fit as exactly as boots." So the two sisters made their way to the village store, and asked to look at their stock of skates. "Are you going to skate, Miss Priscilla?" asked the shopkeeper, jocosely. "No; they are for Sophia," answered Priscilla, who could joke occasionally. "Oh, Priscilla," answered the matter-of-fact Sophia, "you didn't tell me about that. I am sure I could not skate. You said they were for Andrew." "Sophia, you are a goose." "Just so." "It was only a joke." "Just so." The ladies, who never did things by halves, selected the best pair in the store, and paid for them. When Andy had returned from skating, Priscilla said: "How did you like the skating, Andrew?" "It was bully," said Andrew, enthusiastically. "Whose skates did you borrow?" "Alfred Parker's. They were too small for me, but I made them do." "I should suppose you would like to have a pair of your own." "So I should, but I can't afford to buy a pair, just yet. "I'll tell you what I want to do, and maybe you'll help me about buyin' it." "What is it, Andrew?" "You know Christmas is comin', ma'am, and I want to buy my mother a nice dress for a Christmas present--not a calico one, but a thick one for winter." "Alpaca or de laine?" "I expect so; I don't know the name of what I want, but you do. How much would it cost?" "I think you could get a good de laine for fifty cents a yard. I saw some at the store this afternoon." "And about how many yards would be wanted, ma'am?" "About twelve, I should think." "Then it would be six dollars." "Just so," said Sophia, who thought it about time she took part in the conversation. "I've got the money, ma'am, and I'll give it to you, if you and Miss Sophia will be kind enough to buy it for me." "To be sure we will, Andrew," said Priscilla, kindly. "I am glad you are such a good son." "Just so, Andrew." "You see," said Andy, "mother won't buy anything for herself. She always wants to buy things for Mary and me. She wants us to be well-dressed, but she goes with the same old clothes. So I want her to have a new dress." "You want her to have it at Christmas, then?" "Yes, ma'am, if it won't be too much trouble." "That is in two days. To-morrow, Sophia and I will buy the dress." "Thank you. Here's the money," and Andy counted out six dollars in bills, of which Miss Priscilla took charge. The next day they fulfilled their commission, and purchased a fine dress pattern at the village store. It cost rather more than six dollars, but this they paid out of their own pockets, and did not report to Andy. Just after supper, as he was about to go home to spend Christmas Eve, they placed the bundle in his hands. "Isn't it beautiful!" he exclaimed, with delight. "Won't mother be glad to get it?" "She'll think she has a good son, Andrew." "Shure, I ought to be good to her, for she's a jewel of a mother." "That is right, Andrew. I always like to hear a boy speak well of his mother. It is a great pleasure to a mother to have a good son." "Shure, ma'am," said Andy, with more kindness of heart than discretion, "I hope you'll have one yourself." "Just so," said Sophia, with the forced habit upon her. "Sophia, you are a goose!" said Priscilla, blushing a little. "Just so, Priscilla." "We are too old to marry, Andrew," said Priscilla; "but we thank you for your wish." "Shure, ma'am, you are only in the prime of life." "Just so," said Sophia, brightening up. "I shall be sixty next spring. That can hardly be in the prime of life." "I was readin' of a lady that got married at seventy-nine, ma'am." "Just so," said Sophia, eagerly. Miss Priscilla did not care to pursue the subject. "We have thought of you," she continued, "and, as you have been very obliging, we have bought you a Christmas present. Here it is." Andy no sooner saw the skates than his face brightened up with the most evident satisfaction. "It's just what I wanted," he said, joyfully. "They're regular beauties! I'm ever so much obliged to you." "Sophia wanted to get you a pair of spectacles, but I thought these would suit you better." Andy went off into a fit of laughter at the idea, in which both the ladies joined him. Then, after thanking them again, he hurried home, hardly knowing which gave him greater pleasure, his own present, or his mother's. I will not stop to describe Andy's Christmas, for this is only a retrospect, but carry my reader forward to the next September, when Andy met with an adventure, which eventually had a considerable effect upon his fortunes. CHAPTER XVII INTRODUCES AN ADVENTURER Colonel Preston, as I have already said, was a rich man. He owned no real estate in the town of Crampton, except the house in which he lived. His property was chiefly in stocks of different kinds. Included in these was a considerable amount of stock in a woolen manufacturing establishment, situated in Melville, some twelve miles distant. Dividends upon these were paid semi-annually, on the first of April and October. It was the custom of Colonel Preston at these dates to drive over to Melville, receive his dividends, and then drive back again. Now, unfortunately for the welfare of the community, there are some persons who, unwilling to make a living by honest industry, prefer to possess themselves unlawfully of means to maintain their unprofitable lives. Among them was a certain black-whiskered individual, who, finding himself too well known in New York, had sought the country, ready for any stroke of business which might offer in his particular line. Chance led his steps to Melville, where he put up at the village inn. He began at once to institute inquiries, the answers to which might serve his purpose, and to avert suspicion, casually mentioned that he was a capitalist, and thought of settling down in the town. As he was well dressed, and had a plausible manner, this statement was not doubted. Among other things, he made inquiries in regard to the manufactory, what dividends it paid, and when. Expressing himself desirous of purchasing some stock, he inquired the names of the principal owners of the stock. First among them was mentioned Colonel Preston. "Perhaps he might sell some stocks," suggested the landlord. "Where can I see him?" asked James Fairfax, for this was the name assumed by the adventurer. "You can see him here," answered the landlord, "in a day or two. He will be here the first of the month to receive his dividends." "Will he stop with you?" "Probably. He generally dines with me when he comes over." "Will you introduce me?" "With pleasure." Mr. Fairfax appeared to hear this with satisfaction, and said that he would make Colonel Preston an offer for a part of his stock. "Most of my property is invested in real estate in New York," he said; "but I should like to have some manufacturing stock; and, from what you tell me, I think favorably of the Melville Mills." "We should be glad to have you settle down among us," said the landlord. "I shall probably do so," said Fairfax. "I am very much pleased with your town and people." In due time Colonel Preston drove over. As usual, he put up at the hotel. "Colonel," said the landlord, "there's a gentleman stopping with me who desires an introduction to you." "Indeed! What is his name?" "James Fairfax." "Is he from this neighborhood?" "No; from the city of New York." "I shall be happy to make his acquaintance," said the colonel, courteously; "but it must be after I return from the mills. I shall be there a couple of hours, probably. We are to have a directorial meeting." "I will tell him." Colonel Preston attended the directors' meeting, and also collected his dividend, amounting to eight hundred dollars. These, in eight one-hundred-dollar bills, he put in his pocketbook, and returned to the hotel for dinner. "Dinner is not quite ready, colonel," said the landlord. "It will be ready in fifteen minutes." "Where is the gentleman who wished to be introduced to me?" asked Colonel Preston, who thought it would save time to be introduced now. "I will speak to him." He went directly to a dark-complexioned man with black whiskers, and eyes that were rather sinister in appearance. The eyes oftenest betray the real character of a man, where all other signs fail. But Colonel Preston was not a keen observer, nor was he skilled in physiognomy, and, judging of Mr. Fairfax by his manner merely, was rather pleased with him. "You will pardon my obtruding myself upon you, Colonel Preston," said the stranger, with great ease of manner. "I am happy to make your acquaintance, sir." "I am a stranger in this neighborhood. The city of New York is my home. I have been led here by the recommendations of friends who knew that I desired to locate myself in the country." "How do you like Melville?" "Very much--so much, that I may settle down here. But, Colonel Preston, I am a man of business, and if I am to be here, I want some local interest--some stake in the town itself." "Quite natural, sir." "You are a business man yourself, and will understand me. Now, to come to the point, I find you have a manufactory here--a woolen manufactory, which I am given to understand is prosperous and profitable." "You are correctly informed, Mr. Fairfax. It is paying twelve per cent. dividends, and has done so for several years." "That is excellent. It is a better rate than I get for most of my city investments." "I also have city investments--bank stocks, and horse-railroad stocks, but, as you say, my mill stock pays me better than the majority of these." "You are a large owner of the mill stock; are you not, Colonel Preston?" "Yes, sir; the largest, I believe." "So I am informed. Would you be willing to part with any of it?" "I have never thought of doing so. I am afraid I could not replace it with any other that would be satisfactory." "I don't blame you, of course, but it occurred to me that, having a considerable amount, you might be willing to sell." "I generally hold on to good stock when I get possession of it. Indeed, I would buy more, if there were any in the market." "He must have surplus funds," thought the adventurer. "I must see if I can't manage to get some into my possession." Here the landlord appeared, and announced that dinner was ready. "You dine here, then?" said Fairfax. "Yes; it will take me two hours to reach home, so I am obliged to dine here." "We shall dine together, it seems. I am glad of it, as at present I happen to be the only permanent guest at the hotel. May I ask where you live?" "In Crampton." "I have heard favorably of it, and have been intending to come over and see the place, but the fact is, I am used only to the city, and your country roads are so blind, that I have been afraid of losing my way." "Won't you ride over with me this afternoon, Mr. Fairfax? I can't bring you back, but you are quite welcome to a seat in my chaise one way." The eyes of the adventurer sparkled at the invitation. Colonel Preston had fallen into the trap he had laid for him, but he thought it best not to accept too eagerly. "You are certainly very kind, Colonel Preston," he answered, with affected hesitation, "but I am afraid I shall be troubling you too much." "No trouble whatever," said Colonel Preston, heartily. "It is a lonely ride, and I shall be glad of a companion." "A lonely ride, is it?" thought Fairfax. "All the better for my purpose. It shall not be my fault if I do not come back with my pockets well lined. The dividends you have just collected will be better in my pockets than in yours." This was what he thought, but he said: "Then I will accept with pleasure. I suppose I can easily engage someone to bring me back to Melville?" "Oh, yes; we have a livery stable, where you can easily obtain a horse and driver." The dinner proceeded, and Fairfax made himself unusually social and agreeable, so that Colonel Preston congratulated himself on the prospect of beguiling the loneliness of the way in such pleasant company. Fairfax spoke of stocks with such apparent knowledge that the colonel imagined him to be a gentleman of large property. It is not surprising that he was deceived, for the adventurer really understood the subject of which he spoke, having been for several years a clerk in a broker's counting-room in Wall Street. The loss of his situation was occasioned by his abstraction of some securities, part of which he had disposed of before he was detected. He was, in consequence, tried and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. At the end of this period he was released, with no further taste for an honest life, and had since allied himself to the class who thrive by preying upon the community. This was the man whom Colonel Preston proposed to take as his companion on his otherwise lonely ride home. CHAPTER XVIII RIDING WITH A HIGHWAYMAN "Get into the chaise, Mr. Fairfax," said Colonel Preston. "Thank you," said the adventurer, and accepted the invitation. "Now we are off," said the colonel, as he took the reins, and touched the horse lightly with the whip. "Is the road a pleasant one?" inquired Fairfax. "The latter part is rather lonely. For a mile it runs through the woods--still, on a summer day, that is rather pleasant than otherwise. In the evening, it is not so agreeable." "No, I suppose not," said Fairfax, rather absently. Colonel Preston would have been startled could he have read the thoughts that were passing through the mind of his companion. Could he have known his sinister designs, he would scarcely have sat at his side, chatting so easily and indifferently. "I will postpone my plan till we get to that part of the road he speaks of," thought Fairfax. "It would not do for me to be interrupted." "I suppose it is quite safe traveling anywhere on the road," remarked the adventurer. "Oh, yes," said Colonel Preston, with a laugh. "Thieves and highway robbers do not pay us the compliment of visiting our neighborhood. They keep in the large cities, or in places that will better reward their efforts." "Precisely," said Fairfax; "I am glad to hear it, for I carry a considerable amount of money about me." "So do I, to-day. This is the day for payment of mill dividends, and as I have occasion to use the money, I did not deposit it." "Good," said Fairfax, to himself. "That is what I wanted to find out." Aloud he said: "Oh, well, there are two of us, so it would be a bold highwayman that would venture to attack us. Do you carry a pistol?" "Not I," said Colonel Preston. "I don't like the idea of carrying firearms about with me. They might go off by mistake. I was reading in a daily paper, recently, of a case where a man accidentally shot his son with the pistol he was in the habit of carrying about with him." "There is that disadvantage, to be sure," said Fairfax. "So, he has no pistol. He is quite in my power," he said to himself. "It's a good thing to know." "By the way," he asked, merely to keep up the conversation, "are you a family man, Colonel Preston?" "Yes, sir; I have a wife, and a son of fifteen." "You have the advantage of me in that respect. I have always been devoted to business, and have had no time for matrimony." "Time enough yet, Mr. Fairfax." "Oh, yes, I suppose so." "If you are going to settle down in our neighborhood, I can introduce you to some of our marriageable young ladies," said Colonel Preston, pleasantly. "Thank you," said Fairfax; in the same tone. "I may avail myself of your offer." "Won't you take supper at my home this evening?" said the colonel, hospitably. "I shall be glad to introduce Mrs. Preston. My son is at boarding school, so I shall not be able to let you see him." "Have you but one child, then?" "But one. His absence leaves us alone." Godfrey's absence would have been lamented more by his father, had his character and disposition been different. But he was so arrogant and overbearing in his manners, and so selfish, that his father hoped that association with other boys would cure him in part of these objectionable traits. At home, he was so much indulged by his mother, who could see no fault in him, as long as he did not oppose her, that there was little chance of amendment. So they rode on, conversing on various topics, but their conversation was not of sufficient importance for me to report. At length they entered on a portion of the road lined on either side by a natural forest. Fairfax looked about him. "I suppose, Colonel Preston, these are the woods you referred to?" "Yes, sir." "How far do they extend?" "About a mile." They had traversed about half a mile, when Fairfax said: "If you don't object, Colonel Preston, I will step out a moment. There's a tree with a peculiar leaf. I would like to examine it nearer to." "Certainly, Mr. Fairfax," said the colonel, though he wondered what tree it could be, for he saw no tree of an unusual character. The chaise stopped and Fairfax jumped off. But he seemed to have forgotten the object of dismounting. Instead of examining the foliage of a tree, he stepped to the horse's head, and seized him by the bridle. "What are you going to do, Mr. Fairfax?" asked Colonel Preston, in surprise. By this time Fairfax had withdrawn a pistol from his inside pocket, and deliberately pointed it at his companion. "Good heavens! Mr. Fairfax, what do you mean?" "Colonel Preston," said the adventurer, "I want all the money you have about you. I know you have a considerable sum, for you have yourself acknowledged it." "Why," exclaimed Colonel Preston, startled, "this is highway robbery." "Precisely!" said Fairfax, bowing mockingly. "You have had the honor of riding with a highwayman. Will you be good enough to give me the money at once? I am in haste." "Surely, this is a joke, Mr. Fairfax. I have heard of such practical jokes before. You are testing my courage. I am not in the least frightened. Jump in the chaise again, and we will proceed." "That's a very kind way of putting it," said Fairfax, coolly; "but not correct. I am no counterfeit, but the genuine article. Fairfax is not my name. I won't tell you what it is, for it might be inconvenient." No man can look with equanimity upon the prospect of losing money, and Colonel Preston may be excused for not wishing to part with his eight hundred dollars. But how could he escape? He had no pistol, and Fairfax held the horse's bridle in a strong grasp. If he could only parley with him till some carriage should come up, he might save his money. It seemed the only way, and he resolved to try it. "Mr. Fairfax," he said, "if you are really what you represent, I hope you will consider the natural end of such a career. Turn, I entreat you, to a more honest course of life." "That may come some time," said Fairfax; "but at present my necessities are too great. Oblige me by producing your pocketbook." "I will give you one hundred dollars, and keep the matter a secret from all. That will be better than to expose yourself to the penalty of the law." "Colonel Preston, a hundred dollars will not satisfy me. You have eight hundred dollars with you, and I shall not leave this spot till it is transferred to my possession." "If I refuse?" "You will subject me to the unpleasant alternative of blowing your brains out," said the other, coolly. "You surely would not be guilty of such a crime, Mr. Fairfax?" said Colonel Preston, with a shudder. "I would rather not. I have no desire to take your life, but I must have that money. If you prefer to keep your money, you will compel me to the act. You'll gain nothing, for in that case I shall take both--your life first, and your money afterward." "And this is the man with whom I dined, and with whom, a few moments since, I was conversing freely!" thought Colonel Preston. The adventurer became impatient. "Colonel Preston," he said, abruptly, "produce that money instantly, or I will fire." There was no alternative. With reluctant hand the colonel drew out his pocketbook, and was about to hand it with its contents to the highwayman, when there was a sudden crash in the bushes behind Fairfax, his pistol was dashed from his hand, and our young hero, Andy Burke, with resolute face, stood with his gun leveled at him. All happened so quickly that both Colonel Preston and Fairfax were taken by surprise, and the latter, still retaining his hold upon the bridle, stared at the young hero, who had so intrepidly come between him and his intended victim. With an oath he stopped, and was about to pick up the pistol which had fallen from his hands, but was arrested by the quick, decisive tones of Andy: "Let that pistol alone! If you pick it up, I will shoot you on the spot." CHAPTER XIX BAFFLED A ROBBER Fairfax paused at Andy's threat. He was only a boy, it is true, but he looked cool and resolute, and the gun, which was pointed at him, looked positively dangerous. But was he to be thwarted in the very moment of his triumph, by a boy? He could not endure it. "Young man," he said, "this is dangerous business for you. If you don't make yourself scarce, you won't be likely to return at all." "I'll take the risk," said Andy, coolly. "Confound him! I thought he'd be frightened," said Fairfax to himself. "I don't want to kill you," he said, with a further attempt to intimidate Andy. "I don't mean to let you," said our hero, quietly. "You are no match for me." "With a gun I am." "I don't believe it is loaded." "If you try to pick up that pistol, I'll convince you; by the powers, I will," said Andy, energetically. "What is to prevent my taking away the gun from you?" "Faith," returned Andy, quaintly, "you'll take the powder and ball first, I'm thinkin'." Fairfax thought so, too, and that was one reason why he concluded not to try it. It was certainly a provoking position for him. There lay the pistol on the ground, just at his feet; yet, if he tried to pick it up, the boy would put a bullet through him. It was furthermore provoking to reflect that, had he not stopped to parley with Colonel Preston, he might have secured the money, which he so much desired, before Andy had come up. There was one other resource. He had tried bullying, and without success. He would try cajoling and temptation. "Look here, boy," he said, "I am a desperate man. I would as leave murder you as not." "Thank you," said Andy. "But I'd rather not have it done." "I don't want to hurt you, as I said before, but you mustn't interfere with me." "Then you mustn't interfere with the colonel." "I must have the money in his pocketbook." "Must you? Maybe, I'll have something to say, to that." "He has eight hundred dollars with him." "Did he tell you?" "No matter; I know. If you won't interfere with me, I'll give you two hundred of it." "Thank you for nothing, then," said Andy, independently. "I'm only a poor Irish boy, but I ain't a thafe, and never mane to be." "Bravo, Andy!" said Colonel Preston, who had awaited with a little anxiety the result of the offer. Fairfax stooped suddenly, but before he could get hold of the pistol, Andy struck him on the head with the gun-barrel, causing him to roll over, while, in a quick and adroit movement, he himself got hold of the pistol before Fairfax had recovered from the crack on his head. "Now," said Andy, triumphantly, with the gun over his shoulder, and presenting the pistol, "lave here mighty quick, or I'll shoot ye." "Give me back the pistol, then," said the discomfited ruffian. "I guess not," said Andy. "It's my property." "I don't know that. Maybe you took it from some thraveler." "Give it to me, and I'll go off peaceably." "I won't take no robber's word," said Andy. "Are you goin'?" "Give me the pistol. Fire it off, if you like." "That you may load it again. You don't catch a weasel asleep," answered Andy, shrewdly. "I've a great mind to make you march into the village, and give you up to the perlice." This suggestion was by no means pleasant for the highwayman, particularly as he reflected that Andy had shown himself a resolute boy, and doubly armed as he now was, it was quite within his power to carry out his threat. "Don't fire after me," he said. "I never attack an inimy in the rare," said Andy, who always indulged in the brogue more than usual under exciting circumstances. I make this explanation, as the reader may have noticed a difference in his dialect at different times. "We shall meet again, boy!" said Fairfax, menacingly, turning at the distance of a few feet. "Thank you, sir. You needn't thrubble yourself," said Andy, "I ain't anxious to mate you." "When we do meet, you'll know it," said the other. "Maybe I will. Go along wid ye!" said Andy, pointing the pistol at him. "Don't shoot," said Fairfax, hastily, and he quickened his pace to get out of the way of a dangerous companion. Andy laughed as the highwayman disappeared in the distance. "I thought he wouldn't wait long," he said. "Andy," said Colonel Preston, warmly, "you have behaved like a hero." "I'm only an Irish boy," said Andy, laughing. "Shure, they don't make heroes of such as I." "I don't care whether you are Irish or Dutch. You are a hero for all that." "Shure, sir, it's lucky I was round whin that spalpeen wanted to rob you." "How did you happen to be out with a gun this afternoon?" "I got my work all done, and Miss Grant said I might go out shootin' if I wanted. Shure, I didn't expect it 'ud been robbers I would be afther shootin'." "You came up just in the nick of time. Weren't you afraid?" "I didn't stop to think of that when I saw that big blackguard p'intin' his pistol at you. I thought I'd have a hand in it myself." "Jump into the chaise, Andy, and ride home with me." "What, wid the gun?" "To be sure. We won't leave the gun. That has done us too good service already to-day." "I've made something out of it, anyway," said Andy, displaying the pistol, which was silver-mounted, and altogether a very pretty weapon. "It's a regular beauty," he said, with admiration. "It will be better in your hands than in the real owner's," said Colonel Preston. By this time Andy was in the chaise, rapidly nearing the village. "If you hadn't come up just as you did, Andy, I should have been poorer by eight hundred dollars." "That's a big pile of money," said Andy, who, as we know, was not in the habit of having large sums of money in his own possession. "It is considerably more than I would like to lose," said Colonel Preston, to whom it was of less importance than to Andy. "I wonder will I ever have so much money?" thought Andy. "Now, I'll tell you what I think it only right to do, Andy," pursued the colonel. Andy listened attentively. "I am going to make you a present of some money, as an acknowledgment of the service you have done me." "I don't want anything, Colonel Preston," said Andy. "I didn't help you for the money." "I know you didn't, my lad," said the colonel, "but I mean to give it to you all the same." He took out his pocketbook, but Andy made one more remonstrance. "I don't think I ought to take it, sir, thankin' you all the same." "Then I will give you one hundred dollars for your mother. You can't refuse it for her." Andy's eyes danced with delight. He knew how much good this money would do his mother, and relieve her from the necessity of working so hard as she was now compelled to do. "Thank you, sir," he said. "It'll make my mother's heart glad, and save her from the hard work." "Here is the money, Andy," said the colonel, handing his young companion a roll of bills. Again Andy poured out warm protestations of gratitude for the munificent gift, with which Colonel Preston was well pleased. "I believe you are a good boy, Andy," he said. "It is a good sign when a boy thinks so much of his mother." "I'd be ashamed not to, sir," said Andy. They soon reached the village. Andy got down at the Misses Grant's gate, and was soon astonishing the simple ladies by a narrative of his encounter with the highwayman. "Do you think he'll come here?" asked Sophia, in alarm. "If he should come when Andy was away----" "You could fire the gun yourself, Sophia." "I should be frightened to death." "Then he couldn't kill you afterward." "Just so," answered Sophia, a little bewildered. "Were you shot, Andrew?" she asked, a minute afterward. "If I was, I didn't feel it," said Andy, jocosely. Andy's heroic achievement made him still more valued by the Misses Grant, and they rejoiced in the handsome gift he had received from the colonel, and readily gave him permission to carry it to his mother after supper. CHAPTER XX HOW THE NEWS WAS RECEIVED It is always pleasant to carry good news, and Andy hastened with joyful feet to his mother's humble dwelling. "Why, Andy, you're out of breath. What's happened?" asked Mrs. Burke. "I was afraid of bein' robbed," said Andy. "The robber wouldn't get much that would steal from you, Andy." "I don't know that, mother. I ain't so poor as you think. Look there, now!" Here he displayed the roll of bills. There were twenty fives, which made quite a thick roll. "Where did you get so much, Andy?" asked his sister Mary. "How much is it?" asked his mother. "A hundred dollars," answered Andy, proudly. "A hundred dollars!" repeated his mother, with apprehension. "Oh, Andy, I hope you haven't been stealing?" "Did you ever know me to stale, mother?" said Andy. "No, but I thought you might be tempted. Whose money is it?" "It's yours, mother." "Mine!" exclaimed Mrs. Burke, in astonishment. "You're joking now, Andy." "No, I'm not. It's yours." "Where did it come from, then?" "Colonel Preston sent it to you as a present." "I am afraid you are not tellin' me the truth, Andy," said his mother, doubtfully. "Why should he send me so much money?" "Listen, and I'll tell you, mother, and you'll see it's the truth I've been tellin'." Thereupon he told the story of his adventure with the highwayman and how he had saved Colonel Preston from being robbed. His mother listened with pride, for though Andy spoke modestly, she could see that he had acted in a brave and manly way, and it made her proud of him. "So the colonel," Andy concluded, "wanted to give me a hundred dollars, but I didn't like to take it myself. But when he said he would give it to you, I couldn't say anything ag'inst that. So here it is, mother, and I hope you'll spend some of it on yourself." "I don't feel as if it belonged to me, Andy. It was you that he meant it for." "Keep it, mother, and it'll do to use when we nade it." "I don't like to keep so much money in the house, Andy. We might be robbed." "You can put part of it in the savings bank, mother." This course was adopted, and Andy himself carried eighty dollars, and deposited it in a savings bank in Melville, a few days afterward. Meanwhile Colonel Preston told the story of Andy's prowess, at home. But Mrs. Preston was prejudiced against Andy, and listened coldly. "It seems to me, Colonel Preston," she said, "you are making altogether too much of that Irish boy. He puts on enough airs to make one sick already." "I never observed it, my dear," said the colonel, mildly. "Everyone else does. He thought himself on a level with our Godfrey." "He is Godfrey's superior in some respects." "Oh, well, if you are going to exalt him above your own flesh and blood, I won't stay and listen to you." "You disturb yourself unnecessarily, my dear. I have no intention of adopting him in place of my son. But he has done me a great service this after-noon, and displayed a coolness and courage very unusual in a boy of his age. But for him, I should be eight hundred dollars poorer." "Oh, well, you can give him fifty cents, and he will be well paid for his services, as you call them." "Fifty cents!" repeated her husband. "Well, a dollar, if you like." "I have given him a hundred dollars." "A hundred dollars!" almost screamed Mrs. Preston, who was a very mean woman. "Are you insane?" "Not that I am aware of, my dear." "It is perfectly preposterous to give such a sum to such a boy." "I ought to say that I gave it to him for his mother. He was not willing to accept it for himself." "That's a likely story," said Mrs. Preston, incredulously. "He only wants to make a favorable impression upon you--perhaps to get more out of you." "You misjudge him, my dear." "I know he is an artful, intriguing young rascal. You give him a hundred dollars, yet you refused to give Godfrey ten dollars last week." "For a very good reason. He has a liberal allowance, and must keep within it. He did not need the money he asked for." "Yet you lavish a hundred dollars on this boy." "I felt justified in doing so. Which was better, to give him that sum, or to lose eight hundred?" "I don't like the boy, and I never shall. I suppose he will be strutting around, boasting of his great achievement. If he had a gun it was nothing to do." "I suspect Godfrey would hardly have ventured upon it," said the colonel, smiling. "Oh, of course, Godfrey is vastly inferior to the Irish boy!" remarked Mrs. Preston, ironically. "You admire the family so much that I suppose if I were taken away, you would marry his mother and establish her in my place." "If you have any such apprehensions, my dear, your best course is to outlive her. That will effectually prevent my marrying her, and I pledge you my word that, while you are alive, I shall not think of eloping with her." "It is very well to jest about it," said Mrs. Preston, tossing her head. "I am precisely of your opinion, my dear. As you observe, that is precisely what I am doing." So the interview terminated. It was very provoking to Mrs. Preston that her husband should have given away a hundred dollars to Andy Burke's mother, but the thing was done, and could not be undone. However, she wrote an account of the affair to Godfrey, who, she knew, would sympathize fully with her view of the case. I give some extracts from her letter: "Your father seems perfectly infatuated with that low Irish boy. Of course, I allude to Andy Burke. He has gone so far as to give him a hundred dollars. Yesterday, in riding home from Melville, with eight hundred dollars in his pocketbook, he says he was stopped by a highwayman, who demanded his money or his life. Very singularly, Andy came up just in the nick of time with a gun, and made a great show of interfering, and finally drove the man away, as your father reports. He is full of praise of Andy, and, as I said, gave him a hundred dollars, when two or three would have been quite enough, even had the rescue been real. But of this I have my doubts. It is very strange that the boy should have been on the spot just at the right time, still more strange that a full-grown man should have been frightened away by a boy of fifteen. In fact, I think it is what they call a 'put-up job.' I think the robber and Andy were confederates, and that the whole thing was cut and dried, that the man should make the attack, and Andy should appear and frighten him away, for the sake of a reward which I dare say the two have shared together. This is what I think about the matter. I haven't said so to your father, because he is so infatuated with the Irish boy that it would only make him angry, but I have no doubt that you will agree with me. [It may be said here that Godfrey eagerly adopted his mother's view, and was equally provoked at his father's liberality to his young enemy.] Your father says he won't give you the ten dollars you asked for. He can lavish a hundred dollars on Andy, but he has no money to give his own son. But sooner or later that boy will be come up with--sooner or later he will show himself in his true colors, and your father will be obliged to confess that he has been deceived. It puts me out of patience when I think of him. "We shall expect you home on Friday afternoon of next week, as usual." Andy was quite unconscious of the large space which he occupied in the thoughts of Mrs. Preston and Godfrey, and of the extent to which he troubled them. He went on, trying to do his duty, and succeeding fully in satisfying the Misses Grant, who had come to feel a strong interest in his welfare. Three weeks later, Sophia Grant, who had been to the village store on an errand, returned home, looking greatly alarmed. "What is the matter, Sophia?" asked her sister. "You look as if you had seen a ghost." "Just so, Priscilla," she said; "no, I don't mean that, but we may all be ghosts in a short time." "What do you mean?" "Smallpox is in town!" "Who's got it?" "Colonel Preston; and his wife won't stay in the house. She is packing up to go off, and I expect the poor man'll die all by himself, unless somebody goes and takes care of him, and then it'll spread, and we'll all die of it." This was certainly startling intelligence. Andy pitied the colonel, who had always treated him well. It occurred to him that his mother had passed through an attack of smallpox in her youth, and could take care of the colonel without danger. He resolved to consult her about it at once. CHAPTER XXI A MODEL WIFE Colonel Preston, returning from a trip to Boston, in which, probably, he had been unconsciously exposed to the terrible disease referred to, was taken sick, and his wife, wholly unsuspicious of her husband's malady, sent for the doctor. The latter examined his patient and, on leaving the sick-chamber, beckoned Mrs. Preston to follow him. "What is the matter with him, doctor?" asked Mrs. Preston. The physician looked grave. "I regret to say, Mrs. Preston, that he has the smallpox." "The smallpox!" almost shrieked Mrs. Preston. "Oh! what will become of me?" Dr. Townley was rather disgusted to find her first thought was about herself, not about her stricken husband. "It's catching, isn't it, doctor?" she asked, in great agitation. "I am sorry to say that it is, madam." "Do you think I will take it?" "I cannot take it upon myself to say." "And I was in the same room with him," wailed Mrs. Preston, "and never knew the awful danger! Oh, I wouldn't have the smallpox for this world! If I didn't die, I should be all marked up for life." "You haven't much beauty to spoil," thought the doctor; but this thought he prudently kept to himself. "I must leave the house at once. I will go to my brother's house till he has recovered," said Mrs. Preston, in agitation. "What!" exclaimed the doctor, in surprise, "and leave your husband alone!" "I can't take care of him--you must see that I can't," said Mrs. Preston, fretfully. "I can't expose my life without doing him any good." "I expose myself every time I visit him," said the doctor. "I never had the smallpox. Have you been vaccinated?" "Yes, I believe so--I'm sure I don't know. But people sometimes take the smallpox even after they have been vaccinated. I should be so frightened that I could do no good." "Then," said the doctor, gravely, "you have decided to leave your husband?" "Yes, doctor, I must. It is my duty--to my boy," answered Mrs. Preston, catching at this excuse with eagerness. "I must live for him, you know. Of course, if I could do any good, it would be different. But what would Godfrey do if both his father and mother should die?" She looked up into his face, hoping that he would express approval of her intentions; but the doctor was too honest for this. In truth, he was disgusted with the woman's selfishness, and would like to have said so; but this politeness forbade. At any rate, he was not going to be trapped into any approval of her selfish and cowardly determination. "What do you wish to be done, Mrs. Preston?" he asked. "Of course, your husband must be taken care of." "Hire a nurse, doctor. A nurse will do much more good than I could. She will know just what to do. Most of them have had the smallpox. It is really much better for my husband that it should be so. Of course, you can pay high wages--anything she asks," added Mrs. Preston, whose great fear made her, for once in her life, liberal. "I suppose that will be the best thing to do. You wish me, then, to engage a nurse?" "Yes, doctor, if you will be so kind." "When do you go away?" "At once. I shall pack up my clothes immediately. On the whole, I think I will go to the town where Godfrey is at school, and board there for the present. I must see him, and prevent him from coming home." "You will go into your husband's chamber and bid him good-by?" "No; I cannot think of it. It would only be useless exposure." "What will he think?" "Explain it to him, doctor. Tell him that I hope he will get well very soon, and that I feel it my duty to go away now on Godfrey's account. I am sure he will see that it is my duty." "I wonder what excuse she would have if she had no son for a pretext?" thought the doctor. "Well," he said, "I will do as you request." "See that he has the best of care. Get him two nurses, if you think best. Don't spare expense." "What extraordinary liberality in Mrs. Preston," thought the physician. He went back into the chamber of his patient. "Doctor," said Colonel Preston, "you didn't tell me what was the matter with me. Am I seriously sick?" "I am sorry to say that you are." "Dangerously?" "Not necessarily. You have the smallpox." "Have I?" said the patient, thoughtfully. "It's an awkward thing to tell him that his wife is going to leave him," the doctor said to himself. "However, it must be done." "Have you told my wife, doctor?" "I just told her." "What does she say?" "She is very much startled, and (now for it), thinks, under the circumstances, she ought not to run the risk of taking care of you on account of Godfrey." "Perhaps she is right," said Colonel Preston, slowly. He was not surprised to hear it, but it gave him a pang, nevertheless. "She wants me to engage a nurse for you." "Yes, that will be necessary." There was a pause. "When is she going?" he asked, a little later. "As soon as possible. She is going to board near the school where Godfrey is placed." "Shall I see her?" "She thinks it best not to risk coming into the chamber, lest she should carry the infection to Godfrey." "I suppose that is only prudent," returned the sick man, but in his heart he wished that his wife had shown less prudence, and a little more feeling for him. "Have you thought of any nurse?" he asked. "I have thought of the widow Burke." "She might not dare to come." "She has had the disease. I know this from a few slight marks still left on her face. Of course, you would be willing to pay a liberal price?" "Any price," said Colonel Preston, energetically. "It is a service which, I assure you, I shall not soon forget." "I must see her at once, for your wife will leave directly." "Pray, do so," said Colonel Preston. "Tell my wife," he said, after a pause, "that I hope soon to have recovered, so that it may be safe for her to come back." There was a subdued bitterness in his voice, which the doctor detected, and did not wonder at. He gave the message, as requested. "I am sure I hope so, Dr. Townley," said Mrs. Preston. "I shall be tortured with anxiety. I hope you will write me daily how my poor husband is getting along?" "Perhaps the paper might carry the infection," said the doctor, testing the real extent of her solicitude. "I didn't think of that," answered Mrs. Preston, hastily. "On the whole, you needn't write, then. It might communicate the disease to Godfrey." "She finds Godfrey very useful," the doctor thought. "I will bear my anxiety as I can," she continued. "Have you thought of anyone for a nurse?" "I have thought of Mrs. Burke." "She is poor, and will come if you offer her a good price. Try to get her." "I think she will come. I must go at once, for your husband needs immediate attention." "Get her to come at once, Dr. Townley! Oh, do! My husband may want something, and I can't go into the room. My duty to my dear, only son will not permit me. I hope Mr. Preston understands my motives in going away?" "I presume he does," said the doctor, rather equivocally. "Tell him how great a sacrifice it is for me to leave his bedside. It is a terrible trial for me, but my duty to my son makes it imperative." The doctor bowed. He drove at once to the humble dwelling of Mrs. Burke. His errand was briefly explained. "Can you come?" he asked. "I am authorized to offer you ten dollars a week for the time you spend there." "I would come in a minute, doctor, but what shall I do with Mary?" "She shall stay at my house. I will gladly take charge of her." "You are very kind, doctor. I wouldn't want to expose her, but I don't mind myself. I don't think I am in danger, for I've had the smallpox already." "Can you be ready in five minutes? Tell Mary to pack up her things, and go to my house at once. We'll take good care of her." In less than an hour Mrs. Burke was installed at the bedside of the sick man as his nurse. As she entered the house, Mrs. Preston left it, bound for the railway depot. "I'm so glad you're here," she said, greeting the widow Burke with unwonted cordiality. "I am sure you will take the best care of my husband. I have told the doctor to pay you whatever you ask." "I'll do my best, Mrs. Preston, but not for the money," answered Mrs. Burke. "Your husband shall get well, if good care can cure him." "I've no doubt of it; but the carriage is here, and I must go. Tell my husband how sorry I am to leave him." So Mrs. Preston went away, leaving a stranger to fulfill her own duties at the bedside of her husband. Thus it happened that, when Andy came home, he found his mother already gone, and his sister on the point of starting for the doctor's house. His idea had already been carried out. CHAPTER XXII COLONEL PRESTON'S RECOVERY Four weeks afterward, we will introduce the reader into the bedchamber of Colonel Preston. His sickness has been severe. At times recovery was doubtful, but Mrs. Burke has proved a careful and devoted nurse, intelligent and faithful enough to carry out the directions of the physician. "How do you feel this morning, Colonel Preston?" asked the doctor, who had just entered the chamber. "Better, doctor. I feel quite an appetite." "You are looking better--decidedly better. The disease has spent its force, and retreated from the field." "It is to you that the credit belongs, Dr. Townley." "Only in part. The greater share belongs to your faithful nurse, Mrs. Burke." "I shall not soon forget my obligations to her," said the sick man, significantly. "Now, Colonel Preston," said Mrs. Burke, "you are making too much of what little I have done." "That is impossible, Mrs. Burke. It is to your good nursing and the doctor's skill that I owe my life, and I hardly know to which the most." "To the doctor, sir. I only followed out his directions." "At the expense of your own health. You show the effects of your long-continued care." "It won't take long to pick up," said Mrs. Burke, cheerfully. "Is the danger of contagion over, doctor?" asked the patient. "Quite so." "Then, would it not be well to write to Mrs. Preston? Not that I mean to give up my good nurse just yet; that is, if she is willing to stay." "I will stay as long as you need me, sir." "That is well; but Mrs. Preston may wish to return, now that there's no further danger." "I will write to her at once." "Thank you." The following letter was dispatched to Mrs. Preston: "MRS. PRESTON:-- "Dear Madam: It gives me great pleasure to inform you that your husband is so far recovered that there is no danger now of infection. You can return with safety, and he will, doubtless, be glad to see you. He has been very ill, indeed--in danger of his life; but, thanks to the devotion of Mrs. Burke, who has proved an admirable nurse, he is now on the high road to recovery. Yours respectfully, "John Townley." "I think that will bring her," said the doctor. But he reckoned without his host. The next day he received the following letter, on scented paper: "MY DEAR DOCTOR TOWNLEY: You cannot think how rejoiced I am to receive the tidings of my husband's convalescence. I have been so tortured with anxiety during the last four weeks! You cannot think how wretchedly anxious I have been. I could not have endured to stay away from his bedside but that my duty imperatively required it. I have lost flesh, and my anxiety has worn upon me. Now, how gladly will I resume my place at the bedside of my husband, restored by your skill. I am glad the nurse has proved faithful. It was a good chance for her, for she shall be liberally paid, and no doubt the money will be welcome. But don't you think it might be more prudent for me to defer my return until next week? It will be safer, I think, and I owe it to my boy to be very careful. You know, the contagion may still exist. It is hard for me to remain longer away, when I would fain fly to the bedside of Mr. Preston, but I feel that it is best. Say to him, with my love, that he may expect me next week. Accept my thanks for your attention to him. I shall never forget it; and believe me to be, my dear doctor, your obliged "Lucinda Preston." Dr. Townley threw down this letter with deep disgust. "Was ever any woman more disgustingly selfish?" he exclaimed. "Her husband might have died, so far as she was concerned." Of course, he had to show this letter to Colonel Preston. The latter read it, with grave face, and the doctor thought he heard a sigh. "My wife is very prudent," he said, with a touch of bitterness in his voice. "She will be here next week," said the doctor, having nothing else to answer. "I think she will run no risk then," said the sick man, cynically. But Mrs. Preston did not return in a week. It was a full week and a half before she arrived at her own house. The doctor was just coming out of the front door. "How is my husband?" she asked. "Not far from well. He is still weak, of course." "And are you sure," she said, anxiously, "that there is no danger of infection?" "Not the slightest, madam," said Dr. Townley, coldly. "I am so glad I can see him once more. You cannot imagine," she exclaimed, clasping her hands, "how much I have suffered in my suspense!" The doctor remained cool and unmoved. He didn't feel that he could respond fittingly, being absolutely incredulous. Mrs. Preston saw it, and was nettled. She knew that she was a hypocrite, but did not like to have the doctor, by his silence, imply his own conviction of it. "Mine has been a hard position," she continued. "Your husband has not had an easy time," said the doctor, significantly. "But he has had good care--Mrs. Burke was a good nurse?" "Admirable." "She must be paid well." "I offered her ten dollars a week." "Humph!" said Mrs. Preston, doubtfully, in whose eyes five dollars would have been liberal compensation. "It has been a good chance for her." "It is far from adequate," said the doctor, disgusted. "Money cannot pay for such service as hers, not to speak of the risk she ran, for cases have been known of persons being twice attacked by the disease." "You don't think my husband will have a relapse?" asked Mrs. Preston, with fresh alarm. "Not if he has the same care for a short time longer." "He shall have it. She must stay. Of course her duties are lighter now, and six dollars a week for the remainder of the time will be enough--don't you think so?" "No, I don't," said the doctor, bluntly; "and, moreover, I am quite sure your husband will not consent to reducing the wages of one whose faithful care has saved his life." "Oh, well, you know best," said Mrs. Preston, slowly. "I am quite willing that she should be well paid." Mrs. Preston went upstairs, and entered her husband's chamber. "Oh, my dear husband!" she exclaimed, theatrically, hurrying across the room, with affected emotion. "I am so glad to find you so much better!" "I am glad to see you back, Lucinda," said Colonel Preston; but he spoke coldly, and without the slightest affectation of sentimental joy. "I have passed through a good deal since you left me." "And so have I!" exclaimed his wife. "Oh, how my heart has been rent with anxiety, as I thought of you lying sick, while duty kept me from your side." "Is Godfrey well?" asked her husband, taking no notice of her last speech. "Yes, poor boy! He sends his love, and is so anxious to see you." "Let him come next Friday afternoon," said the sick man, who doubted this statement, yet wanted to believe it true. "He shall. I will write to him at once." So Mrs. Preston resumed her place in the house; but from that time there was a something she could not understand in her husband's manner. He was graver than formerly, and sometimes she saw him watching her intently, and, after a little, turn away, with a sigh. He had found her out in all her intense selfishness and want of feeling, and he could never again regard her as formerly, even though she tried hard at times, by a show of affection, to cover up her heartless neglect. CHAPTER XXIII MRS. BURKE HAS GOOD FORTUNE Mrs. Burke remained a week longer to nurse Colonel Preston. At the end of this time Mr. Preston thought he was well enough to dispense with a nurse, and accordingly she prepared to take leave. "I shall always remember your kind service, Mrs. Burke," said the colonel, warmly. "It was only my duty, sir," said the widow, modestly. "Not all would have done their duty so faithfully." "I am glad to see you well again," said the widow. "Not more than I am to get well, I assure you," said he. "Whenever you are in any trouble, come to me." With these words, he placed in her hands an envelope, which, as she understood, contained the compensation for her services. She thanked him, and took her departure. Mrs. Preston was curious to know how much her husband paid the nurse, and asked the question. "A hundred dollars," he replied. "A hundred dollars!" she repeated, in a tone which implied disapproval. "I thought she agreed to come for ten dollars a week." "So she did." "She has not been here ten weeks; only about six." "That is true, but she has richly earned all I gave her." "Ten dollars a week I consider very handsome remuneration to one in her position in life," said Mrs. Preston, pointedly. "Lucinda, but for her attention I probably should not have lived through this sickness. Do you think a hundred dollars so much to pay for your husband's life?" "You exaggerate the value of her services," said his wife. "Dr. Townley says the same thing that I do." "You are both infatuated with that woman," said Mrs. Preston, impatiently. "We only do her justice." "Oh, well, have it your own way. But I should have only paid her what I agreed to. It is a great windfall for her." "She deserves it." Mrs. Preston said no more at this time, for she found her husband too "infatuated," as she termed it, to agree with her. She did, however, open the subject to Godfrey when he came home, and he adopted her view of the case. "She and her low son are trying to get all they can out of father," he said. "It's just like them." "I wish I could make your father see it," said Mrs. Preston, "but he seems prepossessed in her favor." "If he can give a hundred dollars to her, he can give me a little extra money; I'm going to ask him." So he did the same evening. "Will you give me ten dollars, father?" he asked. "What for?" "Oh, for various things. I need it." "I give you an allowance of three dollars a week." "I have a good many expenses." "That will meet all your reasonable expenses. I was far from having as much money as that when I was of your age." "I don't see why you won't give me the money," said Godfrey, discontentedly. "I don't think you need it." "You are generous enough to others." "To whom do you refer?" "You give plenty of money to that Irish boy and his mother." "They have both rendered me great services. The boy saved me from being robbed. The mother, in all probability, saved me from falling a victim to smallpox. But that has nothing to do with your affairs. It is scarcely proper for a boy like you to criticise his father's way of disposing of his money." "I confess I think Godfrey is right in commenting upon your extraordinary liberality to the Burkes," observed Mrs. Preston. "Lucinda," said her husband, gravely, "when my own wife deserted my sick bed, leaving me to wrestle alone with a terrible and dangerous disease, I was fortunate enough to find in Mrs. Burke a devoted nurse. The money I have paid her is no adequate compensation, nor is it all that I intend to do for her." There was a part of this speech that startled Mrs. Preston. Never before had her husband complained of her desertion of him in his sickness, and she hoped that he had been imposed upon by the excuse which she gave of saving herself for Godfrey. Now she saw that in this she had not been altogether successful, and she regretted having referred to Mrs. Burke, and so brought this reproach upon herself. She felt it necessary to say something in extenuation. "It was because I wanted to live for Godfrey," she said, with a flushed face. "Nothing but that would have taken me away from you at such a time. It was a great trial to me," she continued, putting up her handkerchief to eyes that were perfectly dry. "We will say no more about it," said Colonel Preston, gravely. "I shall not refer to it, unless you undervalue my obligations to Mrs. Burke." Mrs. Preston thought it best not to reply, but on one thing that her husband had said, she commented to Godfrey. "Your father speaks of giving more money to Mrs. Burke. I suppose we shall not know anything about it if he does." "Perhaps he will leave her some money in his will," said Godfrey. "Very likely. If he does, there is such a thing as contesting a will--that is, if he gives her much." Mrs. Preston was right. Her husband did intend to give his devoted nurse something in his will, but of that more anon. There was one thing which he did at once, and that was to buy the cottage which Mrs. Burke occupied, from the heir, a non-resident. Mrs. Burke didn't learn this until she went to pay her rent to the storekeeper, who had acted as agent for the owner. "I have nothing to do with the house any longer, Mrs. Burke," he said. "Then who shall I pay rent to?" said Mrs. Burke. "To Colonel Preston, who has recently bought the house." Mrs. Burke, therefore, called at the house of the colonel. Mr. and Mrs. Preston were sitting together when the servant announced that she wished to speak to him. "You seem to have a good deal of business with Mrs. Burke," said his wife, in a very unpleasant tone. "None that I care to conceal," he said, smiling. "Show Mrs. Burke in here, Jane," he continued, addressing the servant. "Good-morning, Mrs. Burke," he said, pleasantly. "Good-morning," said Mrs. Preston, coldly. "Good-morning, sir, I'm glad to see you looking so much better." "Oh, yes, I am feeling pretty well now." "I didn't find out till just now, Colonel Preston, that you were my landlord." Here Mrs. Preston pricked up her ears, for it was news to her also, as her husband had not mentioned his recent purchase. "Yes, I thought I would buy the house, as it was in the market." "I have come to pay my rent. I have been in the habit of paying fifteen dollars a quarter." "I won't be a hard landlord," said Colonel Preston. "You are welcome to live in the house, if it suits you, free of all rent." "This is too much kindness," said Mrs. Burke, quite overwhelmed by the unexpected liberality. Mrs. Preston thought so, too, but could not well say anything. "There's been kindness on both sides, Mrs. Burke. Put up your money, I don't want it, but I have no doubt you will find use for it. Buy yourself a new dress." "Thank you, Colonel Preston. You are very generous, and I am very grateful," said the widow. "I have something to be grateful for also, Mrs. Burke. If you want any repairs, just let me know, and they shall be attended to." "Thank you, sir, but the house is very comfortable." She soon took her leave. "When did you buy that house, Colonel Preston?" asked his wife. "A month since." "You didn't say anything about it to me." "Nor to anyone else, except those with whom I did the business." Mrs. Preston would like to have said more, but she did not think it expedient, remembering what she had brought upon herself before. CHAPTER XXIV ANDY'S JOURNEY Toward the first of April of the succeeding year, Miss Sophia Grant took a severe cold, not serious, indeed, but such as to make it prudent for her to remain indoors. This occasioned a little derangement of her sister's plans; for both sisters were in the habit, about the first of April and of October, of taking a journey to Boston--partly for a change, and partly because at these times certain banks in which they owned stock declared dividends, which they took the opportunity to collect. But this spring it seemed doubtful if they could go. Yet they wanted the money--a part of it, at least. "Send Andrew," suggested Miss Sophia, after her sister had stated the difficulty. In general Miss Priscilla did not approve Sophia's suggestions, but this struck her more favorably. "I don't know but we might," she said, slowly. "He is a boy to be trusted." "Just so." "And I think he is a smart boy." "Just so." "He can take care of himself. You remember how he saved Colonel Preston from the robber?" "Just so." "Then, on the other hand, he has never been to Boston." "He could ask." "I don't suppose there would be any particular difficulty. I could give him all the necessary directions." "Just so." "I'll propose it to him." So, after supper, as Andy was going out into the woodshed for an armful of wood, Miss Priscilla stopped him. "Were you ever in Boston, Andy?" asked she. "No, ma'am." "I wish you had been." "Why, ma'am?" "Because I should like to send you there on some business." "I'll go, ma'am," said Andy, eagerly. Like most boys of his age, no proposition could have been more agreeable. "Do you think you could find your way there, and around the city?" "No fear of that, ma'am," said Andy, confidently. "We generally go ourselves, as you know, but my sister is sick, and I don't like to leave her." "Of course not, ma'am," said Andy, quite approving any plan that opened the way for a journey to him. "We own bank stock, and on the first of April they pay us dividends. Now, if we send you, do you think you can get to the bank, get the money, and bring it back safe?" "I'll do it for you, ma'am," said Andy. "Well, I'll think of it between now and next week. If we send you at all, you must start next Monday." "I'll go any day, ma'am," said Andy, "any day you name." Miss Priscilla finally decided to send Andrew, but cautioned him against saying anything about it, except to his own family. On Monday morning, just before the morning train was to start, Andrew appeared on the platform of the modest village depot with a small carpetbag in his hand, lent him by the Misses Grant. "Give me a ticket to Boston," said he to the station master. Godfrey Preston, who was about to return to his boarding school, had just purchased a ticket, and overheard this. He didn't much care to speak to Andy, but his curiosity overcame his pride. "Are you going to Boston?" he asked. "Yes," said Andy. "What are you going for?" "Important business." "Has Miss Grant turned you off?" "She didn't say anything about it this morning. Why, do you want to take my place?" "Do you think I'd stoop to be a hired boy?" said Godfrey, haughtily. "You wouldn't need to stoop," said Andy; "you ain't any too tall." Godfrey winced at this. He was not tall of his age, and he wanted to be. Andy had been growing faster than he, and was now, though scarcely as old, quite two inches taller. "It makes no difference about being tall," he rejoined. "I am a gentleman, and don't have to work for a living like you do." "What are you going to be when you grow up?" "A lawyer." "Then won't you work for money?" "Of course." "Then you'll be a hired man, and work for a living." "That's very different. When are you coming back?" "When I've finished my business." "How soon will that be?" "I can't tell yet." "Humph! I shouldn't wonder if you were running away." "Don't you tell anybody," said Andy, in a bantering tone. "Where did you get the money to pay for your ticket?" "What would you give to know?" "You are impudent," said Godfrey, his cheek flushing. "So are your questions," said Andy. "I dare say you stole it." "Look here, Godfrey Preston," said Andy, roused to indignation by this insinuation, "you'd better not say that again, if you know what's best for yourself." He advanced a step with a threatening look, and Godfrey instinctively receded. "That comes of my speaking to my inferior," he said. "You can't do that." "What do you mean?" "I don't know anybody that's inferior to you." Godfrey turned on his heel wrathfully, muttering something about a "low beggar," which Andy, not hearing, did not resent. The whistle of the locomotive was heard, and the cars came along. With high anticipation of pleasure, Andy got aboard. He had before him a journey of close upon a hundred miles, and he wished it had been longer. He had never been much of a traveler, and the scenes which were to greet his eyes were all novel. He had heard a good deal of Boston also, and he wanted to see it. Besides the money which Miss Grant had given him to defray his expenses, he had with him ten dollars of his own. Since his mother had received the two donations from Colonel Preston she made Andy keep half his wages for his own use. These were now seven dollars a week, so he kept three and a half, and of this sum was able to lay up about half. So he had a supply of money in his trunk, of which he had taken with him ten dollars. "Maybe I'll see something I want to buy in the city," he said to himself. I don't mean to dwell upon the journey. There is nothing very exciting in a railway trip, even of a hundred miles, nowadays, unless, indeed, the cars run off the track, or over the embankment, and then it is altogether too exciting to be agreeable. For the sake of my young hero, whom I really begin to like, though he was "only an Irish boy," I am glad to say that nothing of that sort took place; but in good time--about the time when the clock on the Old South steeple indicated noon--Andy's train drove into the Boston & Maine Railway depot, fronting on Haymarket Square. "Inquire your way to Washington Street." That was the first direction that Andy had received from Miss Priscilla, and that was what our hero did first. The question was addressed to a very civil young man, who politely gave Andy the necessary directions. So, in a short time, he reached Washington Street by way of Court Street. The next thing was to inquire the way to the Merchants' Bank, that being the one in which the ladies owned the largest amount of stock. "Where is the Merchants' Bank?" asked Andy of a boy, whose blacking-box denoted his occupation. "I'll show you, mister," said the boy. "Come along." His young guide, instead of taking him to the bank, took him to the side door of the court-house, and said: "Go in there." It was a massive stone building, and Andy, not suspecting that he was being fooled, went in. Wandering at random, he found his way into a room, where a trial was going on. That opened his eyes. "He cheated me," thought Andy. "Maybe I'll get even with him." He retraced his steps, and again found himself in the street. His fraudulent young guide, with a grin on a face not over clean, was awaiting his appearance. CHAPTER XXV THE MERCHANT FROM PORTLAND "Look here, young chap," said Andy, "what made you tell me that was the Merchants' Bank?" "Isn't it?" asked the bootblack, with a grin. "It's the bank where you'll be wanted some time. Shouldn't wonder if they'd make a mistake and lock you up instead of your money." "Have you got any money in the Merchants' Bank?" asked the other. "I'm goin' to see if they won't give me some. If you hadn't cheated me, maybe I'd have invited you to dine with me at my hotel." "Where are you stoppin'?" asked the street boy, not quite knowing how much of Andy's story to believe. "At the most fashionable hotel." "Parker's?" "You're good at guessin'. Perhaps you'd like to dine there?" "I don't know as they'd let me in," said the boy, doubtfully; "but I'll show you where there's a nice eatin' house, where they don't charge half so much." "'Twouldn't be fashionable enough for me. I shall have to dine alone. See what comes of tryin' to fool your grandfather." Andy went on, leaving the boy in doubt whether his jest had really lost him a dinner. Andy didn't go to the Parker House, however. His expenses were to be paid by the Misses Grant, and he felt that it wouldn't be right to be extravagant at their expense. "I shall come across an eatin' house presently," he said to himself. Not far off he found one with the bill of fare exposed outside, with the prices. Andy examined it, and found that it was not an expensive place. He really felt hungry after his morning's ride, and determined, before he attended to his business, to get dinner. He accordingly entered, and seated himself at one of the tables. A waiter came up and awaited his commands. "What'll you have?" he asked. "Bring me a plate of roast beef, and a cup of coffee," said Andy, "and be quick about it, for I haven't eaten anything for three weeks." "Then I don't think one plate will be enough for you," said the waiter, laughing. "It'll do to begin on," said Andy. The order was quickly filled, and Andy set to work energetically. It is strange how we run across acquaintances when we least expect it. Andy had no idea that he knew anybody in the eating house, and therefore didn't look around, feeling no special interest in the company. Yet there was one present who recognized him as soon as he entered, and watched him with strong interest. The interest was not friendly, however, as might be inferred from the scowl with which he surveyed him. This will not be a matter of surprise to the reader when I say that the observer was no other than Fairfax, whose attempt to rob Colonel Preston had been defeated by Andy. He recognized the boy at once, both from his appearance and his voice, and deep feelings of resentment ran in his breast. To be foiled was disagreeable enough, but to be foiled by a boy was most humiliating, and he had vowed revenge, if ever an opportunity occurred. For this reason he felt exultant when he saw his enemy walking into the eating house. "I'll follow him," he said to himself, "and it'll go hard if I don't get even with him for that trick he played on me." But how did it happen that Andy did not recognize Fairfax? For two reasons: First, because the adventurer was sitting behind him, and our hero faced the front of the room. Next, had he seen him, it was doubtful if he would have recognized a man whom he was far from expecting to see. For Fairfax was skilled in disguises, and no longer was the black-whiskered individual that we formerly knew him. From motives of prudence, he had shaved off his black hair and whiskers, and now appeared in a red wig, and whiskers of the same hue. If any of my readers would like to know how effectual this disguise is, let them try it, and I will guarantee that they won't know themselves when they come to look at their likeness in the mirror. After disposing of what he had ordered, Andy also ordered a plate of apple dumpling, which he ate with great satisfaction. "I wouldn't mind eatin' here every day," he thought. "Maybe I'll be in business here some day myself, and then I'll come here and dine." Fairfax was through with his dinner, but waited till Andy arose. He then arose and followed him to the desk, where both paid at the same time. He was careless of recognition, for he felt confident in his disguise. "Now," thought Andy, "I must go to the bank." But he didn't know where the bank was. So, when he got into the street, he asked a gentleman whom he met: "Sir, can you direct me to the Merchants' Bank?" "It is in State Street," said the gentleman. "I am going past it, so if you will come along with me, I will show you." "Thank you, sir," said our hero, politely. "Merchants' Bank!" said Fairfax to himself, beginning to feel interested. "I wonder what he's going there for? Perhaps I can raise a little money, besides having my revenge." He had an added inducement now in following our hero. When Andy went into the bank, Fairfax followed him. He was in the room when Andy received the dividends, and, with sparkling eyes, he saw that it was, a thick roll of bills, representing, no doubt, a considerable sum of money. "That money must be mine," he said to himself. "It can't be the boy's. He must have been sent by some other person. The loss will get him into trouble. Very likely he will be considered a thief. That would just suit me." Andy was careful, however. He put the money into a pocketbook, or, rather, wallet, with which he had been supplied by the Misses Grant, put it in his inside pocket, and then buttoned his coat up tight. He was determined not to lose anything by carelessness. But this was not his last business visit. There was another bank in the same street where it was necessary for him to call and receive dividends. Again Fairfax followed him, and again he saw Andy receive a considerable sum of money. "There's fat pickings here," thought Fairfax. "Now, I must manage, in some way, to relieve him of that money. There's altogether too much for a youngster like him. Shouldn't wonder if the money belonged to that man I tried to rob. If so, all the better." In this conjecture, as we know, Fairfax was mistaken. However, it made comparatively little difference to him whose money it was, as long as there was a chance of his getting it into his possession. The fact was, that his finances were not in a very flourishing condition just at present. He could have done better to follow some honest and respectable business, and avoid all the dishonest shifts and infractions of law to which he was compelled to resort, but he had started wrong, and it was difficult to persuade him that even now it would have been much better for him to amend his life and ways. In this state of affairs he thought it a great piece of good luck that he should have fallen in with a boy in charge of a large sum of money, whom, from his youth and inexperience, he would have less trouble in robbing than an older person. Andy had already decided how he would spend the afternoon. He had heard a good deal about the Boston Museum, its large collection of curiosities, and the plays that were performed there. One of the pleasantest anticipations he had was of a visit to this place, the paradise of country people. Now that his business was concluded, he determined to go there at once. But first he must inquire the way. Turning around, he saw Fairfax without recognizing him. "Can you direct me to the Boston Museum?" he asked. "Certainly, with pleasure," said Fairfax, with alacrity. "In fact, I am going there myself. I suppose you are going to the afternoon performance?" "Yes, sir." "Have you ever been there?" "No; but I have heard a good deal about it. I don't live in the city." "Nor do I," said Fairfax. "I am a merchant of Portland, Maine. I have come to the city to buy my winter stock of goods. As I only come twice a year, I generally try to enjoy myself a little while I am here. Do you stay in the city overnight?" "Yes," said Andy. "So do I. Here is the Museum." They had reached the Museum, which, as some of my readers are aware, is situated in Tremont Street. "We go up these stairs," said Fairfax. "If you don't object, we will take seats together." "I shall be glad to have company," said Andy, politely. Reserved seats adjoining were furnished, and the adventurer and his intended victim entered the Museum. CHAPTER XXVI SPINNING THE WEB There was a short interval before the play commenced. This Andy improved by examining the large stock of curiosities which have been gathered from all parts of the world for the gratification of visitors. Fairfax kept at his side, and spoke freely of all they saw. There was something about him which seemed to Andy strangely familiar. Was it in his features, or in his voice? He could not tell. The red whig and whiskers misled him. Andy finally set it down as a mere chance resemblance to someone whom he had met formerly, and dismissed it from his mind. At length the increasing crowds pouring into the lecture-room reminded them that the play was about to begin. "Shall we go in and take our seats?" said Fairfax. Andy assented, and they were speedily in their seats. I do not propose to speak of the play. It was a novelty to Andy to see a dramatic representation, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Fairfax was more accustomed to such things, but pretended to be equally interested, feeling that in this way he could ingratiate himself better into Andy's confidence. At last it was over, and they went out of the building. "How did you like it?" asked Fairfax. "Tiptop," said Andy, promptly. "Don't you think so?" "Capital," answered Fairfax, with simulated delight. "I am glad I had company. I don't enjoy anything half as well alone. By the way, where do you pass the night?" "At some hotel--I don't know which." "Suppose you go to the Adams House. I've got to stop overnight somewhere, and it might be pleasanter going in company." "Where is the Adams House?" "On Washington Street, not very far off--ten or fifteen minutes' walk." "If it's a good place, I'm willing." "It is an excellent hotel, and moderate in price. We might go up there now, and engage a room, and then spend the evening where we like." "Very well," said Andy. They soon reached the Adams House--a neat, unpretending hotel--and entered. They walked up to the desk, and Fairfax spoke to the clerk. "Can you give us a room?" "Certainly. Enter your names." "Shall we room together?" asked Fairfax, calmly. Now Andy, though he had had no objection to going to the theater with his present companion, did not care to take a room with a stranger, of whom he knew nothing. He might be a very respectable man, but somehow, Andy did not know why, there was something in his manner which inspired a little repulsion. Besides, he remembered that he had considerable money with him, and that consideration alone rendered it imprudent for him to put himself in the power of a companion. So he said, a little awkwardly: "I think we'd better take separate rooms." "Very well," said Fairfax, in a tone of indifference, though he really felt very much disappointed. "I thought it might have been a little more sociable to be together." Andy did not take the hint, except so far as to say: "We can take rooms alongside of each other." "I can give you adjoining rooms, if you desire," said the clerk. Fairfax here entered his name in the hotel register as "Nathaniel Marvin, Portland, Maine," while Andy put down his real address. His companion's was, of course, fictitious. He did not venture to give the name of Fairfax, as that might be recognized by Andy as that of the highwayman, with whose little plans he had interfered. A servant was called, and they went up to their rooms, which, as the clerk had promised, were found to be adjoining. They were precisely alike. "Very comfortable, Mr. Burke," said Fairfax, in a tone of apparent satisfaction. "I think we shall have a comfortable night." "I guess so," said Andy. "Are you going to stay here now?" "No; I'm going to wash my face, and then take a walk around. I want to see something of the city." "I think I'll lie down awhile; I feel tired. Perhaps we shall meet later. If not, I shall see you in the morning." "All right," said Andy. In a few minutes he went out. CHAPTER XXVII THE DROP GAME Fairfax had an object in remaining behind. He wanted to see if there was any way for him to get into Andy's room during the night, that he might rob him in his sleep. To his great satisfaction, he found that there was a door between the two rooms, for the accommodation of persons in the same party, who wished to be in adjoining apartments. It was, however, locked, but Fairfax was not unprepared for such an emergency. He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and tried them, one after another, in the lock. There was one that would very nearly fit. For this again, Fairfax was prepared. He took from the same pocket a file, and began patiently to file away the key till it should fit. He tried it several times before he found that it fitted. But at last success crowned his efforts. The door opened. His eyes danced with exultation, as he saw this. "I might as well be in the same room," he said, to himself. "Now, you young rascal, I shall take your money, and be revenged upon you at the same time." He carefully locked the door, and then, feeling that he had done all that was necessary to do at present, went downstairs, and took supper. Andy was out, and did not see him. Meanwhile, our young hero was out seeing the sights. He walked up Washington Street, and at Boylston Street turned and reached Tremont Street, when he saw the Common before him. It looked pleasant, and Andy crossed the street, and entered. He walked wherever fancy led, and then found himself, after a while, in a comparatively secluded part. Here he met with an adventure, which I must describe. Rather a shabby-looking individual in front of him suddenly stooped and picked up a pocketbook, which appeared to be well filled with money. He looked up, and met Andy's eyes fixed upon it. This was what he wanted. "Here's a pocketbook," he said. "Somebody must have dropped it." Andy was interested. "It seems to have considerable money in it," said the finder. "Open it, and see," said Andy. "I hain't time. I have got to leave the city by the next train. I mean, I haven't time to advertise it, and get the reward which the owner will be sure to offer. Are you going to stay in the city long?" "I'm going out to-morrow." "I must go. I wish I knew what to do." He seemed to be plunged into anxious thought. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said, as if a bright idea had suddenly struck him. "You take the pocketbook, and advertise it. If the owner is found, he will give you a reward. If not, the whole will belong to you." "All right," said Andy. "Hand it over." "Of course," said the other, "I shall expect something myself, as I was the one to find it." "I'll give you half." "But I shall be out of the city. I'll tell you what give me ten dollars, and I'll make it over to you." "That's rather steep," said Andy. "Heft it. There must be a lot of money inside." "I'm afraid the reward might be less than ten dollars," said Andy. "Well, I'm in a great hurry--give me five." It is possible that Andy, who was not acquainted with the "drop game," might have agreed to this, but a policeman hove in sight, and the shabby individual scuttled away without further ceremony, leaving Andy a little surprised, with the pocketbook in his hand. "What's he in such a hurry for?" thought our hero. He opened the pocketbook, and a light flashed upon him, as he perceived that there was no money inside, but was stuffed with rolls of paper. "He wanted to swindle me," thought Andy. "It's lucky I didn't pay him five dollars. Anyway, I'll keep it. The pocketbook is worth something." He put it in his pocket, without taking the trouble to remove the contents. CHAPTER XXVIII THE GUEST OF TWO HOTELS Andy wandered about till nine o'clock, determined to see as much of the city as possible in the limited time which he had at his disposal; but at last he became tired, and returned to the hotel. Fairfax was seated in the reading-room. He looked up as Andy entered. "Have you been looking around the city?" he asked. "Yes," said Andy; "I wanted to improve my time." "I suppose, as this is your first visit, you see a good deal that is new?" "It's all new," said Andy. "I feel tired, walking around so much." "No doubt. Are you going to bed now?" "I guess I'll turn in." "I shan't go up quite yet. I have been staying here quietly, and I don't feel tired. I shall go up in the course of an hour or two." "Good-night, then," said Andy. "Good-night. I hope you'll sleep sound," said Fairfax, who was certainly entirely sincere in this wish, as the success of his plans depended on the soundness of our hero's repose. Andy went upstairs, and lighted the gas in his bedroom. He noticed the door communicating with the next one, and tried it, but found it to be locked. "That's all right," said Andy. "Nobody can get in that way." He locked the principal door, and bolted it, also, which seemed to make him perfectly secure. "Now," thought he, after undressing, "where shall I put the money?" This was an important question, as he had between five hundred and a thousand dollars belonging to the Misses Grant, of which it was his duty to take even more care than if it belonged to himself. "I guess I'll put it under the bolster," he reflected, "covering it up with the sheet. Nobody can get in, that I can see, but it is best to be careful." In emptying his pockets, he came across the pocketbook, with its sham contents, of which mention has already been made. "I'll leave that in my pocket," he said to himself, with a smile. "I'm not afraid of losing that. By the powers, it wouldn't be much of a prize to the man that took it; I'm sure of that." He laid his clothes on a chair, in the middle of the room, and jumped into bed, when he soon sank into a deep sleep. Meanwhile, Fairfax remained below in the reading-room. He was not at all sleepy, as he had told Andy, and his mind was full of the scheme of robbery, which appeared so promising. He was glad Andy had retired so early, as he would be asleep sooner, and this would make things favorable for his entering his young companion's chamber. It was his intention, after he had secured the "plunder"--to adopt a Western phrase--to come downstairs and leave the hotel, not to return, as otherwise, as soon as Andy should discover his loss, the door between the two rooms would, naturally, point to him as the thief. He didn't go up to his room till half-past ten. This was an hour and a half later than Andy retired, and would give him a chance to get fast asleep. "He must be asleep now," he thought. On reaching the corridor on which both of the chambers were situated, he stood a moment before Andy's door, and listened. It was not often that our young hero was guilty of snoring, but to-night he was weary, and had begun to indulge in this nocturnal disturbance. The sounds which he heard were very satisfactory to Fairfax. "The boy's fast asleep," he muttered. "I'll go into his room, and make quick work of it. Fairfax, you're in luck, for once. Fortune has taken a turn." Softly he opened the door of his own room, and entered. He lit the gas, and then, going to the door of communication between the two rooms, he listened again. There was no cessation of the sounds which he had heard from the outside. He determined to make the attempt at once. Taking the proper key from his pocket, he fitted it into the lock, and, turning it, the door opened, and he stepped into the adjoining apartment. It was dark, for Andy had extinguished the gas on going to bed, but the gas from his own room made it sufficiently light for his purpose. He at once caught sight of Andy's clothes lying on the chair, where he had placed them. He glanced cautiously at our hero, as he lay extended upon the bed, with one arm flung out, but he saw no reason for alarm. Quickly he glided to the chair with noiseless step (he had removed his boots, by way of precaution), and thrust his hand into the pocket of the coat. It came in contact with the false pocketbook, which seemed bulky and full of money. Fairfax never doubted that it was the right one, and quickly thrust it into his own pocket. Just then Andy moved a little in bed, and Fairfax retreated, hastily, through the door, closing it after him. "Now, the sooner I get out of this hotel, the better!" he thought. "The boy may wake and discover his loss. It isn't likely, but it may happen. At any rate it's very much better to be on the safe side." He did not stop to examine the prize which he had secured. He had no doubt whatever that it contained the money he was after. To stop to count it might involve him in peril. He, therefore, put on his boots, and glided out of the chamber and downstairs. To the clerk who was at the desk he said, as he surrendered his key: "How late do you keep open? Till after midnight?" "Certainly," was the reply. "All right. I may be out till late." He left the key, and went out into the street. He hailed a passing car in Tremont Street, and rode for some distance. In Court Street he got on board a Charlestown car, and in half an hour found himself in the city everywhere known by the granite shaft that commemorates the battle of Bunker Hill. He made his way to a hotel, where he took a room, entering here under the name of James Simmons, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Anxious to examine his prize, he desired to be shown at once to a chamber. He followed the servant who conducted him with impatient steps. The stolen money was burning in his pocket. He wanted to know how much he had, and was more than half resolved to take an early train the next morning for the West, where he thought he should be secure from discovery. "Is there anything wanted, sir?" asked the servant, lingering at the door. "No, no," said Fairfax, impatiently. "It's all right." "Might be a little more polite," muttered the snubbed servant, as he went downstairs. "Now for it!" exclaimed Fairfax, exultingly. "Now, let me see how much I have got." He drew the pocketbook from his pocket, and opened it. His heart gave a quick thump, and he turned ashy pale, as his glance rested upon the worthless roll of brown paper with which it had been stuffed. "Curse the boy!" he cried, in fierce and bitter disappointment. "He has fooled me, after all! Why didn't I stop long enough to open the pocketbook before I came away? Blind, stupid fool that I was! I am as badly off as before--nay, worse, for I have exposed myself to suspicion, and haven't got a penny to show for it." I will not dwell upon his bitter self-reproaches, and, above all, the intense mortification he felt at having been so completely fooled by a boy, whom he had despised as verdant and inexperienced in the ways of the, world--to think that success had been in his grasp, and he had missed it, after all, was certainly disagreeable enough. It occurred to him that he might go back to the Adams House even now, and repair his blunder. It was not likely that Andy was awake yet. He was very weary, and boys of his age were likely, unless disturbed, to sleep through the night. He might retrieve his error, and no one would be the wiser. "I'll do it," he said, at length. He went downstairs, and left the hotel without the knowledge of the clerk. Jumping into the horse-cars, he returned to Boston, and entered the Adams House about half-past twelve o'clock. He claimed his key at the desk, and went upstairs to his room. He had scarcely lit the gas, however, when a knock was heard at the door. Opening it unsuspiciously, he turned pale, as he recognized the clerk, in company with an officer of the law. "What's wanted?" he faltered. "You are wanted," was the brief reply. "What for?" he gasped. "You are charged with entering the adjoining room, and stealing a pocketbook from the boy who sleeps there." "It's a lie!" he said, but his tone was nervous. "You must submit to a search," said the officer. "Do you mean to insult me?" demanded Fairfax, assuming an air of outraged virtue. "Not at all. I am only giving you a chance to clear yourself from suspicion." "I am a respectable merchant from Portland. I was never so insulted in my life," said Fairfax. "If the charge proves groundless, I will make you an ample apology," said the officer. Fairfax was compelled to submit to the search. He cursed his stupidity in not throwing away the worthless pocketbook, but this he had neglected to do, and, of course, it was very significant evidence against him. Not only was this found, but the variety of keys already referred to. "You carry a great many keys," said the officer. "It isn't a crime to carry keys, is it?" demanded Fairfax, sullenly. "Not if no improper use is made of them. I suspect that one of them will open the door into the next chamber." The keys were tried, and one did open the door. As the light flashed into the room, Andy got up. "Come here, young man," said the officer. "Can you identify that pocketbook?" "I can," said Andy. "Is it yours?" "When I went to bed, it was in the pocket of my coat, lying on that chair." "It is certainly a wonderful pocketbook. I have just found it in that gentleman's pocket." Fairfax's eyes were bent malignantly upon Andy. A light flashed upon him. Now, he recognized him. "I know you," he said. "You are the man that stopped Colonel Preston, and tried to rob him." "You lie, curse you!" exclaimed Fairfax, springing forward, and trying to throw himself upon Andy. But he was not quick enough. The officer had interposed, and seized him by the collar. "Not so fast, Mr. Marvin, or whatever your name is. We don't allow any such games as that. Sit down till I want you." The baffled adventurer was jerked into a chair, from which he continued to eye Andy savagely. "What's that affair you were talking about, young man?" asked the officer. Andy briefly related his adventure with Fairfax on a former occasion. "I'll trouble you to come with me, Mr. Marvin, or Fairfax," said the officer. "There's another hotel where lodgings are provided for such as you." Resistance was useless, and the detected thief, though his name was registered at two hotels, was compelled to occupy a less agreeable room at the station-house. How he was detected will be explained in the next chapter. CHAPTER XXIX A STARTLING EVENT Sometimes, the mere presence of a person in the room is sufficient to interrupt even sound repose. At all events, whether it was the entrance of Fairfax, acting in some mysterious way upon Andy, or the light that streamed into the room, his slumber was disturbed, and his eyes opened just as the adventurer was retiring, with his supposed booty. Our hero did not immediately take in the situation. He was naturally a little bewildered, being just aroused from sleep, but in a short time the real state of the case dawned upon him. "By the powers!" he said to himself, "it's that man that went to the museum with me! He saw my money, and he came in for it! I'll get up and see." Quietly and noiselessly he got out of bed, and, going to the chair, felt in his pockets, and so discovered the loss of the stuffed pocketbook. Andy wanted to laugh, but forbore, lest the sound should be heard in the next room. "It's a good joke on the dirty thafe!" said Andy, to himself. "He's welcome to all the money, he's got--it won't carry him far, I'm thinkin'." Prudence suggested another thought. When Fairfax found out the worthlessness of his booty, would he not come back and search for the real treasure? "If he does, I'll fight him," thought Andy. Still, he knew the conflict would be unequal, since the other was considerably his superior in strength. However, Andy determined that, come what might, he would defend his trust, "or perish in the attempt." But, while he was coming to this determination, he heard the door of the adjoining chamber open softly, and then he could hear steps along the corridor. Evidently, the thief had not found out the actual character of his booty, but was going off under the impression that it was valuable. "Maybe he'll come back," thought Andy. "I guess I'd better go down and give notice at the desk. Then, if he comes back, he'll get into hot water." He hastily dressed himself, and, locking his door, went downstairs. First, however, he removed the money from under his pillow, and put it into his pocket. He found the clerk at the desk. "Has the man that came in with me gone out?" asked Andy. "Mr. Marvin?" "Yes." "He went out about five minutes ago." "Did he say anything about coming back?" "He said it would be late when he returned. He asked me if we kept open after twelve. Did you want to find him?" "I should like to have the police find him," said Andy. "How is that?" asked the clerk, surprised. "He has robbed me." "Did you leave your door unlocked?" "No; but there was a door between our rooms. He opened it, and stole a pocketbook from the pocket of my coat." "While you were asleep?" "Yes; but I awoke just in time to see him go through the door." "How much money was there in it?" "That's the joke of it," said Andy, laughing; "there was no money at all, only some folds of paper. He got hold of the wrong pocketbook." Thereupon, he told the story of the "drop game," of which he came near being a victim, and what a useful turn the bogus treasure had done him. "There's the right pocketbook," he said, in conclusion. "I wish you would take care of it for me till to-morrow. The money isn't mine, and I don't want to run any more risk with it." "I'll lock it up in the safe for you," said the clerk. "Is there much?" "Several hundred dollars." "You were very fortunate in escaping as you did," said the clerk. "True for you," said Andy. "He may come back when he finds out how he has been fooled." "If he does, I'll call a policeman. We'll make short work with him." The reader has already heard how Fairfax (or Marvin) did return, and how he met with a reception he had not calculated upon. Andy was informed in the morning that it would be necessary for him to appear as a witness against him in order to secure his conviction. This he did the next day, but the judge delayed sentence, on being informed that the accused was charged with a more serious offense, that of stopping a traveler on the highway. His trial on this count must come before a higher court, and he was remanded to prison till his case was called in the calendar. Andy was informed that he would be summoned as a witness in that case also, as well as Colonel Preston, and answered that he would be ready when called upon. We will so far anticipate events as to say that the testimony of Andy and the colonel was considered conclusive by the court, and, on the strength of it, Mr. Fairfax, alias Marvin, was sentenced to several years' imprisonment at hard labor. Andy met with no further adventures in his present visit, but had the satisfaction of delivering the money he had been sent to collect to Miss Priscilla Grant. Now, advancing our story some three months, we come to an afternoon when Miss Sophia Grant, returning from a walk, with visible marks of excitement, rushed, breathless and panting, into her sister's presence. "What's the matter, Sophia?" asked Priscilla. "Such an awful thing!" she gasped. "What is it?" "You won't believe it." "Tell me at once what it is!" "It seems so sudden!" "Good heavens! Sophia, why do you tantalize me so?" "Just so!" gasped Sophia. "If you don't tell me, I'll shake you!" "Colonel Preston's dead--dropped dead in the store ten minutes ago. I was there, and saw him." This startling intelligence was only too true. Suddenly, without an instant's warning, the colonel had been summoned from life--succumbing to a fit of apoplexy. This event, of course, made a great sensation in the village, but it is of most interest to us as it affects the fortunes of our young hero. CHAPTER XXX COLONEL PRESTON'S WILL Mrs. Preston was a cold woman, and was far from being a devoted wife. She was too selfish for that supreme love which some women bestow upon their husbands. Still, when Colonel Preston's lifeless form was brought into the house, she did experience a violent shock. To have the companion of nearly twenty years so unexpectedly taken away might well touch the most callous, and so, for a few minutes, Mrs. Preston forgot herself and thought of her husband. But this was not for long. The thought of her own selfish interests came back, and in the midst of her apparent grief the question forced itself upon her consideration, "Did my husband make a will?" Of course, she did not give utterance to this query. She knew what was expected of her, and she was prudent enough to keep up appearances before the neighbors, who poured into the house to offer their sympathy. She received them with her cambric handkerchief pressed to her eyes, from which, by dint of effort, she succeeded in squeezing a few formal tears, and, while her bosom appeared to heave with emotion, she was mentally calculating how much Colonel Preston had probably left. "Shan't I stay with you, my dear Mrs. Preston?" said worthy Mrs. Cameron, in a tone full of warm interest and sympathy. "Thank you," said Mrs. Preston, in a low voice; "you are very kind, but I would rather be left alone." "But it must be so sad for you to be alone in your sorrow," said her neighbor. "No. I can bear sorrow better alone," said the newly made widow. "Perhaps I am peculiar, but I would prefer it." "If you really wish it," said the other, reluctantly. "Yes, I wish it. Thank you for your kind offer, but I know my own feelings, and the presence of others would only increase my pain." This was what she said to others who made the same offer. It did not excite great surprise, for Mrs. Preston had never leaned upon anyone for sympathy, nor was she ready with her sympathy when others were in trouble. She was self-poised and self-contained, and, in fact, for this reason was not popular with her neighbors. Still, in this her distress they were ready to forget all this and extend the same cordial sympathy which they would have done in other cases. There was but one person whose company she did crave at this time and this was her son, Godfrey. So, when Alfred Turner offered to go for him the next morning, she accepted his offer with thanks. At last she was left alone. The servant had gone to bed, and there was no one but herself and her dead husband in the lower part of the house. She no longer sat with her handkerchief pressed before her eyes. Her face wore its usual look of calm composure. She was busily thinking, not of her husband's fate, but of her own future. "Did he leave a will? And, if so, how much did he leave me?" she thought. If there was a will, it was probably in the house, and Mrs. Preston determined to find it, if possible. "Of course, all ought to come to me and Godfrey," she soliloquized. "I don't think it is right to leave money to charitable institutions as long as a wife and child are living. Fortunately, my husband had no brothers or sisters, or perhaps he would have divided the property. If there is no will, I shall have my thirds, and shall have the control of Godfrey's property till he comes of age. I think I will go to Boston to live. My friend, Mrs. Boynton, has a very pleasant house on Worcester Street. I should like to settle down somewhere near her. I don't know how much Mr. Preston was worth, but I am sure we shall have enough for that. I always wanted to live in the city. This village is intolerably stupid, and so are the people. I shall be glad to get away." Could the good women, whose kind hearts had prompted them to proffer their sympathy, have heard these words they would not have been likely to obtrude any more on the hard, cold woman who held them in such low estimation. Mrs. Preston took the lamp in her hand, and began to explore her husband's desk. She had often thought of doing so, but, as his death was not supposed to be so near, she had not thought that there was any immediate cause of doing so. Besides, it had almost been her belief that he had made no will. Now she began to open drawers and untie parcels of papers, but it was some time before she came to what she sought. At length, however, her diligence was rewarded. In the middle of a pile of papers, she found one labeled on the outside: MY WILL. Her heart beat as she opened it, and, though there was no need, for it was now past ten o'clock, and there was not likely to be a caller at that late hour, she looked cautiously about her, and even peered out of the window into the darkness, but could find no one whose observation she might fear. I am not about to recite at length the items in the will, which covered a page of foolscap. It is enough to quote two items, which Mrs. Preston read with anger and dissatisfaction. They are as follows: "Item.--To my young friend, Andy Burke, son of the widow Burke, of this village, in consideration of a valuable service rendered to me on one occasion, and as a mark of my regard and interest, I give and bequeath the sum of five thousand dollars; and to his mother, as a token of gratitude for her faithful nursing when I was dangerously sick with the smallpox, I give and bequeath, free of all incumbrance, the cottage in which she at present resides. "Item.--To the town I give five thousand dollars, the interest to be annually appropriated to the purchase of books for a public library, for the benefit of all the citizens, provided the town will provide some suitable place in which to keep them." All the balance of the property was left to his wife and son, in equal proportions, his wife to be the guardian of Godfrey till he should have attained his majority. As Colonel Preston was well known to be rich, this seemed to be an adequate provision, but Mrs. Preston did not look upon it in that light. On the contrary, she was deeply incensed at the two legacies of which mention has been made above. "Was ever anything more absurd than to waste five thousand dollars and a house upon that Irish boy and his mother?" she said to herself. "I don't suppose it was so much my husband's fault. That artful woman got around him, and wheedled him into it. I know now why she was so willing to come here and take care of him when he was sick. She wanted to wheedle him into leaving money to her low-lived boy. She is an artful and designing hussy, and I should like to tell her so to her face." The cold and usually impassible woman was deeply excited. Her selfish nature made her grudge any of her husband's estate to others, except, indeed, to Godfrey, who was the only person she cared for. As she thought over the unjust disposition, as she regarded it, which her husband had made of his property, a red spot glowed in her usually pale cheek. Then it was another grievance that money should have been left to the town. "What claim had the town on my husband," she thought, "that he should give it five thousand dollars? In doing it, he was robbing Godfrey and me. It was wrong. He had no right to do it. What do I care for these people? They are a set of common farmers and mechanics, with whom I condescend to associate because I have no one else here, except the minister's and the doctor's family, to speak to. Soon I shall be in the city, and then I don't care if I never set eyes on any of them again. In Boston I can find suitable society." The more Mrs. Preston thought of it, the more she felt aggravated by the thought that so large a share of her husband's property was to go to others. She fixed her eyes thoughtfully on the document which she held in her hand, and a strong temptation came to her. "If this should disappear," she said to herself, "the money would be all mine and Godfrey's, and no one would be the wiser. That Irish boy and his mother would stay where they belonged, and my Godfrey would have his own. Why should I not burn it? It would only be just." Deluding herself by this false view, she persuaded herself that it was right to suppress the will. With steady hand she held it to the flame of the lamp, and watched it as it was slowly consumed. Then, gathering up the fragments, she threw them away. "It is all ours now," she whispered, triumphantly, as she prepared to go to bed. "It was lucky I found the will." CHAPTER XXXI MRS. PRESTON'S INTENTIONS Godfrey returned home on the day after his father's death. He had never witnessed death before, and it frightened him, for the time, into propriety. He exhibited none of the stormy and impetuous grief which a warm-hearted and affectionate boy would have been likely to exhibit. It was not in his nature. When he and his mother were left alone, he showed his resemblance to her, by asking: "Do you know how much property father left?" "I don't know. He never told me about his affairs as he ought. I think he must have left near a hundred thousand dollars." Godfrey's eyes sparkled. "That's a pile of money," he said. "It goes to me, don't it?" "To us," said Mrs. Preston. "A woman doesn't need so much money as a man," said Godfrey, selfishly. "You are not a man yet," said his mother, dryly. "Your father may have left a will. In that case, he may have left a part of his property to others." "Do you think he has?" inquired Godfrey, in alarm. "I don't think any will will be found," said his mother, quietly. "He never spoke to me of making one." "Of course not. That wouldn't be fair, would it?" "It is fitting that the property should all go to us." "When shall I get mine?" "When you are twenty-one." "That's a long time to wait," said Godfrey, grumblingly. "You are only a boy yet. I shall probably be your guardian." "I hope you'll give me a larger allowance than father did." "I will." "Must I go back to boarding school? I don't want to." "If I go to Boston to live, as I think I shall, I will take you with me, and you can go to school there." "That'll be jolly," said Godfrey, his eyes sparkling with anticipation. "I've got tired of this miserable town." "So have I," said his mother. "We shall have more privileges in Boston." "I can go to the theater as often as I please there, can't I?" "We will see about that." "How soon shall we move to the city?" "As soon as business will allow. I must settle up your father's affairs here." "Can't I go beforehand?" "Would you leave me alone?" asked his mother, with a little touch of wounded affection, for she did feel attached to her son. He was the only one, indeed, for whom she felt any affection. "You won't miss me, mother. It'll be awfully stupid here, and you know you'll be coming to the city as soon as you get through with the business." Mrs. Preston was disappointed, but she should not have been surprised. Her only son reflected her own selfishness. "It would not look well for you to go to the theater just at the present," she said. "Why not?" "So soon after your father's death." Godfrey said nothing, but looked discontented. It was early to think of amusement, while his father lay yet unburied in the next room. He left the room, whistling. He could not gainsay his mother's objections, but he thought it hard luck. A funeral in a country village is a public occasion. Friends and neighbors are expected to be present without invitation. Among those who assembled at the house were Mrs. Burke and Andy. They felt truly sorry for the death of Colonel Preston, who had been a friend to both. Mrs. Preston saw them enter, and, notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, the thought intruded: "They're after the legacy, but they will be disappointed. I've taken good care of that." Godfrey saw them, also, and his thought was a characteristic one: "What business has that Irish boy at my father's funeral? He ought to know better than to poke himself in where he is not wanted." Even Godfrey, however, had the decency to let this thought remain unspoken. The services proceeded, and among those who followed on foot in the funeral procession were Andy and his mother. It never occurred to them that they were intruding. They wanted to show respect for the memory of one who had been a friend to them. On the day after the funeral Squire Tisdale called at the house, invited by Mrs. Preston. The squire had a smattering of law, and often acted as executor in settling estates. "I invited you to come here, Squire Tisdale," said Mrs. Preston, "to speak about my affairs. Of course, it is very trying to me to think of business so soon after the death of my dear husband"--here she pressed her handkerchief to her tearless eyes--"but I feel it to be my duty to myself and my boy." "Of course," said the squire, soothingly. "We can't give way to our feelings, however much we want to." "That is my feeling," said Mrs. Preston, whose manner was wonderfully cool and collected, considering the grief which she desired to have it thought she experienced for her husband. "Did Colonel Preston leave a will?" asked the squire. "I don't think he did. He never mentioned making one to me. Did you ever hear of his making any?" "I can't say that I ever did. I suppose it will be best to search." "Won't it be more proper for you to make the search, Squire Tisdale?" said the widow. "I am an interested party." "Suppose we search together. You can tell me where your husband kept his private papers." "Certainly. He kept them in his desk. I locked it as soon as he died; but here is the key. If there is a will, it is probably there." "Very probably. We shall soon ascertain, then." Squire Tisdale took the key, and Mrs. Preston led the way to her late husband's desk. A momentary fear seized her. "What if there was an earlier will, or two copies of the last?" she thought. "I ought to have made sure by looking over the other papers." But it was too late now. Besides, it seemed very improbable that there should be another will. Had there been an earlier one, it would, doubtless, have been destroyed on the drafting of the one she had found. She reassured herself, therefore, and awaited with tranquillity the result of the search. The search was careful and thorough. Mrs. Preston desired that it should be so. Knowing the wrong she had done to Andy and his mother, as well as the town, she was unnecessarily anxious to appear perfectly fair, and assured Squire Tisdale that, had there been a will, its provisions should have been carried out to the letter. "There is no will here," said the squire, after a careful search. "I did not expect you would find one," said the widow; "but it was necessary to make sure." "Is there any other place where your husband kept papers?" "We will look in the drawers and trunks," said Mrs. Preston; "but I don't think any will be found." None was found. "Can I do anything more for you, Mrs. Preston?" asked the squire. "I should like your advice, Squire Tisdale. I am not used to business, and I would like the aid of your experience." "Willingly," said the squire, who felt flattered. "As my husband left no will, I suppose the estate goes to my son and myself?" "Undoubtedly." "How ought I to proceed?" "You should apply for letters of administration, which will enable you to settle up the property." "Will you help me to take the necessary steps?" "Certainly." "I should like to settle the estate as rapidly as possible, as I intend to remove to Boston." "Indeed? We shall be sorry to lose you. Can you not content yourself here?" "Everything will remind me of my poor husband," said Mrs. Preston, with another application of the handkerchief to her still tearless eyes. Squire Tisdale was impressed with the idea that she had more feeling than he had thought. "I didn't think of that," he said, sympathetically. "No doubt you are right." Mrs. Preston lost no time in applying for letters of administration. "As soon as I get them," she said to herself, "I will lose no time in ejecting that Irishwoman from the house my husband bought for her. I'll make her pay rent, too, for the time she has been in it." CHAPTER XXXII MRS. PRESTON'S REVENGE Andy Burke was passing the house of Mrs. Preston, within a month after Colonel Preston's death, when Godfrey, who had not gone back to boarding school, showed himself at the front door. "Come here!" said Godfrey, in an imperious tone. Andy turned his head, and paused. "Who are you talking to?" he asked. "To you, to be sure." "What's wanted?" "My mother wants to see you." "All right; I'll come in." "You can go around to the back door," said Godfrey, who seemed to find pleasure in making himself disagreeable. "I know I can, but I don't mean to," said Andy, walking up to the front entrance, where Godfrey was standing. "The back door is good enough for you," said the other, offensively. "I shouldn't mind going to it if you hadn't asked me," said Andy. "Just move away, will you?" Godfrey did not stir. "Very well," said Andy, turning; "tell your mother you would not let me in." "Come in, if you want to," said Godfrey, at length, moving aside. "I don't care much about it. I only came to oblige your mother." "Maybe you won't like what she has to say," said Godfrey, with a disagreeable smile. "I'll soon know," said Andy. He entered the house, and Godfrey called upstairs: "Mother, the Burke boy is here." "I'll be down directly," was the answer. "He can sit down." Andy sat down on a chair in the hall, not receiving an invitation to enter the sitting-room, and waited for Mrs. Preston to appear. He wondered a little what she wanted with him, but thought it likely that she had some errand or service in which she wished to employ him. He did not know the extent of her dislike for him and his mother. After a while Mrs. Preston came downstairs. She was dressed in black, but showed no other mark of sorrow for the loss of her husband. Indeed, she was looking in better health than usual. "You can come into the sitting-room," she said, coldly. Andy followed her, and so did Godfrey, who felt a malicious pleasure in hearing what he knew beforehand his mother intended to say. "I believe your name is Andrew?" she commenced. "Yes, ma'am." "Your mother occupies a house belonging to my late husband." "Yes, ma'am," answered Andy, who now began to guess at the object of the interview. "I find, by examining my husband's papers, that she has paid no rent for the last six months." "That's true," said Andy. "She offered to pay it, but Colonel Preston told her he didn't want no rent from her. He said she could have it for nothing." "That's a likely story," said Godfrey, with a sneer. "It's a true story," said Andy, in a firm voice, steadily eying his young antagonist. "This may be true, or it may not be true," said Mrs. Preston, coldly. "If true, I suppose my husband gave your mother a paper of some kind, agreeing to let her have the house rent-free." "She hasn't got any paper," said Andy. "I thought not," said Godfrey, sneering. "You forgot to write her one." "Be quiet, Godfrey," said his mother. "I prefer to manage this matter myself. Then, your mother has no paper to show in proof of what you assert?" "No, ma'am. The colonel didn't think it was necessary. He just told my mother, when she first came with the rent, that she needn't trouble herself to come again on that errand. He said that she had nursed him when he was sick with the smallpox, and he'd never forget it, and that he'd bought the house expressly for her." "I am aware that your mother nursed my husband in his sickness," said Mrs. Preston, coldly. "I also know that my husband paid her very handsomely for her services." "That's true, ma'am," said Andy. "He was a fine, generous man, the colonel was, and I'll always say it." "There really seems no reason why, in addition to this compensation, your mother should receive a present of her rent. How much rent did she pay before my husband bought the house?" "Fifteen dollars a quarter." "Then she has not paid rent for six months. I find she owes my husband's estate thirty dollars." "Colonel Preston told her she wasn't to pay it." "How do I know that?" "My mother says it, and she wouldn't tell a lie," said Andy, indignantly. "I have nothing to say as to that," said Mrs. Preston. "I am now managing the estate, and the question rests with me. I decide that your mother has been sufficiently paid for her services, and I shall claim rent for the last six months." Andy was silent for a moment. Then he spoke: "It may be so, Mrs. Preston. I'll speak to the doctor, and I'll do as he says." "I don't know what the doctor has to do with the matter," said Mrs. Preston, haughtily. "He wants to get an excuse for not paying," said Godfrey, with a sneer. "Mind your business," said Andy, excusably provoked. "Do you hear that, mother?" said Godfrey. "Are you going to let that beggar insult me before your very face?" "You have spoken very improperly to my son," said Mrs. Preston. "He spoke very improperly to me at first," said Andy, sturdily. "You do not appear to understand the respect due to me," said Mrs. Preston, with emphasis. "If I've treated you disrespectfully, I'm sorry," said Andy; "but Godfrey mustn't insult me, and call me names." "We have had enough of this," said Mrs. Preston. "I have only to repeat that your mother is indebted to me for six months' rent--thirty dollars--which I desire she will pay as soon as possible. One thing more: I must request her to find another home, as I have other plans for the house she occupies." "You're not goin' to turn her out of her house, sure?" said Andy, in some dismay. "It is not her house," said Mrs. Preston; though it occurred to her that it might have been, if she had not suppressed the will. But, of course, Andy knew nothing of this, nor did he suspect anything, since neither he nor his mother had the faintest idea of being remembered in Colonel Preston's will, kind though he had been to them both in his life. "I know it isn't," said Andy; "but she's got used to it. I don't know any other place we can get." "That is your lookout," said Mrs. Preston. "I have no doubt you can get in somewhere. As I said, the house is mine, and I have other views for it." "Can't we stay till the end of the quarter, ma'am?" "No; I wish to finish my business here as soon as possible, and then shall go to Boston." "How long can we stay, then?" "Till the first of the month." "That's only three days." "It is long enough to find another place. That is all I have to say," and Mrs. Preston turned to go. Andy rose, and followed her, without a word. He saw that it would be of no use to appeal for more time. Her tone was so firm and determined that there evidently was no moving her. "What will we do?" thought Andy, as he walked slowly and silently along the road. He felt the need of consulting somebody older and more experienced than himself. Just in the nick of time he met Dr. Townley, in whose friendship he felt confidence. "Can you stop a minute, Dr. Townley?" he said. "I want to speak to you about something." "I can spare two minutes, if you like, Andy," said the doctor, smiling. Andy explained the case. "It is quite true," said the doctor. "Colonel Preston intended your mother to pay no rent--he told me so himself; but, as your mother has no written proof, I suppose you will have to pay it. Shall I lend you the money?" "No need, doctor. We've got money enough for that. But we must move out in three days. Where shall we go?" "I'll tell you. I own the small house occupied by Grant Melton. He sets out for the West to-morrow, with his family. I'll let it to your mother for the same rent she's been paying." "Thank you," said Andy, gratefully. "It's better than the house we've been living in. It's a good change." "Perhaps you won't like me for a landlord so well as Mrs. Preston," said the doctor, smiling. "I'll risk it," said Andy. Two days afterward the transfer was made. Mrs. Preston was disappointed, and Godfrey still more so, to find their malice had done the widow Burke no harm. By advice of the doctor, Andy deferred paying the thirty dollars claimed as rent, availing himself of the twelve months allowed for the payment of debts due the estate of one deceased. "If it was anybody else, I'd pay at once," said Andy; "but Mrs. Preston has treated us so meanly that I don't mean to hurry." The delay made Mrs. Preston angry, but she was advised that it was quite legal. CHAPTER XXXIII ANDY LOSES HIS PLACE Andy and his mother moved into Dr. Townley's cottage. It was rather an improvement upon the house in which they had lived hitherto, but, then, there was this great difference: For the one they had no rent to pay, but for the other they paid fifty dollars rent. Dr. Townley would gladly have charged nothing, but he was a comparatively poor man, and could not afford to be as generous as his heart would have dictated. He had a fair income, being skillful and in good practice, but he had a son in college, and his expenses were a considerable drain upon his father's purse. Still, with the money saved, and Andy's weekly earnings, the Burkes were able to live very comfortably and still pay the rent. But a real misfortune was in store for Andy. Miss Sophia Grant was taken sick with lung fever. The sickness lasted for some weeks, and left her considerably debilitated. "What do you think of Sophia, Dr. Townley?" asked Priscilla, anxiously. "She remains weak, and she has a bad cough. I am feeling alarmed about her." "I'll tell you what I think, Miss Priscilla," said the doctor, "though I am sorry to do it. The fact is, the air here is altogether too bracing for your sister. She will have to go to some inland town, where the east winds are not felt." "Then I must go, too," said Miss Priscilla. "We have lived together from girlhood, and we cannot be separated." "I supposed you would be unwilling to leave her, so I am afraid we must make up our minds to lose you both." "Do you think, doctor, that Sophia will, by and by, be strong enough to return here?" "I am afraid not. The effects of lung fever are always felt for a long time. She will improve, no doubt, but a return to this harsh air would, I fear, bring back her old trouble." "I asked because I wanted to know whether it would be best to keep this place. After what you have told me, I shall try to sell it." "I am truly sorry, Miss Priscilla." "So am I, Dr. Townley. I don't expect any place will seem so much like home as this." "Have you any particular place that you think of going to?" "Yes; I have a niece married in a small town near Syracuse, New York State. They don't have east winds there. I'll get Priscilla (she's named after me) to hunt up a cottage that we can live in, and move right out there. I suppose we'd better go soon?" "Better go at once. Weak lungs must be humored." "Then I'll write to Priscilla to get me a boarding house, and we'll start next week." There was one person whom this removal was likely to affect seriously, and this was our young hero. "I hope Andy'll be able to get a place," said Priscilla, after she had communicated the doctor's orders to her sister. "Just so, Priscilla. He's a good boy." "I will give him a good recommendation." "Just so. Does he know it?" "No. I will call him in and tell him, so that he can be looking out for another position." "Just so." Andy answered the call of Miss Priscilla. He had been sawing wood, and there was sawdust in his sleeves. "How long have you been with us, Andy?" asked his mistress. "Over a year, ma'am." "I wish I could keep you for a year to come." "Can't you?" asked Andy, startled. "No, Andy." "What's the matter, Miss Priscilla? Have I done anything wrong?" "No, Andy. We are both of us quite satisfied with you." "You haven't lost any money, ma'am, have you? I'll work for less, if you can't afford to pay as much as you've been paying." "Thank you, Andy, but it isn't that. My sister's lungs are weak, and Dr. Townley has ordered her to move to a less exposed place. We are going to move away from the town." "I'm sorry," said Andy, and he was, for other reasons than because he was about to lose a good place. "We shall miss you, Andy." "Just so," chimed in Miss Sophia, with a cough. "You see how weak my sister's lungs are. It's on her account we are going." "Shan't you come back again, ma'am?" "No, Andy. The doctor says it will never be safe for us to do so. I hope you will get a good place." "I hope so, ma'am; but you needn't think of that." "We are prepared to give you a good recommendation. We feel perfectly satisfied with you in every way." "Just so," said Sophia. "Thank you, ma'am, and you, too, Miss Sophia. I've tried to do my duty faithfully by you." "And you have, Andy." "How soon do you go, ma'am?" "Next week, if we can get away. The doctor says we can't get away too soon. So you had better be looking around, to see if you can get a place somewhere." "I will, ma'am; but I'll stay with you till the last day. You'll need me to pack up for you." "Yes, we shall. To-morrow I'll write you the recommendation." "Thank you, ma'am." Andy did not sleep as much as usual that night. His wages were the main support of his mother and sister, and he could think of no other place in the village where he was likely to be employed. He had a little money saved up, but he didn't like the idea of spending it. Besides, it would not last long. "I wish Dr. Townley wanted a boy," thought Andy. "I'd rather work for the doctor than for anybody else in the village. He's a nice man, and he cares just as much for poor folks as he does for rich folks. I am sure he likes me better than he does Godfrey Preston." But Dr. Townley already had a boy, whom he did not like to turn off. Nor could he have afforded to pay Andy as high wages as he had received from the Misses Grant. There really seemed to be no vacant place in the village for our young hero to fill, and, of course, this troubled him. Next week the Misses Grant got away from the village. They gave Andy as a present an old-fashioned silver watch, about the size and shape of a turnip. Andy was glad to get it, old-fashioned as it was, and he thanked them warmly. The day afterward he was walking slowly along the village street, when he came upon Godfrey Preston strutting along, with an air of importance. He and his mother had removed to Boston, but they were visiting the town on a little business. "Hello, there!" said Godfrey, halting. "Hello!" said Andy. "You've lost your place, haven't you?" asked Godfrey, with a sneer. "Yes." "How are you going to live?" "By eating, I expect," answered Andy, shortly. "If you can get anything to eat, you mean?" "We got enough so far." "Perhaps you won't have, long. You may have to go to the poorhouse." "When I do, I shall find you there." "What do you mean?" demanded Godfrey, angrily. "I mean I shan't go there till you do." "You're proud for a beggar." "I'm more of a gentleman than you are." "I'd thrash you, only I won't demean myself by doing it." "That's lucky, or you might get thrashed yourself." "You're only an Irish boy." "I'm proud of that same. You won't find me go back on my country." Godfrey walked away. Somehow, he could never get the better of Andy. "I hope I'll see you begging in rags, some day," he thought to himself. But boys like Andy are not often reduced to such a point. CHAPTER XXXIV THE WILL AT LAST The next three months passed very unsatisfactorily for Andy. In a small country town like that in which he lived there was little opportunity for a boy, however industrious, to earn money. The farmers generally had sons of their own, or were already provided with assistants, and there was no manufacturing establishment in the village to furnish employment to those who didn't like agriculture. Andy had some idea of learning the carpenter trade, there being a carpenter who was willing to take an apprentice, but, unfortunately, he was unwilling to pay any wages for the first year--only boarding the apprentice--and our hero felt, for his mother's sake, that it would not do to make such an engagement. When the three months were over, the stock of money which Andy and his mother had saved up was almost gone. In fact, he had not enough left to pay the next quarter's rent to Dr. Townley. Things were in this unsatisfactory state, when something happened that had a material effect upon Andy's fortunes, and, as my readers will be glad to know, for their improvement. To explain what it was, I must go back to a period shortly before Colonel's Preston's death. One day he met the doctor in the street, and stopped to speak to him. "Dr. Townley," he said, "I have a favor to ask of you." "I shall be very glad to serve you, Colonel Preston," said the doctor. Thereupon Colonel Preston drew from his inside pocket a sealed envelope of large size. "I want you to take charge of this for me," he said. "Certainly," said the doctor, in some surprise. "Please read what I have written upon the envelope." The doctor, his attention called to the envelope, read, inscribed in large, distinct characters: "Not to be opened till six months after my death." "I see you want an explanation," said the colonel. "Here it is--the paper contained in this envelope is an important one. I won't tell you what it is. When you come to open it, it will explain itself." "But, colonel, you are likely to live as long as I. In that case, I can't follow your directions." "Of course, we can't tell the duration of our lives. Still, I think you will outlive me. If not, I shall reclaim the paper. Meanwhile, I shall be glad to have you take charge of it for me." "Of course I will. It is a slight favor to ask." "It may prove important. By the way, there is no need of telling anyone, unless, perchance, your wife. I don't want to force you to keep anything secret from her. Mrs. Townley, I know, may be depended upon." "I think she may. Well, Colonel Preston, set your mind at rest. I will take care of the paper." When Colonel Preston died, not long afterward, the doctor naturally thought of the paper, and, as no will was left, it occurred to him that this might be a will; but, in that case, he couldn't understand why he should have been enjoined to keep it six months before opening it. On the whole, he concluded that it was not a will. Seated at the supper table, about this time, Mrs. Townley said, suddenly: "Henry, how long is it since Colonel Preston died?" "Let me see," said the doctor, thoughtfully. "It is--yes, it is six months to-morrow." "Then it is time for you to open that envelope he gave into your charge." "So it is. My dear, your feminine curiosity inspired that thought," said the doctor, smiling. "Perhaps you are right. I own I am a little inquisitive in the matter." "I am glad you mentioned it. I have so much on my mind that I should have let the day pass, and I should be sorry not to fulfill to the letter the promise I made to my friend." "Have you any suspicion as to the nature of the document?" "I thought it might be a will; but, if so, I can't understand why a delay of six months should have been interposed." "Colonel Preston may have had his reasons. Possibly he did not fully trust his wife's attention to his requests." "It may be so. I am afraid his married life was not altogether harmonious. Mrs. Preston always struck me as a very selfish woman." "No doubt of that." "She evidently regarded herself as superior to the rest of us." "In that respect Godfrey is like her. He is a self-conceited, disagreeable young jackanapes. I wouldn't give much for his chances of honorable distinction in life. I'll tell you of a boy who will, in my opinion, beat him in the race of life." "Who is that?" "Andy Burke." "Andy is a good boy, but I am afraid the family is doing poorly now." "So I fear. The, fact is, there doesn't appear to be much opening for a lad like Andy in this village." "I hear that Mr. Graves, the storekeeper, who is getting old, wants to get a boy, or young man, with a small capital to take an interest in his business, and, eventually, succeed him." "That would be a good chance for Andy, if he had the small capital; but he probably hasn't ten dollars in the world." "That's a pity." "If I were a capitalist, I wouldn't mind starting him myself; but as you, my dear, are my most precious property, and are not readily convertible into cash, I don't quite see my way to do anything to assist him." "I didn't think of you, Henry. Country doctors are not likely to get rich. But I thought Colonel Preston, who seemed to take an interest in the boy, might do something for him." "If he had lived, he might have done so--probably he would. But Mrs. Preston and Godfrey hate the Burkes like poison, for no good reason that I know of, and there is no chance of help from that quarter." "I should think not." The next day, Dr. Townley, immediately after breakfast, drew the envelope already referred to from among his private papers, and, breaking the seal, opened it. To his surprise and excitement, he discovered that the inclosure was the last will and testament of his deceased friend. Accompanying it was the following note: "MY DEAR FRIEND, DR. TOWNLEY: This is the duplicate of a will executed recently, and expresses my well-considered wishes as to the disposition of my property. The original will may have been found and executed before you open this envelope. In that case, of course, this will be of no value, and you can destroy it. But I am aware that valuable papers are liable to loss or injury, and, therefore, I deem it prudent to place this duplicate in your possession, that, if the other be lost, you may see it carried into execution. I have named you my executor, and am sure, out of regard to me, you will accept the trust, and fulfill it to the best of your ability. I have always felt the utmost confidence in your friendship, and this will account for my troubling you on the present occasion. "Your friend, "Anthony Preston." From this letter Dr. Townley turned to the perusal of the will. The contents filled him with equal surprise and pleasure. "Five thousand dollars to Andy Burke!" he repeated. "That is capital! It will start the boy in life, and with his good habits it will make him sure of a competence by and by. With half of it he can buy an interest in Graves' store, and the balance will, if well invested, give him a handsome addition to his income. Then there's the bequest for the town library--a capital idea, that! It will do a great deal to make the town attractive, and be a powerful agency for refining and educating the people." Just then Mrs. Townley, who knew what her husband was about, came into the room. "Well, Henry," she said, "is the paper important?" "I should say it was. It is Colonel Preston's last will and testatment." "Is it possible? How does he leave his property?" "He leaves five thousand dollars for a town library." "Does he remember Andy Burke?" "He leaves him five thousand dollars, and gives his mother the house they used to live in." "That's splendid! But what will Mrs. Preston say?" "Well, that remains to be seen," said the doctor, laughing. CHAPTER XXXV MRS. PRESTON IS UNPLEASANTLY SURPRISED Dr. Townley thought it best to consult with the town authorities as to the course to be pursued, since, as it appeared, the town was interested in the will. It was decided that the doctor and Mr. Graves, who was the Chairman of the Selectmen, should go to Boston the next day and inform Mrs. Preston of the discovery of the will. Until after this interview it was deemed best not to mention the matter to Andy or his mother. Mrs. Preston was established in a showy house at the South End. At last she was living as she desired to do. She went to the theater and the opera, and was thinking whether she could afford to set up a carriage. Godfrey she had placed at a private school, and was anxious to have him prepare for admission to Harvard College, but in this hope she seemed destined to be disappointed. Godfrey wanted to see life and enjoy himself, and had no intention of submitting to the drudgery of hard study. "Godfrey," said his mother one morning, "I have received a letter from your teacher, complaining that you don't work." "I'm not going to work myself to death," answered Godfrey. "I don't expect you to hurt yourself with work, but I want you to go to college." "Oh, well, I'll get in somehow." "Don't you want to stand well as a scholar?" she asked. "I leave that to the poor fellows that have got to work for a living. I am rich." "You may lose your money." "I don't mean to." "Suppose you do?" "Then I will go to work." "I should like to have you graduate well at college and then study law. You might get into Congress," said his mother. "I guess I'll know enough for that," said Godfrey, carelessly. "I want to have a good time." That was not the worst of it, however. He extorted from his mother a large allowance, which he spent at bars and billiard saloons, and one day was brought home drunk by a schoolfellow. "Oh, Godfrey, how can you do so?" exclaimed the selfish woman, for once fairly alarmed on another's account. "Hush up, old woman!" hiccoughed Godfrey. Mrs. Preston was mortified to think this should be said to her before Godfrey's schoolmate. "He does not know what he is saying," she said, apologetically. "Yes, I do," persisted Godfrey. "I'm a--a gen'leman's son. I don't want you to interfere with gen'leman's son." He was put to bed, and awoke the next morning with a splitting headache. It was the morning of the day which the doctor and Mr. Graves had chosen to call on Mrs. Preston. She was preparing to go out, when a servant came upstairs to announce that two gentlemen were in the parlor, and wanted to see her. "Two gentlemen! What do they look like, Nancy?" "One of 'em looks like he was from the country, mum." This referred to Mr. Graves, who did have a rustic look. The doctor would readily have passed for a Bostonian. "Did they give their names?" "No, mum." "I will go down directly. I suppose they won't stay long." Mrs. Preston sailed into the parlor with the air of a city lady, as she proudly imagined, but stopped short in some surprise when she recognized her visitors. Of course, she did not suspect the nature of their business. Dr. Townley arose as she entered. "Good-morning, Mrs. Preston," he said. "I hope I find you well?" "I am quite well," said Mrs. Preston, coldly, for she had never liked the doctor. She had an unpleasant feeling that he understood her, and was not among her admirers. "Good-morning, Mr. Graves. You come to the city occasionally?" "I don't often get time to come up, but the doctor thought I ought to come." "Indeed! I am sorry to say that I am just going out." "I must ask you to defer going till we have communicated our business," said the doctor. "Business?" repeated Mrs. Preston, seating herself in some surprise. "Yes--business of importance. In short, your husband's will has come to light." "My husband's will!" exclaimed Mrs. Preston. "I thought----" She checked herself suddenly. She was about to say, "I thought I had destroyed it," and that would have let the cat out of the bag with a vengeance. "You thought that he left no will," said the doctor, finishing the sentence for her. "He really left two----" "Two!" "That's it--he executed two--exactly alike. One he left in my hands." "That is a likely story!" said Mrs. Preston, excitedly. "If that is the case, why, I ask, have we heard nothing of this before?" "Because it was contained in an envelope, which I was requested not to open for six months after his decease. The time having expired----" "May I ask what are the provisions of this pretended will?" demanded Mrs. Preston, in visible excitement. "Mrs. Preston," said the doctor, with dignity, "you appear to forget that you are addressing a gentleman. I am above fabricating a will, as you seem to insinuate. As to the provisions, it leaves five thousand dollars to the town for the establishment of a public library, and five thousand dollars to Andy Burke, besides the small house in which she used to live to the widow Burke." The worst had come. In spite of her criminal act, she must lose the ten thousand dollars; and, worst of all, those whom she hated and despised were to profit by her loss. "This is simply outrageous, Dr. Townley," she said. "You are speaking of your husband's will, Mrs. Preston." "I don't believe he made it." "There can be no doubt of it. Mr. Graves has examined it, and he and myself are so familiar with the handwriting of your husband that we have no hesitation in pronouncing the will genuine." "Colonel Preston must have been insane if he really made such a will." "I was his medical adviser," said Dr. Townley, quietly, "and I never detected the least sign of an unsound mind." "The fact of robbing his wife and child to enrich an Irishwoman and her son is proof enough of his insanity." "Pardon me, madam, but such bequests are made every day. Outside of their legacies your husband left ample fortune, and there is no danger of your being impoverished." "Did you bring the will with you?" "No. I did not feel like incurring the risk." "I shall contest the will," said Mrs. Preston, passionately. "I would not advise you to. The proof of its genuineness is overwhelming. I suppose you never saw the other will?" Mrs. Preston, at this unexpected question, in spite of her strong nerves, turned pale, and faltered: "Of course not," she said, after a slight pause. "Your husband asserts positively in a note to me that he made one," said the doctor, bending his eyes searchingly upon her, for he suspected the truth, and that it was distrust of his wife that led Colonel Preston to take the precaution he had done. "Its disappearance is mysterious." "What do you mean?" cried Mrs. Preston, sharply, and not altogether without alarm. "I meant only to express my surprise." "If your business is over, I will go out." "I have only this to say, that, being named in the will as executor, I shall take immediate measures to have the will admitted to probate. Should you make up your mind to contest it, you can give me due notice through your legal adviser. In that case," he added, significantly, "the question of the disappearance of the other will will come up." "I will consult my lawyer," said Mrs. Preston. Though she said this, her determination was already made. "Conscience makes cowards of us all," and the doctor's last hint alarmed her so much that she decided to make no opposition to the setting up of the will. But it was a bitter pill to swallow. "Graves," said Dr. Townley, as he left the house, "that woman destroyed the other will." "Do you think so?" asked Mr. Graves, startled. "I feel sure of it. Let me predict also that she will not contest this will. She is afraid to." And the doctor was right. CHAPTER XXXVI ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Andy was quite unconscious of the good fortune which had come to him. Though a manly and stout-hearted boy, he was, in fact, getting discouraged. He was willing and anxious to work, but there seemed to be no work for him to do. He would have left home some time since to try his fortune elsewhere, but for the entreaties of his mother, who didn't like to lose him. In the morning after Dr. Townley's visit to Boston, our hero knocked at the doctor's front door. "Is Dr. Townley at home?" he asked. "Yes, Andy," said the doctor, who overheard the inquiry. "Come right in. You're just the boy I want to see." Andy entered, twirling his hat awkwardly in his hand. "Good-morning, Andy," said the doctor, cordially. "Take a seat." "Thank you, sir," said Andy, but did not sit down. "What is the matter? You are looking rather blue this morning." "Faith, doctor, and that's the way I feel entirely." "You're not sick, are you? Let me feel your pulse." "No, I'm not sick, but it's discouraged I am." "Why should a stout boy in good health be discouraged?" "I can't get any work to do, and I'm afraid we'll all starve." "It strikes me," said the doctor, fixing his eyes on Andy, enjoying the effect of his intended announcement, "that I wouldn't talk of starving, if I were as rich as you are, Andy." "As rich as me?" echoed Andy. "Shure, doctor, you're jokin'." "Not at all." "Why, I haven't got but seventy-five cents in the world." "Now it's you that are joking, Andy." "I wish I was," sighed Andy. "Why, I had it on good authority that you were worth five thousand dollars." Andy stared in earnest. "I see you're laughin' at me, doctor," he said, suspecting that Dr. Townley was making game of him. "No, I am not. I am in earnest." "Who told you such a big falsehood as that, now?" asked our hero, bewildered. "Perhaps I dreamed that somebody told me Colonel Preston had left you five thousand dollars in his will." "Are you jokin'? Is it true?" asked Andy, eagerly, something in the doctor's face telling him that he really meant what he said. "Maybe I dreamed, too, that the colonel left your mother the house she used to live in." "Is it true, doctor? Tell me, quick!" said Andy, trembling with excitement. "Yes, my boy, it's all true, and I'm glad to be the first to congratulate you on your good fortune." He held out his hand, which our hero seized, and then, unable to repress his exultation, threw up his cap to the ceiling and indulged in an extempore dance, the doctor meanwhile looking on with benevolent gratification. "Excuse me, doctor; I couldn't help it," he panted. "It's all right, Andy. Are you discouraged now?" "Divil a bit, doctor. It's wild I am with joy." "And you don't think of starving yet, eh, Andy?" "I'll wait a bit. But why didn't I know before?" "Sit down, and I'll tell you all about it." So Andy heard the account, which need not be repeated. "Now," continued the doctor, "I'll tell you what plan I have for you. Mr. Graves wants to take a boy into his store who will buy an interest in the business and become his partner. He thinks well of you, and is willing to take you. What do you say?" "I'll do whatever you think best, doctor." "Then I think this is a good opening for you. Mr. Graves wants to retire from business before long. Probably by the time you are twenty-one he will leave everything in your hands. You will be paid weekly wages and perhaps be entitled to a portion of the profits--more than enough to support you all comfortably. What do you say? Shall we have a new firm in the village? "GRAVES & BURKE." Andy's eyes sparkled with proud anticipation. It was so far above any dream he had ever formed. "It's what I'd like above all things," he said. "Oh, what will mother say? I must go and tell her." "Go, by all means, Andy, and when you have told her, come back, and I'll go over with you to Mr. Graves' store, and we'll talk over the arrangements with him." Mrs. Burke's delight at her own success and that of Andy may be imagined. She, too, had been getting despondent, and it seemed almost like a fairy tale to find herself the owner of a house, and her boy likely to be taken into partnership with the principal trader in the village. She invoked blessings on the memory of Colonel Preston, through whose large-hearted generosity this had come to pass, but could not help speculating on what Mrs. Preston would say. She understood very well that she would be very angry. Mrs. Preston did not dispute the will. She might have done so, but for her fear that her own criminal act would be brought to light. Godfrey, who was even more disturbed than she was at the success of "that low Irish boy," begged her to do it, but in this case she did not yield to his entreaties. She had never dared to take him into confidence respecting her destruction of the other will. While we are upon this subject, we may as well trace out the future career of Mrs. Preston. Some years later she was induced, by the expectation of aiding her social standing, to marry an adventurer who appeared to be doing a flourishing business as a State Street broker. By spurious representations, he managed to get hold of her property, and to be appointed Godfrey's guardian. The result may be foreseen. He managed to spend or waste the whole and when Godfrey was twenty-one, he and his mother were penniless. Andy, who was now sole representative of the firm of Graves & Burke, and in receipt of an excellent income, heard of the misfortunes of his old enemy, and out of regard to the memory of his old benefactor voluntarily offered Mrs. Preston an allowance of five hundred dollars. It cost her pride a great deal to accept this favor from the boy she had looked down upon as "only an Irish boy," but her necessity was greater than her pride, and she saw no other way of escaping the poorhouse. So she ungraciously accepted. But Andy did not care for thanks. He felt that he was doing his duty, and he asked no other reward than that consciousness. Mrs. Preston was allowed to make her home, rent free, in Mrs. Burke's old house, Andy having built a better and more commodious one, in which he had installed his mother as mistress. Mrs. Preston grew old fast, in appearance, and fretted without ceasing for the fortune and position which she had lost. Her husband left her, and has not since been heard of. As for Godfrey, Andy secured him a passage to California, where he led a disreputable life. There is a rumor that he was killed in a drunken brawl at Sacramento not long since, but I have not been able to learn whether this is true or not. His loss of fortune had something to do with his going to the bad, but I am afraid, with his character and tendencies, that neither in prosperity nor in adversity would he have built up a good character, or led an honorable career. His course had been, in all respects, far different from that of our hero, who, already prosperous, seems likely to go on adding to his wealth, and growing in the esteem of the best portion of the community. His success, aided, indeed, by good fortune, has served to demonstrate the favorable effects of honesty, industry, and good principles, upon individual success. He is not the first, nor will he be the last, to achieve prosperity and the respect of the community, though beginning life as "only an Irish boy." THE END Transcriber's comments: Spelling has been left as in the original book. Specifically, the dialect and typographical errors have been left unchanged. 
22537	----	Mr. DOOLEY IN PEACE AND IN WAR [Illustration] Boston Small, Maynard & Company 1899 Copyright, 1898, by the Chicago Journal Copyright, 1898, by Small, Maynard & Company First Edition (10,000 copies) November, 1898 Second Edition (10,000 copies) December, 1898 Third Edition (10,000 copies) January, 1899 Press of George H. Ellis, Boston, U.S.A. TO W.H. TURNER PREFACE. Archey Road stretches back for many miles from the heart of an ugly city to the cabbage gardens that gave the maker of the seal his opportunity to call the city "urbs in horto." Somewhere between the two--that is to say, forninst th' gas-house and beyant Healey's slough and not far from the polis station--lives Martin Dooley, doctor of philosophy. There was a time when Archey Road was purely Irish. But the Huns, turned back from the Adriatic and the stock-yards and overrunning Archey Road, have nearly exhausted the original population,--not driven them out as they drove out less vigorous races, with thick clubs and short spears, but edged them out with the more biting weapons of modern civilization,--overworked and under-eaten them into more languid surroundings remote from the tanks of the gas-house and the blast furnaces of the rolling-mill. But Mr. Dooley remains, and enough remain with him to save the Archey Road. In this community you can hear all the various accents of Ireland, from the awkward brogue of the "far-downer" to the mild and aisy Elizabethan English of the southern Irishman, and all the exquisite variations to be heard between Armagh and Bantry Bay, with the difference that would naturally arise from substituting cinders and sulphuretted hydrogen for soft misty air and peat smoke. Here also you can see the wakes and christenings, the marriages and funerals, and the other fêtes of the ol' counthry somewhat modified and darkened by American usage. The Banshee has been heard many times in Archey Road. On the eve of All Saints' Day it is well known that here alone the pookies play thricks in cabbage gardens. In 1893 it was reported that Malachi Dempsey was called "by the other people," and disappeared west of the tracks, and never came back. A simple people! "Simple, says ye!" remarked Mr. Dooley. "Simple like th' air or th' deep sea. Not complicated like a watch that stops whin th' shoot iv clothes ye got it with wears out. Whin Father Butler wr-rote a book he niver finished, he said simplicity was not wearin' all ye had on ye'er shirt-front, like a tin-horn gambler with his di'mon' stud. An' 'tis so." The barbarians around them are moderately but firmly governed, encouraged to passionate votings for the ruling race, but restrained from the immoral pursuit of office. The most generous, thoughtful, honest, and chaste people in the world are these friends of Mr. Dooley,--knowing and innocent; moral, but giving no heed at all to patented political moralities. Among them lives and prospers the traveller, archæologist, historian, social observer, saloon-keeper, economist, and philosopher, who has not been out of the ward for twenty-five years "but twict." He reads the newspapers with solemn care, heartily hates them, and accepts all they print for the sake of drowning Hennessy's rising protests against his logic. From the cool heights of life in the Archey Road, uninterrupted by the jarring noises of crickets and cows, he observes the passing show, and meditates thereon. His impressions are transferred to the desensitized plate of Mr. Hennessy's mind, where they can do no harm. "There's no betther place to see what's goin' on thin the Ar-rchey Road," says Mr. Dooley. "Whin th' ilicthric cars is hummin' down th' sthreet an' th' blast goin' sthrong at th' mills, th' noise is that gr-reat ye can't think." He is opulent in good advice, as becomes a man of his station; for he has mastered most of the obstacles in a business career, and by leading a prudent and temperate life has established himself so well that he owns his own house and furniture, and is only slightly behind on his license. It would be indelicate to give statistics as to his age. Mr. Hennessy says he was a "grown man whin th' pikes was out in forty-eight, an' I was hedge-high, an' I'm near fifty-five." Mr. Dooley says Mr. Hennessy is eighty. He closes discussion on his own age with the remark, "I'm old enough to know betther." He has served his country with distinction. His conduct of the important office of captain of his precinct (1873-75) was highly commended, and there was some talk of nominating him for alderman. At the expiration of his term he was personally thanked by the Hon. M. McGee, at one time a member of the central committee. But the activity of public life was unsuited to a man of Mr. Dooley's tastes; and, while he continues to view the political situation always with interest and sometimes with alarm, he has resolutely declined to leave the bar for the forum. His early experience gave him wisdom in discussing public affairs. "Politics," he says, "ain't bean bag. 'Tis a man's game; an' women, childher, an' pro-hybitionists'd do well to keep out iv it." Again he remarks, "As Shakespeare says, 'Ol' men f'r th' council, young men f'r th' ward.'" An attempt has been made in this book to give permanent form to a few of the more characteristic and important of Mr. Dooley's utterances. For permission to reprint the articles the thanks of the editor are due to Mr. George G. Booth, of the Chicago _Journal_, and to Mr. Dooley's constant friend, Mr. H.H. Kohlsaat, of the Chicago _Evening Post_. F. P. D. CONTENTS. MR. DOOLEY IN WAR PAGE ON DIPLOMACY 1 ON WAR PREPARATIONS 6 ON FITZ-HUGH LEE 10 ON MULES AND OTHERS 14 ON HIS COUSIN GEORGE 20 ON SOME ARMY APPOINTMENTS 25 ON STRATEGY 30 ON GENERAL MILES'S MOONLIGHT EXCURSION 34 ON ADMIRAL DEWEY'S ACTIVITY 39 ON THE PHILIPPINES 43 ON PRAYERS FOR VICTORY 48 ON THE ANGLO-SAXON 53 ON A LETTER FROM THE FRONT 58 ON OUR CUBAN ALLIES 63 ON THE DESTRUCTION OF CERVERA'S FLEET 68 ON A LETTER TO MR. DEPEW 73 ON THE PRESIDENT'S CAT 77 ON A SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McKINLEY 81 ON THE HERO IN POLITICS 87 MR. DOOLEY IN PEACE ON NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS 95 ON GOLD-SEEKING 100 ON BOOKS 105 ON REFORM CANDIDATES 111 ON PATERNAL DUTY 118 ON CRIMINALS 124 ON A PLOT 130 ON THE NEW WOMAN 136 ON EXPERT TESTIMONY 141 ON THE POPULARITY OF FIREMEN 146 ON THE GAME OF FOOTBALL 152 ON THE NECESSITY OF MODESTY AMONG THE RICH 158 ON THE POWER OF LOVE 165 ON THE VICTORIAN ERA 170 ON THE CURRENCY QUESTION 175 ON POLITICAL PARADES 181 ON CHARITY 187 ON NANSEN 192 ON A POPULIST CONVENTION 197 ON A FAMILY REUNION 202 ON A FAMOUS WEDDING 208 ON A QUARREL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND GERMANY 213 ON ORATORY IN POLITICS 218 ON CHRISTMAS GIFTS 223 ON ANARCHISTS 229 ON THE DREYFUS CASE 234 ON THE DECADENCE OF GREECE 239 ON THE INDIAN WAR 245 ON GOLF 249 ON THE FRENCH CHARACTER 255 MR. DOOLEY IN WAR ON DIPLOMACY. "I'll explain it to ye," said Mr. Dooley. "'Tis this way. Ye see, this here Sagasta is a boonco steerer like Canada Bill, an' th' likes iv him. A smart man is this Sagasta, an' wan that can put a crimp in th' ca-ards that ye cudden't take out with a washerwoman's wringer. He's been through manny a ha-ard game. Talk about th' County Dimocracy picnic, where a three-ca-ard man goes in debt ivry time he hurls th' broads, 'tis nawthin' to what this here Spanish onion has been again an' beat. F'r years an' years he's played on'y profissionals. Th' la-ads he's tackled have more marked ca-ards in their pockets thin a preacher fr'm Mitchigan an' more bad money thin ye cud shake out iv th' coat-tail pockets iv a prosp'rous banker fr'm Injianny. He's been up again Gladstun an' Bisma-arck an' ol' what-ye-call-'im, th' Eyetalian,--his name's got away from me,--an' he's done thim all. "Well, business is bad. No wan will play with him. No money's comin' in. Th' circus has moved on to th' nex' town, an' left him without a customer. Th' Jew man that loaned him th' bank-roll threatens to seize th' ca-ards on' th' table. Whin, lo an' behold, down th' sthreet comes a ma-an fr'm th' counthry,--a lawyer fr'm Ohio, with a gripsack in his hand. Oh, but he's a proud man. He's been in town long enough f'r to get out iv th' way iv th' throlley ca-ar whin th' bell rings. He's larned not to thry an' light his see-gar at th' ilicthric light. He doesn't offer to pay th' ilivator ma-an f'r carryin' him upstairs. He's got so he can pass a tall buildin' without thryin' f'r to turn a back summersault. An' he's as haughty about it as a new man on an ice-wagon. They'se nawthin' ye can tell him. He thinks iv himsilf goin' back to Canton with a r-red necktie on, an' settin' on a cracker box an' tellin' th' lads whin they come in fr'm pitchin' hor-rseshoes what a hot time he's had, an' how he's seen th' hootchy-kootchy an' th' Pammer House barber shop, an' th' other ondacint sights iv a gr-reat city. "An' so he comes up to where Sagasta is kind iv throwin' th' ca-ards idly on th' top iv th' bar'l, an' Sagasta pipes him out iv th' corner iv his eye, an' says to himsilf: 'Oh, I dinnaw,' an' thanks hiven f'r th' law that has a sucker bor-rn ivry minyit. An' th' la-ad fr'm Canton thinks he can pick out th' Jack, an' sometimes he can an' sometimes he can't; but th' end iv it is th' Spanyard has him thrimmed down to his chest protector, an' he'll be goin' back to Canton in a blanket. Ye see it ain't his game. If it was pitchin' hor-rseshoes, 'twud be diff'rent. He cud bate Sagasta at that. He cud do him at rasslin' or chasin' th' greased pig, or in a wan-legged race or th' tug-iv-war. He cud make him look foolish at liftin' a kag iv beer or hitchin' up a team. But, whin it comes to di-plo-macy, th' Spanyard has him again th' rail, an' counts on him till his ar-rm is sore." "Why don't he tur-rn in an' fight?" demanded the patriotic Mr. Hennessy. "Lord knows," said Mr. Dooley. "Mebbe 'twill tur-rn out th' way it did with two frinds iv mine. They was Joe Larkin an' a little r-red-headed man be th' name iv O'Brien, an' they wint out to th' picanic at Ogden's grove, where wanst a year Ireland's freed. They was a shell ma-an wurrukin' near th' fence, an' Larkin says, says he: 'He's aisy. Lave me have some money, an' we'll do him. I can see th' pea go undher th' shell ivry time.' So O'Brien bein' a hot spoort loaned him th' money, an' he wint at it. Ivry time Larkin cud see th' pea go undher th' shell as plain as day. Wanst or twict th' shell man was so careless that he left th' pea undher th' edge iv th' shell. But in five minyits all iv O'Brien's money was in th' bad ma-an's pockits, an' he was lookin' around f'r more foolish pathrites. It took O'Brien some time f'r to decide what to do. Thin says he, ''Twas my money this fool blowed in.' An' he made a dash f'r th' shell ma'an; an' he not on'y got what he'd lost, but all th' r-rest iv th' capital besides. Ye see, that was his game. That was where he come in. An' he took th' money an' carrid it over to a cor-rner iv th' gr-rounds where a la-ad had wan iv thim matcheens where ye pay tin cints f'r th' privilege iv seein' how har-rd ye can hit with a sledge-hammer, an' there he stayed till th' polis come ar-round to dhrive people off th' gr-rounds." ON WAR PREPARATIONS "Well," Mr. Hennessy asked, "how goes th' war?" "Splendid, thank ye," said Mr. Dooley. "Fine, fine. It makes me hear-rt throb with pride that I'm a citizen iv th' Sixth Wa-ard." "Has th' ar-rmy started f'r Cuba yet?" "Wan ar-rmy, says ye? Twinty! Las' Choosdah an advance ar-rmy iv wan hundherd an' twinty thousand men landed fr'm th' Gussie, with tin thousand cannons hurlin' projick-tyles weighin' eight hundherd pounds sivinteen miles. Winsdah night a second ar-rmy iv injineers, miners, plumbers, an' lawn tinnis experts, numberin' in all four hundherd an' eighty thousand men, ar-rmed with death-dealin' canned goods, was hurried to Havana to storm th' city. "Thursdah mornin' three thousand full rigimints iv r-rough r-riders swum their hor-rses acrost to Matoonzas, an' afther a spirited battle captured th' Rainy Christiny golf links, two up an' hell to play, an' will hold thim again all comers. Th' same afthernoon th' reg'lar cavalry, con-sistin' iv four hundherd an' eight thousan' well-mounted men, was loaded aboord th' tug Lucy J., and departed on their earned iv death amidst th' cheers iv eight millyon sojers left behind at Chickamaha. These cav'lry'll co-operate with Commodore Schlow; an' whin he desthroys th' Spanish fleet, as he does ivry Sundah an' holy day except in Lent, an' finds out where they ar-re an' desthroys thim, afther batterin' down th' forts where they ar-re con-cealed so that he can't see thim, but thinks they ar-re on their way f'r to fight Cousin George Dooley, th' cav'lry will make a dash back to Tampa, where Gin'ral Miles is preparin' to desthroy th' Spanish at wan blow,--an' he's th' boy to blow. "The gin'ral arrived th' other day, fully prepared f'r th' bloody wurruk iv war. He had his intire fam'ly with him. He r-rode recklessly into camp, mounted on a superb specyal ca-ar. As himsilf an' Uncle Mike Miles, an' Cousin Hennery Miles, an' Master Miles, aged eight years, dismounted fr'm th' specyal train, they were received with wild cheers be eight millyon iv th' bravest sojers that iver give up their lives f'r their counthry. Th' press cinchorship is so pow'rful that no news is allowed to go out; but I have it fr'm th' specyal corryspondint iv Mesilf, Clancy th' Butcher, Mike Casey, an' th' City Direchtry that Gin'ral Miles instantly repaired himsilf to th' hotel, where he made his plans f'r cr-rushin' th' Spanyards at wan blow. He will equip th' ar-rmy with blow-guns at wanst. His uniforms ar-re comin' down in specyal steel protected bullyon trains fr'm th' mint, where they've been kept f'r a year. He has ordhered out th' gold resarve f'r to equip his staff, numberin' eight thousan' men, manny iv whom ar-re clubmen; an', as soon as he can have his pitchers took, he will cr-rush th' Spanish with wan blow. Th' purpose iv th' gin'ral is to permit no delay. Decisive action is demanded be th' people. An', whin th' hot air masheens has been sint to th' front, Gin'ral Miles will strike wan blow that'll be th' damdest blow since th' year iv th' big wind in Ireland. "Iv coorse, they'se dissinsions in th' cabinet; but they don't amount to nawthin'. Th' Sicrety iv War is in favor iv sawin' th' Spanish ar-rmy into two-be-four joists. Th' Sicrety iv th' Three-asury has a scheme f'r roonin' thim be lindin' thim money. Th' Sicrety iv th' Navy wants to sue thim befure th' Mattsachusetts Supreme Coort. I've heerd that th' Prisident is arrangin' a knee dhrill, with th' idee iv prayin' th' villyans to th' divvil. But these diff'rences don't count. We're all wan people, an' we look to Gin'ral Miles to desthroy th' Spanish with wan blow. Whin it comes, trees will be lifted out be th' roots. Morro Castle'll cave in, an' th' air'll be full iv Spanish whiskers. A long blow, a sthrong blow, an' a blow all together." "We're a gr-reat people," said Mr. Hennessy, earnestly. "We ar-re," said Mr. Dooley. "We ar-re that. An' th' best iv it is, we know we ar-re." ON FITZ-HUGH LEE. "Iv coorse, he's Irish," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' Fitz-Hughs an' th' McHughs an' th' McKeoughs is not far apart. I have a cousin be th' name iv McKeough, an' like as not th' gin'ral is a relation iv mine." "If I was you, I'd write him an' see," said Mr. Hennessy. "He's a gr-reat ma-an." "He is so," said Mr. Dooley. "He is that. Wan iv th' gr-reatest. An' why shudden't he be with thim two names? They'se pothry in both iv thim. Fitz-Hugh Lee! Did ye iver see a pitcher iv him? A fat ma-an, with a head like a football an' a neck big enough to pump blood into his brain an' keep it fr'm starvin'. White-haired an' r-red-faced. Th' kind iv ma-an that can get mad in ivry vein in his body. Whin he's hot, I bet ye his face looks like a fire in a furniture facthry. Whin a ma-an goes pale with r-rage, look out f'r a knife in th' back. But, whin he flames up so that th' perspi-ration sizzles on his brow, look out f'r hand an' feet an' head an' coupling pins an' rapid-firin' guns. Fitz can be ca'm whin they'se annything to be ca'm about, but he can't wait. If he was a waiter, he'd be wurrukin' at th' thrade. Look at th' jaw iv him! It's like a paving block. "Does Fitz believe in di-plomacy? Not him. He sets there in his office in Havana, smokin' a good see-gar, an' a boy comes in an' tells him they've jugged an American citizen. He jams his hat down on his eyes, an' r-rushes over to where Gin'ral Blanco has his office. 'Look here,' says he, 'ye pizenous riptile,' he says, 'if ye don't lave me counthryman out iv th' bull-pen in fifteen minyits be th' watch,' he says, 'I'll take ye be th' hair iv th' head an' pull ye fr'm th' corner iv Halsted Sthreet to th' r-red bridge,' he says. 'Lave us debate this,' says Blanco. 'I'll debate nawthin', says Fitz. 'Hurry up, or I'll give ye a slap,' he says. 'R-run over an' wake up th' loot at th' station, an' let thim Americans out, or,' he says, 'we'll go to the flure,' he says. "That's Fitz. He's ca'm, an' he waits part iv th' time. That's whin he's asleep. But, as soon as his eyes opins, his face begins to flare up like wan iv thim r-round stoves in a woodman's shanty whin rosiny wood is thrun in. An' fr'm that time on till he's r-ready to tur-rn in an' sleep peaceful an' quite,--not like a lamb full iv vigetable food, but like a line that's wur-rked ha-ard an' et meat,--he niver stops rampin' an' ragin'. Ye don't hear iv Fitz lookin' worn with th' sthruggle. Ye don't r-read iv him missin' anny meals. No one fears that Fitz will break down undher th' suspinse. That ain't in th' breed. He's another kind iv a man. He hasn't got th' time to be tired an' worrid. He needs food, an' he has it; an' he needs sleep, an' he takes it; an' he needs fightin', an' he gets it. That's Fitz. They ain't such a lot iv diff'rence between th' bravest man in the wurruld an' th' cow'rdliest. Not such a lot. It ain't a question iv morality, Hinnissy. I've knowed men that wint to church ivry Sundah an' holyday reg'lar, an' give to th' poor an' loved their neighbors, an' they wudden't defind their wives against a murdherer. An' I've knowed th' worst villyuns on earth that'd die in their thracks to save a stranger's child fr'm injury. 'Tis a question iv how th' blood is pumped. Whin a man shows th' sthrain, whin he gets thin an' pale an' worrid in th' time f'r fightin', he's mighty near a cow'rd. But, whin his face flames an' his neck swells an' his eyes look like a couple iv ilicthric lamps again a cyclone sky, he'd lead a forlorn hope acrost th' battlemints iv hell." ON MULES AND OTHERS "I see," said Mr. Dooley, "th' first gr-reat land battle iv th' war has been fought." "Where was that?" demanded Mr. Hennessy, in great excitement. "Lord save us, but where was that?" "Th' Alger gyards," said Mr. Dooley, "bruk fr'm th' corral where they had thim tied up, atin' thistles, an' med a desp'rate charge on th' camp at Tampa. They dayscinded like a whur-rl-wind, dhrivin' th' astonished throops before thim, an' thin charged back again, completin' their earned iv desthruction. At th' las' account th' brave sojers was climbin' threes an' tillygraft poles, an' a rig'mint iv mules was kickin' th' pink silk linin' out iv th' officers' quarthers. Th' gallant mules was led be a most courageous jackass, an' 'tis undhersthud that me frind Mack will appint him a brigadier-gin-ral jus' as soon as he can find out who his father is. 'Tis too bad he'll have no childher to perpituate th' fame iv him. He wint through th' camp at th' head iv his throops iv mules without castin' a shoe. He's th' biggest jackass in Tampa to-day, not exciptin' th' cinsor; an' I doubt if they'se a bigger wan in Wash'n'ton, though I cud name a few that cud thry a race with him. Annyhow, they'll know how to reward him. They know a jackass whin they see wan, an' they see a good manny in that peaceful city. "Th' charge iv Tampa'll go into histhry as th' first land action iv th' war. An', be th' way, Hinnissy, if this here sociable is f'r to go on at th' prisint rate, I'm sthrong to ar-rm th' wild ar-rmy mules an' the unbridled jackasses iv th' pe-rary an' give thim a chanst to set Cuba free. Up to this time th' on'y hero kilt on th' Spanish side was a jackass that poked an ear above th' batthries at Matoonzas f'r to hear what was goin' on. 'Behold,' says Sampson, 'th' insolince iv th' foe,' he says. 'For-rm in line iv battle, an' hur-rl death an' desthruction at yon Castilyan gin'ral.' 'Wait,' says an officer. 'It may be wan iv our own men. It looks like th' Sicrety iv'--'Hush!' says th' commander. 'It can't be an American jackass, or he'd speak,' he says. 'Fire on him.' Shot afther shot fell round th' inthrepid ass; but he remained firm till th' dinnymite boat Vesoovyus fired three hundherd an' forty thousand pounds iv gum cotton at him, an' the poor crather was smothered to death. Now, says I, give these Tampa mules a chanst, an' we'll have no need iv wastin' ammun-ni-tion. Properly led, they'd go fr'm wan end iv Cuba to th' other, kickin' th' excelsior out iv ivry stuffed Spanish gin'ral fr'm Bahoohoo Hoondoo to Sandago de Cuba. They'd be no loss iv life. Th' sojers who haven't gone away cud come home an' get cured iv th' measles an' th' whoopin'-cough an' th' cholera infantum befure th' public schools opens in th' fall, an' ivrything wud be peaceful an' quiet an' prosp'rous. Th' officers in th' field at prisint is well qualified f'r command iv th' new ar-rmy; an', if they'd put blinders on th' mules, they wudden't be scared back be wan iv thim Spanish fleets that a jackass sees whin he's been up all night, secretly stuffing himsilf with silo. They'd give wan hew-haw, an' follow their leaders through th' hear-rt iv th' inimy's counthry. But give thim th' wurrud to git ap, an' they'd ate their thistles undher th' guns iv some ol' Morro Castle befure night. "Ye don't see th' diff'rence, says ye. They ain't anny i' th' leaders. As efficient a lot iv mules as iver exposed their ears. Th' throuble is with th' rank an' file. They're men. What's needed to carry on this war as it goes to-day is an ar-rmy iv jacks an' mules. Whin ye say to a man, 'Git ap, whoa, gee, back up, get alang!' he don't know what ye'er dhrivin' at or to. But a mule hears th' ordhers with a melancholy smile, dhroops his ears, an' follows his war-rm, moist breath. Th' ordhers fr'm Washin'ton is perfectly comprehinsible to a jackass, but they don't mane annything to a poor, foolish man. No human bein', Hinnissy, can undherstand what the divvie use it was to sink a ship that cost two hundherd thousan' dollars an' was worth at laste eighty dollars in Sandago Harbor, if we have to keep fourteen ships outside to prevint five Spanish ships fr'm sailin'. Th' poor, tired human mind don't tumble, Hinnissy, to th' raison f'r landin' four hundherd marines at Guanotommy to clear th' forests, whin Havana is livin' free on hot tamales an' ice-cream. Th' mind iv a Demostheens or a Tim Hogan would be crippled thryin' to figure out why throops ar-re sint out fr'm Tampa an' thin ordhered back through a speakin' chube, while wan iv th' new briga-deer-gin'rals has his hands manicured an' says good-by to his nurse. But it ought to be as plain to th' mule that hears it as it is to th' jackasses that gets it up. What we need, Hinnissy, is a perfect undherstandin' between th' ar-rmy an' th' administhration. We need what Hogan calls th' esphrite th' corpse, an' we'll on'y have it whin th' mules begins to move." "I shud think," said Mr. Hennessy, "now that th' jackasses has begun to be onaisy"-- "We ought to be afraid th' cabinet an' th' Boord iv Sthrateejy 'll be stampeded?" Mr. Dooley interrupted. "Niver fear. They're too near th' fodder." ON HIS COUSIN GEORGE. "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, in tones of chastened joy: "Dewey didn't do a thing to thim. I hope th' poor la-ad ain't cooped up there in Minneapolis." "Niver fear," said Mr. Dooley, calmly. "Cousin George is all r-right." "Cousin George?" Mr. Hennessy exclaimed. "Sure," said Mr. Dooley. "Dewey or Dooley, 'tis all th' same. We dhrop a letter here an' there, except th' haitches,--we niver dhrop thim,--but we're th' same breed iv fightin' men. Georgy has th' thraits iv th' fam'ly. Me uncle Mike, that was a handy man, was tol' wanst he'd be sint to hell f'r his manny sins, an' he desarved it; f'r, lavin' out th' wan sin iv runnin' away fr'm annywan, he was booked f'r ivrything from murdher to missin' mass. 'Well,' he says, 'anny place I can get into,' he says, 'I can get out iv,' he says. 'Ye bet on that,' he says. "So it is with Cousin George. He knew th' way in, an' it's th' same way out. He didn't go in be th' fam'ly inthrance, sneakin' along with th' can undher his coat. He left Ding Dong, or whativer 'tis ye call it, an' says he, 'Thank Gawd,' he says, 'I'm where no man can give me his idees iv how to r-run a quiltin' party, an' call it war,' he says. An' so he sint a man down in a divin' shute, an' cut th' cables, so's Mack cudden't chat with him. Thin he prances up to th' Spanish forts, an' hands thim a few oranges. Tosses thim out like a man throwin' handbills f'r a circus. 'Take that,' he says, 'an' raymimber th' Maine,' he says. An' he goes into th' harbor, where Admiral What-th'-'ell is, an', says he, 'Surrinder,' he says. 'Niver,' says th' Dago. 'Well,' says Cousin George, 'I'll just have to push ye ar-round,' he says. An' he tosses a few slugs at th' Spanyards. Th' Spanish admiral shoots at him with a bow an' arrow, an' goes over an' writes a cable. 'This mornin' we was attackted,' he says. 'An' he says, 'we fought the inimy with great courage,' he says. 'Our victhry is complete,' he says. 'We have lost ivrything we had,' he says. 'Th' threachrous foe,' he says, 'afther destroyin' us, sought refuge behind a mud-scow,' he says; 'but nawthin' daunted us. What boats we cudden't r-run ashore we surrindered,' he says. 'I cannot write no more,' he says, 'as me coat-tails are afire,' he says; 'an' I am bravely but rapidly leapin' fr'm wan vessel to another, followed be me valiant crew with a fire-engine,' he says. 'If I can save me coat-tails,' he says, 'they'll be no kick comin', he says. 'Long live Spain, long live mesilf.' "Well, sir, in twinty-eight minyits be th' clock Dewey he had all th' Spanish boats sunk, an' that there harbor lookin' like a Spanish stew. Thin he r-run down th' bay, an' handed a few war-rm wans into th' town. He set it on fire, an' thin wint ashore to war-rm his poor hands an' feet. It chills th' blood not to have annything to do f'r an hour or more." "Thin why don't he write something?" Mr. Hennessy demanded. "Write?" echoed Mr. Dooley. "Write? Why shud he write? D'ye think Cousin George ain't got nawthin' to do but to set down with a fountain pen, an' write: 'Dear Mack,--At 8 o'clock I begun a peaceful blockade iv this town. Ye can see th' pieces ivrywhere. I hope ye're injyin' th' same gr-reat blessin'. So no more at prisint. Fr'm ye'ers thruly, George Dooley.' He ain't that kind. 'Tis a nice day, an' he's there smokin' a good tin-cint see-gar, an' throwin' dice f'r th' dhrinks. He don't care whether we know what he's done or not. I'll bet ye, whin we come to find out about him, we'll hear he's ilicted himself king iv th' F'lip-ine Islands. Dooley th' Wanst. He'll be settin' up there undher a pa'm-three with naygurs fannin' him an' a dhrop iv licker in th' hollow iv his ar-rm, an' hootchy-kootchy girls dancin' befure him, an' ivry tin or twinty minyits some wan bringin' a prisoner in. 'Who's this?' says King Dooley. 'A Spanish gin'ral,' says th' copper. 'Give him a typewriter an' set him to wurruk,' says th' king. 'On with th' dance,' he says. An' afther awhile, whin he gits tired iv th' game, he'll write home an' say he's got the islands; an' he'll tur-rn thim over to th' gover'mint an' go back to his ship, an' Mark Hanna'll organize th' F'lip-ine Islands Jute an' Cider Comp'ny, an' th' rivolutchinists'll wish they hadn't. That's what'll happen. Mark me wurrud." ON SOME ARMY APPOINTMENTS. "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "I didn't vote f'r Mack, but I'm with him now. I had me doubts whether he was th' gr-reatest military janius iv th' cinchry, but they'se no question about it. We go into this war, if we iver do go into it, with th' most fash'n-able ar-rmy that iver creased its pants. 'Twill be a daily hint fr'm Paris to th' crool foe. "Other gin'rals iv th' r-rough-house kind, like Napoleon Bonypart, th' impror iv th' Frinch, Gin'ral Ulis S. Grant, an' Cousin George Dooley, hired coarse, rude men that wudden't know th' diff'rence between goluf an' crokay, an' had their pants tucked in their boots an' chewed tobacco be th' pound. Thank Hivin, McKinley knows betther thin to sind th' likes iv thim abroad to shock our frinds be dumpin' their coffee into thimsilves fr'm a saucer. "Th' dure bell rings, an' a futman in liv'ry says: 'I'm Master Willie Dooselbery's man, an' he's come to be examined f'r th' army,' says he. 'Admit him,' says McKinley; an' Master Willie enters, accompanied be his val-lay, his mah an' pah an' th' comity iv th' goluf club. 'Willie,' says th' Prisident, 'ye ar-re enthrin' upon a gloryous car-eer, an' 'tis nic'ssry that ye shud be thurly examined, so that ye can teach th' glories iv civilization to th' tyr-ranies iv Europe that is supported be ye'er pah an' mah,' he says. ''Twud be a tur-r'ble thing,' he says, 'if some day they shud meet a Spanish gin'ral in Mahdrid, an' have him say to thim, "I seen ye'er son Willie durin' th' war wearin' a stovepipe hat an' tan shoes." Let us begin th' examination,' he says. 'Ar-re ye a good goluf player?' 'I am,' says Willie. 'Thin I appint ye a liftnant. What we need in th' ar-rmy is good goluf players,' he says. 'In our former war,' he says, 'we had th' misfortune to have men in command that didn't know th' diff'rence between a goluf stick an' a beecycle; an' what was th' raysult? We foozled our approach at Bull R-run,' he says. 'Ar-re ye a mimber iv anny clubs?' he says. 'Four,' says Willie. 'Thin I make ye a major,' he says. 'Where d'ye get ye'er pants?' he says. 'Fr'm England,' says Willie. 'Gloryous,' says McKinley. 'I make ye a colonel,' he says. 'Let me thry ye in tactics,' he says. 'Suppose ye was confronted be a Spanish ar-rmy in th' afthernoon, how wud ye dhress?' he says. 'I'd wear a stovepipe hat, a long coat, a white vest, an' lavender pants,' says Willie. 'An' if th' attack was be night?' he says. 'I'd put on me dhress shoot, an' go out to meet thim,' says Willie. 'A thuro sojer,' says McKinley. 'Suppose th' sociable lasted all night?' he says. 'I'd sound th' rethreat at daybreak, an' have me brave boys change back,' he says, 'to suitable appar'l,' he says. 'Masterly,' says McKinley. 'I will sind ye'er name in as a brigadier-gin'ral,' he says. 'Thank Gawd, th' r-rich,' he says, 'is brave an' pathriotic,' he says. 'Ye will jine th' other boys fr'm th' club at Tampa,' he says. 'Ye shud be careful iv ye'er equipment,' he says. 'I have almost ivrything r-ready,' says Willie. 'Me man attinded to thim details,' he says. 'But I fear I can't go to th' fr-ront immejetly,' he says. 'Me pink silk pijammas hasn't arrived,' he says. 'Well,' says Mack,' 'wait f'r thim,' he says. 'I'm anxious f'r to ind this hor'ble war,' he says, 'which has cost me manny a sleepy night,' he says; 'but 'twud be a crime f'r to sind a sojer onprepared to battle,' he says. 'Wait f'r th' pijammas,' he says. 'Thin on to war,' he says; 'an' let ye'er watchword be, "Raymimber ye'er manners,"' he says. "'They'se a man out here,' says th' privit sicrity, 'that wants to see ye,' he says. 'He's a r-rough-lookin' charackter that was in th' Soo war,' he says. 'His name is Gin'ral Fiteum,' he says. 'Throw th' stiff out,' says Mack. 'I seen him in Pinnsylvania Avnoo yisterdah, r-ridin' in a sthreet ca-ar,' he says. 'Ah, Willie, me boy,' he says, ''tis little ye know what throuble I have fr'm these vulgar sojers with pants that bags at th' knees. Give me a goold-tipped cigareet, an' tell me whether shirt waists is much worn in New York this year.' "Yis, Hinnissy, we'll put th' tastiest ar-rmy in th' field that iver come out iv a millinery shop. 'Right dhress!' will be an ordher that'll mean somethin'. Th' ar-rmy'll be followed be specyal correspondints fr'm Butthrick's Pattherns an' Harper's Bazar; an', if our brave boys don't gore an' pleat th' inimy, 'twill be because th' inimy'll be r-rude enough to shoot in anny kind iv clothes they find on th' chair whin they wake up." ON STRATEGY. "A sthrateejan," said Mr. Dooley, in response to Mr. Hennessy's request for information, "is a champeen checker-player. Whin th' war broke out, me frind Mack wint to me frind Hanna, an' says he, 'What,' he says, 'what can we do to cr-rush th' haughty power iv Spain,' he says, 'a'n br-ring this hateful war to a early conclusion?" he says. 'Mobilize th' checker-players,' says Hanna. An' fr'm all cor-rners iv th' counthry they've gone to Washin'ton, where they're called th' Sthrateejy Board. "Day an' night they set in a room with a checker-board on th' end iv a flour bar'l, an' study problems iv th' navy. At night Mack dhrops in. 'Well, boys,' says he, 'how goes th' battle?' he says. 'Gloryous,' says th' Sthrateejy Board. 'Two more moves, an' we'll be in th' king row.' 'Ah,' says Mack, 'this is too good to be thrue,' he says. 'In but a few brief minyits th' dhrinks'll be on Spain,' he says. 'Have ye anny plans f'r Sampson's fleet?' he says. 'Where is it?' says th' Sthrateejy Board. 'I dinnaw,' says Mack. 'Good,' says th' Sthrateejy Board. 'Where's th' Spanish fleet?' says they. 'Bombardin' Boston, at Cadiz, in San June de Matzoon, sighted near th' gas-house be our special correspondint, copyright, 1898, be Mike O'Toole.' 'A sthrong position,' says th' Sthrateejy Board. 'Undoubtedly, th' fleet is headed south to attack and seize Armour's glue facthory. Ordher Sampson to sail north as fast as he can, an' lay in a supply iv ice. Th' summer's comin' on. Insthruct Schley to put on all steam, an' thin put it off again, an' call us up be telephone. R-rush eighty-three millyon throops an' four mules to Tampa, to Mobile, to Chickenmaha, to Coney Island, to Ireland, to th' divvle, an' r-rush thim back again. Don't r-rush thim. Ordher Sampson to pick up th' cable at Lincoln Par-rk, an' run into th' bar-rn. Is th' balloon corpse r-ready? It is? Thin don't sind it up. Sind it up. Have th' Mulligan Gyards co-op'rate with Gomez, an' tell him to cut away his whiskers. They've got tangled in th' riggin'. We need yellow-fever throops. Have ye anny yellow fever in th' house? Give it to twinty thousand three hundherd men, an' sind thim afther Gov'nor Tanner. Teddy Rosenfelt's r-rough r-riders ar-re downstairs, havin' their uniforms pressed. Ordher thim to th' goluf links at wanst. They must be no indecision. Where's Richard Harding Davis? On th' bridge iv the New York? Tur-rn th' bridge. Seize Gin'ral Miles' uniform. We must strengthen th' gold resarve. Where's th' Gussie? Runnin' off to Cuba with wan hundherd men an' ar-rms, iv coorse. Oh, war is a dhreadful thing. It's ye'er move, Claude,' says th' Sthrateejy Board. "An' so it goes on; an' day by day we r-read th' tur-rble story iv our brave sthrateejans sacrificin' their time on th' altar iv their counthry, as Hogan says. Little we thought, whin we wint into this war, iv th' horrors it wud bring. Little we thought iv th' mothers at home weepin' f'r their brave boys down at Washin'ton hur-rtin their poor eyes over a checker-board. Little we thought iv these devoted men, as Hogan says, with achin' heads, plannin' to sind three hundherd thousand millyon men an' a carload iv beans to their fate at Tampa, Fla. But some wan must be sacrificed, as Hogan says. An' these poor fellows in Washin'ton with their r-red eyes an' their tired backs will be an example to future ginerations, as Hogan says, iv how an American sojer can face his jooty whin he has to, an' how he can't whin he hasn't to." "Dewey ain't a sthrateejan?" inquired Mr. Hennessy. "No," said Mr. Dooley. "Cousin George is a good man, an' I'm very fond iv him,--more be raison iv his doin' that May-o bosthoon Pat Mountjoy, but he has low tastes. We niver cud make a sthrateejan iv him. They'se a kind iv a vulgar fightin' sthrain in him that makes him want to go out an' slug some wan wanst a month. I'm glad he ain't in Washin'ton. Th' chances ar-re he'd go to th' Sthrateejy Board and pull its hair." ON GENERAL MILES'S MOONLIGHT EXCURSION. "Dear, oh, dear," said Mr. Dooley, "I'd give five dollars--an' I'd kill a man f'r three--if I was out iv this Sixth Wa-ard to-night, an' down with Gin'ral Miles' gran' picnic an' moonlight excursion in Porther Ricky. 'Tis no comfort in bein' a cow'rd whin ye think iv thim br-rave la-ads facin' death be suffication in bokays an' dyin' iv waltzin' with th' pretty girls iv Porther Ricky. "I dinnaw whether Gin'ral Miles picked out th' job or whether 'twas picked out f'r him. But, annyhow, whin he got to Sandago de Cubia an' looked ar-round him, he says to his frind Gin'ral Shafter, 'Gin'ral,' says he, 'ye have done well so far,' he says. ''Tis not f'r me to take th' lorls fr'm th' steamin' brow iv a thrue hero,' he says. 'I lave ye here,' he says, 'f'r to complete th' victhry ye have so nobly begun,' he says. 'F'r you,' he says, 'th' wallop in th' eye fr'm th' newspaper rayporther, th' r-round robbing, an' th' sunsthroke,' he says, 'f'r me th' hardship iv th' battlefield, th' late dinner, th' theayter party, an' th' sickenin' polky,' he says. 'Gather,' he says, 'th' fruits iv ye'er bravery,' he says. 'Return,' he says, 'to ye'er native land, an' receive anny gratichood th' Sicrety iv War can spare fr'm his own fam'ly,' he says. 'F'r me,' he says, 'there is no way but f'r to tur-rn me back upon this festive scene,' he says, 'an' go where jooty calls me,' he says. 'Ordherly,' he says, 'put a bottle on th' ice, an' see that me goold pants that I wear with th' pale blue vest with th' di'mon buttons is irned out,' he says. An' with a haggard face he walked aboord th' excursion steamer, an' wint away. "I'd hate to tell ye iv th'thriles iv th' expedition, Hinnissy. Whin th' picnic got as far as Punch, on th' southern coast iv Porther Ricky, Gin'ral Miles gazes out, an' says he, 'This looks like a good place to hang th' hammicks, an' have lunch,' says he. 'Forward, brave men,' says he, 'where ye see me di'mon's sparkle,' says he. 'Forward, an' plant th' crokay ar-rches iv our beloved counthry,' he says. An' in they wint, like inthrepid warryors that they ar-re. On th' beach they was met be a diligation fr'm th' town of Punch, con-sistin' iv th' mayor, th' common council, th' polis an' fire departments, th' Gr-rand Ar-rmy iv th' Raypublic, an' prominent citizens in carredges. Gin'ral Miles, makin' a hasty tielet, advanced onflinchingly to meet thim. 'Gintlemen,' says he, 'what can I do f'r ye?' he says. 'We come,' says th' chairman iv th' comity, 'f'r to offer ye,' he says, 'th' r-run iv th' town,' he says. 'We have held out,' he says, 'as long as we cud,' he says. 'But,' he says, 'they'se a limit to human endurance,' he says. 'We can withstand ye no longer,' he says. 'We surrinder. Take us prisoners, an' rayceive us into ye'er gloryous an' well-fed raypublic,' he says. 'Br-rave men,' says Gin'ral Miles, 'I congratulate ye,' he says, 'on th' heeroism iv yer definse,' he says. 'Ye stuck manfully to yer colors, whativer they ar-re,' he says. 'I on'y wondher that ye waited f'r me to come befure surrindhrin,' he says. 'I welcome ye into th' Union,' he says. 'I don't know how th' Union'll feel about it, but that's no business iv mine,' he says. 'Ye will get ye'er wur-rkin-cards fr'm th' walkin' diligate,' he says; 'an' ye'll be entitled,' he says, 'to pay ye'er share iv th' taxes an' to live awhile an' die whin ye get r-ready,' he says, 'jus' th' same as if ye was bor-rn at home,' he says. 'I don't know th' names iv ye; but I'll call ye all Casey, f'r short,' he says. 'Put ye'er bokays in th' hammick,' he says, 'an' return to Punch,' he says; 'an' freeze somethin' f'r me,' he says, 'f'r me thrawt is parched with th' labors iv th' day,' he says. Th' r-rest iv th' avenin' was spint in dancin,' music, an' boat-r-ridin'; an' an inj'yable time was had. "Th' nex' day th' army moved on Punch; an' Gin'ral Miles marched into th' ill-fated city, preceded be flower-girls sthrewin' r-roses an' geranyums befure him. In th' afthernoon they was a lawn tinnis party, an' at night the gin'ral attinded a banket at th' Gran' Palace Hotel. At midnight he was serenaded be th' Raymimber th' Maine Banjo an' Mandolin Club. Th' entire popylace attinded, with pork chops in their buttonholes to show their pathreetism. Th' nex' day, afther breakfastin' with Mayor Casey, he set out on his weary march over th' r-rough, flower-strewn paths f'r San Joon. He has been in gr-reat purl fr'm a witherin' fire iv bokays, an' he has met an' overpowered some iv th' mos' savage orators in Porther Ricky; but, whin I las' heerd iv him, he had pitched his tents an' ice-cream freezers near the inimy's wall, an' was grajully silencin' thim with proclamations." "They'll kill him with kindness if he don't look out," said Mr. Hennessy. "I dinnaw about that," said Mr. Dooley; "but I know this, that there's th' makin' iv gr-reat statesmen in Porther Ricky. A proud people that can switch as quick as thim la-ads have nawthin' to larn in th' way iv what Hogan calls th' signs iv gover'mint, even fr'm th' Supreme Court." ON ADMIRAL DEWEY'S ACTIVITY. "If they don't catch up with him pretty soon," said Mr. Dooley, "he'll fight his way ar-round th' wurruld, an' come out through Barsaloona or Cades." "Who's that?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Me Cousin George, no less," said Mr. Dooley. "I suppose ye think th' war is over an' peace has rayturned jus' because Tiddy Rosenfelt is back home again an' th' sojers ar-re hungry in New York 'stead iv in Sandago. That's where ye'er wrong, Hinnissy. That's where ye'er wrong, me bucko. Th' war is not over till Cousin George stops fightin'. Th' Spanyards have had enough, but among thrue fightin' men it don't make anny diff'rence what th' feelin's iv th' la-ad undherneath may be. 'Tis whin th' man on top has had his fill iv fightin' that th' throuble's over, an' be the look iv things Cousin George has jus' begun to take tay. "Whin me frind Mack con-cluded 'twas time f'r us to stop fightin' an' begin skinning each other in what Hogan calls th' marts iv thrade, ye thought that ended it. So did Mack. He says, says he, 'Let us have peace,' he says. An' Mark Hanna came out iv' th' cellar, where he's been since Cousin George presinted his compliments to th' Ph'lippines an' wud they prefer to be kilt or dhrownded, an' pro-posals was made to bond th' Cubian pathrites, an' all th' deuces in th' deck begun to look like face car-rds again, whin suddently there comes a message fr'm Cousin George. 'In pursooance iv ordhers that niver come,' he says, 'to-day th' squadhron undher my command knocked th' divvle out iv th' fortifications iv th' Ph'lippines, bombarded the city, an' locked up th' insurgent gin'ral. The gov'nor got away be swimmin' aboord a Dutch ship, an' th' Dutchman took him to Ding Dong. I'll attind to th' Dutchman some afthernoon whin I have nawthin'else to do. I'm settin' in the palace with me feet on th' pianny. Write soon. I won't get it. So no more at prisint, fr'm ye'er ol' frind an' well-wisher, George Dooley.' "How ar-re they goin' to stop him? How ar-re they goin' to stop him? There's Mack on th' shore bawlin' ordhers. 'Come back,' he says. 'Come back, I command ye,' he says. 'George, come back,' he says. 'Th' war is over,' he says. 'We're at peace with th' wurruld,' he says. 'George,' he says, 'George, be a good fellow,' he says. 'Lave up on thim,' he says. 'Hivins an' earth, he's batin' that poor Spanyard with a pavin' block. George, George, ye break me hear-rt,' he says. "But George Dooley, he gives th' wink to his frinds, an' says he, 'What's that man yellin' on th' shore about?' he says. 'Louder,' he says. 'I can't hear ye,' he says. 'Sing it,' he says. 'Write it to me on a postal ca-ard at Mahdrid,' he says. 'Don't stop me now,' he says. 'This is me, busy day,' he says; an' away he goes with a piece iv lead pipe in wan hand an' a couplin' pin in th' other. "What'll we do with him? We can't catch up with him. He's goin' too fast. Mack's a week behind him ivry time he stops annywhere. He has sthrung a throlley acrost th' islands, an' he's climbin' mountains with his fleet. Th' on'y thing I see, Hinnissy, that Mack can do is to go east an' meet him comin' r-round. If he hurries, he'll sthrike him somewhere in Rooshia or Boohlgahria, an' say to him: 'George, th' war's over. Won't ye come home with me?' I think he'll listen to reason." "I think a man ought to stop fightin' whin th' war is ended," said Mr. Hennessy. "I dinnaw about that," said Mr. Dooley. "He started without askin' our lave, an' I don't see what we've got to do with th' way he finishes. 'Tis a tur-rble thing to be a man iv high sperrits, an' not to know whin th' other fellow's licked." ON THE PHILIPPINES. "I know what I'd do if I was Mack," said Mr. Hennessy. "I'd hist a flag over th' Ph'lippeens, an' I'd take in th' whole lot iv thim." "An' yet," said Mr. Dooley, "tis not more thin two months since ye larned whether they were islands or canned goods. Ye'er back yard is so small that ye'er cow can't turn r-round without buttin' th' woodshed off th' premises, an' ye wudden't go out to th' stock yards without takin' out a policy on yer life. Suppose ye was standin' at th' corner iv State Sthreet an' Archey R-road, wud ye know what car to take to get to th' Ph'lippeens? If yer son Packy was to ask ye where th' Ph'lippeens is, cud ye give him anny good idea whether they was in Rooshia or jus' west iv th' thracks?" "Mebbe I cudden't," said Mr. Hennessy, haughtily, "but I'm f'r takin' thim in, annyhow." "So might I be," said Mr. Dooley, "if I cud on'y get me mind on it. Wan iv the worst things about this here war is th' way it's makin' puzzles f'r our poor, tired heads. Whin I wint into it, I thought all I'd have to do was to set up here behind th' bar with a good tin-cint see-gar in me teeth, an' toss dinnymite bombs into th' hated city iv Havana. But look at me now. Th' war is still goin' on; an' ivry night, whin I'm countin' up the cash, I'm askin' mesilf will I annex Cubia or lave it to the Cubians? Will I take Porther Ricky or put it by? An' what shud I do with the Ph'lippeens? Oh, what shud I do with thim? I can't annex thim because I don't know where they ar-re. I can't let go iv thim because some wan else'll take thim if I do. They are eight thousan' iv thim islands, with a popylation iv wan hundherd millyon naked savages; an' me bedroom's crowded now with me an' th' bed. How can I take thim in, an' how on earth am I goin' to cover th' nakedness iv thim savages with me wan shoot iv clothes? An' yet 'twud break me heart to think iv givin' people I niver see or heerd tell iv back to other people I don't know. An', if I don't take thim, Schwartzmeister down th' sthreet, that has half me thrade already, will grab thim sure. "It ain't that I'm afraid iv not doin' th' r-right thing in th' end, Hinnissy. Some mornin' I'll wake up an' know jus' what to do, an' that I'll do. But 'tis th' annoyance in th' mane time. I've been r-readin' about th' counthry. 'Tis over beyant ye'er left shoulder whin ye're facin' east. Jus' throw ye'er thumb back, an' ye have it as ac'rate as anny man in town. 'Tis farther thin Boohlgahrya an' not so far as Blewchoochoo. It's near Chiny, an' it's not so near; an', if a man was to bore a well through fr'm Goshen, Indianny, he might sthrike it, an' thin again he might not. It's a poverty-sthricken counthry, full iv goold an' precious stones, where th' people can pick dinner off th' threes an' ar-re starvin' because they have no step-ladders. Th' inhabitants is mostly naygurs an' Chinnymen, peaceful, industhrus, an' law-abidin', but savage an' bloodthirsty in their methods. They wear no clothes except what they have on, an' each woman has five husbands an' each man has five wives. Th' r-rest goes into th' discard, th' same as here. Th' islands has been ownded be Spain since befure th' fire; an' she's threated thim so well they're now up in ar-rms again her, except a majority iv thim which is thurly loyal. Th' natives seldom fight, but whin they get mad at wan another they r-run-a-muck. Whin a man r-runs-a-muck, sometimes they hang him an' sometimes they discharge him an' hire a new motorman. Th' women ar-re beautiful, with languishin' black eyes, an' they smoke see-gars, but ar-re hurried an' incomplete in their dhress. I see a pitcher iv wan th' other day with nawthin' on her but a basket of cocoanuts an' a hoop-skirt. They're no prudes. We import juke, hemp, cigar wrappers, sugar, an' fairy tales fr'm th' Ph'lippeens, an' export six-inch shells an' th' like. Iv late th' Ph'lippeens has awaked to th' fact that they're behind th' times, an' has received much American amminition in their midst. They say th' Spanyards is all tore up about it. "I larned all this fr'm th' papers, an' I know 'tis sthraight. An' yet, Hinnissy, I dinnaw what to do about th' Ph'lippeens. An' I'm all alone in th' wurruld. Ivrybody else has made up his mind. Ye ask anny con-ducthor on Ar-rchy R-road, an' he'll tell ye. Ye can find out fr'm the papers; an', if ye really want to know, all ye have to do is to ask a prom'nent citizen who can mow all th' lawn he owns with a safety razor. But I don't know." "Hang on to thim," said Mr. Hennessy, stoutly. "What we've got we must hold." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "if I was Mack, I'd lave it to George. I'd say: 'George,' I'd say, 'if ye're f'r hangin' on, hang on it is. If ye say, lave go, I dhrop thim.' 'Twas George won thim with th' shells, an' th' question's up to him." ON PRAYERS FOR VICTORY. "It looks to me," said Mr. Dooley, "as though me frind Mack'd got tired iv th' Sthrateejy Board, an' was goin' to lave th' war to th' men in black." "How's that?" asked Mr. Hennessy, who has at best but a clouded view of public affairs. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "while th' sthrateejans have been wearin' out their jeans on cracker-boxes in Wash'n'ton, they'se been goin' on th' mos' deadly conflict iver heerd tell iv between th' pow'rful preachin' navies iv th' two counthries. Manila is nawthin' at all to th' scenes iv carnage an' slaughter, as Hogan says, that's been brought about be these desthroyers. Th' Spanyards fired th' openin' gun whin th' bishop iv Cades, a pow'rful turreted monitor (ol' style), attackted us with both for'ard guns, an' sint a storm iv brimstone an' hell into us. But th' victhry was not f'r long with th' hated Spanyard. He was answered be our whole fleet iv preachers. Thin he was jined be th' bishop iv Barsaloona an' th' bishop iv Mahdrid an' th' bishop iv Havana, all battle-ships iv th' first class, followed be a fleet iv cruisers r-runnin' all th' way fr'm a full-ar-rmored vicar gin'ral to a protected parish priest. To meet thim, we sint th' bishop iv New York, th' bishop iv Philadelphia, th' bishop iv Baltimore, an' th' bishop iv Chicago, accompanied be a flyin' squadhron iv Methodists, three Presbyteryan monitors, a fleet iv Baptist submarine desthroyers, an' a formidable array iv Universalist an' Unitaryan torpedo boats, with a Jew r-ram. Manetime th' bishop iv Manila had fired a solid prayer, weighin' a ton, at San Francisco; an' a masked batthry iv Congregationalists replied, inflictin' severe damage. Our Atlantic fleet is now sarchin' f'r th' inimy, an' the bishop iv New York is blockadin' th' bishop iv Sandago de Cuba; an' they'se been an exchange iv prayers between th' bishop iv Baltimore an' th' bishop iv Havana without much damage. "Th' Lord knows how it'll come out. First wan side prays that th' wrath iv Hiven'll descind on th' other, an' thin th' other side returns th' compliment with inthrest. Th' Spanish bishop says we're a lot iv murdherin', irreligious thieves, an' ought to be swept fr'm th' face iv th' earth. We say his people ar-re th' same, an' manny iv thim. He wishes Hivin to sink our ships an' desthroy our men; an' we hope he'll injye th' same gr-reat blessin'. We have a shade th' best iv him, f'r his fleets ar-re all iv th' same class an' ol' style, an' we have some iv th' most modhern prayin' machines in the warruld; but he prays har-rd, an' 'tis no aisy wurruk to silence him." "What d'ye think about it?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "I dinnaw jus' what to think iv it. Me own idee is that war is not a matther iv prayers so much as a matther iv punchin'; an' th' on'y place a prayer book stops a bullet is in th' story books. 'Tis like what Father Kelly said. Three weeks ago las' Sundah he met Hogan; an' Hogan, wantin' to be smart, ast him if he'd offered up prayers f'r th' success iv th' cause. 'Faith, I did not,' says th' good man. 'I was in too much iv a hurry to get away.' 'What was th' matther?' ast Hogan. 'I had me uniform to brush up an' me soord to polish,' says Father Kelly. 'I am goin' with th' rig'mint to-morrah,' he says; an' he says, 'If ye hear iv me waitin' to pray,' he says, 'anny time they'se a call f'r me,' he says, 'to be in a fight,' he says, 'ye may conclude,' he says, 'that I've lost me mind, an' won't be back to me parish,' he says. 'Hogan,' he says, 'I'll go into th' battle with a prayer book in wan hand an' a soord in th' other,' he says; 'an' if th' wurruk calls f'r two hands, 'tis not th' soord I'll dhrop,' he says. 'Don't ye believe in prayer?' says Hogan. 'I do,' says th' good man; 'but,' he says, 'a healthy person ought,' he says, 'to be ashamed,' he says, 'to ask f'r help in a fight,' he says." "That's th' way I look at it," said Mr. Hennessy. "When 'tis an aven thing in th' prayin', may th' best man win." "Ye're r-right, Hinnissy," said Mr. Dooley, warmly. "Ye're r-right. An' th' best man will win." ON THE ANGLO-SAXON. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "I see be th' pa-apers that th' snow-white pigeon iv peace have tied up th' dogs iv war. It's all over now. All we've got to do is to arrest th' pathrites an' make th' reconcenthradios pay th' stamp tax, an' be r-ready f'r to take a punch at Germany or France or Rooshia or anny counthry on th' face iv th' globe. "An' I'm glad iv it. This war, Hinnissy, has been a gr-reat sthrain on me. To think iv th' suffrin' I've endured! F'r weeks I lay awake at nights fearin' that th' Spanish ar-rmadillo'd lave the Cape Verde Islands, where it wasn't, an' take th' thrain out here, an' hur-rl death an' desthruction into me little store. Day be day th' pitiless exthries come out an' beat down on me. Ye hear iv Teddy Rosenfelt plungin' into ambus-cades an' Sicrity iv Wars; but d'ye hear iv Martin Dooley, th' man behind th' guns, four thousan' miles behind thim, an' willin' to be further? They ar-re no bokays f'r me. I'm what Hogan calls wan iv th' mute, ingloryous heroes iv th' war; an' not so dam mute, ayther. Some day, Hinnissy, justice'll be done me, an' th' likes iv me; an', whin th' story iv a gr-reat battle is written, they'll print th' kilt, th' wounded, th' missin', an' th' seryously disturbed. An' thim that have bore thimsilves well an' bravely an' paid th' taxes an' faced th' deadly newspa-apers without flinchin' 'll be advanced six pints an' given a chanst to tur-rn jack f'r th' game. "But me wurruk ain't over jus' because Mack has inded th' war an' Teddy Rosenfelt is comin' home to bite th' Sicrety iv War. You an' me, Hinnissy, has got to bring on this here Anglo-Saxon 'lieance. An Anglo-Saxon, Hinnissy, is a German that's forgot who was his parents. They're a lot iv thim in this counthry. There must be as manny as two in Boston: they'se wan up in Maine, an' another lives at Bogg's Ferry in New York State, an' dhrives a milk wagon. Mack is an Anglo-Saxon. His folks come fr'm th' County Armagh, an' their naytional Anglo-Saxon hymn is 'O'Donnell Aboo.' Teddy Rosenfelt is another Anglo-Saxon. An' I'm an Anglo-Saxon. I'm wan iv th' hottest Anglo-Saxons that iver come out iv Anglo-Saxony. Th' name iv Dooley has been th' proudest Anglo-Saxon name in th' County Roscommon f'r many years. "Schwartzmeister is an Anglo-Saxon, but he doesn't know it, an' won't till some wan tells him. Pether Bowbeen down be th' Frinch church is formin' th' Circle Francaize Anglo-Saxon club, an' me ol' frind Dominigo that used to boss th' Ar-rchey R-road wagon whin Callaghan had th' sthreet conthract will march at th' head iv th' Dago Anglo-Saxons whin th' time comes. There ar-re twinty thousan' Rooshian Jews at a quarther a vote in th' Sivinth Ward; an', ar-rmed with rag hooks, they'd be a tur-rble thing f'r anny inimy iv th' Anglo-Saxon 'lieance to face. Th' Bohemians an' Pole Anglo-Saxons may be a little slow in wakin' up to what th' pa-apers calls our common hurtage, but ye may be sure they'll be all r-right whin they're called on. We've got together an Anglo-Saxon 'lieance in this wa-ard, an' we're goin' to ilict Sarsfield O'Brien prisidint, Hugh O'Neill Darsey vice-prisidint, Robert Immitt Clancy sicrety, an' Wolfe Tone Malone three-asurer. O'Brien'll be a good wan to have. He was in the Fenian r-raid, an' his father carrid a pike in forty-eight. An' he's in th' Clan. Besides, he has a sthrong pull with th' Ancient Ordher iv Anglo-Saxon Hibernyans. "I tell ye, whin th' Clan an' th' Sons iv Sweden an' th' Banana Club an' th' Circle Francaize an' th' Pollacky Benivolent Society an' th' Rooshian Sons of Dinnymite an' th' Benny Brith an' th' Coffee Clutch that Schwartzmeister r-runs an' th' Tur-rnd'ye-mind an' th' Holland society an' th' Afro-Americans an' th' other Anglo-Saxons begin f'r to raise their Anglo-Saxon battle-cry, it'll be all day with th' eight or nine people in th' wurruld that has th' misfortune iv not bein' brought up Anglo-Saxons." "They'se goin' to be a debate on th' 'lieance at th' ninety-eight picnic at Ogden's gr-rove," said Mr. Hennessy. "P'r'aps," said Mr. Dooley, sweetly, "ye might like to borry th' loan iv an ice-pick." ON A LETTER FROM THE FRONT. Mr. Dooley looked important, but affected indifference, as he mopped the bar. Mr. Hennessy, who had learned to study his friend in order to escape disagreeable complications, patiently waited for the philosopher to speak. Mr. Dooley rubbed the bar to the end, tossed the cloth into a mysterious recess with a practised movement, moved a glass or two on the shelf, cleaned his spectacles, and drew a letter from his pocket. "Hm-m!" he said: "I have news fr'm th' fr-ront. Me nevvew, Terry Donahue, has sint me a letther tellin' me all about it." "How shud he know?" Mr. Hennessy asked. "How shud he know, is it?" Mr. Dooley demanded warmly. "How shudden't he know? Isn't he a sojer in th' ar-rmy? Isn't it him that's down there in Sandago fightin' f'r th' honor iv th' flag, while th' likes iv you is up here livin' like a prince, an' doin' nawthin' all th' livelong day but shovel at th' rollin'-mills? Who are ye f'r to criticize th' dayfinders iv our counthry who ar-re lyin' in th' trinches, an' havin' th' clothes stole off their backs be th' pathriotic Cubians, I'd like to know? F'r two pins, Hinnissy, you an' I'd quarrel." "I didn't mean nawthin'," Mr. Hennessy apologized. "I didn't know he was down there." "Nayether did I," said Mr. Dooley. "But I informed mesilf. I'll have no wan in this place speak again th' ar-rmy. Ye can have ye'er say about Mack. He has a good job, an' 'tis r-right an' proper f'r to baste him fr'm time to time. It shows ye'er in good thrim, an' it don't hur-rt him. They'se no wan to stop his pay. He goes up to th' cashier an' dhraws his forty-wan-sixty-six jus' th' same whether he's sick or well, an' whether he's pulled th' box reg-lar or has been playin' forty-fives in th' back room. But whin ye come to castin' aspersions on th' ar'rmy, be hivens, ye'll find that I can put me thumb on this showcase an' go over at wan lep." "I didn't say annything," said Mr. Hennessy. "I didn't know about Terry." "Iv coorse, ye didn't," said Mr. Dooley. "An' that's what I'm sayin'. Ye're here wallowin' in luxury, wheelin' pig ir'n fr'm morn till night; an' ye have no thought iv what's goin' on beyant. You an' Jawn D. Rockefeller an' Phil Ar-rmour an' Jay Pierpont Morgan an' th' r-rest iv ye is settin' back at home figurin' how ye can make some wan else pay ye'er taxes f'r ye. What is it to ye that me nevvew Terry is sleepin' in ditch wather an' atin' hard tacks an' coffee an' bein' r-robbed be leeber Cubians, an' catchin' yallow fever without a chanst iv givin' it to e'er a Spanyard. Ye think more iv a stamp thin ye do iv ye'er counthry. Ye're like th' Sugar Thrust. F'r two cints ye'd refuse to support th' govermint. I know ye, ye bloated monno-polist." "I'm no such thing," said Mr. Hennessy, hotly. "I've been a Dimmycrat f'r thirty year." "Well, annyhow," said Mr. Dooley, "don't speak disrayspictful iv th' ar-rmy. Lave me r-read you Terry's letter fr'm th' fr-ront. 'M--m: In th' trinches, two miles fr'm Sandago, with a land crab as big as a lobster crawlin' up me back be way iv Kingston, June 6, Dear Uncle Martin.' That's th' way it begins. 'Dear Uncle Martin: We are all well here, except thim that is not, an' hope ye're injyin' th' same gr-reat blessin'. It's hotter down here thin Billy-be-dam'd. They'se a rollin'-mill near here jus' th' same as at home, but all th' hands is laid off on account iv bad times. They used ol'-fashioned wooden wheelbahrs an' fired with wood. I don't think they cud handle th' pig th' way we done, bein' small la-ads. Th' coke has to be hauled up in sacks be th' gang. Th' derrick hands got six a week, but hadn't anny union. Helpers got four twinty. Puddlers was well paid. I wint through th' plant befure we come up here, an' r-run a wagon up th' plank jus' to keep me hand in. Tell me frinds that wan gang iv good la-ads fr'm th' r-road cud wurruk anny three iv th' gangs down here. Th' mills is owned be Rockefellar, so no more at prisint fr'm yer affecshunate nevvew, Peter Casey, who's writin' this f'r me.'" "'Tis a good letter," said Mr. Hennessy. "I don't see how they cud get derrick hands f'r six a week." "Me frind Jawn D. knows how," said Mr. Dooley. ON OUR CUBAN ALLIES. "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "dam thim Cubians! If I was Gin'ral Shafter, I'd back up th' wagon in front iv th' dure, an' I'd say to Gin'ral Garshy, I'd say, 'I want you'; an' I'd have thim all down at th' station an' dacently booked be th' desk sergeant befure th' fall iv night. Th' impydince iv thim!" "What have they been doin'?" Mr. Hennessy asked. "Failin' to undherstand our civilization," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye see, it was this way. This is th' way it was: Gin'ral Garshy with wan hundherd thousan' men's been fightin' bravely f'r two years f'r to liberyate Cubia. F'r two years he's been marchin' his sivinty-five thousan' men up an' down th' island, desthroyin' th' haughty Spanyard be th' millyons. Whin war was declared, he offered his own sarvice an' th' sarvices iv his ar-rmy iv fifty thousan' men to th' United States; an', while waitin' f'r ships to arrive, he marched at th' head iv his tin thousan' men down to Sandago de Cuba an' captured a cigar facthry, which they soon rayjooced to smokin' ruins. They was holdin' this position--Gin'ral Garshy an' his gallant wan thousan' men--whin Gin'ral Shafter arrived. Gin'ral Garshy immedjitly offered th' sarvices iv himsilf an' his two hundherd men f'r th' capture iv Sandago; an', when Gin'ral Shafter arrived, there was Gin'ral Garshy with his gallant band iv fifty Cubians, r-ready to eat at a minyit's notice. "Gin'ral Shafter is a big, coorse, two-fisted man fr'm Mitchigan, an', whin he see Gin'ral Garshy an' his twinty-five gallant followers, 'Fr-ront,' says he. 'This way,' he says, 'step lively,' he says, 'an' move some iv these things,' he says. 'Sir,' says Gin'ral Garshy, 'd'ye take me f'r a dhray?' he says. 'I'm a sojer,' he says, 'not a baggage car,' he says. 'I'm a Cubian pathrite, an' I'd lay down me life an' the lives iv ivry wan iv th' eighteen brave men iv me devoted ar-rmy,' he says; 'but I'll be dam'd if I carry a thrunk,' he says. 'I'll fight whiniver 'tis cool,' he says, 'an' they ain't wan iv these twelve men here that wudden't follow me to hell if they was awake at th' time,' he says; 'but,' he says, 'if 'twas wurruk we were lookin' f'r, we cud have found it long ago,' he says. 'They'se a lot iv it in this counthry that nobody's usin',' he says. 'What we want,' he says, 'is freedom,' he says; 'an', if ye think we have been in th' woods dodgin' th' savage corryspondint f'r two year,' he says, 'f'r th' sake iv r-rushin' yer laundhry home,' he says, ''tis no wondher,' he says, 'that th' r-roads fr'm Marinette to Kalamazoo is paved with goold bricks bought be th' people iv ye'er native State,' he says. "So Shafter had to carry his own thrunk; an' well it was f'r him that it wasn't Gin'ral Miles', the weather bein' hot. An' Shafter was mad clear through; an', whin he took hold iv Sandago, an' was sendin' out invitations, he scratched Garshy. Garshy took his gallant band iv six back to th' woods; an' there th' three iv thim ar-re now, ar-rmed with forty r-rounds iv canned lobster, an' ready to raysist to th' death. Him an' th' other man has written to Gin'ral Shafter to tell him what they think iv him, an' it don't take long." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "I think Shafter done wrong. He might've asked Garshy in f'r to see th' show, seein' that he's been hangin' ar-round f'r a long time, doin' th' best he cud." "It isn't that," explained Mr. Dooley. "Th' throuble is th' Cubians don't undherstand our civilization. Over here freedom means hard wurruk. What is th' ambition iv all iv us, Hinnissy? 'Tis ayether to hold our job or to get wan. We want wurruk. We must have it. D'ye raymimber th' sign th' mob carrid in th' procession las' year? 'Give us wurruk, or we perish,' it said. They had their heads bate in be polismen because no philan-thropist'd come along an' make thim shovel coal. Now, in Cubia, whin th' mobs turns out, they carry a banner with the wurruds, 'Give us nawthin' to do, or we perish.' Whin a Cubian comes home at night with a happy smile on his face, he don't say to his wife an' childher, 'Thank Gawd, I've got wurruk at last!' He says, 'Thank Gawd, I've been fired.' An' th' childher go out, and they say, 'Pah-pah has lost his job.' And Mrs. Cubian buys hersilf a new bonnet; and where wanst they was sorrow an' despair all is happiness an' a cottage organ. "Ye can't make people here undherstand that, an' ye can't make a Cubian undherstand that freedom means th' same thing as a pinitinchry sintince. Whin we thry to get him to wurruk, he'll say: 'Why shud I? I haven't committed anny crime.' That's goin' to be th' throuble. Th' first thing we know we'll have another war in Cubia whin we begin disthributin' good jobs, twelve hours a day, wan sivinty-five. Th' Cubians ain't civilized in our way. I sometimes think I've got a touch iv Cubian blood in me own veins." ON THE DESTRUCTION OF CERVERA'S FLEET. [These comments were made by Mr. Dooley during a strike of the stereotypers, which caused the English newspapers of Chicago temporarily to suspend publication.] "I hear," said Mr. Hennessy, "that th' stereopticons on th' newspapers have sthruck." "I sh'd think they wud," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' las' time I was down town was iliction night, whin Charter Haitch's big la-ad was ilicted, an' they was wurrukin' th' stereopticons till they was black in th' face. What's th' news?" "Th' What Cheer, Ioway, Lamp iv Freedom is on th' sthreets with a tillygram that Shafter has captured Sandago de Cuba, an' is now settin' on Gin'ral Pando's chest with his hands in his hair. But this is denied be th' Palo Gazoot, the Macoupin County Raygisther, an' th' Meridyan Sthreet Afro-American. I also see be th' Daily Scoor Card, th' Wine List, th' Deef Mute's Spokesman, th' Morgue Life, the Bill iv Fare, th' Stock Yards Sthraight Steer, an' Jack's Tips on th' Races, the on'y daily paper printed in Chicago, that Sampson's fleet is in th' Suez Canal bombarding Cades. Th' Northwestern Christyan Advycate says this is not thrue, but that George Dixon was outpointed be an English boxer in a twinty-r-round go in New York." "Ye've got things mixed up," said Mr. Dooley. "I get th' news sthraight. 'Twas this way. Th' Spanish fleet was bottled up in Sandago Harbor, an' they dhrew th' cork. That's a joke. I see it in th' pa-apers. Th' gallant boys iv th' navy was settin' out on th' deck, defindin' their counthry an' dhrawin' three ca-ards apiece, whin th' Spanish admiral con-cluded 'twud be better f'r him to be desthroyed on th' ragin' sea, him bein' a sailor, thin to have his fleet captured be cav'lry. Annyhow, he was willin' to take a chance; an' he says to his sailors: 'Spanyards,' he says, 'Castiles,' he says, 'we have et th' las' bed-tick,' he says; 'an', if we stay here much longer,' he says, 'I'll have to have a steak off th' armor plate fried f'r ye,' he says. 'Lave us go out where we can have a r-run f'r our money,' he says. An' away they wint. I'll say this much f'r him, he's a brave man, a dam brave man. I don't like a Spanyard no more than ye do, Hinnissy. I niver see wan. But, if this here man was a--was a Zulu, I'd say he was a brave man. If I was aboord wan iv thim yachts that was convarted, I'd go to this here Cervera, an' I'd say: 'Manuel,' I'd say, 'ye're all right, me boy. Ye ought to go to a doctor an' have ye'er eyes re-set, but ye're a good fellow. Go downstairs,' I'd say, 'into th' basemint iv the ship,' I'd say, 'an' open th' cupboard jus' nex' to th' head iv th' bed, an' find th' bottle marked "Floridy Wather," an' threat ye'ersilf kindly.' That's what I'd say to Cervera. He's all right. "Well, whin our boys see th' Spanish fleet comin' out iv th' harbor, they gathered on th' deck an' sang th' naytional anthem, 'They'll be a hot time in th' ol' town to-night.' A liftnant come up to where Admiral Sampson was settin' playin' sivin up with Admiral Schley. 'Bill,' he says, 'th' Spanish fleet is comin' out,' he says. 'What talk have ye?' says Sampson. 'Sind out some row-boats an' a yacht, an' desthroy thim. Clubs is thrumps,' he says, and he wint on playin'. Th' Spanish fleet was attackted on all sides be our br-rave la-ads, nobly assisted be th' dispatch boats iv the newspapers. Wan by wan they was desthroyed. Three battle-ships attackted th' convarted yacht Gloucester. Th' Gloucester used to be owned be Pierpont Morgan; but 'twas convarted, an' is now leadin' a dacint life. Th' Gloucester sunk thim all, th' Christobell Comma, the Viscera, an' th' Admiral O'Quinn. It thin wint up to two Spanish torpedo boats an' giv thim wan punch, an' away they wint. Be this time th' sojers had heerd of the victhry, an' they gathered on th' shore, singin' th' naytional anthem, 'They'll be a hot time in th' ol' town to-night, me babby.' Th' gloryous ol' chune, to which Washington an' Grant an' Lincoln marched, was took up be th' sailors on th' ships, an' Admiral Cervera r-run wan iv his boats ashore, an' jumped into th' sea. At last accounts th' followin' dispatches had been received: 'To Willum McKinley: Congratulations on ye'er noble victhry. (Signed) Willum McKinley.' 'To Russell A. Alger: Ye done splendid. (Signed) Russell A. Alger.' 'To James Wilson, Sicrety iv Agriculture: This is a gr-reat day f'r Ioway. Ar-re ye much hur-rted? (Signed) James Wilson.'" "Where did ye hear all this?" asked Mr. Hennessy, in great amazement. "I r-read it," said Mr. Dooley, impressively, "in the Staats Zeitung." ON A LETTER TO MR. DEPEW. "I usen't to know," said Mr. Dooley, "what me frind Gin'ral Sherman meant whin he said that thing about war. I've been through two iv thim, not to speak iv convintions an' prim'ries, an' divvle th' bit iv har-rm come to me no more thin if I was settin' on a roof playin' an accorjeen. But I know now what th' ol' la-ad meant. He meant war was hell whin 'twas over. "I ain't heerd anny noise fr'm th' fellows that wint into threnches an' plugged th' villyanious Spanyard. Most iv thim is too weak to kick. But th' proud an' fearless pathrites who restrained thimsilves, an' didn't go to th' fr-ront, th' la-ads that sthruggled hard with their warlike tindincies, an' fin'lly downed thim an' stayed at home an' practised up upon th' typewriter, they're ragin' an' tearin' an' desthroyin' their foes. "Did ye see what me frind Alger wrote to Chansy Depoo? Well, sir, Alger has been misthreated. There's a good man. I say he's a good man. An' he is, too. At anny thrick fr'm shingles to two-be-fours he's as good as th' best. But no wan apprechated Alger. No wan undherstud him. No wan even thried to. Day be day he published th' private letters iv other people, an' that didn't throw anny light on his charackter. Day be day he had his pitchers took, an' still th' people didn't get onto th' cur-rves iv him. Day be day he chatted iv th' turrors iv war, an' still people on'y said: 'An' Alger also r-ran.' But th' time come whin Alger cud contain himsilf no longer, an' he set down an' wrote to Chansy Depoo. "'Mr. Chansy Depot, care iv Grand Cintral Depew, New York, N.Y., Esquire. Dear Chanse: I've been expectin' a letter fr'm ye f'r three or four days. In reply to same will say: Oh, Chanse, ye don't know how I suffer. I'm that low in me mind I feel like a bunch iv lathes. Oh, dear, to think iv what I've gone through. I wint into th' war onprepared. I had on'y so many r-rounds iv catridges an' a cross-cut saw, an' I failed to provide mesilf with th' ord'nary necessities iv life. But, in spite iv me deficiencies, I wint bravely ahead. Th' sthrain was something tur-r'ble on me. Me mind give out repeatedly. I cud not think at times, but I niver faltered. In two months I had enough supplies piled up in Maine to feed ivry sojer in Cubia. They were thousands iv r-rounds iv catridges f'r ivry rig'mint, and all th' rig'mints had to do was to write f'r thim. Th' navy had taken Manila an' Cervera's fleet, an' th' ar-rmy had taken Sandago an' th' yellow fever. Th' war is over, an' peace wanst more wags her wings over th' counthry. Pine scantlings is quoted sthrong. Ivrywhere is peace an' contint. Me photographs are on sale at all first-class newsdealers. Yet there is no ca'm f'r me. Onthinkin' wans insult me. They tell me a sojer can't ate gin'ral ordhers. They want me to raysign an' go back to me humble home in Mitchigan. Disgustin' men that've done nawthin' but get thimsilves shot, ask f'r milk an' quinine. They'll be askin' me to carry food to thim nex'. Oh, Chanse, oh, hivens, ye can't know how grieved I am! Rather wud I have perished in a logjam thin to've indured this ingratichood. But, in lookin' back over me past life, I can think iv no wrong I've done. If me mim'ry is at fault, please note. Me car-eer is an open book. I've held nawthin' back fr'm th' public, not even whin 'twas mar-rked private. I can say with th' pote that I done me jooty. But, oh, Chanse! don't iver aspire to my job. Be sicrety of war, if ye will; but niver be sicrety iv A war. Do not offer this letter to th' newspapers. Make thim take it. How's things goin' with ye, ol' pal? I hope to see ye at th' seaside. Till thin, I'm yours, sick at heart, but atin' reg'lar. RUSS.'" "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "th' poor man must've had a har-rd time iv it." "He did," said Mr. Dooley. "Niver laid his head to a pillow before eight, up with th' moon: he's suffered as no man can tell. But he'll be all r-right whin his mind's at r-rest." ON THE PRESIDENT'S CAT. "'Twas this way about Dr. Huckenlooper. Mack has a cat that was give him f'r a Chris'mas prisint be me frind Pierpont Morgan, an' th' cat was a gr-reat favor-ite in th' White House. 'Twas as quite as th' Sicrety iv Agriculture an' as affectionate as th' Sicrety iv th' Three-asury. Th' cat was called Goold Bonds, because iv th' inthrest he dhrew. He very often played with th' Sicrety iv th' Navy, an' ivry wan that come to th' White House f'r a job loved him. "But wan day Goold Bonds begun to look bad. He cudden't ate th' r-rich crame out iv th' di'mon'-studded saucer. He stopped castin' an eye at th' c'nary in th' cage. Whin th' Sicrety iv th' Navy wint down f'r to play with him, Goold Bonds spit at that good an' gr-reat man. Mack was shavin' himsilf befure th' lookin'-glass, an' had jus' got his face pulled r-round to wan side f'r a good gash, whin he heerd a scream iv ag'ny behind him, an' tur-rned to see Goold Bonds leap up with his paws on his stomach an' hit th' ceilin'. Mack give a cry iv turror, an' grabbed at Goold Bonds. Away wint Goold Bonds through th' house. Th' Sicrety iv War seen him comin', an' called, 'Pussy, pussy.' Goold Bonds wint through his legs, an' galloped f'r where th' Postmaster-gin'ral was settin' editin' his pa-aper. Th' Postmaster-gin'ral had jus' got as far as 'we opine,' whin he see Goold Bonds, an' he bate th' cat to th' windy be a whisker. "Well, Goold Bonds ended up in th' coal cellar, an' they was a cab'net council f'r to see what was to be done. 'Sind f'r Doctor Heinegagubler,' says th' Sicrety iv War. 'He's wan iv th' gr-reatest surgeons iv our time,' he says, 'an' can cure annything fr'm pips to glanders,' he says. Th' famous Doctor Honeycooler was summoned. 'Sir,' says Mack, 'Goold Bonds, th' pride iv th' administhration, has had a fit,' he says. ''Twud br-reak our hear-rts to lose our little pet,' he says. 'Go,' he says, 'an' take such measures as ye'er noble healin' ar-rt sug-gists,' he says; 'an' may th' prayers iv an agonized foster-parent go with ye,' he says. An' Doctor Higgenlocker wint down into th' coal-shed; an' whin he come back, it was with Goold Bonds in his ar-rms, weak an' pale, but with a wan smile on his lips. "Afther embracin' Goold Bonds an' tuckin' him away in bed, Mack tur-rns to th' Dock. 'Dock,' he says, 'ye have performed a noble sarvice,' he says. 'I appint ye a major-gin'ral,' he says. 'I'm that already,' says th' Dock. 'I've r-rich relatives in Philadelphia,' he says. 'But,' says Mack, ''tis a shame to think iv ye'er noble sarvices bein' wasted,' he says, 'whin ye'er counthry calls,' he says. 'I appint ye,' he says, 'surgeon-gin'ral,' he says. 'Pro-ceed,' he says, 'to Cubia, an' stamp out th' dhread ravages,' he says, 'iv r-ringbone an' stagger,' he says. "That's how Dock got th'job. He was a gr-reat man down there, an' now he's wan iv th' vethranaryans iv th' war. Ye heerd iv typhoid an' yellow fever in th' threnches; but did ye hear annything iv spavin or th' foot-an'-mouth disease? Not wanst. Dock was on jooty late an' early. Sleepless an' vigilant, he stood beside th' suffrin' mules, allayin' their pain, an' slowly but surely dhraggin' thim out iv th' clutches iv pinkeye an' epizootic. He had a cheery wurrud, a pleasant smile, an' a bottle iv liniment f'r wan an' all. He cured Teddy Rosenfelt's hor-rse iv intherference an' made a soothin' lotion iv axle-grease f'r Gin'ral Shafter's buckboard. Ye might see him anny time wandhrin' through th' camp with a hatful of oats or a wisp of hay. They called him th' Stall Angel, and countless thousands iv sick hor-rses blessed him. He's a gr-reat man is th' Dock. But, if it hadn't been f'r Goold Bonds, th' counthry wud niver have had his sarvices. Who knows but that Mack's cat was th' rale victhor at Sandago?" "Didn't he cure anny men?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Sure," said Mr. Dooley. "He cured Teddy Rosenfelt iv boltin'." ON A SPEECH BY PRESIDENT McKINLEY. "I hear-r that Mack's in town," said Mr. Dooley. "Didn't ye see him?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Faith, I did not!" said Mr. Dooley. "If 'tis meetin' me he's afther, all he has to do is to get on a ca-ar an' r-ride out to number nine-double-naught-nine Archey R-road, an' stop whin he sees th' sign iv th' Tip-p'rary Boodweiser Brewin' Company. I'm here fr'm eight in the mornin' till midnight, an' th' r-rest iv th' time I'm in the back room in th' ar-rms iv Or-rphyus, as Hogan says. Th' Presidint is as welcome as anny rayspictable marrid man. I will give him a chat an' a dhrink f'r fifteen cints; an', as we're not, as a frind iv mine in th' grocery an' pothry business says, intirely a commercial an' industhreel nation, if he has th' Sicrety iv th' Threasury with him, I'll give thim two f'r twinty-five cints, which is th' standard iv value among civilized nations th' wurruld over. Prisidint iv th' United States, says ye? Well, I'm prisidint iv this liquor store, fr'm th' pitcher iv th' Chicago fire above th' wash-stand in th' back room to th' dure-step. Beyond that belongs to th' polisman on th' bate. An Amurrican's home, as wan iv th' potes says, is his castle till th' morgedge falls due. An' divvle a fut will I put out iv this dure to see e'er a prisidint, prince, or potentate, fr'm th' czar iv Rooshia to th' king iv Chiny. There's Prisidint Mack at th' Audjiotoroom, an' here's Prisidint Dooley at nine-double-naught-nine, an' th' len'th iv th' sthreet between thim. Says he, 'Come over to th' hotel an' see me.' Says I, 'If ye find ye'ersilf thrun fr'm a ca-ar in me neighborhood, dhrop in.' An' there ye ar-re. "I may niver see him. I may go to me grave without gettin' an' eye on th' wan man besides mesilf that don't know what th' furrin' policy iv th' United States is goin' to be. An he, poor man, whin some wan asts him, 'Did ye iver meet Dooley:' 'll have to say, 'No, I had th' chanst wanst, but me ac-cursed pride kept me from visitin' him.' "I r-read his speeches, though, an' know what he's doin.' Some iv thim ar-re gr-reat. He attinded th' banket given be th' Prospurity Brigade at th' hotel where he's stoppin'. 'Twas a magnificent assimblage iv th' laborin' classes, costin' fifteen dollars a plate, an' on'y disturbed whin a well-to-do gintleman in th' dhry-goods business had to be thrun out f'r takin' a kick at a waiter. I r-read be th' papers that whin Mack come in he was rayceived be th' gatherin' with shouts iv approval. Th' proceedin's was opened with a prayer that Providence might r-remain undher th' protection iv th' administhration. Th' Sicrety iv th' Treasury followed with a gran' speech, highly commindin' th' action iv th' threasury department durin' th' late war; 'but,' says he, 'I cannot,' he says, 'so far forget mesilf,' he says, 'as not to mintion,' he says, 'that,' he says, 'if it hadn't been f'r the sublime pathreetism an' courage,' he says, 'iv th' gintleman whom we honor,' he says, 'in puttin' me on th' foorce,' he says, 'I might not be here to-night,' he says. "Th' Sicrety iv th' Threasury was followed be th' Gin'ral Shafter. 'Gintlemen,' says he, 'it gives me,' he says, 'gr-reat pleasure,' he says, 'to be prisint in th' mist iv so manny an' so various vittles,' he says. 'Iv coorse,' he says, 'I re-elize me own gr-reat worth,' he says; 'but,' he says, 'I wud have to be more thin human,' he says, 'to overlook th' debt iv gratichood,' he says, 'th' counthry owes,' he says, 'to th' man whose foresight, wisdom, an' prudence brought me for-ard at such an opparchune time,' he says. 'Gintlemen,' he says, 'onless ye have lived in th' buckboard f'r months on th' parched deserts iv Cubia,' he says, 'ye little know what a pleasure it is,' he says, 'to dhrink,' he says, 'to th' author iv our bein' here,' he says. An' Gin-ral Miles wint out an' punched th' bell-boy. Mack r-rose up in a perfect hurcane iv applause, an' says he, 'Gintlemen,' he says, 'an' fellow-heroes,' he says, 'ye do me too much honor;' he says. 'I alone shud not have th' credit iv this gloryous victhry. They ar-re others.' [A voice: 'Shafter.' Another voice: 'Gage.' Another voice: 'Dooley.'] 'But I pass to a more conganial line iv thought,' he says. 'We have just emerged fr'm a turrible war,' he says. 'Again,' he says, 'we ar-re a united union,' he says. 'No north,' he says, 'no south, no east,' he says, 'no west. No north east a point east,' he says. 'Th' inimies iv our counthry has been cr-rushed,' he says, 'or is stuck down in Floridy with his rig'mint talkin',' he says, 'his hellish docthrines to th' allygatars,' he says. 'Th' nation is wanst more at peace undher th' gran' goold standard,' he says. 'Now,' he says, 'th' question is what shall we do with th' fruits iv victhry?' he says. [A voice, 'Can thim.'] 'Our duty to civilization commands us to be up an' doin',' he says. 'We ar-re bound,' he says, 'to--to re-elize our destiny, whativer it may be,' he says. 'We can not tur-rn back,' he says, 'th hands iv th' clock that, even as I speak, he says, 'is r-rushin' through th' hear-rts iv men,' he says, 'dashin' its spray against th' star iv liberty an' hope, an' no north, no south, no east, no west, but a steady purpose to do th' best we can, considerin' all th' circumstances iv the case.' he says. 'I hope I have made th' matther clear to ye,' he says, 'an', with these few remarks,' he says, 'I will tur-rn th' job over to destiny,' he says, 'which is sure to lead us iver on an' on, an' back an' forth, a united an' happy people, livin',' he says, 'undher an administhration that, thanks to our worthy Prisidint an' his cap-ble an' earnest advisers, is second to none,' he says." "What do you think ought to be done with th' fruits iv victhry?" Mr. Hennessy asked. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "if 'twas up to me, I'd eat what was r-ripe an' give what wasn't r-ripe to me inimy. An' I guess that's what Mack means." ON THE HERO IN POLITICS. "'Tis as much as a man's life is worth these days," said Mr. Dooley, "to have a vote. Look here," he continued, diving under the bar and producing a roll of paper. "Here's th' pitchers iv candydates I pulled down fr'm th' windy, an' jus' knowin' they're here makes me that nervous f'r th' contints iv th' cash dhrawer I'm afraid to tur-rn me back f'r a minyit. I'm goin' to throw thim out in th' back yard. "All heroes, too, Hinnissy. They'se Mike O'Toole, th' hero iv Sandago, that near lost his life be dhrink on his way to th' arm'ry, an' had to be sint home without lavin' th' city. There's Turror Teddy Mangan, th' night man at Flaher-ty's, that loaded th' men that loaded th' guns that kilt th' mules at Matoonzas. There's Hero O'Brien, that wud've inlisted if he hadn't been too old, an' th' contractin' business in such good shape. There's Bill Cory, that come near losin' his life at a cinematograph iv th' battle iv Manila. They're all here, bedad, r-ready to sarve their country to th' bitter end, an' to r-rush, voucher in hand, to th' city threasurer's office at a minyit's notice. "I wint to a hero meetin' th' other night, Hinnissy, an' that's sthrange f'r me. Whin a man gets to be my age, he laves th' shoutin' f'r th' youth iv th' land, onless he has a pol-itical job. I niver had a job but wanst. That was whin I was precin't cap'n; an' a good wan I was, too. None betther. I'd been on th' cinthral comity to-day, but f'r me losin' ambition whin they r-run a man be th' name iv Eckstein f'r aldherman. I was sayin', Hinnissy, whin a man gets to be my age, he ducks pol-itical meetin's, an' r-reads th' papers an' weighs th' ividence an' th' argymints,--pro-argymints an' con-argymints,--an' makes up his mind ca'mly, an' votes th' Dimmycratic ticket. But young Dorsey he med me go with him to th' hero's meetin' in Finucane's hall. "Well, sir, there was O'Toole an' all th' rest on th' platform in unyform, with flags over thim, an' the bands playin' 'They'll be a hot time in th' ol' town to-night again'; an' th' chairman was Plunkett. Ye know Plunkett: a good man if they was no gr-rand juries. He was makin' a speech. 'Whin th' battle r-raged,' he says, 'an' th' bullets fr'm th' haughty Spanyards' raypeatin' Mouser r-rifles,' he says, 'where was Cassidy?' he says. 'In his saloon,' says I, 'in I'mrald Av'noo,' says I. 'Thrue f'r ye,' says Plunkett. 'An' where,' he says, 'was our candydate?' he says. 'In somebody else's saloon,' says I. 'No,' says he. 'Whin th' Prisidint,' he says, 'called th' nation to ar-rms,' he says, 'an' Congress voted fifty million good bucks f'r th' naytional definse,' he says, 'Thomas Francis Dorgan,' he says, 'in that minyit iv naytional pearl,' says he, 'left his good job in the pipe-yard,' he says, 'an' wint down to th' raycruitin' office, an' says, "How manny calls f'r volunteers is out?" he says. "Wan," says th' officer. "Put me down," says Dorgan, "f'r th' tenth call," he says. This, gintlemen iv th' foorth precin't,' he says, 'is Thomas Francis Dorgan, a man who, if ilicted,' he says, 'victhry'll perch,' he says, 'upon our banners,' he says; 'an',' he says, 'th' naytional honor will be maintained,' he says, 'in th' county boord,' he says. "I wint out to take th' air, an' I met me frind Clohessy, th' little tailor fr'm Halsted Sthreet. Him an' me had a shell iv beer together at th' German's; an' says I, 'What d'ye think iv th' heroes?' I says. 'Well,' says he, 'I make no doubt 'twas brave iv Dorgan,' he says, 'f'r to put his name in f'r th' tenth call,' he says; 'but,' he says, 'I don't like Plunkett, an' it seems to me a man'd have to be a hell iv a sthrong man, even if he was a hero, to be Plunkett's man, an' keep his hands out iv ye'er pockets,' he says. 'I'm with Clancy's candydate,' he says. 'He niver offered to enlist for th' war,' he says, 'but 'twas Clancy put Terence on th' polis foorce an' got th' school f'r Aggie,' he says. "That's the way I feel," said Mr. Hennessy. "I wudden't thrust Plunkett as far as I cud throw a cow be th' tail. If Dorgan was Clancy's war hero, I'd be with him." "Annyhow," said Mr. Dooley, "mighty few iv th' rale heroes iv th' war is r-runnin' f'r office. Most iv thim put on their blue overalls whin they was mustered out an' wint up an' ast f'r their ol' jobs back--an' sometimes got thim. Ye can see as manny as tin iv thim at the rollin'-mills defindin' th' nation's honor with wheelbahr's an' a slag shovel." MR. DOOLEY IN PEACE ON NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS. Mr. Hennessy looked out at the rain dripping down in Archey Road, and sighed, "A-ha, 'tis a bad spell iv weather we're havin'." "Faith, it is," said Mr. Dooley, "or else we mind it more thin we did. I can't remimber wan day fr'm another. Whin I was young, I niver thought iv rain or snow, cold or heat. But now th' heat stings an' th' cold wrenches me bones; an', if I go out in th' rain with less on me thin a ton iv rubber, I'll pay dear f'r it in achin' j'ints, so I will. That's what old age means; an' now another year has been put on to what we had befure, an' we're expected to be gay. 'Ring out th' old,' says a guy at th' Brothers' School. 'Ring out th' old, ring in th' new,' he says. 'Ring out th' false, ring in th' thrue,' says he. It's a pretty sintimint, Hinnissy; but how ar-re we goin' to do it? Nawthin'd please me betther thin to turn me back on th' wicked an' ingloryous past, rayform me life, an' live at peace with th' wurruld to th' end iv me days. But how th' divvle can I do it? As th' fellow says, 'Can th' leopard change his spots,' or can't he? "You know Dorsey, iv coorse, th' cross-eyed May-o man that come to this counthry about wan day in advance iv a warrant f'r sheep-stealin'? Ye know what he done to me, tellin' people I was caught in me cellar poorin' wather into a bar'l? Well, last night says I to mesilf, thinkin' iv Dorsey, I says: 'I swear that henceforth I'll keep me temper with me fellow-men. I'll not let anger or jealousy get th' betther iv me,' I says. 'I'll lave off all me old feuds; an' if I meet me inimy goin' down th' sthreet, I'll go up an' shake him be th' hand, if I'm sure he hasn't a brick in th' other hand.' Oh, I was mighty compliminthry to mesilf. I set be th' stove dhrinkin' hot wans, an' ivry wan I dhrunk made me more iv a pote. 'Tis th' way with th' stuff. Whin I'm in dhrink, I have manny a fine thought; an', if I wasn't too comfortable to go an' look f'r th' ink-bottle, I cud write pomes that'd make Shakespeare an' Mike Scanlan think they were wurrkin' on a dredge. 'Why,' says I, 'carry into th' new year th' hathreds iv th' old?' I says. 'Let th' dead past bury its dead,' says I. 'Tur-rn ye'er lamps up to th' blue sky,' I says. (It was rainin' like th' divvle, an' th' hour was midnight; but I give no heed to that, bein' comfortable with th' hot wans.) An' I wint to th' dure, an', whin Mike Duffy come by on number wan hundherd an' five, ringin' th' gong iv th' ca-ar, I hollered to him: 'Ring out th' old, ring in th' new.' 'Go back into ye'er stall,' he says, 'an' wring ye'ersilf out,' he says. 'Ye'er wet through,' he says. "Whin I woke up this mornin', th' pothry had all disappeared, an' I begun to think th' las' hot wan I took had somethin' wrong with it. Besides, th' lumbago was grippin' me till I cud hardly put wan foot befure th' other. But I remimbered me promises to mesilf, an' I wint out on th' sthreet, intindin' to wish ivry wan a 'Happy New Year,' an' hopin' in me hear-rt that th' first wan I wished it to'd tell me to go to th' divvle, so I cud hit him in th' eye. I hadn't gone half a block before I spied Dorsey acrost th' sthreet. I picked up a half a brick an' put it in me pocket, an' Dorsey done th' same. Thin we wint up to each other. 'A Happy New Year,' says I. 'Th' same to you,' says he, 'an' manny iv thim,' he says. 'Ye have a brick in ye'er hand,' says I. 'I was thinkin' iv givin' ye a New Year's gift,' says he. 'Th' same to you, an' manny iv thim,' says I, fondlin' me own ammunition. ''Tis even all around,' says he. 'It is,' says I. 'I was thinkin' las' night I'd give up me gredge again ye,' says he. 'I had th' same thought mesilf,' says I. 'But, since I seen ye'er face,' he says, 'I've con-cluded that I'd be more comfortable hatin' ye thin havin' ye f'r a frind,' says he. 'Ye're a man iv taste,' says I. An' we backed away fr'm each other. He's a Tip, an' can throw a stone like a rifleman; an', Hinnissy, I'm somethin' iv an amachoor shot with a half-brick mesilf. "Well, I've been thinkin' it over, an' I've argied it out that life'd not be worth livin' if we didn't keep our inimies. I can have all th' frinds I need. Anny man can that keeps a liquor sthore. But a rale sthrong inimy, specially a May-o inimy,--wan that hates ye ha-ard, an' that ye'd take th' coat off yer back to do a bad tur-rn to,--is a luxury that I can't go without in me ol' days. Dorsey is th' right sort. I can't go by his house without bein' in fear he'll spill th' chimbly down on me head; an', whin he passes my place, he walks in th' middle iv th' sthreet, an' crosses himsilf. I'll swear off on annything but Dorsey. He's a good man, an' I despise him. Here's long life to him." ON GOLD-SEEKING. "Well, sir," said Mr. Hennessy, "that Alaska's th' gr-reat place. I thought 'twas nawthin' but an iceberg with a few seals roostin' on it, an' wan or two hundherd Ohio politicians that can't be killed on account iv th' threaty iv Pawrs. But here they tell me 'tis fairly smothered in goold. A man stubs his toe on th' ground, an lifts th' top off iv a goold mine. Ye go to bed at night, an' wake up with goold fillin' in ye'er teeth." "Yes," said Mr. Dooley, "Clancy's son was in here this mornin', an' he says a frind iv his wint to sleep out in th' open wan night, an' whin he got up his pants assayed four ounces iv goold to th' pound, an' his whiskers panned out as much as thirty dollars net." "If I was a young man an' not tied down here," said Mr. Hennessy, "I'd go there: I wud so." "I wud not," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin I was a young man in th' ol' counthry, we heerd th' same story about all America. We used to set be th' tur-rf fire o' nights, kickin' our bare legs on th' flure an' wishin' we was in New York, where all ye had to do was to hold ye'er hat an' th' goold guineas'd dhrop into it. An' whin I got to be a man, I come over here with a ham and a bag iv oatmeal, as sure that I'd return in a year with money enough to dhrive me own ca-ar as I was that me name was Martin Dooley. An' that was a cinch. "But, faith, whin I'd been here a week, I seen that there was nawthin' but mud undher th' pavement,--I larned that be means iv a pick-axe at tin shillin's th' day,--an' that, though there was plenty iv goold, thim that had it were froze to it; an' I come west, still lookin' f'r mines. Th' on'y mine I sthruck at Pittsburgh was a hole f'r sewer pipe. I made it. Siven shillin's th' day. Smaller thin New York, but th' livin' was cheaper, with Mon'gahela rye at five a throw, put ye'er hand around th' glass. "I was still dreamin' goold, an' I wint down to Saint Looey. Th' nearest I come to a fortune there was findin' a quarther on th' sthreet as I leaned over th' dashboord iv a car to whack th' off mule. Whin I got to Chicago, I looked around f'r the goold mine. They was Injuns here thin. But they wasn't anny mines I cud see. They was mud to be shovelled an' dhrays to be dhruv an' beats to be walked. I choose th' dhray; f'r I was niver cut out f'r a copper, an' I'd had me fill iv excavatin'. An' I dhruv th' dhray till I wint into business. "Me experyence with goold minin' is it's always in th' nex' county. If I was to go to Alaska, they'd tell me iv th' finds in Seeberya. So I think I'll stay here. I'm a silver man, annyhow; an' I'm contint if I can see goold wanst a year, whin some prominent citizen smiles over his newspaper. I'm thinkin' that ivry man has a goold mine undher his own dure-step or in his neighbor's pocket at th' farthest." "Well, annyhow," said Mr. Hennessy, "I'd like to kick up th' sod, an' find a ton iv goold undher me fut." "What wud ye do if ye found it?" demanded Mr. Dooley. "I--I dinnaw," said Mr. Hennessy, whose dreaming had not gone this far. Then, recovering himself, he exclaimed with great enthusiasm, "I'd throw up me job an'--an' live like a prince." "I tell ye what ye'd do," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye'd come back here an' sthrut up an' down th' sthreet with ye'er thumbs in ye'er armpits; an' ye'd dhrink too much, an' ride in sthreet ca-ars. Thin ye'd buy foldin' beds an' piannies, an' start a reel estate office. Ye'd be fooled a good deal an' lose a lot iv ye'er money, an' thin ye'd tighten up. Ye'd be in a cold fear night an' day that ye'd lose ye'er fortune. Ye'd wake up in th' middle iv th' night, dhreamin' that ye was back at th' gas-house with ye'er money gone. Ye'd be prisidint iv a charitable society. Ye'd have to wear ye'er shoes in th' house, an' ye'er wife'd have ye around to rayciptions an dances.' Ye'd move to Mitchigan Avnoo, an' ye'd hire a coachman that'd laugh at ye. Ye'er boys'd be joods an' ashamed iv ye, an' ye'd support ye'er daughters' husbands. Ye'd rackrint ye'er tinants an' lie about ye'er taxes. Ye'd go back to Ireland on a visit, an' put on airs with ye'er cousin Mike. Ye'd be a mane, close-fisted, onscrupulous ol' curmudgeon; an', whin ye'd die, it'd take half ye'er fortune f'r rayqueems to put ye r-right. I don't want ye iver to speak to me whin ye get rich, Hinnissy." "I won't," said Mr. Hennessy. ON BOOKS. "Ivry time I pick up me mornin' paper to see how th' scrap come out at Batthry D," said Mr. Dooley, "th' first thing I r-run acrost is somethin' like this: 'A hot an' handsome gift f'r Christmas is Lucy Ann Patzooni's "Jims iv Englewood Thought"'; or 'If ye wud delight th' hear-rt iv yer child, ye'll give him Dr. Harper's monymental histhry iv th' Jewish thribes fr'm Moses to Dhry-fuss' or 'Ivrybody is r-readin' Roodyard Kiplin's "Busy Pomes f'r Busy People."' Th' idee iv givin' books f'r Christmas prisints whin th' stores are full iv tin hor-rns an' dhrums an' boxin' gloves an choo-choo ca-ars! People must be crazy." "They ar-re," said Mr. Hennessy. "My house is so full iv books ye cudden't tur-rn around without stumblin' over thim. I found th' life iv an ex-convict, the 'Prisoner iv Zinders,' in me high hat th' other day, where Mary Ann was hidin' it fr'm her sister. Instead iv th' chidher fightin' an' skylarkin' in th' evenin', they're settin' around th' table with their noses glued into books. Th' ol' woman doesn't read, but she picks up what's goin' on. 'Tis 'Honoria, did Lor-rd What's-his-name marry th' fair Aminta?' or 'But that Lady Jane was a case.' An' so it goes. There's no injymint in th' house, an' they're usin' me cravats f'r bookmarks." "'Tis all wrong," said Mr. Dooley. "They're on'y three books in th' wurruld worth readin',--Shakespeare, th' Bible, an' Mike Ahearn's histhry iv Chicago. I have Shakespeare on thrust, Father Kelly r-reads th' Bible f'r me, an' I didn't buy Mike Ahearn's histhry because I seen more thin he cud put into it. Books is th' roon iv people, specially novels. Whin I was a young man, th' parish priest used to preach again thim; but nobody knowed what he meant. At that time Willum Joyce had th' on'y library in th' Sixth Wa-ard. Th' mayor give him th' bound volumes iv th' council proceedings, an' they was a very handsome set. Th' on'y books I seen was th' kind that has th' life iv th' pope on th' outside an' a set iv dominos on th' inside. They're good readin'. Nawthin' cud be better f'r a man whin he's tired out afther a day's wurruk thin to go to his library an' take down wan iv th' gr-reat wurruks iv lithratchoor an' play a game iv dominos f'r th' dhrinks out iv it. Anny other kind iv r-readin', barrin' th' newspapers, which will niver hurt anny onedycated man, is desthructive iv morals. "I had it out with Father Kelly th' other day in this very matther. He was comin' up fr'm down town with an ar-rmful iv books f'r prizes at th' school. 'Have ye th' Key to Heaven there?' says I. 'No,' says he, 'th' childher that'll get these books don't need no key. They go in under th' turnstile,' he says, laughin'. 'Have ye th' Lives iv th' Saints, or the Christyan Dooty, or th' Story iv Saint Rose iv Lima?' I says. 'I have not,' says he. 'I have some good story books. I'd rather th' kids'd r-read Char-les Dickens than anny iv th' tales iv thim holy men that was burned in ile or et up be lines,' he says. 'It does no good in these degin'rate days to prove that th' best that can come to a man f'r behavin' himsilf is to be cooked in a pot or di-gisted be a line,' he says. 'Ye're wrong,' says I. 'Beggin' ye'er riv'rince's pardon, ye're wrong,' I says. 'What ar-re ye goin' to do with thim young wans? Ye're goin' to make thim near-sighted an' round-shouldered,' I says. 'Ye're goin' to have thim believe that, if they behave thimsilves an' lead a virchous life, they'll marry rich an' go to Congress. They'll wake up some day, an' find out that gettin' money an behavin' ye'ersilf don't always go together,' I says. 'Some iv th' wickedest men in th' wurruld have marrid rich,' I says. 'Ye're goin' to teach thim that a man doesn't have to use an ax to get along in th' wurruld. Ye're goin' to teach thim that a la-ad with a curlin' black mustache an' smokin' a cigareet is always a villyan, whin he's more often a barber with a lar-rge family. Life, says ye! There's no life in a book. If ye want to show thim what life is, tell thim to look around thim. There's more life on a Saturdah night in th' Ar-rchy Road thin in all th' books fr'm Shakespeare to th' rayport iv th' drainage thrustees. No man,' I says, 'iver wrote a book if he had annything to write about, except Shakespeare an' Mike Ahearn. Shakespeare was all r-right. I niver read anny of his pieces, but they sound good; an' I know Mike Ahearn is all r-right.'" "What did he say?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "He took it all r-right," said Mr. Dooley. "He kind o' grinned, an' says he: 'What ye say is thrue, an' it's not thrue,' he says. 'Books is f'r thim that can't injye thimsilves in anny other way,' he says. 'If ye're in good health, an' ar-re atin' three squares a day, an' not ayether sad or very much in love with ye'er lot, but just lookin' on an' not carin' a'--he said rush--'not carin' a rush, ye don't need books,' he says. 'But if ye're a down-spirited thing an' want to get away an' can't, ye need books. 'Tis betther to be comfortable at home thin to go to th' circus, an' 'tis betther to go to th' circus thin to r-read anny book. But 'tis betther to r-read a book thin to want to go to th' circus an' not be able to,' he says. 'Well,' says I, 'whin I was growin' up, half th' congregation heard mass with their prayer books tur-rned upside down, an' they were as pious as anny. Th' Apostles' Creed niver was as con-vincin' to me afther I larned to r-read it as it was whin I cudden't read it, but believed it.'" ON REFORM CANDIDATES. "That frind iv ye'ers, Dugan, is an intilligent man," said Mr. Dooley. "All he needs is an index an' a few illusthrations to make him a bicyclopedja iv useless information." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, judiciously, "he ain't no Soc-rates an' he ain't no answers-to-questions colum; but he's a good man that goes to his jooty, an' as handy with a pick as some people are with a cocktail spoon. What's he been doin' again ye?" "Nawthin'," said Mr. Dooley, "but he was in here Choosday. 'Did ye vote?' says I. 'I did,' says he. 'Which wan iv th' distinguished bunko steerers got ye'er invalu'ble suffrage?' says I. 'I didn't have none with me,' says he, 'but I voted f'r Charter Haitch,' says he. 'I've been with him in six ilictions,' says he, 'an' he's a good man,' he says. 'D'ye think ye're votin' f'r th' best?' says I. 'Why, man alive,' I says, 'Charter Haitch was assassinated three years ago,' I says. 'Was he?' says Dugan. 'Ah, well, he's lived that down be this time. He was a good man,' he says. "Ye see, that's what thim rayform lads wint up again. If I liked rayformers, Hinnissy, an' wanted f'r to see thim win out wanst in their lifetime, I'd buy thim each a suit iv chilled steel, ar-rm thim with raypeatin' rifles, an' take thim east iv State Sthreet an' south iv Jackson Bullyvard. At prisint th' opinion that pre-vails in th' ranks iv th' gloryous ar-rmy iv rayform is that there ain't annything worth seein' in this lar-rge an' commodyous desert but th' pest-house an' the bridewell. Me frind Willum J. O'Brien is no rayformer. But Willum J. undherstands that there's a few hundherds iv thousands iv people livin' in a part iv th' town that looks like nawthin' but smoke fr'm th' roof iv th' Onion League Club that have on'y two pleasures in life, to wurruk an' to vote, both iv which they do at th' uniform rate iv wan dollar an' a half a day. That's why Willum J. O'Brien is now a sinitor an' will be an aldherman afther next Thursdah, an' it's why other people are sinding him flowers. "This is th' way a rayform candydate is ilicted. Th' boys down town has heerd that things ain't goin' r-right somehow. Franchises is bein' handed out to none iv thim; an' wanst in a while a mimber iv th' club, comin' home a little late an' thryin' to ricon-cile a pair iv r-round feet with an embroidered sidewalk, meets a sthrong ar-rm boy that pushes in his face an' takes away all his marbles. It begins to be talked that th' time has come f'r good citizens f'r to brace up an' do somethin', an' they agree to nomynate a candydate f'r aldherman. 'Who'll we put up?' says they. 'How's Clarence Doolittle?' says wan. 'He's laid up with a coupon thumb, an' can't r-run.' 'An' how about Arthur Doheny?' 'I swore an oath whin I came out iv colledge I'd niver vote f'r a man that wore a made tie.' 'Well, thin, let's thry Willie Boye.' 'Good,' says th' comity. 'He's jus' th' man f'r our money.' An' Willie Boye, after thinkin' it over, goes to his tailor an' ordhers three dozen pairs iv pants, an' decides f'r to be th' sthandard-bearer iv th' people. Musin' over his fried eyesthers an' asparagus an' his champagne, he bets a polo pony again a box of golf-balls he'll be ilicted unanimous; an' all th' good citizens make a vow f'r to set th' alar-rm clock f'r half-past three on th' afthernoon iv iliction day, so's to be up in time to vote f'r th' riprisintitive iv pure gover'mint. "'Tis some time befure they comprehind that there ar-re other candydates in th' field. But th' other candydates know it. Th' sthrongest iv thim--his name is Flannigan, an' he's a re-tail dealer in wines an' liquors, an' he lives over his establishment. Flannigan was nomynated enthusyastically at a prim'ry held in his bar-rn; an' before Willie Boye had picked out pants that wud match th' color iv th' Austhreelyan ballot this here Flannigan had put a man on th' day watch, tol' him to speak gently to anny ray-gistered voter that wint to sleep behind th' sthove, an' was out that night visitin' his frinds. Who was it judged th' cake walk? Flannigan. Who was it carrid th' pall? Flannigan. Who was it sthud up at th' christening? Flannigan. Whose ca-ards did th' grievin' widow, th' blushin' bridegroom, or th' happy father find in th' hack? Flannigan's. Ye bet ye'er life. Ye see Flannigan wasn't out f'r th' good iv th' community. Flannigan was out f'r Flannigan an' th' stuff. "Well, iliction day come around; an' all th' imminent frinds iv good gover'mint had special wires sthrung into th' club, an' waited f'r th' returns. Th' first precin't showed 28 votes f'r Willie Boye to 14 f'r Flannigan. 'That's my precin't,' says Willie. 'I wondher who voted thim fourteen?' 'Coachmen,' says Clarence Doolittle. 'There are thirty-five precin'ts in this ward,' says th' leader iv th' rayform ilimint. 'At this rate, I'm sure iv 440 meejority. Gossoon,' he says, 'put a keg iv sherry wine on th' ice,' he says. 'Well,' he says, 'at last th' community is relieved fr'm misrule,' he says. 'To-morrah I will start in arrangin' amindmints to th' tariff schedool an' th' ar-bitration threety,' he says. 'We must be up an' doin',' he says. 'Hol' on there,' says wan iv th' comity. 'There must be some mistake in this fr'm th' sixth precin't,' he says. 'Where's the sixth precin't?' says Clarence. 'Over be th' dumps,' says Willie. 'I told me futman to see to that. He lives at th' corner iv Desplaines an Bloo Island Av'noo on Goose's Island,' he says. 'What does it show?' 'Flannigan, three hundherd an' eighty-five; Hansen, forty-eight; Schwartz, twinty; O'Malley, sivinteen; Casey, ten; O'Day, eight; Larsen, five; O'Rourke, three; Mulcahy, two; Schmitt, two; Moloney, two; Riordon, two; O'Malley, two; Willie Boye, wan.' 'Gintlemin,' says Willie Boye, arisin' with a stern look in his eyes, 'th' rascal has bethrayed me. Waither, take th' sherry wine off th' ice. They'se no hope f'r sound financial legislation this year. I'm goin' home.' "An', as he goes down th' sthreet, he hears a band play an' sees a procission headed be a calceem light; an', in a carredge, with his plug hat in his hand an' his di'mond makin' th' calceem look like a piece iv punk in a smoke-house, is Flannigan, payin' his first visit this side iv th' thracks." ON PATERNAL DUTY. "I'm havin' a time iv it with Terence," said Mr. Hennessy, despondently. "What's th' la-ad been doin'?" asked Mr. Dooley. "It ain't so much what he's doin'," Mr. Hennessy explained, "as what he ain't doin.' He ain't stayin' home iv nights, an' he ain't wurrukin'; but he does be out on th' corner with th' Cromleys an' th' rest, dancin' jig steps an' whistlin' th' 'Rogue's March' whin a polisman goes by. Sure, I can do nawthin' with him, f'r he's that kind an' good at home that he'd melt th' heart iv a man iv stone. But it's gray me life is, thinkin' iv what's to become iv him whin he gets to be a man grown. Ye're lucky, Martin, that ye're childless." "Sure, I cudden't be anny other way, an' hold me good name," said Mr. Dooley. "An', whin I look about me sometimes, it's glad I am. They'se been times, perhaps--But lave that go. Is there somethin' in th' air or is it in oursilves that makes th' childher nowadays turn out to curse th' lives iv thim that give thim life? It may be in th' thrainin'. Whin I was a kid, they were brought up to love, honor, an' respect th' ol' folks, that their days might be long in th' land. Amen. If they didn't, th' best they cud do was to say nawthin' about it. 'Twas th' back iv th' hand an' th' sowl iv th' fut to th' la-ad that put his spoon first into th' stirabout. Between th' whalin's we got at school h'isted on th' back iv th' big boy that was bein' thrainned to be a Christyan brother an' th' thumpin's we got at home, we was kept sore an' sthraight fr'm wan year's end to another. 'Twas no mild doses they give us, ayether. I mind wanst, whin I was near as big as I am now, I handed back some onkind re-emarks to me poor father that's dead. May he rest in peace, per Dominum! He must iv been a small man, an' bent with wurruk an' worry. But did he take me jaw? He did not. He hauled off, an' give me a r-right hook where th' bad wurruds come fr'm. I put up a pretty fight, f'r me years; but th' man doesn't live that can lick his own father. He rowled me acrost an oat-field, an' I give up. I didn't love him anny too well f'r that lickin', but I respected him; an', if he'd come into this place to-night,--an' he'd be near a hundherd: he was born in th' year '98, an' pikes was hid in his cradle,--if he come in here to-night an' pulled me ear, I'd fear to go again him. I wud so. "'Tis th' other way about now. Did ye iver know a man be th' name iv Ahearn? Ye did not? Well, maybe he was befure yer time. He was a cobbler be thrade; but he picked up money be livin' off iv leather findings an' wooden pegs, an' bought pieces iv th' prairie, an' starved an' bought more, an' starved an' starved till his heart was shrivelled up like a washerwoman's hand. But he made money. An' th' more he made, th' more he wanted, an', wantin' nawthin' more, it come to him fr'm the divvle, who kept th' curse f'r his own time. This man Ahearn, whin he had acres an' acres on Halsted Sthreet, an' tinants be th' scoor that prayed at nights f'r him that he might live long an' taste sorrow, he marrid a girl. Her name was Ryan, a little, scared, foolish woman; an' she died whin a boy was bor-rn. Ahearn give her a solemn rayqueem high mass an' a monument at Calv'ry that ye can see fr'm th' fun'ral thrain. An' he come fr'm th' fun'ral with th' first smile on his face that anny man iver see there, an' th' baby in his ar-rms. "I'll not say Ahearn was a changed man. Th' love iv money was knitted into his heart; an', afther th' la-ad come, th' way he ground th' people that lived in his house was death an' destruction. 'I must provide f'r me own,' he said. But thim that was kind to th' kid cud break th' crust, an' all th' r-rough, hard-wurrkin' tenants paid f'r th' favors he give to th' ol' frauds an' beguilin' women that petted Dan'l O'Connell Ahearn. Nawthin' was too good f'r th' kid. He had nurses an' servants to wait on him. He had clothes that'd stock this ba-ar f'r a year. Whin he was old enough, he was sint to Saint Ignatyous. An' th' ol' man'd take him walkin' on a Sundah, an' pint out th' rows an' rows iv houses, with th' childher in front gazin' in awe at th' great man an' their fathers glowerin' fr'm the windows, an' say, 'Thim will all be yours whin ye grow up, Dan'l O'Connell, avick.' "Well, it didn't take an eye iv a witch to see that Dan'l O'Connell was a bor-rn idjet. They was no rale harm in th' poor la-ad, on'y he was lazy an' foolish an' sort iv tired like. To make a long story short, Hinnissy, his father thried ivrything f'r him, an' got nawthin.' He didn't dhrink much, he cared little f'r women, he liked to play ca-ards, but not f'r money. He did nawthin' that was bad; an' yet he was no good at all, at all,--just a slow, tired, aisy-goin', shamblin' la-ad,--th' sort that'd wrench th' heart iv a father like Ahearn. I dinnaw what he did fin'lly, but wan night he come into my place an' said he'd been turned out be his father an' wanted a place f'r to sleep. 'Ye'll sleep at home,' says I. 'Ye'er father sh'd take shame to himsilf,--him a rich man.' An' I put on me coat, an' wint over to Ahearn's. I was a power in th' wa-ard in thim days, an' feared no man alive. Th' ol' la-ad met us at th' dure. Whin I started to speak, he blazed up. 'Misther Dooley,' says he, 'my sorrows are me own. I'll keep thim here. As f'r ye,' he says, an' tur-rned like a tiger on th' boy an' sthruck him with his ol' leathery hand. Th' boy stood f'r a minyit, an' thin walked out, me with him. I niver see him since. We left Ahearn standin' there, as we used to say iv th' fox in th' ol' counthry, cornered between th' river an' th' wall." "Ye're lucky to be alone," said Mr. Hennessy as he left. "I think so," said Mr. Dooley. But there was no content upon his face as he watched a lounging oaf of a boy catch up with Mr. Hennessy, exchange a curtly affectionate greeting, and walk over to where Mrs. Hennessy could be seen reading the "Key of Heaven" beside the parlor stove. ON CRIMINALS. "Lord bless my sowl," said Mr. Dooley, "childher is a gr-reat risponsibility,--agr-reat risponsibility. Whin I think iv it, I praise th' saints I niver was married, though I had opporchunities enough whin I was a young man; an' even now I have to wear me hat low whin I go down be Cologne Sthreet on account iv th' Widow Grogan. Jawn, that woman'll take me dead or alive. I wake up in a col' chill in th' middle iv th' night, dhreamin' iv her havin' me in her clutches. "But that's not here or there, avick. I was r-readin' in th' pa-apers iv a lad be th' name iv Scanlan bein' sint down th' short r-road f'r near a lifetime; an' I minded th' first time I iver see him,--a bit iv a curly-haired boy that played tag around me place, an' 'd sing 'Blest Saint Joseph' with a smile on his face like an angel's. Who'll tell what makes wan man a thief an' another man a saint? I dinnaw. This here boy's father wur-rked fr'm morn till night in th' mills, was at early mass Sundah mornin' befure th' alkalis lit th' candles, an' niver knowed a month whin he failed his jooty. An' his mother was a sweet-faced little woman, though fr'm th' County Kerry, that nursed th' sick an' waked th' dead, an' niver had a hard thought in her simple mind f'r anny iv Gawd's creatures. Poor sowl, she's dead now. May she rest in peace! "He didn't git th' shtreak fr'm his father or fr'm his mother. His brothers an' sisters was as fine a lot as iver lived. But this la-ad Petey Scanlan growed up fr'm bein' a curly-haired angel f'r to be th' toughest villyun in th' r-road. What was it at all, at all? Sometimes I think they'se poison in th' life iv a big city. Th' flowers won't grow here no more thin they wud in a tannery, an' th' bur-rds have no song; an' th' childher iv dacint men an' women come up hard in th' mouth an' with their hands raised again their kind. "Th' la-ad was th' scoorge iv th' polis. He was as quick as a cat an' as fierce as a tiger, an' I well raymimber him havin' laid out big Kelly that used to thravel this post,--'Whistlin'' Kelly that kep' us awake with imitations iv a mockin' bur-rd,--I well raymimber him scuttlin' up th' alley with a score iv polismin laborin' afther him, thryin' f'r a shot at him as he wint around th' bar-rns or undher th' thrucks. He slep' in th' coal-sheds afther that until th' poor ol' man cud square it with th' loot. But, whin he come out, ye cud see how his face had hardened an' his ways changed. He was as silent as an animal, with a sideways manner that watched ivrything. Right here in this place I seen him stand f'r a quarther iv an' hour, not seemin' to hear a dhrunk man abusin' him, an' thin lep out like a snake. We had to pry him loose. "Th' ol' folks done th' best they cud with him. They hauled him out iv station an' jail an' bridewell. Wanst in a long while they'd dhrag him off to church with his head down: that was always afther he'd been sloughed up f'r wan thing or another. Between times th' polis give him his own side iv th' sthreet, an' on'y took him whin his back was tur-rned. Thin he'd go in the wagon with a mountain iv thim on top iv him, sway in' an' swearin' an' sthrikin' each other in their hurry to put him to sleep with their clubs. "I mind well th' time he was first took to be settled f'r good. I heerd a noise in th' ya-ard, an' thin he come through th' place with his face dead gray an' his lips just a turn grayer. 'Where ar-re ye goin', Petey?' says I. 'I was jus' takin' a short cut home,' he says. In three minyits th' r-road was full iv polismin. They'd been a robbery down in Halsted Sthreet. A man that had a grocery sthore was stuck up, an' whin he fought was clubbed near to death; an' they'd r-run Scanlan through th' alleys to his father's house. That was as far as they'd go. They was enough iv thim to've kicked down th' little cottage with their heavy boots, but they knew he was standin' behind th' dure with th' big gun in his hand; an', though they was manny a good lad there, they was none that cared f'r that short odds. "They talked an' palavered outside, an' telephoned th' chief iv polis, an' more pathrol wagons come up. Some was f'r settin' fire to th' buildin', but no wan moved ahead. Thin th' fr-ront dure opened, an' who shud come out but th' little mother. She was thin an' pale, an' she had her apron in her hands, pluckin' at it. 'Gintlemin,' she says, 'what is it ye want iv me?' she says. 'Liftinant Cassidy,' she says, ''tis sthrange f'r ye that I've knowed so long to make scandal iv me before me neighbors,' she says. 'Mrs. Scanlan,' says he, 'we want th' boy. I'm sorry, ma'am, but he's mixed up in a bad scrape, an' we must have him,' he says. She made a curtsy to thim, an' wint indures. 'Twas less than a minyit before she come out, clingin' to th' la-ad's ar-rm. 'He'll go,' she says. 'Thanks be, though he's wild, they'se no crime on his head. Is there, dear?' 'No,' says he, like th' game kid he is. Wan iv th' polismin stharted to take hold iv him, but th' la-ad pushed him back; an' he wint to th' wagon on his mother's ar-rm." "And was he really innocent?" Mr. McKenna asked. "No," said Mr. Dooley. "But she niver knowed it. Th' ol' man come home an' found her: she was settin' in a big chair with her apron in her hands an th' picture iv th' la-ad in her lap." ON A PLOT. "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "th' European situation is becomin' a little gay." "It 'tis so," said Mr. Hennessy. "If I was conthrollin' anny iv the gr-reat powers, I'd go down to th' Phosphorus an' take th' sultan be th' back iv th' neck an' give him wan, two, three. 'Tis a shame f'r him to be desthroyin' white people without anny man layin' hands on him. Th' man's no frind iv mine. He ought to be impeached an' thrun out." "Divvle take th' sultan," said Mr. Dooley. "It's little I care f'r him or th' likes iv him or th' Ar-menyans or th' Phosphorus. I was runnin' over in me mind about th' poor lads they have sloughed up beyant f'r attimptin' to blow up Queen Victorya an' th cza-ar iv Rooshia. Glory be, but they'se nawthin' in the wide wurruld as aisy to undherstand as a rivoluchonary plot be our own people. You'll see a lad iv th' right sort that'd niver open his head fr'm wan end iv th' year to th'other; but, whin he's picked out to go on a mission to London, he niver laves off talkin' till they put him aboord th' steamer. Here was Tynan. They say he had a hand in sindin' Lord Cavendish down th' toboggan, though I'd not thrust his own tellin' as far as th' len'th iv me ar-rm. Now he figured out that th' thrue way to free Ireland was to go over an' blow th' windows in Winzer Palace, an' incidentally to hist th' queen an' th' Rooshian cza-ar without th' aid iv th' elevator. What this here Tynan had again th' Rooshian cza-ar I niver heerd. But 'twas something awful, ye may be sure. "Well, th' first thing th' la-ads done was to go to Madison Square Garden an' hold a secret meetin', in which thim that was to hand th' package to th' queen and thim that was to toss a piece iv gas pipe to his cza-ars was told off. Thin a comity was sint around to th' newspaper offices to tell thim th' expedition was about to start. Th' conspirators, heavily disgeesed, was attinded to th' boat be a long procission. First come Tynan ridin' on a wagon-load iv nithroglycerine; thin th' other conspirators, with gas-pipe bombs an' picks an' chuvvels f'r tunnellin' undher Winzer Castle; thin th' Ah-o-haitches; thin th' raypoorthers; thin a brigade iv Scotland Ya-ard spies in th' ga-arb iv polismin. An' so off they wint on their secret mission, with th' band playin' 'Th' Wearin' iv th' Green,' an Tynan standin' on th' quarther deck, smilin' an' bowin' an' wavin' a bag iv jint powdher over his head. "No sooner had th' conspirators landed thin th' British gover'mint begun to grow suspicious iv thim. Tynan was shadowed be detictives in citizens' clothes; an', whin he was seen out in his backyard practisin' blowin' up a bar'l that he'd dhressed in a shawl an' a little lace cap, th' suspicions growed. Ivrywhere that Tynan wint he was purshooed be th' minions iv tyranny. Whin he visited th' house nex' dure to th' queen's, an' unloaded a dhray full iv explosives an' chuvvels, the fact was rayported to th' polis, who become exthremely vigilant. Th' detictives followed him to Scotland Yard, where he wint to inform th' captain iv th' conspiracy, an' overheard much damming ividence iv th' plot until they become more an' more suspicious that something was on, although what was th' intintions iv th' conspirators it was hard to make out fr'm their peculiar actions. Whin Tynan gathered his followers in Hyde Park, an' notified thim iv the positions they was to take and disthributed th' dinnymite among thim, th' detictives become decidedly suspicious. Their suspicions was again aroused whin Tynan asked permission iv th' common council to build a bay window up close to th' queen's bedroom. But th' time to act had not come, an' they continted thimselves with thrackin' him through th' sthreets an' takin' notes iv such suspicious remarks as 'Anny wan that wants mementoes iv th' queen has on'y to be around this neighborhood nex' week with a shovel an' a basket,' an' 'Onless ye want ye'er clothes to be spoiled be th' czar, ye'd best carry umbrellas.' On th' followin' day Tynan took th' step that was needed f'r to con-vince th' gover'mint that he had designs on the monarchs. He wint to France. It's always been obsarved that, whin a dinnymiter had to blow up annything in London, he laves th' counthry. Th' polis, now thoroughly aroused, acted with commindable promptness. They arristed Tynan in Booloon f'r th' murdher iv Cavendish. "Thus," said Mr. Dooley, sadly, "thus is th' vengeance f'r which our beloved counthry has awaited so long delayed be th' hand iv onscrupulious tyranny. Sthrive as our heroes may, no secrecy is secure against th' corruption iv British goold. Oh, Ireland, is this to be thy fate forever? Ar-re ye niver to escape th' vigilance iv th' polis, thim cold-eyed sleuths that seem to read th' very thoughts iv ye'er pathriot sons?" "There must have been a spy in th' ranks," said Mr. Hennessy. "Sure thing," said Mr. Dooley, winking at Mr. McKenna. "Sure thing, Hinnissy. Ayether that or th' accomplished detictives at Scotland Yards keep a close watch iv the newspapers. Or it may be--who knows?--that Tynan was indiscreet. He may have dhropped a hint of his intintions." ON THE NEW WOMAN. "Molly Donahue have up an' become a new woman! "It's been a good thing f'r ol' man Donahue, though, Jawn. He shtud ivrything that mortal man cud stand. He seen her appearin' in th' road wearin' clothes that no lady shud wear an' ridin' a bicycle; he was humiliated whin she demanded to vote; he put his pride under his ar-rm an' ma-arched out iv th' house whin she committed assault-an'-batthry on th' piannah. But he's got to th' end iv th' rope now. He was in here las' night, how-come-ye-so, with his hat cocked over his eye an' a look iv risolution on his face; an' whin he left me, he says, says he, 'Dooley,' he says, 'I'll conquir, or I'll die,' he says. "It's been comin f'r months, but it on'y bust oh Donahue las' week. He'd come home at night tired out, an' afther supper he was pullin' off his boots, whin Mollie an' th' mother begun talkin' about th' rights iv females. ''Tis th' era iv th' new woman,' says Mollie. 'Ye're right,' says th' mother. 'What d'ye mean be the new woman?' says Donahue, holdin' his boot in his hand. 'Th' new woman,' says Mollie, ''ll be free fr'm th' opprision iv man,' she says. 'She'll wurruk out her own way, without help or hinderance,' she says. She'll wear what clothes she wants,' she says, 'an' she'll be no man's slave,' she says. 'They'll be no such thing as givin' a girl in marredge to a clown an' makin' her dipindant on his whims,' she says. 'Th' women'll earn their own livin',' she says; 'an' mebbe,' she says, 'th' men'll stay at home an' dredge in th' house wurruk,' she says. 'A-ho,' says Donahue. 'An' that's th' new woman, is it?' he says. An' he said no more that night. "But th' nex' mornin' Mrs. Donahue an' Mollie come to his dure. 'Get up,' says Mrs. Donahue, 'an' bring in some coal,' she says. 'Ye drowsy man, ye'll be late f'r ye'er wurruk.' 'Divvle th' bit iv coal I'll fetch,' says Donahue. 'Go away an' lave me alone,' he says. 'Ye're inthruptin' me dreams.' 'What ails ye, man alive?' says Mrs. Donahue. 'Get up.' 'Go away,' says Donahue, 'an lave me slumber,' he says. 'Th' idee iv a couple iv big strong women like you makin' me wurruk f'r ye,' he says. 'Mollie 'll bring in th' coal,' he says. 'An' as f'r you, Honoria, ye'd best see what there is in th' cupboord an' put it in ye'er dinner-pail,' he says. 'I heerd th' first whistle blow a minyit ago,' he says; 'an' there's a pile iv slag at th' mills that has to be wheeled off befure th' sup'rintindint comes around,' he says. 'Ye know ye can't afford to lose ye'er job with me in this dilicate condition,' he says. 'I'm going to sleep now,' he says. 'An', Mollie, do ye bring me in a cup iv cocoa an' a pooched igg at tin,' he says. 'I ixpect me music-teacher about that time. We have to take a wallop out iv Wagner an' Bootoven befure noon.' 'Th' Lord save us fr'm harm,' says Mrs. Donahue. 'Th' man's clean crazy.' 'Divvle's th' bit,' says Donahue, wavin' his red flannel undhershirt in th' air. 'I'm the new man,' he says. "Well, sir, Donahue said it flured thim complete. They didn't know what to say. Mollie was game, an' she fetched in th' coal; but Mrs. Donahue got nervous as eight o'clock come around. 'Ye're not goin' to stay in bed all day an' lose ye'er job,' she says. 'Th' 'ell with me job,' says Donahue. 'I'm not th' man to take wurruk whin they'se industhrees women with nawthin' to do,' he says. 'Show me th' pa-apers,' he says. 'I want to see where I can get an eighty-cint bonnet f'r two and a half.' He's that stubborn he'd've stayed in bed all day, but th' good woman weakened. 'Come,' she says, 'don't be foolish,' she says. 'Ye wudden't have th' ol' woman wurrukin' in th' mills,' she says. ''Twas all a joke,' she says. 'Oh-ho, th' ol' woman!' he says. 'Th' ol' woman! Well, that's a horse iv another color,' he says. 'An' I don't mind tellin' ye th' mills is closed down to-day, Honoria.' So he dhressed himsilf an' wint out; an' says he to Mollie, he says: 'Miss Newwoman,' says he, 'ye may find wurruk enough around th' house,' he says. 'An', if ye have time, ye might paint th' stoop,' he says. 'Th' ol' man is goin' to take th' ol' woman down be Halsted Sthreet' an' blow himsilf f'r a new shawl f'r her.' "An' he's been that proud iv th' victhry that he's been a reg'lar customer f'r a week." ON EXPERT TESTIMONY. "Annything new?" said Mr. Hennessy, who had been waiting patiently for Mr. Dooley to put down his newspaper. "I've been r-readin' th' tistimony iv th' Lootgert case," said Mr. Dooley. "What d'ye think iv it?" "I think so," said Mr. Dooley. "Think what?" "How do I know?" said Mr. Dooley. "How do I know what I think? I'm no combination iv chemist, doctor, osteologist, polisman, an' sausage-maker, that I can give ye an opinion right off th' bat. A man needs to be all iv thim things to detarmine annything about a murdher trile in these days. This shows how intilligent our methods is, as Hogan says. A large German man is charged with puttin' his wife away into a breakfas'-dish, an' he says he didn't do it. Th' on'y question, thin, is, Did or did not Alphonse Lootgert stick Mrs. L. into a vat, an' rayjooce her to a quick lunch? Am I right?" "Ye ar-re," said Mr. Hennessy. "That's simple enough. What th' coort ought to've done was to call him up, an' say: 'Lootgert, where's ye'er good woman?' If Lootgert cudden't tell, he ought to be hanged on gin'ral principles; f'r a man must keep his wife around th' house, an' whin she isn't there, it shows he's a poor provider. But, if Lootgert says, 'I don't know where me wife is,' the coort shud say: 'Go out, an' find her. If ye can't projooce her in a week, I'll fix ye.' An' let that be th' end iv it. "But what do they do? They get Lootgert into coort an' stand him up befure a gang iv young rayporthers an' th' likes iv thim to make pitchers iv him. Thin they summon a jury composed iv poor tired, sleepy expressmen an' tailors an' clerks. Thin they call in a profissor from a colledge. 'Profissor,' says th' lawyer f'r the State, 'I put it to ye if a wooden vat three hundherd an' sixty feet long, twenty-eight feet deep, an' sivinty-five feet wide, an' if three hundherd pounds iv caustic soda boiled, an' if the leg iv a guinea pig, an' ye said yestherdah about bi-carbonate iv soda, an' if it washes up an' washes over, an' th' slimy, slippery stuff, an' if a false tooth or a lock iv hair or a jawbone or a goluf ball across th' cellar eleven feet nine inches--that is, two inches this way an' five gallons that?' 'I agree with ye intirely,' says th' profissor. 'I made lab'ratory experiments in an' ir'n basin, with bichloride iv gool, which I will call soup-stock, an' coal tar, which I will call ir'n filings. I mixed th' two over a hot fire, an' left in a cool place to harden. I thin packed it in ice, which I will call glue, an' rock-salt, which I will call fried eggs, an' obtained a dark, queer solution that is a cure f'r freckles, which I will call antimony or doughnuts or annything I blamed please.' "'But,' says th' lawyer f'r th' State, 'measurin' th' vat with gas,--an' I lave it to ye whether this is not th' on'y fair test,--an' supposin' that two feet acrost is akel to tin feet sideways, an' supposin' that a thick green an' hard substance, an' I daresay it wud; an' supposin' you may, takin' into account th' measuremints,--twelve be eight,--th' vat bein' wound with twine six inches fr'm th' handle an' a rub iv th' green, thin ar-re not human teeth often found in counthry sausage?' 'In th' winter,' says th' profissor. 'But th' sisymoid bone is sometimes seen in th' fut, sometimes worn as a watch-charm. I took two sisymoid bones, which I will call poker dice, an' shook thim together in a cylinder, which I will call Fido, poored in a can iv milk, which I will call gum arabic, took two pounds iv rough-on-rats, which I rayfuse to call; but th' raysult is th' same.' Question be th' coort: 'Different?' Answer: 'Yis.' Th' coort: 'Th' same.' Be Misther McEwen: 'Whose bones?' Answer: 'Yis.' Be Misther Vincent: 'Will ye go to th' divvle?' Answer: 'It dissolves th' hair.' "Now what I want to know is where th' jury gets off. What has that collection iv pure-minded pathrites to larn fr'm this here polite discussion, where no wan is so crool as to ask what anny wan else means? Thank th' Lord, whin th' case is all over, the jury'll pitch th' tistimony out iv th' window, an' consider three questions: 'Did Lootgert look as though he'd kill his wife? Did his wife look as though she ought to be kilt? Isn't it time we wint to supper?' An', howiver they answer, they'll be right, an' it'll make little difference wan way or th' other. Th' German vote is too large an' ignorant, annyhow." ON THE POPULARITY OF FIREMEN. "I knowed a man be th' name iv Clancy wanst, Jawn. He was fr'm th' County May-o, but a good man f'r all that; an', whin he'd growed to be a big, sthrappin' fellow, he wint on to th' fire departmint. They'se an Irishman 'r two on th' fire departmint an' in th' army, too, Jawn, though ye'd think be hearin' some talk they was all runnin' prim'ries an' thryin' to be cinthral comitymen. So ye wud. Ye niver hear iv thim on'y whin they die; an' thin, murther, what funerals they have! "Well, this Clancy wint on th' fire departmint, an' they give him a place in thruck twinty-three. All th' r-road was proud iv him, an' faith he was proud iv himsilf. He r-rode free on th' sthreet ca-ars, an' was th' champeen hand-ball player f'r miles around. Ye shud see him goin' down th' sthreet, with his blue shirt an' his blue coat with th' buttons on it, an' his cap on his ear. But ne'er a cap or coat'd he wear whin they was a fire. He might be shiv'rin' be th' stove in th' ingine house with a buffalo robe over his head; but, whin th' gong sthruck, 'twas off with coat an' cap an' buffalo robe, an' out come me brave Clancy, bare-headed an' bare hand, dhrivin' with wan line an' spillin' th' hose cart on wan wheel at ivry jump iv th' horse. Did anny wan iver see a fireman with his coat on or a polisman with his off? Why, wanst, whin Clancy was standin' up f'r Grogan's eighth, his son come runnin' in to tell him they was a fire in Vogel's packin' house. He dhropped th' kid at Father Kelly's feet, an' whipped off his long coat an' wint tearin' f'r th' dure, kickin' over th' poorbox an' buttin' ol' Mis' O'Neill that'd come in to say th' stations. 'Twas lucky 'twas wan iv th' Grogans. They're a fine family f'r falls. Jawn Grogan was wurrukin' on th' top iv Metzri an' O'Connell's brewery wanst, with a man be th' name iv Dorsey. He slipped an' fell wan hundherd feet. Whin they come to see if he was dead, he got up, an' says he: 'Lave me at him.' 'At who?' says they. 'He's deliryous,' they says. 'At Dorsey,' says Grogan. 'He thripped me.' So it didn't hurt Grogan's eighth to fall four 'r five feet. "Well, Clancy wint to fires an' fires. Whin th' big organ facthry burnt, he carrid th' hose up to th' fourth story an' was squirtin' whin th' walls fell. They dug him out with pick an' shovel, an' he come up fr'm th' brick an' boards an' saluted th' chief. 'Clancy,' says th' chief, 'ye betther go over an' get a dhrink.' He did so, Jawn. I heerd it. An' Clancy was that proud! "Whin th' Hogan flats on Halsted Sthreet took fire, they got all th' people out but wan; an' she was a woman asleep on th' fourth flure. 'Who'll go up?' says Bill Musham. 'Sure, sir,' says Clancy, 'I'll go'; an' up he wint. His captain was a man be th' name iv O'Connell, fr'm th' County Kerry; an' he had his fut on th' ladder whin Clancy started. Well, th' good man wint into th' smoke, with his wife faintin' down below. 'He'll be kilt,' says his brother. 'Ye don't know him,' says Bill Musham. An' sure enough, whin ivry wan'd give him up, out comes me brave Clancy, as black as a Turk, with th' girl in his arms. Th' others wint up like monkeys, but he shtud wavin' thim off, an' come down th' ladder face forward. 'Where'd ye larn that?' says Bill Musham. 'I seen a man do it at th' Lyceem whin I was a kid,' says Clancy. 'Was it all right?' 'I'll have ye up before th' ol' man,' says Bill Musham. 'I'll teach ye to come down a laddher as if ye was in a quadhrille, ye horse-stealin', ham-sthringin' May-o man,' he says. But he didn't. Clancy wint over to see his wife. 'O Mike,' says she, ''twas fine,' she says. 'But why d'ye take th' risk?' she says. 'Did ye see th' captain?' he says with a scowl. 'He wanted to go. Did ye think I'd follow a Kerry man with all th' ward lukkin' on?' he says. "Well, so he wint dhrivin' th' hose-cart on wan wheel, an' jumpin' whin he heerd a man so much as hit a glass to make it ring. All th' people looked up to him, an' th' kids followed him down th' sthreet; an' 'twas th' gr-reatest priv'lige f'r anny wan f'r to play dominos with him near th' joker. But about a year ago he come in to see me, an' says he, 'Well, I'm goin' to quit.' 'Why,' says I, 'ye'er a young man yet,' I says. 'Faith,' he says, 'look at me hair,' he says,--'young heart, ol' head. I've been at it these twinty year, an' th' good woman's wantin' to see more iv me thin blowin' into a saucer iv coffee,' he says. 'I'm goin' to quit,' he says, 'on'y I want to see wan more good fire,' he says. 'A rale good ol' hot wan,' he says, 'with th' win' blowin' f'r it an' a good dhraft in th' ilivator-shaft, an' about two stories, with pitcher-frames an' gasoline an' excelsior, an' to hear th' chief yellin': "Play 'way, sivinteen. What th' hell an' damnation are ye standin' aroun' with that pipe f'r? Is this a fire 'r a dam livin' pitcher? I'll break ivry man iv eighteen, four, six, an' chem'cal five to-morrah mornin' befure breakfast." Oh,' he says, bringin' his fist down, 'wan more, an' I'll quit.' "An' he did, Jawn. Th' day th' Carpenter Brothers' box factory burnt. 'Twas wan iv thim big, fine-lookin' buildings that pious men built out iv celluloid an' plasther iv Paris. An' Clancy was wan iv th' men undher whin th' wall fell. I seen thim bringin' him home; an' th' little woman met him at th' dure, rumplin' her apron in her hands." ON THE GAME OF FOOTBALL. "Whin I was a young man," said Mr. Dooley, "an' that was a long time ago,--but not so long ago as manny iv me inimies'd like to believe, if I had anny inimies,--I played futball, but 'twas not th' futball I see whin th' Brothers' school an' th' Saint Aloysius Tigers played las' week on th' pee-raries. "Whin I was a la-ad, iv a Sundah afthernoon we'd get out in th' field where th' oats'd been cut away, an' we'd choose up sides. Wan cap'n'd pick one man, an' th' other another. 'I choose Dooley,' 'I choose O'Connor,' 'I choose Dimpsey,' 'I choose Riordan,' an' so on till there was twinty-five or thirty on a side. Thin wan cap'n'd kick th' ball, an' all our side'd r-run at it an' kick it back; an' thin wan iv th' other side'd kick it to us, an' afther awhile th' game'd get so timpischous that all th' la-ads iv both sides'd be in wan pile, kickin' away at wan or th' other or at th' ball or at th' impire, who was mos'ly a la-ad that cudden't play an' that come out less able to play thin he was whin he wint in. An', if anny wan laid hands on th' ball, he was kicked be ivry wan else an' be th' impire. We played fr'm noon till dark, an' kicked th' ball all th' way home in the moonlight. "That was futball, an' I was a great wan to play it. I'd think nawthin' iv histin' th' ball two hundherd feet in th' air, an' wanst I give it such a boost that I stove in th' ribs iv th' Prowtestant minister--bad luck to him, he was a kind man--that was lookin' on fr'm a hedge. I was th' finest player in th' whole county, I was so. "But this here game that I've been seein' ivry time th' pagan fistival iv Thanksgivin' comes ar-round, sure it ain't th' game I played. I seen th' Dorgan la-ad comin' up th' sthreet yestherdah in his futball clothes,--a pair iv matthresses on his legs, a pillow behind, a mask over his nose, an' a bushel measure iv hair on his head. He was followed be three men with bottles, Dr. Ryan, an' th' Dorgan fam'ly. I jined thim. They was a big crowd on th' peerary,--a bigger crowd than ye cud get to go f'r to see a prize fight. Both sides had their frinds that give th' colledge cries. Says wan crowd: 'Take an ax, an ax, an ax to thim. Hooroo, hooroo, hellabaloo. Christyan Bro-others!' an' th' other says, 'Hit thim, saw thim, gnaw thim, chaw thim, Saint Aloysius!' Well, afther awhile they got down to wurruk. 'Sivin, eighteen, two, four,' says a la-ad. I've seen people go mad over figures durin' th' free silver campaign, but I niver see figures make a man want f'r to go out an' kill his fellow-men befure. But these here figures had th' same effect on th' la-ads that a mintion iv Lord Castlereagh'd have on their fathers. Wan la-ad hauled off, an' give a la-ad acrost fr'm him a punch in th' stomach. His frind acrost th' way caught him in th' ear. Th' cinter rush iv th' Saint Aloysiuses took a runnin' jump at th' left lung iv wan iv th' Christyan Brothers, an' wint to th' grass with him. Four Christyan Brothers leaped most crooly at four Saint Aloysiuses, an' rolled thim. Th' cap'n iv th' Saint Aloysiuses he took th' cap'n iv th' Christyan Brothers be th' leg, an' he pounded th' pile with him as I've seen a section hand tamp th' thrack. All this time young Dorgan was standin' back, takin' no hand in th' affray. All iv a suddent he give a cry iv rage, an' jumped feet foremost into th' pile. 'Down!' says th' impire. 'Faith, they are all iv that,' says I, 'Will iver they get up?' 'They will,' says ol' man Dorgan. 'Ye can't stop thim,' says he. "It took some time f'r to pry thim off. Near ivry man iv th' Saint Aloysiuses was tied in a knot around wan iv th' Christyan Brothers. On'y wan iv them remained on th' field. He was lyin' face down, with his nose in th' mud. 'He's kilt,' says I. 'I think he is,' says Dorgan, with a merry smile. 'Twas my boy Jimmy done it, too,' says he. 'He'll be arrested f'r murdher,' says I. 'He will not,' says he. 'There's on'y wan polisman in town cud take him, an' he's down town doin' th' same f'r somebody,' he says. Well, they carried th' corpse to th' side, an' took th' ball out iv his stomach with a monkey wrinch, an' th' game was ray-shumed. 'Sivin, sixteen, eight, eleven,' says Saint Aloysius; an' young Dorgan started to run down th' field. They was another young la-ad r-runnin' in fr-front iv Dorgan; an', as fast as wan iv th' Christyan Brothers come up an' got in th' way, this here young Saint Aloysius grabbed him be th' hair iv th' head an' th' sole iv th' fut, an' thrun him over his shoulder. 'What's that la-ad doin'?' says I. 'Interferin',' says he. 'I shud think he was,' says I, 'an' most impudent,' I says. ''Tis such interference as this,' I says, 'that breaks up fam'lies'; an' I come away. "'Tis a noble sport, an' I'm glad to see us Irish ar-re gettin' into it. Whin we larn it thruly, we'll teach thim colledge joods fr'm th' pie belt a thrick or two." "We have already," said Mr. Hennessy. "They'se a team up in Wisconsin with a la-ad be th' name iv Jeremiah Riordan f'r cap'n, an' wan named Patsy O'Dea behind him. They come down here, an' bate th' la-ads fr'm th' Chicawgo Colledge down be th' Midway." "Iv coorse, they did," said Mr. Dooley. "Iv coorse, they did. An' they cud bate anny collection iv Baptists that iver come out iv a tank." ON THE NECESSITY OF MODESTY AMONG THE RICH. "I wondher," said Mr. Hennessy, "if thim Hadley-Markhams that's goin' to give th' ball is anny kin iv th' aldherman?" "I doubt it," said Mr. Dooley. "I knowed all his folks. They're Monaghan people, an' I niver heerd iv thim marryin' into th' Hadleys, who come fr'm away beyant near th' Joynt's Causeway. What med ye think iv thim?" "I was readin' about th' Prowtestant minister that give thim such a turnin' over th' other night," said Hennessy. Then the Philistine went on: "It looks to me as though th' man was wr-rong, an' th' Hadley-Markhams was right. Faith, th' more th' poor can get out iv th' r-rich, th' better f'r thim. I seen it put just r-right in th' paper th' other day. If these people didn't let go iv their coin here, they'd take it away with thim to Paris or West Baden, Indiana, an' spind it instid iv puttin' it in circulation amongst th' florists an' dhressmakers an' hackmen they'll have to hire. I believe in encouragin' th' rich to walk away fr'm their change. 'Tis gr-reat f'r business." Mr. Dooley mused over this proposition some time before he said:-- "Years ago, whin I was a little bit iv a kid, hardly high enough to look into th' pot iv stirabout on th' peat fire, they was a rich landlord in our part iv Ireland; an' he ownded near half th' counthryside. His name was Dorsey,--Willum Edmund Fitzgerald Dorsey, justice iv th' peace, mimber iv Parlymint. "I'll niver tell ye how much land that man had in his own r-right. Ye cud walk f'r a day without lavin' it, bog an' oat-field an' pasthure an' game presarves. He was smothered with money, an' he lived in a house as big as th' Audjitoroom Hotel. Manny's th' time I've seen him ride by our place, an' me father'd raise his head from th' kish iv turf an' touch his hat to th' gr-reat man. An' wanst or twict in th' month th' dogs'd come yelpin' acrost our little place, with lads follerin' afther in r-red coats; f'r this Dorsey was a gr-reat huntsman, bad scran to his evil face. "He had th' r-reputation iv bein' a good landlord so long as th' crops come regular. He was vilent, it's thrue, an' 'd as lave as not cut a farmer acrost th' face with his whip f'r crossin' th' thrail iv th' fox; but he was liberal with his money, an', Hinnissy, that's a thrait that covers a multitude iv sins. He give freely to th' church, an' was as gin'rous to th' priest as to th' parson. He had th' gintry f'r miles around to his big house f'r balls an' dinners an' huntin' meetin's, an' half th' little shopkeepers in th' neighborin' town lived on th' money he spent f'r th' things he didn't bring fr'm Dublin or London. I mind wanst a great roar wint up whin he stayed th' whole season in England with his fam'ly. It near broke th' townsfolk, an' they were wild with delight whin he come back an' opened up th' big house. "But wan year there come a flood iv rain, an' th nex' year another flood, an' th' third year there wasn't a lumper turned up that wasn't blue-black to th' hear-rt. We was betther off than most, an' we suffered our share, Gawd knows; but thim that was scrapin' th' sod f'r a bare livin' fr'm day to day perished like th' cattle in th' field. "Thin come th' writs an' th' evictions. Th' bailiffs dhrove out in squads, seizin' cattle an' turnin' people into th' r-road. Nawthin' wud soften th' hear-rt iv Dorsey. I seen th' priest an' th' 'Piscopal ministher dhrivin' over to plead with him wan night; an' th' good man stopped at our house, comin' back, an' spent th' night with us. I heerd him tell me father what Dorsey said. 'Haven't I been lib'ral with me people?' he says. 'Haven't I give freely to ye'er churches? Haven't I put up soup-houses an' disthributed blankets whin th' weather was cold? Haven't I kept th' shopkeepers iv th' town beyant fr'm starvin' be thradin' with thim an' stayin' in this cur-rsed counthry, whin, if I'd done what me wife wanted, I'd been r-runnin' around Europe, enj'yin' life? I'm a risidint landlord. I ain't like Kilduff, that laves his estate in th' hands iv an agint. I'm proud iv me station. I was bor-rn here, an' here I'll die; but I'll have me r-rights. These here people owes their rent, an' I'll get th' rent or th' farms if I have to call on ivry rig'mint fr'm Bombay to Cape Clear, an' turn ivry oat-field into a pasture f'r me cattle. I stand on th' law. I'm a just man, an' I ask no more thin what belongs to me.' "Ivry night they was a party on th' hill, an' th' people come fr'm miles around; an' th' tinants trudgin' over th' muddy roads with th' peelers behind thim cud see th' light poorin' out fr'm th' big house an' hear Devine's band playin' to th' dancers. Th' shopkeepers lived in clover, an' thanked th' lord f'r a good landlord, an' wan that lived at home. But one avnin' a black man be th' name iv Shaughnessy, that had thramped acrost th' hills fr'm Galway just in time to rent f'r th' potato rot, wint and hid himself in a hedge along th' road with a shotgun loaded with hardware under his coat. Dorsey'd heerd talk iv the people bein' aggrieved at him givin' big parties while his bailiffs were hustlin' men and women off their hold-in's; but he was a high-handed man, an' foolish in his pride, an' he'd have it no other way but that he'd go about without protection. This night he rode alongside th' carredge iv some iv his frinds goin' to th' other side iv town, an' come back alone in th' moonlight. Th' Irish ar-re poor marksmen, Hinnissy, except whin they fire in platoons; but that big man loomin' up in th' moonlight on a black horse cud no more be missed thin th' r-rock iv Cashel. He niver knowed what hit him; an' Pether th' Packer come down th' followin' month, an' a jury iv shopkeepers hanged Shaughnessy so fast it med even th' judge smile." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "I suppose he desarved it; but, if I'd been on th' jury, I'd've starved to death before I'd give th' verdict." "Thrue," said Mr. Dooley. "An' Dorsey was a fool. He might've evicted twinty thousan' tinants, an' lived to joke about it over his bottle. 'Twas th' music iv th' band an' th' dancin' on th' hill an' th' lights th' Galway man seen whin he wint up th' muddy road with his babby in his arrums that done th' business f'r Dorsey." ON THE POWER OF LOVE. "'Twas this way," said Mr. Hennessy, sparring at Mr. Dooley. "Fitz led his right light on head, thin he stuck his thumb in Corbett's hear-rt, an' that was th' end iv th' fight an' iv Pompydour Jim. I tol' ye how it wud come out. Th' punch over th' hear-rt done th' business." "Not at all," said Mr. Dooley. "Not at all. 'Twas Mrs. Fitzsimmons done th' business. Did ye see the pitcher iv that lady? Did ye? Well, 'twud've gone har-rd with th' lad if he'd lost th' fight in th' ring. He'd have to lose another at home. I'll bet five dollars that th' first lady iv th' land licks th' champeen without th' aid iv a stove lid. I know it. "As me good frind, Jawn Sullivan, says, 'tis a great comfort to have little reminders iv home near by whin ye're fightin'. Jawn had none, poor lad; an' that accounts f'r th' way he wint down at last. Th' home infloo-ence is felt in ivry walk iv life. Whin Corbett was poundin' th' first jintleman iv th' land like a man shinglin' a roof, th' first lady iv th' land stood in th' corner, cheerin' on th' bruised an' bleedin' hero. 'Darlin'' she says, 'think iv ye'er home, me love. Think,' she says, 'iv our little child larnin' his caddychism in Rahway, New Jersey,' she says. 'Think iv th' love I bear ye,' she says, 'an' paste him,' she says, 'in th' slats. Don't hit him on th' jaw,' she says. 'He's well thrained there. But tuck ye'er lovin' hooks into his diseased an' achin' ribs,' she says. 'Ah, love!' she says, 'recall thim happy goolden days iv our coortship, whin we walked th' counthry lane in th' light iv th' moon,' she says, 'an hurl yer maulies into his hoops,' she says. 'Hit him on th' slats!' An' Fitz looked over his shoulder an' seen her face, an' strange feelin's iv tendherness come over him; an' thinks he to himself: 'What is so good as th' love iv a pure woman? If I don't nail this large man, she'll prob'ly kick in me head.' An' with this sacred sintimint in his heart he wint over an' jolted Corbett wan over th' lathes that retired him to th' home f'r decayed actors. "'Twas woman's love that done it, Hinnissy. I'll make a bet with ye that, if th' first lady iv th' land had been in th' ring instead iv th' first jintleman, Corbett wudden't have lasted wan r-round. I'd like to have such a wife as that. I'd do th' cookin', an' lave th' fightin' to her. There ought to be more like her. Th' throuble with th' race we're bringin' up is that th' fair sect, as Shakespeare calls thim, lacks inthrest in their jooty to their husbands. It's th' business iv men to fight, an' th' business iv their wives f'r to make thim fight. Ye may talk iv th' immyrality iv nailin' a man on th' jaw, but 'tis in this way on'y that th' wurruld increases in happiness an' th' race in strenth. Did ye see annywan th' other day that wasn't askin' to know how th' fight come out? They might say that they re-garded th' exhibition as brutal an' disgustin', but divvle a wan iv thim but was waitin' around th' corner f'r th' rayturns, an' prayin' f'r wan or th' other iv th' big lads. Father Kelly mentioned th' scrap in his sermon last Sundah. He said it was a disgraceful an' corruptin' affair, an' he was ashamed to see th' young men iv th' parish takin' such an inthrest in it in Lent. But late Winsdah afthernoon he came bust-lin' down th' sthreet. 'Nice day,' he says. It was poorin' rain. 'Fine,' says I. 'They was no parade to-day,' he says. 'No,' says I. 'Too bad,' says he; an' he started to go. Thin he turned, an' says he: 'Be th' way, how did that there foul an' outhrajous affray in Carson City come out?' 'Fitz,' says I, 'in th' fourteenth.' 'Ye don't say,' he says, dancin' around. 'Good,' he says. 'I told Father Doyle this mornin' at breakfuss that if that red-headed man iver got wan punch at th' other lad, I'd bet a new cassock--Oh, dear!' he says, 'what am I sayin'?' 'Ye're sayin',' says I, 'what nine-tenths iv th' people, laymen an' clargy, are sayin',' I says. 'Well,' he says, 'I guess ye're right.' he says. 'Afther all,' he says, 'an' undher all, we're mere brutes; an' it on'y takes two lads more brutal than th' rest f'r to expose th' sthreak in th' best iv us. Foorce rules th' wurruld, an' th' churches is empty whin th' blood begins to flow.' he says. 'It's too bad, too bad.' he says. 'Tell me, was Corbett much hurted?' he says." ON THE VICTORIAN ERA. "Ar-re ye goin' to cillybrate th' queen's jubilee?" asked Mr. Dooley. "What's that?" demanded Mr. Hennessy, with a violent start. "To-day," said Mr. Dooley, "her gracious Majesty Victorya, Queen iv Great Britain an' that part iv Ireland north iv Sligo, has reigned f'r sixty long and tiresome years." "I don't care if she has snowed f'r sixty years," said Mr. Hennessy. "I'll not cillybrate it. She may be a good woman f'r all I know, but dam her pollytics." "Ye needn't be pro-fane about it," said Mr. Dooley. "I on'y ast ye a civil question. F'r mesilf, I have no feelin' on th' subject. I am not with th' queen an' I'm not again her. At th' same time I corjally agree with me frind Captain Finerty, who's put his newspaper in mournin' f'r th' ivint. I won't march in th' parade, an' I won't put anny dinnymite undher thim that does. I don't say th' marchers an' dinnymiters ar-re not both r-right. 'Tis purely a question iv taste, an', as the ixicutive says whin both candydates are mimbers iv th' camp, 'Pathrites will use their own discreetion.' "Th' good woman niver done me no har-rm; an', beyond throwin' a rock or two into an orangey's procission an' subscribin' to tin dollars' worth iv Fenian bonds, I've threated her like a lady. Anny gredge I iver had again her I burrid long ago. We're both well on in years, an' 'tis no use carrying har-rd feelin's to th' grave. About th' time th' lord chamberlain wint over to tell her she was queen, an' she came out in her nitey to hear th' good news, I was announced into this wurruld iv sin an' sorrow. So ye see we've reigned about th' same lenth iv time, an' I ought to be cillybratin' me di'mon' jubilee. I wud, too, if I had anny di'mon's. Do ye r-run down to Aldherman O'Brien's an' borrow twinty or thirty f'r me. "Great happenin's have me an' Queen Victorya seen in these sixty years. Durin' our binificent prisince on earth th' nations have grown r-rich an' prosperous. Great Britain has ixtinded her domain until th' sun niver sets on it. No more do th' original owners iv th' sile, they bein' kept movin' be th' polis. While she was lookin' on in England, I was lookin' on in this counthry. I have seen America spread out fr'm th' Atlantic to th' Pacific, with a branch office iv the Standard Ile Comp'ny in ivry hamlet. I've seen th' shackles dropped fr'm th' slave, so's he cud be lynched in Ohio. I've seen this gr-reat city desthroyed be fire fr'm De Koven Sthreet to th' Lake View pumpin' station, and thin rise felix-like fr'm its ashes, all but th' West Side, which was not burned. I've seen Jim Mace beat Mike McCool, an' Tom Allen beat Jim Mace, an' somebody beat Tom Allen, an' Jawn Sullivan beat him, an' Corbett beat Sullivan, an' Fitz beat Corbett; an', if I live to cillybrate me goold-watch-an'-chain jubilee, I may see some wan put it all over Fitz. "Oh, what things I've seen in me day an' Victorya's! Think iv that gran' procission iv lithry men,--Tinnyson an' Longfellow an' Bill Nye an' Ella Wheeler Wilcox an' Tim Scanlan an'--an' I can't name thim all: they're too manny. An' th' brave gin'rals,--Von Molkey an' Bismarck an' U.S. Grant an' gallant Phil Shurdan an' Coxey. Think iv thim durin' me reign. An' th' invintions,--th' steam-injine an' th' printin'-press an' th' cotton-gin an' the gin sour an' th' bicycle an' th' flyin'-machine an' th' nickel-in-th'-slot machine an' th' Croker machine an' th' sody fountain an'--crownin' wurruk iv our civilization--th' cash raygisther. What gr-reat advances has science made in my time an' Victorya's! f'r, whin we entered public life, it took three men to watch th' bar-keep, while to-day ye can tell within eight dollars an hour what he's took in. "Glory be, whin I look back fr'm this day iv gin'ral rejoicin' in me rhinestone jubilee, an' see what changes has taken place an' how manny people have died an' how much betther off th' wurruld is, I'm proud iv mesilf. War an' pest'lence an' famine have occurred in me time, but I count thim light compared with th' binifits that have fallen to th' race since I come on th' earth." "What ar-re ye talkin' about?" cried Mr. Hennessy, in deep disgust. "All this time ye've been standin' behind this bar ladlin' out disturbance to th' Sixth Wa-ard, an' ye haven't been as far east as Mitchigan Avnoo in twinty years. What have ye had to do with all these things?" "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "I had as much to do with thim as th' queen." ON THE CURRENCY QUESTION. "There's some tough knots in this here currency question," said Mr. McKenna. "A lot of things I don't quite catch." "Cough thim up," said Mr. Dooley. "I'm a reg'lar caddychism iv coinage. Who made ye? Gawd made me. Why did he make ye? F'r to know Him, love Him, an' sarve Him all me days. That's th' way iv th' caddychism I learned whin I was a la-ad behind a hedge; but now 'tis: Who made ye? Ladenburg, Thalman an' Comp'ny made me. Why did they make ye? F'r to know thim, love thim, an' sarve thim all me days. O-ho!" "That's all r-right," said Mr. Thomas Larkin, the Kerry horseshoer, who was leaning over the cigar-case, reading what Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Blaine, Mr. Edward Atkinson, and Mr. Andrew D. White had to say in a small pamphlet. "That's all r-right, Martin. But ye're talkin' like a Populist an' an anarchist an' a big bullhead gen'rally. Ye bring up two or three Jew men, an' think f'r to scare us with thim. But look here. Supposin' a man comes into my place an' lays down on th' anvil a silver dollar, an' I give it a wallop with me hammer"-- "Thin," said Mr. Dooley, "ye're knockin' th' gover'mint." "How am I?" said Mr. Larkin. "Niver mind now: I take this here silver dollar, an' I fetch it wan with me hammer. What happens?" "Th' man that give ye th' dollar hands ye wan in th' nose," said Mr. Dooley. "Not at all, not at--all," said Mr. Larkin. "I take this here mutilated an' disfigured an' bum dollar down to th' three-asury, an' I hand it in; an' Carlisle says, 'What kind iv an ol' piece iv mud is this ye're flingin' at me?' he says. 'Take it away: it's nawthin' to me.'" "True for you, Larkin," said Mr. McKenna. "You're on the right track. Carlisle couldn't take it after you'd smashed it." "But," said Mr. Dooley, "look here: if ye had th' free an' unlimited coinage iv silver at a ratio iv sixteen to wan, ye cud take this here mass iv silver down to Carlisle, an' say, 'Here, Jawn, give me a dollar'; an' he'd have to give it to ye." "A dollar of what?" said Mr. McKenna. "A dollar iv what?" repeated Mr. Dooley. "A dollar iv what? Man alive, don't ye know what a dollar is? Carlisle'd hand him out a plunk, a case, a buck. He'd say, 'Here, Larkin, ye're a dam fool to be malthreatin' th' currincy iv yer adophted counthry, but I have to give ye a dollar because ye're a good fellow an' a frind iv Dooley's.'" "He wouldn't say anything of the kind," said Mr. McKenna. "He'd give Larkin fifty cents." "I'd push his face in if he did," said Mr. Larkin, warmly. "I'm as good a ma-an as he is anny day. I'll have no man rob me." "But he wouldn't rob you," said Mr. McKenna. "Think of the purchasing power: you've got to always figure that out. A dollar you'd get then would be worth only half as much as it's worth now. It'd be a dollar like they run through the ringer down in Mexico." "How can wan dollar be worth on'y half as much as another dollar, if they're both dollars an' th' man that made thim is at la-arge?" answered Mr. Dooley. "Here's a dollar, an' here's a dollar. Wan akels th' other. Now you take this here dollar, an' come into my place. 'Give me a brandy an' sody,' ye say. Thin what do I say?" "You say you're just out of brandy and soda." "So I do, so I do. Thin you ask f'r a little liquor with beer f'r a chaser. An' I give it to ye. Ye lay down wan iv these here quartz dollars. I return eighty-five cints. Larkin comes in later, ordhers th' same thing, an' I give him th' same threatment. I play no fav-rites. Entertainmint f'r man an' beast." "But, if we had free silver, you'd charge thirty cents for the drink," said Mr. McKenna. "I wud not," said Mr. Dooley, hotly. "I niver overcharged a man in my life, except durin' a campaign." "No one accuses you of overcharging," explained Mr. McKenna. "Everybody would charge the same. It'd be the regular price." "If it was," said Mr. Dooley, "they'd be a rivolution. But I don't believe it, Jawn. Let me tell ye wan thing. Whisky is th' standard iv value. It niver fluctuates; an' that's funny, too, seein' that so much iv it goes down. It was th' same price--fifteen cints a slug, two f'r a quarther--durin' the war; an' it was th' same price afther the war. The day befure th' crime iv sivinty-three it was worth fifteen cints: it was worth th' same th' day afther. Goold and silver fluctuates, up wan day, down another; but whisky stands firm an' strong, unchangeable as th' skies, immovable as a rock at fifteen or two f'r a quarther. If they want something solid as a standard iv value, something that niver is rajjooced in price, something ye can exchange f'r food an' other luxuries annywhere in th' civilized wurruld where man has a thirst, they'd move th' Mint over to th' internal rivinue office, and lave it stay there." Both Mr. Larkin and Mr. McKenna were diverted by this fancy. "There's some good argumints on both sides iv th' quisthion," said the Kerry man. "I heerd a man be th' name of Doyle, a helper, compare money to th' human lungs." "Th' lung argumint is all right," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' whole currency question is a matther iv lungs." ON POLITICAL PARADES. Mr. Hennessy, wearing a silver-painted stovepipe hat and a silver cape and carrying a torch, came in, looking much the worse for wear. The hat was dented, the cape was torn, and there were marks on Mr. Hennessy's face. "Where ye been?" asked Mr. Dooley. "Ma-archin,'" said Mr. Hennessy. "Be th' looks iv ye, ye might have been th' line iv ma-arch f'r th' p'rade. Who's been doin' things to ye?" "I had a currency debate with a man be th' name iv Joyce, a towny iv mine, in th' Audjiotoroom Hotel," said Mr. Hennessy. "Whin we got as far as th' price iv wheat in th' year iv th' big wind, we pushed each other. Give me a high glass iv beer. I'm as dhry as a gravel roof." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, handing over the glass, "ye're an ol' man; an', as th' good book says, an ol' fool is th' worst yet. So I'll not thry to con-vince ye iv th' error iv ye'er ways. But why anny citizen that has things in his head shud dhress himself up like a sandwich-man, put a torch on his shoulder, an' toddle over this blessid town with his poor round feet, is more than I can come at with all me intelligence. "I agree with ye perfectly, Hinnissy, that this here is a crisis in our histhry. On wan hand is arrayed th' Shylocks an' th' pathrites, an' on th' other side th' pathrites an' th' arnychists. Th' Constitution must be upheld, th' gover'mint must be maintained, th' down-throdden farmer an' workin'man must get their rights. But do ye think, man alive, that ye're goin' to do this be pourin' lard ile frim ye'er torch down ye'er spine or thrippin' over sthreet-car tracks like a dhray-horse thryin' to play circus? Is th' Constitution anny safer to-night because ye have to have ye'er leg amputated to get ye'er boot off, or because Joyce has made ye'er face look like th' back dure-step iv a German resthrant? "Jawnny Mack took me down in th' afthernoon f'r to see th' monsthrous p'rade iv th' goold men. It was a gloryous spectacle. Th' sthreets were crowded with goold bugs an' women an' polismin an' ambulances. Th' procission was miles an' miles long. Labor an' capital marched side be side, or annyhow labor was in its usual place, afther th' capitalists. It was a noble sight f'r to see th' employer iv workin'men marchin' ahead iv his band iv sturdy toilers that to rest thimsilves afther th' layboryous occupations iv th' week was reelin' undher banners that dhrilled a hole in their stomachs or carryin' two-be-four joists to show their allegance to th' naytional honor. A man that has to shovel coke into a dhray or shove lumber out iv th' hole iv a barge or elevate his profession be carryin' a hod iv mort to th' top iv a laddher doesn't march with th' grace iv an antelope, be a blamed sight. To march well, a man's feet have to be mates; an', if he has two left feet both runnin' sideways, he ought to have interference boots to keep him fr'm settin' fire to his knees. Whin a man walks as if he expected to lave a leg stuck in th' sthreet behind him, he has th' gait proper f'r half-past six o'clock th' avenin' before pay-day. But 'tis not th' prance iv an American citizen makin' a gloryous spectacle iv himsilf." "They were coerced," said Mr. Hennessy, gloomily. "Don't ye believe it," replied the philosopher. "It niver requires coercion to get a man to make a monkey iv himsilf in a prisidintial campaign. He does it as aisily as ye dhrink ye'er liquor, an' that's too aisy. Don't ye believe thim lads with lumber ya-ards on their necks an' bar'ls on their feet was coerced. There wasn't wan iv thim that wudden't give his week's wages f'r a chanst to show how many times he cud thrip over a manhole in a mile. No more coerced than ye are whin ye r-run down town an' make an ape iv ye-ersilf. I see ye marchin' away fr'm Finucane's with th' Willum J. O'Briens. Th' man nex' to ye had a banner declarin' that he was no slave. 'Twas th' la-ad Johnson. He was r-right. He is no slave, an' he won't be wan as long as people have washin' to give to his wife. Th' man I see ye takin' a dhrink with had a banner that said if th' mines was opened th' mills would be opened, too. He meant be that, that if money was plenty enough f'r him to get some without wurrukin', he'd open a gin mill. An' ye ma-arched afther Willum J. O'Brien, didn't ye? Well, he's a good la-ad. If I didn't think so, I wudden't say it until I got me strenth back or cud buy a gun. But did Willum J. O'Brien march? Not Willie. He was on horseback; an', Hinnissy, if dollars was made out iv Babbit metal, an' horses was worth sixty-sivin cints a dhrove, ye cudden't buy a crupper." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "annyhow, I proved me hathred iv capital." "So ye did," said Mr. Dooley. "So ye did. An' capital this afthernoon showed its hatred iv ye. Ye ought to match blisters to see which hates th' worst. Capital is at home now with his gams in a tub iv hot wather; an' whin he comes down to-morrah to oppriss labor an' square his protisted notes, he'll have to go on all fours. As f'r you, Hinnissy, if 'twill aise ye anny, ye can hang f'r a few minyits fr'm th' gas fixtures. Did th' goold Dimmycrats have a p'rade?" "No," said Mr. Hennessy. "But they rayviewed th' day procission fr'm th' Pammer House. Both iv thim was on th' stand." ON CHARITY. "Br-r-r!" cried Mr. McKenna, entering stiffly and spreading his hands over the potbellied stove. "It's cold." "Where?" asked Mr. Dooley. "Not here." "It's cold outside," said Mr. McKenna. "It was ten below at Shannahan's grocery when I went by, and the wind blowing like all possessed. Lord love us, but I pity them that's got to be out to-night." "Save ye'er pity," said Mr. Dooley, comfortably. "It ain't cowld in here. There's frost on th' window, 'tis thrue for ye; an' th' wheels has been singin' th' livelong day. But what's that to us? Here I am, an' there ye are, th' stove between us an' th' kettle hummin'. In a minyit it'll bile, an' thin I'll give ye a taste iv what'll make a king iv ye. "Well, tubby sure, 'tis thryin' to be dhrivin' a coal wagon or a sthreet-car; but 'tis all in a lifetime. Th' diff'rence between me an' th' man that sets up in th' seat thumpin' his chest with his hands is no more thin th' diff'rence between him an' th' poor divvle that walks along behind th' wagon with his shovel on his shoulder, an' 'll thank th' saints f'r th' first chanst to put tin ton iv ha-ard coal into a cellar f'r a quarther iv a dollar. Th' lad afoot invies th' dhriver, an' th' dhriver invies me; an' I might invy big Cleveland if it wasn't f'r th' hivinly smell iv this here noggin. An' who does Cleveland invy? Sure, it'd be sacreliege f'r me to say. "Me ol' father, who was as full iv sayin's as an almanac, used to sink his spoon into th' stirabout, an' say, 'Well, lads, this ain't bacon an' greens an' porther; but it'll be annything ye like if ye'll on'y think iv th' Cassidys.' Th' Cassidys was th' poorest fam'ly in th' parish. They waked th' oldest son in small beer, an' was little thought of. Did me father iver ask thim in to share th' stirabout? Not him. An' he was the kindest man in th' wurruld. He had a heart in him as big as a lump iv turf, but he'd say, 'Whin ye grow up, take no wan's sorrows to ye'ersilf,' he says. ''Tis th' wise man that goes through life thinkin' iv himsilf, fills his own stomach, an' takes away what he can't ate in his pocket.' An' he was r-right, Jawn. We have throubles enough iv our own. Th' wurruld goes on just th' same, an' ye can find fifty men to say th' lit'ny f'r ye to wan that'll give ye what'll relieve a fastin' spit. Th' dead ar-re always pop'lar. I knowed a society wanst to vote a monyment to a man an' refuse to help his fam'ly, all in wan night. 'Tis cowld outside th' dure, ye say, but 'tis war-rum in here; an' I'm gettin' in me ol' age to think that the diff'rence between hivin an' hell is no broader"-- Mr. Dooley's remarks were cut short by a cry from the back room. It was unmistakably a baby's cry. Mr. McKenna turned suddenly in amazement as Mr. Dooley bolted. "Well, in the name of the saints, what's all this?" he cried, following his friend into the back room. He found the philosopher, with an expression of the utmost sternness, sitting on the side of his bed, with a little girl of two or three in his arms. The philosopher was singing:---- Ar-rah rock-a-bye, babby, on th' three top: Whin th' wind blo-ows, th' cradle ull r-rock; An', a-whin th' bough breaks, th' cradle ull fa-a-a-ll, An' a-down ull come babby, cradle, an' all. Then he sang:---- In th' town iv Kilkinny there du-wilt a fair ma-aid, In th' town iv Kilkinny there du-wilt a fair ma-aid. She had cheeks like th' roses, an' hair iv th' same, An' a mouth like ripe sthrawburries burrid in crame. He rocked the child to and fro, and its crying ceased while he sang:---- Chip, chip, a little horse; Chip, chip, again, sir. How manny miles to Dublin? Threescure an' tin, sir. The little girl went to sleep on Mr. Dooley's white apron. He lifted her tenderly, and carried her over to his bed. Then he tiptoed out with an apprehensive face, and whispered: "It's Jawn Donahue's kid that wandherd away fr'm home, an' wint to sleep on me dure-step. I sint th' Dorsey boy to tell th' mother, but he's a long time gone. Do ye run over, Jawn, an' lave thim know." ON NANSEN. "I see," said Mr. Dooley, "that Doc Nansen has come back." "Yes," said Mr. McKenna. "It's a wonder he wouldn't stay till winter. If I was setting on an iceberg in latitude umpty-ump north of Evanston these days, they couldn't pry me off it with a crowbar. Not they." "He had to come back," explained Mr. Hennessy. "He got as far as he cud, an' thin he was foorced be th' inclimincy iv th' weather to return to his home in Feechoold, Norway." "To where?" Mr. Dooley asked contemptuously. "To Foocheeld, Norway," said Mr. Hennessy, with some misgivings. "Ye don't know what ye're talkin' about," retorted the philosopher. "Ye ought to go back to school an' study gee-ography. Th' place he come back to was Oostoc, Norway, between Coopenhaagen an'--an' Rogers Park." "Maybe ye're right," said Mr. Hennessy. "Annyhow, he come back, chased be a polar bear. It must iv been a thrillin' experience, leppin' fr'm iceberg to iceberg, with a polar bear grabbin' at th' seat iv his pants, an' now an' thin a walrus swoopin' down fr'm a three an' munchin' his hat." "What ta-alk have ye?" Mr. Dooley demanded. "A walrus don't fly, foolish man!" "What does he do, thin?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Go 'round on crutches?" "A walrus," said Mr. Dooley, "is an animal something like a hor-rse, but more like a balloon. It doesn't walk, swim, or fly. It rowls whin pur-suin' its prey. It whirls 'round an' 'round at a speed akel to a railroad injine, meltin' th' ice in a groove behind it. Tame walruses are used be th' Eskeemyoos, th' old settlers iv thim parts, as lawnmowers an' to press their clothes. Th' wild walrus is a mos' vicious animal, which feeds on snowballs through th' day, an' thin goes out iv nights afther artic explorers, which for-rms its principal diet. Theyse a gr-reat demand among walruses f'r artic explorers, Swedes preferred; an' on account iv th' scarcity iv this food it isn't more than wanst in twinty years that th' walrus gets a square meal. Thin he devours his victim, clothes, collar-buttons, an' all." "Well, well," said Mr. Hennessy. "I had no idee they was that ferocious. I thought they were like bur-rds. Don't they lay eggs?" "Don't they lay eggs?" Mr. Dooley replied. "Don't they lay eggs? Did ye iver hear th' like iv that, Jawn? Why, ye gaby, ye might as well ask me does a pianny lay eggs. Iv coorse not." "I'd like to know what the objict of these here arctic explorations is," interposed Mr. McKenna, in the interests of peace. "Th' principal objict is to get rid iv an over-supply iv foolish people," said Mr. Dooley. "In this counthry, whin a man begins f'r to see sthrange things, an' hitch up cockroaches, an' think he's Vanderbilt dhrivin' a four-in-hand, we sind him to what me ol' frind Sleepy Burk calls th' brain college. But in Norway an' Sweden they sind him to th' North Pole, an' feed him to th' polar bears an' th' walruses. A man that scorches on a bicycle or wears a pink shirt or is caught thryin' to fry out a stick iv dinnymite in a kitchen stove is given a boat an' sint off to play with Flora an' Fauna in th' frozen North." "That's what I'd like to know," said Mr. Hennessy. "Who ar-re these Flora an' Fauna? I see be th' pa-aper that Doc Nansen stopped at Nootchinchoot Islands, an' saw Flora an' Fauna; an' thin, comin' back on th' ice, he encountherd thim again." "I suppose," said Mr. Dooley, "ye think Flora an' Fauna is two little Eskeemy girls at skip-rope an' 'London bridge is fallin' down' on th' icebergs an' glaziers. It's a pretty idee ye have iv th' life in thim parts. Little Flora an' little Fauna playin' stoop-tag aroun' a whale or rushin' th' can f'r their poor tired father just home fr'm th' rollin'-mills, where he's been makin' snowballs f'r th' export thrade, or engagin' in some other spoort iv childhood! Go wan with ye!" "But who are they, annyhow?" "I make it a rule in me life not to discuss anny woman's charac-ter," replied Mr. Dooley, sternly. "If Doc Nansen was off there skylarkin' with Flora an' Fauna, it's his own business, an' I make no inquiries. A lady's a lady, be she iver so humble; an', as Shakespeare says, cursed be th' man that'd raise an ax to her, save in th' way iv a joke. We'll talk no scandal in this house, Hinnissy." But, after his friend had gone, Mr. Dooley leaned over confidentially, and whispered to Mr. McKenna, "But who are Flora an' Fauna, Jawn?" "I don't know," said Mr. McKenna. "It sounds mighty suspicious, annyhow," said the philosopher. "I hope th' doc'll be able to square it with his wife." ON A POPULIST CONVENTION. "Keep ye'er eye on th' Pops, Jawn. They're gr-reat people an' a gr-reat pa-arty. What is their principles? Anny ol' thing that th' other pa-arties has rijected. Some iv thim is in favor iv coining money out iv baled hay an' dhried apples at a ratio iv sixteen to wan, an' some is in favor iv coinin' on'y th' apples. Thim are th' inflationists. Others want th' gover'mint to divide up the rivinues equally among all la-ads that's too sthrong to wurruk. Th' Pops is again th' banks an' again the supreme court an again havin' gas that can be blowed out be th' human lungs. A sthrong section is devoted to th' principal iv separatin' Mark Hanna fr'm his money. "A ma-an be th' name iv Cassidy, that thravels f'r a liquor-house, was in to see me this mornin'; an' he come fr'm Saint Looey. He said it beat all he iver see or heerd tell of. Whin th' convintion come to ordher, th' chairman says, 'La-ads, we'll open proceedin's be havin' th' Hon'rable Rube Spike, fr'm th' imperyal Territ'ry iv Okalahoma, cough up his famous song, "Pa-pa Cleveland's Teeth are filled with Goold."' 'Mr. Chairman,' says a delegate fr'm New Mexico, risin' an' wavin' his boots in th' air, 'if th' skate fr'm Okalahoma is allowed f'r to belch anny in this here assimblage, th' diligates fr'm th' imperyal Territ'ry iv New Mex-ico'll lave th' hall. We have,' he says, 'in our mist th' Hon'rable Lafayette Hadley, whose notes,' he says, 'falls as sweetly on th' ear,' he says, 'as th' plunk iv hivin's rain in a bar'l,' he says. 'If annywan has a hemorrhage iv anthems in this hall, it'll be Lafe Hadley, th' Guthrie batsoon,' he says. 'Ye shall not,' he says, 'press down upon our bleedin' brows,' he says, 'this cross iv thorns,' he says. 'Ye shall not crucify th' diligates fr'm th' imperyal Territ'ry iv New Mexico on this cross iv a Mississippi nigger an' Crow Injun fr'm Okalahoma,' he says. Thereupon, says me frind Cassidy, th' New Mexico diligation left th' hall, pursued be th' diligation from Okalahoma. "Th' chairman knowed his business. 'In ordher,' he says, 'that there may be no disordher,' he says, 'I will call upon th' imperyal States,' he says, 'an Territ'ries,' he says, 'beginnin' with th' imperyal State iv Alabama,' he says, 'to each sind wan singer to th' platform,' he says, 'f'r to wring our hear-rts with melodies,' he says. 'Meantime,' says he, 'pathrites who have differences iv opinyon on anny questions can pro-cure ex-helves be applyin' to th' sergeant-at-arms,' he says. 'Now,' he says, 'if th' gintleman fr'm th' imperyal State of Mizzoury'll hand me up a cheek full iv his eatin' tobacco,' he says, 'we'll listen to Willyum G. Rannycaboo, th' boy melodjun iv th' imperyal State iv Alabama,' he says, 'who'll discourse his well-known ballad, 'Th' Supreme Court is Full iv Standard Ile,' he says. "Whin th' singin' had con-cluded, so me frind Cassidy says, th' chair announced that speakin' would be in ordher, an' th' convintion rose as wan man. Afther ordher had been enforced be th' sergeant-at-arms movin' round, an' lammin' diligates with a hoe, a tall man was seen standin' on a chair. F'r some moments th' chairman was onable to call his name, but he fin'lly found a place to spill; an' in a clear voice he says, 'F'r what purpose does th' gintleman fr'm the imperyal State iv Texas arise?' 'I arise,' says th' ma-an, 'f'r th' purpose iv warnin' this convintion that we have a goold-bug in our mist,' he says. Cries iv 'Throw him out!' 'Search him!' 'Hang him!' arose. 'In wandhrin' through th' hall, I just seen a man with a coat on,' he says. Great excitement ensood, says me frind Cassidy; an' th' thremblin' victim was brought down th' aisle. 'What have ye to say f'r ye'ersilf?' demands th' chairman in thundhrin' tones. 'On'y this,' says th' goold-bug. 'I wandhered in here, lookin' f'r frinds,' he says. 'I am not a goold-bug,' he says. 'I wear me coat,' he says, 'because I have no shirt,' he says. 'Gintlemen,' says th' chairman, 'a mistake has been made,' he says. 'This here person, who bears th' appearance iv a plutocrat, is all right underneath,' he says. 'He's a diligate to th' silver convintion,' he says. 'Go in peace,' he says. "Be this time 'twas gr-rowin' late, an' th' convintion adjourned. 'Befure ye lave,' says th' chairman, 'I have to announce that on account iv th' chairman of the comity havin' been imprisoned in a foldin'-bed an' th' sicrity havin' mistook th' fire extinguisher f'r a shower bath, they'll be no meeting' iv th' comity on rules till to-morrow night. Durin' th' interval,' he says, 'th' convintion'll continue ketch-as-ketch can,' he says." "Well," said Mr. McKenna, "to think of taking this here country out of the hands of William C. Whitney and Grover Cleveland and J. Pierpont Morgan and Ickleheimer Thalmann, and putting it in the hands of such men. What do you think about it?" "I think," said Mr. Dooley, "that Cassidy lied." ON A FAMILY REUNION. "Why aren't you out attending the reunion of the Dooley family?" Mr. McKenna asked the philosopher. "Thim's no rel-ations to me," Mr. Dooley answered. "Thim's farmer Dooleys. No wan iv our fam'ly iver lived in th' counthry. We live in th' city, where they burn gas an' have a polis foorce to get on to. We're no farmers, divvle th' bit. We belong to th' industhreel classes. Thim must be th' Fermanagh Dooleys, a poor lot, Jawn, an' always on good terms with th' landlord, bad ciss to thim, says I. We're from Roscommon. They'se a Dooley family in Wixford an' wan near Ballybone that belonged to th' constabulary. I met him but wanst. 'Twas at an iviction; an', though he didn't know me, I inthrajooced mesilf be landin' him back iv th' ear with a bouldher th' size iv ye'er two fists together. He didn't know me aftherwards, ayether. "We niver had but wan reunion iv th' Dooley fam'ly, an' that was tin years ago. Me cousin Felix's boy Aloysius,--him that aftherwards wint to New York an' got a good job dhrivin' a carredge f'r th' captain iv a polis station,--he was full iv pothry an' things; an' he come around wan night, an' says he, 'D'ye know,' he says, ''twud be th' hite iv a good thing f'r th' Dooleys to have a reunion,' he says. 'We ought to come together,' he says, 'an' show the people iv this ward,' he says, 'how sthrong we are,' he says. 'Ye might do it betther, me buck,' says I, 'shovellin' slag at th' mills,' I says. 'But annyhow, if ye'er mind's set on it, go ahead,' I says, 'an' I'll attind to havin' th' polis there,' I says, 'f'r I have a dhrag at th' station.' "Well, he sint out letthers to all th' Roscommon Dooleys; an' on a Saturdah night we come together in a rinted hall an' held th' reunion. 'Twas great sport f'r a while. Some iv us hadn't spoke frindly to each other f'r twinty years, an' we set around an' tol' stories iv Roscommon an' its green fields, an' th' stirabout pot that was niver filled, an' th' blue sky overhead an' th' boggy ground undherfoot. 'Which Dooley was it that hamsthrung th' cows?' 'Mike Dooley's Pat.' 'Naw such thing: 'twas Pat Dooley's Mike. I mane Pat Dooley's Mike's Pat.' F'r 'tis with us as with th' rest iv our people. Ye take th' Dutchman: he has as manny names to give to his childher as they'se nails in his boots, but an Irishman has th' pick iv on'y a few. I knowed a man be th' name iv Clancy,--a man fr'm Kildare. He had fifteen childher; an', whin th' las' come, he says, 'Dooley, d'ye happen to know anny saints?' 'None iv thim thrades here,' says I. 'Why?' says I. 'They'se a new kid at th' house,' he says; 'an', be me troth, I've run out iv all th' saints I knew, an', if somewan don't come to me assistance, I'll have to turn th' child out on th' wurruld without th' rag iv a name to his back,' he says. "But I was tellin' ye about th' reunion. They was lashins iv dhrink an' story-tellin', an' Felix's boy Aloysius histed a banner he had made with 'Dooley aboo' painted on it. But, afther th' night got along, some iv us begun to raymimber that most iv us hadn't been frinds f'r long. Mrs. Morgan Dooley, she that was Molly Dooley befure she married Morgan, she turns to me, an' says she, ''Tis sthrange they let in that Hogan woman,' she says,--that Hogan woman, Jawn, bein' th' wife iv her husband's brother. She heerd her say it, an' she says, 'I'd have ye to undherstand that no wan iver come out iv Roscommon that cud hold up their heads with th' Hogans,' she says. ''Tis not f'r th' likes iv ye to slandher a fam'ly that's iv th' landed gintry iv Ireland, an' f'r two pins I'd hit ye a poke in th' eye,' she says. If it hadn't been f'r me bein' between thim, they'd have been trouble; f'r they was good frinds wanst. What is it th' good book says about a woman scorned? Faith, I've forgotten. "Thin me uncle Mike come in, as rough a man as iver laid hands on a polisman. Felix Dooley was makin' a speech on th' vartues iv th' fam'ly. 'Th' Dooleys,' says he, 'can stand before all th' wurruld, an' no man can say ought agin ayether their honor or their integrity,' says he. 'Th' man that's throwin' that at ye,' says me uncle Mike, 'stole a saw fr'm me in th' year sivinty-five.' Felix paid no attintion to me uncle Mike, but wint on, 'We point proudly to th' motto, "Dooley aboo--Dooley f'river."' 'Th' saw aboo,' says me uncle Mike. 'Th' Dooleys,' says Felix, 'stood beside Red Hugh O'Neill; an', whin he cut aff his hand,--' 'He didn't cut it off with anny wan else's saw,' says me uncle Mike. 'They'se an old sayin',' wint on Felix. 'An' ol' saw,' says me uncle Mike. 'But 'twas new whin ye stole it.' "'Now look here,' says Aloysius, 'this thing has gone far enough. 'Tis an outrage that this here man shud come here f'r to insult th' head iv th' fam'ly.' 'Th' head iv what fam'ly?' says Morgan Dooley, jumpin' up as hot as fire. 'I'm th' head iv th' fam'ly,' he says, 'be right iv histhry.' 'Ye're an ol' cow,' says me uncle Mike. 'Th' back iv me hand an' th' sowl iv me fut to all iv ye,' he says. 'I quit ye,' he says. 'Ye're all livin' here undher assumed names'; an' he wint out, followed be Morgan Dooley with a chair in each hand. "Well, they wasn't two Dooleys in th' hall'd speak whin th' meetin' broke up; an' th' Lord knows, but I don't to this day, who's th' head iv th' Dooley fam'ly. All I know is that I had wan th' nex' mornin'." ON A FAMOUS WEDDING. "Ye see, Jawn," he said "'twas this way: The Jook iv Marlburrow is a young lad an' poor. Ye can't think of a jook bein' poor, but 'tis a fact that they'se many a wan iv thim that's carryin' th' banner at this minyit. Hinnissy, if he had his rights, is Jook iv Munster; an' ye know what he's got. The Jook iv Marlburrow, whin he come out iv th' academy where they had him, he hadn't a cint to his name. Ne'er a wan. "They ain't manny jobs f'r a young jook. Th' thrade is limited; an' this here la-ad wint round night an' day lookin' f'r a sign, 'Wanted, a young jook, r-ready an' willin' to do light family jookin',' an' no sign did he see. He was in a bad way; f'r the la-ad's father was dead, th' ol' jook. He was a fine bucko. He had a divorce fr'm his wife, an' marrid another; an', whin he died, she marrid somewan else an' took the roly-boly with her. This was ha-ard on th' lad. "But he come iv a noble race, an' wan that had reed burruds whin their betthers had snowballs. Did ye iver read histhry, Jawn? Ye ought to. 'Tis betther thin th' Polis Gazette, an' near as thrue. Well, Jawn, this here young man come fr'm a gr-eat gin'ral, a fine-lookin' la-ad that had manny a mash in his day, an' niver lost money be wan iv thim. Ye'll find all about him in Casey's 'Histhry iv English Misrule in Ireland: Th' Story iv a Crime.' 'Tis good readin'. "Th' la-ad's father marrid a rich woman. So did his uncle. So ye see he was a natural bor-rn fi-nanceer. An' he begun to luk around him f'r what th' pa-apers calls a 'financee.' "He didn't have far to go. I dinnaw how he done it, whether th' Ganderbilks asked him 'r he asked th' Ganderbilks. Annyhow, 'twas arranged. 'Twas horse an' horse between thim. Th' Ganderbilks had money, an' he was a jook. They was wan divorce on each side. So they imported him over, what they call assisted immygration. He didn't come undher th' head iv skilled workman. They must've classed him as a domestic servant. Th' first thing he done was to get himsilf arristed. A man be th' name iv Sweeney,--there are some good Sweeneys, though it's a name I don't like on account iv wan iv thim stealin' me fa-ather's grin'stone,--a man be th' name iv Sweeney, a polisman, r-run him in f'r disordherly conduct. They got him out with a pull. Thin he sint f'r lawyers an' f'r his financee's father, an' they settled down to talk business. 'Well,' says Ganderbilk, 'how much d'ye want?' he says. 'I'll give ye a millyon.' 'Goowan,' says th' jook, 'I cud get that much marryin' somewan I knew.' 'Thin how much d'ye want?' says Ganderbilk. 'Well,' says th' jook, th' castle has to be put in repair. Th' plumbin' is all gone to th' divvle, an' they'll have to be a new catch-basin put in,' he says. 'Thin they'se calciminin' an' paper-hangin',--well, call it tin millyons.' 'But what do I get out iv it?' says Ganderbilk. 'Have ye a ticket to th' church to see me marrid?' says th' jook. 'No,' says his pappa-in-law. 'Well, here's a couple,' says th' jook. 'Bring wan iv ye'er frinds with ye.' So Ganderbilk he coughed. "They say th' jook was that poor he had to have his coat made out iv what was left over fr'm his pants, they do so. But he was at th' church bright an' early; an' Ganderbilk he was there, too, standin' out on th' steps in th' cold, combin' his whiskers--he wears a pair iv sluggers--with his fingers. Afther awhile his daughter, the jook's financee, come along; an', seein' the jook, says she, 'Pappa,' she says, 'inthrojooce me to ye'er frind.' 'Jook,' says Ganderbilk, 'shake hands with me daughther. She's your's,' he says. An' so they were marrid. "Well, Jawn," said Mr. Dooley, becoming serious, "'tis a dhroll wurruld, an' I suppose we've got to take th' jooks an' th' Ganderbilks with the r-rest. I'm goin' to a weddin' mesilf nex' week. Th' banns has been called between little Dalia Hogan an' big Tom Moran. They've been engaged f'r three year, her wurrkin' in a box facthry an' him doin' overtime at th' blast. They've money enough to start, an' it'll not cost ol' ma-an Hogan a cint. But, whin he spoke about it las' night, he cried as if his heart'd break." ON A QUARREL BETWEEN ENGLAND AND GERMANY. Mr. McKenna was aware that a gentle feud had existed between Mr. Dooley and Mr. Schwartzmeister, the German saloon-keeper down Archey Road, for some years. It was based upon racial differences, but had been accented when Mr. Schwartzmeister put in a pool table. Of course there was no outburst. When the two met on the street, Mr. Dooley saluted his neighbor cordially, in these terms: "Good-nobben, Hair Schwartzmeister, an' vas magst too yet, me brave bucko!" To which Mr. Schwartzmeister invariably retorted: "Py chapers, Tooley, where you haf been all der time, py chapers?" But this was mere etiquette. In the publicity of their own taverns they entertained no great regard for each other. Mr. Schwartzmeister said a friend of his had been poisoned by Mr. Dooley's beer, and Mr. Dooley confessed that he would rather go to a harness-shop for whiskey than to Mr. Schwartzmeister's. Consequently, Mr. McKenna was amazed to learn that Mr. Schwartzmeister had been entertained by the philosopher, and that they had paraded Archey Road arm-in-arm at a late hour. "Tubby sure he was," said Mr. Dooley. "Tubby sure he was. Right where ye're standin' at this moment, me dhrinkin' beer an' him callin' f'r hot Irish. 'Make it hot,' he says. 'Make it hot, me frind; an' we'll make it hot f'r th' British between us,' says Schwartzmeister. "It come about this way: Ye see Willum Joyce come in, an' says he, 'We've got thim.' 'Sure,' says I. 'We've the comityman, haven't we?' 'Th' Dutch is with us,' he says. 'I mane the Germans is our frinds.' 'Ye're goin' too far there,' says I. 'Stuckart was again Reed las' spring.' 'No, no,' says Willum Joyce, he says. 'Th' Germans is up in ar-rms again th' Sassenach,' he says. 'Mind ye,' he says, 'mind ye,' he says, ''tis our jooty to be frindly with th' Germans,' he says. 'I'm now on me way f'r to organize a camp iv me Dutch frinds down be th' slough,' he says. An' off he goes. "'Twas not long afther whin I heerd a man singin' 'Th' Wearin' iv th' Green' down th' sthreet, an' in come Schwartzmeister. 'Faugh a ballagh,' says he, meanin' to be polite. 'Lieb vaterland,' says I. An' we had a dhrink together. "'Vell,' says he (ye know th' murdhrin' way he has iv speakin'), 'here we are,' he says, 'frinds at las'.' 'Thrue f'r ye,' says I. 'Tooley,' he says, f'r he calls me that, 'we're wan to-night, alretty,' he says. 'We are that,' says I. 'But, glory be, who iver thought th' Irish'd live to see th' day whin they'd be freed be th' Dutch? Schwartz, me lieber frind,' I says, 'here's a health to th' imp'ror, hock,' says I. 'Slanthu,' says he; an' we had wan. "''Twud be a great combination,' says I, 'We'd carry th' wa-ard be th' biggest majority iver heerd iv,' I says. 'We wud so,' says he. 'I'd be aldherman.' 'Afther me,' says I. ''Tis my turn first,' I says. 'I don't know about that,' says he. 'Now,' says I, 'look here, Schwartzmeister,' I says. 'This here arrangement between Germany an' Ireland has got to be brought down to th' Sixth Wa-ard,' I says. 'Do ye f'rgive th' way we done ye in th' beer rites?' I says. 'I do,' says he. 'They was befure me time.' 'Well,' says I, 'are ye sure ye can get over th' whalin' ye got whin th' Sarsfield Fife an' Dhrum Corpse met th' Frederick Willum Picnic Band?' I says. 'I do,' says he. 'An' ye have no har-rd feelin' about th' way th' bridges has been give out?' 'Not a thrace,' says he. 'Well,' says I, 'Schwartz,' I says, 'they'se wan thing more,' I says. 'We're both pathrites,' I says. 'We have a common cause,' I says. 'Ye're a Dutchman, an' I'm iv' th' other sort,' I says. 'But we're both again th' Sassenach,' I says. 'An' in th' inthrests iv th' freedom iv Ireland,' I says, 'I f'rgive ye th' pool table.' "Well, sir, Jawn, he wept like a child. 'Tooley,' he says, 'we'll march side be side,' he says. 'Both iv us in th' front rank,' he says. 'Aldherman Tooley an' Aldherman Schwartzmeister, to free Ireland,' he says. 'But where does Germany come in?' he says. 'Germany!' says I, 'Germany! Well, we'll take care iv Germany, all right. We'll let Germans into th' prim'ries,' I says. An' there an' thin we formed th' Sarsfield-an'-Gatty camp. Gatty is a German frind iv Schwartzmeister. We shook dice to see which name'd come first. Ireland won. They was my dice. "I learned Schwartzmeister th' Shan-van-Voght before we was through; an' I've got th' German naytional chune be heart,--'Ich vice nit wauss allus bay doitan'. What'll ye have to drink, Jawn?" And, as Mr. McKenna went out, he heard his friend muttering: "Freed be th' Dutch! Freed be the Dutch! An' we niver give thim so much as a dillygate." ON ORATORY IN POLITICS. "I mind th' first time Willum J. O'Brien r-run f'r office, th' Raypublicans an' th' Indypindants an' th' Socialists an' th' Prohybitionist (he's dead now, his name was Larkin) nommynated a young man be th' name iv Dorgan that was in th' law business in Halsted Sthreet, near Cologne, to r-run again' him. Smith O'Brien Dorgan was his name, an' he was wan iv th' most iloquint young la-ads that iver made a speakin' thrumpet iv his face. He cud holler like th' impire iv a base-ball game; an', whin he delivered th' sintimints iv his hear-rt, ye'd think he was thryin' to confide thim to a man on top iv a high buildin'. He was prisidint iv th' lithry club at th' church; an' Father Kelly tol' me that, th' day afther he won th' debate on th' pen an' th' soord in favor iv th' pen, they had to hire a carpenter to mend th' windows, they'd sagged so. They called him th' boy or-rator iv Healey's slough. "He planned th' campaign himsilf. 'I'll not re-sort,' says he, 'to th' ordin'ry methods,' he says. 'Th' thing to do,' he says, 'is to prisint th' issues iv th' day to th' voters,' he says. 'I'll burn up ivry precin't in th' ward with me iloquince,' he says. An' he bought a long black coat, an' wint out to spread th' light. "He talked ivrywhere. Th' people jammed Finucane's Hall, an' he tol' thim th' time had come f'r th' masses to r-rise. 'Raymimber,' says he, 'th' idees iv Novimb'r,' he says. 'Raymimber Demosthens an' Cicero an' Oak Park,' he says. 'Raymimber th' thraditions iv ye'er fathers, iv Washin'ton an' Jefferson an' Andhrew Jackson an' John L. Sullivan,' he says. 'Ye shall not, Billy O'Brien,' he says, 'crucify th' voters iv th' Sixth Ward on th' double cross,' he says. He spoke to a meetin' in Deerin' Sthreet in th' same wurads. He had th' sthreet-car stopped while he coughed up ree-marks about th' Constitution, until th' bar-rn boss sint down an' threatened to discharge Mike Dwyer that was dhrivin' wan hundherd an' eight in thim days, though thransferred to Wintworth Avnoo later on. He made speeches to polismin in th' squadroom an' to good la-ads hoistin' mud out iv th' dhraw at th' red bridge. People'd be settin' quite in th' back room playin' forty-fives whin Smith O'Brien Dorgan'd burst in, an' addhress thim on th' issues iv th' day. "Now all this time Bill O'Brien was campaignin' in his own way. He niver med wan speech. No wan knew whether he was f'r a tariff or again wan, or whether he sthud be Jefferson or was knockin' him, or whether he had th' inthrests iv th' toilin' masses at hear-rt or whether he wint to mass at all, at all. But he got th' superintindint iv th' rollin'-mills with him; an' he put three or four good faml'ies to wurruk in th' gas-house, where he knew th' main guy, an' he made reg'lar calls on th' bar-rn boss iv th' sthreet-ca-ars. He wint to th' picnics, an' hired th' orchesthry f'r th' dances, an' voted himsilf th' most pop'lar man at th' church fair at an expinse iv at laste five hundherd dollars. No wan that come near him wanted f'r money. He had headquarthers in ivry saloon fr'm wan end iv th' ward to th' other. All th' pa-apers printed his pitcher, an' sthud by him as th' frihd iv th' poor. "Well, people liked to hear Dorgan at first, but afther a few months they got onaisy. He had a way iv breakin' into festive gatherin's that was enough to thry a saint. He delayed wan prize fight two hours, encouragin' th' voters prisint to stand be their principles, while th' principles sat shiverin' in their cor-rners until th' polis r-run him out. It got so that men'd bound into alleys whin he come up th' sthreet. People in th' liquor business rayfused to let him come into their places. His fam'ly et in th' coal-shed f'r fear iv his speeches at supper. He wint on talkin', and Willum J. O'Brien wint on handin' out th' dough that he got fr'm th' gas company an' con-ciliatin' th' masses; an', whin iliction day come, th' judges an' clerks was all f'r O'Brien, an' Dorgan didn't get votes enough to wad a gun. He sat up near all night in his long coat, makin' speeches to himsilf; but tord mornin' he come over to my place where O'Brien sat with his la-ads. 'Well,' says O'Brien, 'how does it suit ye?' he says. 'It's sthrange,' says Dorgan. 'Not sthrange at all,' says Willum J. O'Brien. 'Whin ye've been in politics as long as I have, ye'll know,' he says, 'that th' roly-boly is th' gr-reatest or-rator on earth,' he says. 'Th' American nation in th' Sixth Ward is a fine people,' he says. 'They love th' eagle,' he says, 'on th' back iv a dollar,' he says. 'Well,' says Dorgan, 'I can't undherstand it,' he says. 'I med as manny as three thousan' speeches,' he says. 'Well,' says Willum J. O'Brien, 'that was my majority,' he says. 'Have a dhrink,' he says." ON CHRISTMAS GIFTS. The approach of Christmas is heralded in Archey Road by many of the signs that are known to the less civilized and more prosperous parts of the city. The people look poorer, colder, and more hopeful than at other times. The bakeries assume an old country appearance of gayety. The saloons are well filled. Also, if you have your eyes about you, you may catch a glimpse, now and then, through a frosted window-pane of a stunted Christmas tree, laden slenderly with glass balls and ropes of red popcorn, the work of painful hands after the childher are abed. Mr. Dooley knew Christmas was coming by the calendar, the expiration of his quarterly license, and Mr. Hennessy coming in with a doll in his pocket and a rocking-chair under his arm. "Prisints?" said the philosopher. "Yis," said Mr. Hennessy. "I had to do it. I med up me mind this year that I wudden't buy anny Chris'mas prisints or take anny. I can't afford it. Times has been fearful ha-ard, an' a look iv pain comes over th' ol' woman's face whin I hold out fifty cints fr'm me salary on Saturdah night. I give it out that I didn't want annything, but they'se so much scurryin' ar-round an' hidin' things whin I go in that I know they've got something f'r me. I cudden't stand it no longer, so I wint down town to-night, down be Shekel an' Whooper's place, an' bought these things. This is a fine doll f'r th' money." "It is," said Mr. Dooley, taking the doll and examining it with the eye of an art critic. "It closes its eyes,--yis, an', bedad, it cries if ye punch it. They're makin' these things more like human bein's ivry year. An' does it say pap-pah an' mam-mah, I dinnaw?" "No," said Mr. Hennessy, "th' pap-pah an' mam-mah dolls costs too much." "Well," continued Mr. Dooley, "we can't have ivrything we want in this wurruld. If I had me way, I'd buy goold watches an' chains f'r ivrybody in th' r-road, an' a few iv th' good Germans. I feel that gin'rous. But 'tis no use. Ye can't give what ye want. Ivry little boy ixpects a pony at Chris'mas, an' ivry little girl a chain an' locket; an' ivry man thinks he's sure goin' to get th' goold-headed cane he's longed f'r since he come over. But they all fin'lly land on rockin'-horses an' dolls, an' suspindhers that r-run pink flowers into their shirts an' tattoo thim in summer. An' they conceal their grief Chris'mas mornin' an' thry to look pleasant with murdher in their hearts. "Some wan has always give me a Chris'mas prisint, though no wan has anny r-right to. But no wan iver give me annything I cud wear or ate or dhrink or smoke or curl me hair with. I've had flasks iv whisky give me,--me that have lashin's iv whisky at me elbow day an' night; an', whin I opined thim, blue an' yellow flames come out an' some iv th' stuff r-run over on th' flure, an' set fire to th' buildin'. I smoke th' best five-cint see-gar that money can buy; yet, whin a good frind iv mine wants to make me a prisint f'r Christmas, he goes to a harness shop an' buys a box iv see-gars with excelsior fillin's an' burlap wrappers, an', if I smoked wan an' lived, I'd be arristed f'r arson. I got a pair iv suspinders wanst fr'm a lady,--niver mind her name,--an' I wurruked hard that day; an' th' decorations moved back into me, an' I had to take thim out with pumice stone. I didn't lose th' taste iv th' paint f'r weeks an' weeks. "Wan year I wanted a watch more thin annything in th' wurruld. I talked watches to ivry wan that I thought had designs on me. I made it a pint to ask me frinds what time iv night it was, an' thin say, 'Dear me, I ought to get a watch if I cud affoord it.' I used to tout people down to th' jooler's shop, an' stand be th' window with a hungry look in th' eyes iv me, as much as to say, 'If I don't get a watch, I'll perish.' I talked watches an' thought watches an' dhreamed watches. Father Kelly rebuked me f'r bein' late f'r mass. 'How can I get there befure th' gospil, whin I don't know what time it is?' says I. 'Why don't ye luk at ye'er watch?' he says. 'I haven't none,' says I. Did he give me a watch? Faith, he did not. He sint me a box iv soap that made me smell like a coon goin' to a ball in a State Sthreet ca-ar. I got a necktie fr'm wan man; an', if I wore it to a meetin' iv th' Young Hebrews' Char'table Society, they'd've thrun me out. That man wanted me to be kilt. Another la-ad sint me a silk handkerchief that broke on me poor nose. Th' nearest I got to a watch was a hair chain that unravelled, an' made me look as if I'd been curryin' a Shetland pony. I niver got what I wanted, an I niver expect to. No wan does." "I'll get ye what ye want," said Mr. Hennessy, "if ye'll tell me what it is, an' it don't cost too much." "Will ye?" said Mr. Dooley, eagerly. "I will," said Mr. Hennessy, "if 'tis within me means." "Ye're jokin'," said Mr. Dooley. "I'm not. I mane it." "Do ye, honest?" "I do so." "Thin," said Mr. Dooley, "get me th' Audjitooroom. I've wanted that to play with f'r manny years." And Mr. Hennessy went away with the rocking-chair under his arm, the doll in his pocket, and dumb anger in his heart. ON ANARCHISTS. "'Tis ha-ard bein' a king these days," said Mr. Dooley. "Manny's th' man on a throne wishes his father'd brought him up a cooper, what with wages bein' docked be parlymints an' ragin' arnychists r-runnin' wild with dinnymite bombs undher their ar-rms an' carvin'-knives in their pockets. "Onaisy, as Hogan says, is th' head that wears a crown. They'se other heads that're onaisy, too; but ye don't hear iv thim. But a man gr-rows up in wan iv thim furrin counthries, an' he's thrained f'r to be a king. Hivin may've intinded him f'r a dooce or a jack, at th' most; but he has to follow th' same line as his father. 'Tis like pawn-brokin' that way. Ye niver heerd iv a pawnbroker's son doin' annything else. Wanst a king, always a king. Other men's sons may pack away a shirt in a thrunk, an' go out into th' wurruld, brakin' on a freight or ladin' Indyanny bankers up to a shell game. But a man that's headed f'r a throne can't r-run away. He's got to take th' job. If he kicks, they blindfold him an' back him in. He can't ask f'r his time at th' end iv th' week, an' lave. He pays himsilf. He can't sthrike, because he'd have to ordher out th' polis to subjoo himsilf. He can't go to th' boss, an' say: 'Me hours is too long an' th' wurruk is tajious. Give me me pay-check.' He has no boss. A man can't be indipindint onless he has a boss. 'Tis thrue. So he takes th' place, an' th' chances ar-re he's th' biggest omadhon in th' wurruld, an' knows no more about r-runnin' a counthry thin I know about ladin' an orchesthry. An', if he don't do annything, he's a dummy, an', if he does do annything, he's crazy; an' whin he dies, his foreman says: 'Sure, 'tis th' divvle's own time I had savin' that bosthoon fr'm desthroyin' himsilf. If it wasn't f'r me, th' poor thing'd have closed down the wurruks, an' gone to th' far-rm long ago.' An' wan day, whin he's takin' th' air, p'raps, along comes an Eyetalyan, an' says he, 'Ar-re ye a king?' 'That's my name,' says his majesty. 'Betther dead,' says th' Eyetalyan; an' they'se a scramble, an' another king goes over th' long r-road. "I don't know much about arnychists. We had thim here--wanst. They wint again polismen, mostly. Mebbe that's because polismen's th' nearest things to kings they cud find. But, annyhow, I sometimes think I know why they're arnychists somewhere, an' why they ain't in other places. It minds me iv what happened wanst in me cousin Terence's fam'ly. They was livin' down near Healey's slough in wan iv thim ol' Doherty's houses,--not Doherty that ye know, th' j'iner, a good man whin he don't dhrink. No, 'twas an ol' grouch iv a man be th' name iv Malachi Doherty that used to keep five-day notices in his thrunk, an' ownded his own privit justice iv th' peace. Me cousin Terence was as dacint a man as iver shoed a hor-rse; an his wife was a good woman, too, though I niver took much to th' Dolans. Fr'm Tipperary, they was, an' too handy throwin' things at ye. An' he had a nice fam'ly growin' up, an' I niver knowed people that lived together more quite an' amyable. 'Twas good f'r to see thim settin' ar-roun' th' parlor,--Terence spellin' out th' newspaper, an' his good woman mendin' socks, an' Honoria playin' th' 'Vale iv Avoca' on th' pianny, an' th' kids r-rowlin' on th' flure. "But wan day it happened that that whole fam'ly begun to rasp on wan another. Honoria'd set down at th' pianny, an' th' ol' man'd growl: 'F'r th' love iv th' saints, close down that hurdy-gurdy, an' lave a man injye his headache!' An' th' good woman scolded Terence, an' th' kids pulled th' leg fr'm undher th' stove; an', whin th' big boy Mike come home fr'm Omaha, he found none iv thim speakin' to th' others. He cud do nawthin', an' he wint f'r Father Kelly. Father Kelly sniffed th' air whin he come in; an' says he, 'Terence, what's th' matther with ye'er catch basin?' 'I dinnaw,' growled Terence. 'Well,' says Father Kelly, 'ye put on ye'er hat this minyit, an' go out f'r a plumber,' he says. 'I'm not needed here,' he says. 'Ye'er sowls ar-re all r-right,' he says; 'but ye'er systems ar-re out iv ordher,' he says. 'Fetch in a plumber,' he says, 'whilst I goes down to Doherty, an' make him think his lease on th' hereafther is defective,' he says." "Ye're right," said Mr. Hennessy, who had followed the argument dimly. "Iv coorse I'm right," said Mr. Dooley. "What they need over there in furrin' counthries is not a priest, but a plumber. 'Tis no good prayin' again arnychists, Hinnissy. Arnychists is sewer gas." ON THE DREYFUS CASE. "I see be th' pa-apers," said Mr. Dooley, "that Col. Hinnery, th' man that sint me frind Cap. Dhry-fuss to th' cage, has moved on. I suppose they'll give th' Cap a new thrile now." "I hope they won't," said Mr. Hennessy. "I don't know annything about it, but I think he's guilty. He's a Jew." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "ye'er thoughts on this subject is inthrestin', but not conclusive, as Dorsey said to th' Pollack that thought he cud lick him. Ye have a r-right to ye'er opinyon, an' ye'll hold it annyhow, whether ye have a r-right to it or not. Like most iv ye'er fellow-citizens, ye start impartial. Ye don't know annything about th' case. If ye knew annything, ye'd not have an opinyon wan way or th' other. They'se niver been a matther come up in my time that th' American people was so sure about as they ar-re about th' Dhryfliss case. Th' Frinch ar-re not so sure, but they'se not a polisman in this counthry that can't tell ye jus' where Dhry-russ was whin th' remains iv th' poor girl was found. That's because th' thrile was secret. If 'twas an open thrile, an' ye heerd th' tistimony, an' knew th' language, an' saw th' safe afther 'twas blown open, ye'd be puzzled, an' not care a rush whether Dhry-fuss was naked in a cage or takin' tay with his uncle at th' Benny Brith Club. "I haven't made up me mind whether th' Cap done th' shootin' or not. He was certainly in th' neighborhood whin th' fire started, an' th' polis dug up quite a lot iv lead pipe in his back yard. But it's wan thing to sus-pect a man iv doin' a job an' another thing to prove that he didn't. Me frind Zola thinks he's innocint, an' he raised th' divvle at th' thrile. Whin th' judge come up on th' bench an' opined th' coort, Zola was settin' down below with th' lawyers. 'Let us pro-ceed,' says th' impartial an' fair-minded judge, 'to th' thrile iv th' haynious monsther Cap Dhry-fuss,' he says. Up jumps Zola, an' says he in Frinch: 'Jackuse,' he says, which is a hell of a mane thing to say to anny man. An' they thrun him out. 'Judge,' says th' attorney f'r th' difinse, 'an' gintlemen iv th' jury,' he says. 'Ye're a liar,' says th' judge. 'Cap, ye're guilty, an' ye know it,' he says. 'Th' decision iv th' coort is that ye be put in a cage, an' sint to th' Divvle's own island f'r th' r-rest iv ye'er life,' he says. 'Let us pro-ceed to hearin' th' tistimony,' he says. 'Call all th' witnesses at wanst,' he says, 'an' lave thim have it out on th' flure,' he says. Be this time Zola has come back; an' he jumps up, an', says he, 'Jackuse,' he says. An' they thrun him out. "'Befure we go anny farther,' says th' lawyer f'r th' difinse, 'I wish to sarve notice that, whin this thrile is over, I intind,' he says, 'to wait outside,' he says, 'an' hammer th' hon'rable coort into an omelet,' he says. 'With these few remarks I will close,' he says. 'Th' coort,' says th' judge, 'is always r-ready to defind th' honor iv France,' he says; 'an', if th' larned counsel will con-sint,' he says, 'to step up here f'r a minyit,' he says, 'th' coort'll put a sthrangle hold on him that'll not do him a bit iv good,' he says. 'Ah!' he says. 'Here's me ol' frind Pat th' Clam,' he says. 'Pat, what d'ye know about this case?' he says. 'None iv ye'er business,' says Pat. 'Answered like a man an' a sojer,' says th' coort. 'Jackuse,' says Zola fr'm th' dureway. An' they thrun him out. 'Call Col. Hinnery,' says th' coort. 'He ray-fuses to answer.' 'Good. Th' case is clear. Cap forged th' will. Th' coort will now adjourn f'r dools, an' all ladin' officers iv th' ar-rmy not in disgrace already will assimble in jail, an' com-mit suicide,' he says. 'Jackuse,' says Zola, an' started f'r th' woods, pursued be his fellow-editors. He's off somewhere in a three now hollerin' 'Jackuse' at ivry wan that passes, sufferin' martyrdom f'r his counthry an' writin' now an' thin about it all. "That's all I know about Cap Dhry-fuss' case, an' that's all anny man knows. Ye didn't know as much, Hinnissy, till I told ye. I don't know whether Cap stole th' dog or not." "What's he charged with?" Mr. Hennessy asked, in bewilderment. "I'll niver tell ye," said Mr. Dooley. "It's too much to ask." "Well, annyhow," said Mr. Hennessy, "he's guilty, ye can bet on that." ON THE DECADENCE OF GREECE. "That young Hogan is a smart la-ad," said Mr. Dooley. "A smart la-ad an' a good wan, too." "None betther," said Mr. Hennessy. "None betther in th' ward," said Mr. Dooley, which was a high appreciation. "But there ar-re things about human nature an' histhry that ain't taught at Saint Ignateeus'. I tell thim to Hogan's la-ad. "He was walkin' be th' store wan day las' week, an' I ast him how th' wa-ar wint. 'Tis sthrange, with churches two in a block, an' public schools as thick as lamp-posts, that, whin a man stops ye on th' sthreet, he'll ayether ast ye th' scoor iv th' base-ball game or talk iv th' Greek war with ye. I ain't seen annything that happened since Parnell's day that's aroused so much enthusyasm on th' Ar-rchey Road as th' Greek war. 'How goes th' war?' says I to young Hogan, 'How goes the war between th' ac-cursed infidel an' th' dog iv a Christian?' I says. 'It goes bad,' he says. 'Th' Greeks won a thremenjous battle, killin' manny millions iv th' Moslem murdherers, but was obliged to retreat thirty-two miles in a gallop.' 'Is that so?' says I. 'Sure that seems to be their luck,' I says. 'Whin-iver they win, they lose; an', whin they lose, they lose,' I says. 'What ails thim?' I says. 'Is th' riferee again thim?' 'I can't make it out,' he says, while a tear sthud in his eye. 'Whin I think iv Leonidas at th' pass iv Thermometer,' he says, 'an' So-an'-so on th' field iv Marathon an' This-or-that th' Spartan hero,' he says, 'I cannot undherstand f'r th' life iv me why th' Greeks shud have been dhruv fr'm pillar to post be an ar-rmy iv slaves. Didn't Leonidas, with hardly as manny men as there are Raypublicans in this precint, hold th' pass again a savage horde?' he says. 'He did,' says I. 'He did.' 'An' didn't What's-his-name on th' field iv Marathon overcome an' desthroy th' ravagin' armies iv Persia?' he says. 'Thrue f'r ye,' says I. 'There's no doubt in th' wurruld about it,' I says. 'An' look at Alexander th' Great,' he says. 'Aleck was a turror, an' no mistake,' says I. 'An' Miltiades,' he says. 'I on'y know what I hear iv him,' says I. 'But fr'm all accounts he must have been consid'rable iv a fellow,' says I. 'An' in later days Marco Boozaris,' he says. 'He was th' man that come in con-sumption's dreaded form,' says I, 'an' he was afraid iv no man.' 'Well, thin,' says he, 'how ar-re we to account f'r this disgrace?' he says. "'Well,' says I, 'd'ye raymimber th' fightin' tenth precint? Ye must've heerd ye'er father tell about it. It was famous f'r th' quality an' quantity iv th' warfare put up in it. Ivry man in th' tenth precint cud fight his weight in scrap-iron. Most iv thim come fr'm th' ancient Hellenic province iv May-o; but they was a fair sprinklin' iv Greek heroes fr'm Roscommon an' Tipperary, an' a few from th' historic spot where th' Head iv Kinsale looks out on th' sea, an' th' sea looks up at th' Head iv Kinsale. Th' little boys cud box befure they was out iv skirts. Far an' wide, th' tenth precint was th' turror iv its inimies. Ye talk about Leonidas an' th' pass iv Thermometer. Ye ought to've seen Mike Riordan an' his fam'ly defindin' th' pollin'-place whin Eddie Burke's brigade charged it wan fine day. That hero sthud f'r four hours in th' dureway, ar-rmed on'y with a monkey-wrinch, an' built a wall iv invaders in frint iv him till th' judges cud dig their way out through th' cellar, an' escape to th' polis station. "'F'r manny years th' tenth precint was th' banner precint iv th' Sixth Wa-ard, an' its gallant heroes repelled all attacks by land or Healey's slough. But, as time wint by, changes come over it. Th' Hannigans an' Leonidases an' Caseys moved out, havin' made their pile. Some iv th' grandest iv th' heroes died, an' their fam'lies were broke up. Polish Jews an' Swedes an' Germans an' Hollanders swarmed in, settlin' down on th' sacred sites,' I says. 'Wan night three years ago, a band iv rovin' Bohemians fr'm th' Eighth Ward come acrost th' river, kickin' over bar'ls an' ash-boxes, an' swooped down on th' tenth precint. Mike Riordan, him that kept th' pollin'-place in th' good days iv old, was th' on'y wan iv th' race iv ancient heroes on earth. He thried to rally th' ingloryous descindants iv a proud people. F'r a while they made a stand in Halsted Sthreet, an' shouted bad but difficult names at th' infidel hordes, an' threw bricks that laid out their own people. But it was on'y f'r a moment. In another they tur-rned an' r-run, lavin' Mike Riordan standin' alone in th' mist iv th' fray. If it wasn't f'r th' intervintion iv th' powers in th' shape iv th' loot an' a wagon-load iv polismin, th' Bohemians'd have devastated as far as th' ruins iv th' gas-house, which is th' same as that there Acropulist ye talk about,' says I. "'No, my son,' says I. 'On account iv th' fluctuations in rint an' throuble with th' landlord it's not safe to presoom that th' same fam'ly always lives in th' wan house. Th' very thing happened to Greece that has happened to th' tenth precint iv th' Sixth Ward. Th' Greeks have moved out, an' th' Swedes come in. Ye yet may live to see th' day,' says I, 'whin what is thrue iv Athens an' th' tenth precint will be thrue iv th' whole Sixth Wa-ard.'" "Ye don't mean that," said Mr. Hennessy, gasping. "I do," said Mr. Dooley, with solemnity. "'Tis histhry." ON THE INDIAN WAR. "Gin'ral Sherman was wan iv th' smartest men we iver had," said Mr. Dooley. "He said so manny bright things. 'Twas him said, 'War is hell'; an' that's wan iv th' finest sayin's I know annything about. 'War is hell': 'tis a thrue wurrud an' a fine sintiment. An' Gin'ral Sherman says, 'Th' on'y good Indyun is a dead Indyun.' An' that's a good sayin', too. So, be th' powers, we've started in again to improve th' race; an', if we can get in Gatlin' guns enough befure th' winter's snows, we'll tur-rn thim Chippeways into a cimitry branch iv th' Young Men's Christyan Association. We will so. "Ye see, Hinnissy, th' Indyun is bound f'r to give way to th' onward march iv white civilization. You an' me, Hinnissy, is th' white civilization. I come along, an' I find ol' Snakes-in-his-Gaiters livin' quite an' dacint in a new frame house. Thinks I, ''Tis a shame f'r to lave this savage man in possession iv this fine abode, an' him not able f'r to vote an' without a frind on th' polis foorce.' So says I: 'Snakes,' I says, 'get along,' says I. 'I want ye'er house, an' ye best move out west iv th' thracks, an' dig a hole f'r ye'ersilf,' I says. 'Divvle th' fut I will step out iv this house,' says Snakes. 'I built it, an' I have th' law on me side,' he says. 'F'r why should I take Mary Ann, an' Terence, an' Honoria, an' Robert Immitt Snakes, an' all me little Snakeses, an' rustle out west iv th' thracks,' he says, 'far fr'm th' bones iv me ancestors,' he says, 'an beyond th' water-pipe extinsion,' he says. 'Because,' says I, 'I am th' walkin' dilygate iv white civilization,' I says. 'I'm jus' as civilized as you,' says Snakes. 'I wear pants,' he says, 'an' a plug hat,' he says. 'Ye might wear tin pair,' says I, 'an' all at wanst,' I says, 'an' ye'd still be a savage,' says I; 'an' I'd be civilized,' I says, 'if I hadn't on so much as a bangle bracelet,' I says. 'So get out,' says I. 'So get out,' says I, 'f'r th' pianny movers is outside, r-ready to go to wurruk,' I says. "Well, Snakes he fires a stove lid at me; an' I go down to th' polis station, an' says I, 'Loot,' I says, 'they'se a dhrunken Indyun not votin' up near th' mills, an he's carryin' on outrageous, an' he won't let me hang me pitchers on his wall,' says I. 'Vile savage,' says th' loot, 'I'll tache him to rayspict th' rules iv civilization,' he says. An' he takes out a wagon load, an' goes afther Snakes. Well, me frind Snakes gives him battle, an', knowin' th' premises well, he's able to put up a gr-reat fight; but afther a while they rip him away, an' have him in th' pathrol wagon, with a man settin' on his head. An' thin he's put undher bonds to keep the peace, an' they sind him out west iv th' thracks; an' I move into th' house, an' tear out th' front an' start a faro bank. Some day, whin I get tired or th' Swedes dhrive me out or Schwartzmeister makes his lunch too sthrong f'r competition, I'll go afther Snakes again. "Th' on'y hope f'r th Indyun is to put his house on rollers, an' keep a team hitched to it, an', whin he sees a white man, to start f'r th' settin' sun. He's rooned whin he has a cellar. He ought to put all th' plugged dollars that he gets from th' agent an' be pickin' blueberries into rowlin' stock. If he knew annything about balloons, he'd have a chanst; but we white men, Hinnissy, has all th' balloons. But, annyhow, he's doomed, as Hogan says. Th' onward march iv th' white civilization, with morgedges an' other modhern improvements, is slowly but surely, as Hogan says, chasin' him out; an' th' last iv him'll be livin' in a divin'-bell somewhere out in th' Pacific Ocean." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, the stout philanthropist, "I think so, an' thin again I dinnaw. I don't think we threat thim r-right. If I was th' gover'mint, I'd take what they got, but I'd say, 'Here, take this tin-dollar bill an' go out an' dhrink ye'ersilf to death,' I'd say. They ought to have some show." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "if ye feel that way, ye ought to go an' inlist as an Indyun." ON GOLF. "An' what's this game iv goluf like, I dinnaw?" said Mr. Hennessy, lighting his pipe with much unnecessary noise. "Ye're a good deal iv a spoort, Jawnny: did ye iver thry it?" "No," said Mr. McKenna. "I used to roll a hoop onct upon a time, but I'm out of condition now." "It ain't like base-ball," said Mr. Hennessy, "an' it ain't like shinny, an' it ain't like lawn-teenis, an' it ain't like forty-fives, an' it ain't"-- "Like canvas-back duck or anny other game ye know," said Mr. Dooley. "Thin what is it like?" said Mr. Hennessy. "I see be th' pa-aper that Hobart What-d'ye-call-him is wan iv th' best at it. Th' other day he made a scoor iv wan hundherd an' sixty-eight, but whether 'twas miles or stitches I cudden't make out fr'm th' raypoorts." "'Tis little ye know," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' game iv goluf is as old as th' hills. Me father had goluf links all over his place, an', whin I was a kid, 'twas wan iv th' principal spoorts iv me life, afther I'd dug the turf f'r th' avenin', to go out and putt"-- "Poot, ye mean," said Mr. Hennessy. "They'se no such wurrud in th' English language as putt. Belinda called me down ha-ard on it no more thin las' night." "There ye go!" said Mr. Dooley, angrily. "There ye go! D'ye think this here game iv goluf is a spellin' match? 'Tis like ye, Hinnissy, to be refereein' a twinty-round glove contest be th' rule iv three. I tell ye I used to go out in th' avenin' an' putt me mashie like hell-an'-all, till I was knowed fr'm wan end iv th' county to th' other as th' champeen putter. I putted two men fr'm Roscommon in wan day, an' they had to be took home on a dure. "In America th' ga-ame is played more ginteel, an' is more like cigareet-smokin', though less unhealthy f'r th' lungs. 'Tis a good game to play in a hammick whin ye're all tired out fr'm social duties or shovellin' coke. Out-iv-dure golf is played be th' followin' rules. If ye bring ye'er wife f'r to see th' game, an' she has her name in th' paper, that counts ye wan. So th' first thing ye do is to find th' raypoorter, an' tell him ye're there. Thin ye ordher a bottle iv brown pop, an' have ye'er second fan ye with a towel. Afther this ye'd dhress, an' here ye've got to be dam particklar or ye'll be stuck f'r th' dhrinks. If ye'er necktie is not on sthraight, that counts ye'er opponent wan. If both ye an' ye'er opponent have ye'er neckties on crooked, th' first man that sees it gets th' stakes. Thin ye ordher a carredge"-- "Order what?" demanded Mr. McKenna. "A carredge." "What for?" "F'r to take ye 'round th' links. Ye have a little boy followin' ye, carryin' ye'er clubs. Th' man that has th' smallest little boy it counts him two. If th' little boy has th' rickets, it counts th' man in th' carredge three. The little boys is called caddies; but Clarence Heaney that tol' me all this--he belongs to th' Foorth Wa-ard Goluf an' McKinley Club--said what th' little boys calls th' players'd not be fit f'r to repeat. "Well, whin ye dhrive up to th' tea grounds"-- "Th' what?" demanded Mr. Hennessy. "Th' tea grounds, that's like th' homeplate in base-ball or ordherin' a piece iv chalk in a game iv spoil five. Its th' beginnin' iv ivrything. Whin ye get to th' tea grounds, ye step out, an' have ye're hat irned be th' caddie. Thin ye'er man that ye're goin' aginst comes up, an' he asks ye, 'Do you know Potther Pammer?' Well, if ye don't know Potther Pammer, it's all up with ye: ye lose two points. But ye come right back at him with an' upper cut: 'Do ye live on th' Lake Shore dhrive?' If he doesn't, ye have him in th' nine hole. Ye needn't play with him anny more. But, if ye do play with him, he has to spot three balls. If he's a good man an' shifty on his feet, he'll counter be askin' ye where ye spend th' summer. Now ye can't tell him that ye spent th' summer with wan hook on th' free lunch an' another on th' ticker tape, an' so ye go back three. That needn't discourage ye at all, at all. Here's yer chance to mix up, an' ye ask him if he was iver in Scotland. If he wasn't, it counts ye five. Thin ye tell him that ye had an aunt wanst that heerd th' Jook iv Argyle talk in a phonograph; an' onless he comes back an' shoots it into ye that he was wanst run over be th' Prince iv Wales, ye have him groggy. I don't know whether th' Jook iv Argyle or th' Prince iv Wales counts f'r most. They're like th' right an' left bower iv thrumps. Th' best players is called scratch-men." "What's that f'r?" Mr. Hennessy asked. "It's a Scotch game," said Mr. Dooley, with a wave of his hand. "I wonder how it come out to-day. Here's th' pa-aper. Let me see. McKinley at Canton. Still there. He niver cared to wandher fr'm his own fireside. Collar-button men f'r th' goold standard. Statues iv Heidelback, Ickleheimer an' Company to be erected in Washington. Another Vanderbilt weddin'. That sounds like goluf, but it ain't. Newport society livin' in Mrs. Potther Pammer's cellar. Green-goods men declare f'r honest money. Anson in foorth place some more. Pianny tuners f'r McKinley. Li Hung Chang smells a rat. Abner McKinley supports th' goold standard. Wait a minyit. Here it is: 'Goluf in gay attire.' Let me see. H'm. 'Foozled his aproach,'--nasty thing. 'Topped th' ball.' 'Three up an' two to play.' Ah, here's the scoor. 'Among those prisint were Messrs. an' Mesdames"-- "Hol' on!" cried Mr. Hennessy, grabbing the paper out of his friend's hands. "That's thim that was there." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, decisively, "that's th' goluf scoor." ON THE FRENCH CHARACTER. "Th' Fr-rinch," said Mr. Dooley, "ar-re a tumulchuse people." "Like as not," said Mr. Hennessy, "there's some of our blood in thim. A good manny iv our people wint over wanst. They cudden't all've been kilt at Fontenoy." "No," said Mr. Dooley, "'tis another kind iv tumulchuse. Whin an Irishman rages, 'tis with wan idee in his mind. He's goin' for'ard again a single inimy, an' not stone walls or irne chains'll stop him. He may pause f'r a dhrink or to take a shy at a polisman,--f'r a polisman's always in th' way,--but he's as thrue as th' needle in th' camel's eye, as Hogan says, to th' objec' iv his hathred. So he's been f'r four hundherd years, an' so he'll always be while they'se an England on th' map. Whin England purrishes, th' Irish'll die iv what Hogan calls ongwee, which is havin' no wan in the weary wurruld ye don't love. "But with th' Fr-rinch 'tis diff'rent. I say 'tis diffrent with th' Fr-rinch. They're an onaisy an' a thrubbled people. They start out down th' street, loaded up with obscenthe an' cigareets, pavin' blocks an' walkin' sthicks an' shtove lids in their hands, cryin', 'A base Cap Dhry-fuss!' th' cap bein' far off in a cage, by dad. So far, so good. 'A base Cap Dhry-fuss!' says I; 'an' the same to all thraitors, an' manny iv thim, whether they ar-re or not.' But along comes a man with a poor hat. 'Where did he get th' hat?' demands th' mob. Down with th' bad tile!' they say. 'A base th' lid!' An' they desthroy th' hat, an' th' man undher it succumbs to th' rule iv th' majority an' jines th' mob. On they go till they come to a restaurant. 'Ha,' says they, 'th' re-sort iv th' infamious Duclose.' 'His char-rges ar-re high,' says wan. 'I found a fish-bone in his soup,' says another. 'He's a thraitor,' says a third. 'A base th' soup kitchen! A base th' caafe!' says they; an' they seize th' unfortunate Duclose, an' bate him an' upset his kettles iv broth. Manetime where's Cap Dhry-fuss? Off in his comfortable cage, swingin' on th' perch an' atin' seed out iv a small bottle stuck in th' wire. Be th' time th' mob has desthroyed what they see on th' way, they've f'rgot th' Cap intirely; an' he's safe f'r another day. "'Tis unforch'nit, but 'tis thrue. Th' Fr-rinch ar-re not steady ayether in their politics or their morals. That's where they get done be th' hated British. Th' diff'rence in furrin' policies is the diff'rence between a second-rate safe blower an' a first-class boonco steerer. Th' Fr-rinch buy a ton iv dinnymite, spind five years in dhrillin' a hole through a steel dure, blow open th' safe, lose a leg or an ar-rm, an' get away with th' li'bilities iv th' firm. Th' English dhress up f'r a Methodist preacher, stick a piece iv lead pipe in th' tails iv their coat in case iv emargency, an' get all th' money there is in th' line. "In th' fr-ront dure comes th' Englishman with a coon king on ayether ar-rm that's jus' loaned him their kingdoms on a prom'ssory note, and discovers th' Fr-rinchman emargin' frim th' roons iv th' safe. 'What ar-re ye doin' here?' says th' Englishman. 'Robbin' th' naygurs,' says th' Fr-rinchman, bein' thruthful as well as polite. 'Wicked man,' says th' Englishman. 'What ar-re ye doin' here?' says the Fr-rinchman. 'Improvin' the morals iv th' inhabitants,' says th' Englishman. 'Is it not so, Rastus?' he says. 'It is,' says wan iv th' kings. 'I'm a poorer but a betther man since ye came,' he says. 'Yes,' says th' Englishman, 'I pro-pose f'r to thruly rayform this onhappy counthry,' he says. 'This benighted haythen on me exthreme left has been injooced to cut out a good dale iv his wife's business,' he says, 'an' go through life torminted be on'y wan spouse,' he says. 'Th' r-rest will go to wurruk f'r me,' he says. 'All crap games bein' particular ongodly'll be undher th' con-throl iv th' gover'mint, which,' he says, 'is me. Policy shops'll be r-run carefully, an' I've appinted Rastus here Writer-in-Waitin' to her Majesty,' he says. "'Th' r-rum they dhrink in these par-rts,' he says, 'is fearful,' he says. 'What shall we do to stop th' ac-cursed thraffic? Sell thim gin,' says I. ''Tis shameful they shud go out with nawthin' to hide their nakedness,' he says. 'I'll fetch thim clothes; but,' he says, cas th' weather's too war-rum f'r clothes, I'll not sell thim annything that'll last long,' he says. 'If it wasn't f'r relligion,' he says, 'I don't know what th' 'ell th' wurruld wud come to,' he says. 'Who's relligion?' says th' Fr-rinchman. 'My relligion,' says th' Englishman. 'These pore, benighted savidges,' he says, ''ll not be left to yer odjious morals an' yer hootchy-kootchy school iv thought,' he says, 'but,' he says, 'undher th' binif'cint r-rule iv a wise an' thrue gover'mint,' he says, ''ll be thurly prepared f'r hivin,' he says, 'whin their time comes to go,' he says, 'which I thrust will not be long,' he says. 'So I'll thank ye to be off,' he says, 'or I'll take th' thick end iv the slung-shot to ye,' he says. "Th' Fr-rinchman is a br-rave man, an' he'd stay an' have it out on th' flure; but some wan calls, 'A base th' Chinnyman!' an' off he goes on another thrack. An', whin he gets to th' Chinnymen, he finds th' English've abased thim already. An' so he dances fr'm wan par-rt th' wurruld to another like a riochous an' happy flea, an' divvle th' bit iv progress he makes, on'y thrubble f'r others an' a merry life f'r himsilf." "If England wint to war with France," said Mr. Hennessy, suddenly, "I'd be f'r France." "So ye wud, Hinnissy. So ye wud," said Mr. Dooley. "An' I'm not sayin' that I wudden't f'aget that I'm an Anglo-Saxon long enough to take wan crack at th' Prince iv Wales with a coupli' pin mesilf." 
9329	----	The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys BY GULIELMA ZOLLINGER (1904, 10th edition) [Illustration: "CAN'T I DIPIND ON YE B'YS?"] ILLUSTRATIONS Can't I depind on ye, b'ys? It's your father's ways you have For every one carried something "Cheer up, Andy!" he said Mrs. Brady looked at the tall, slender boy Pat donned his apron "I've good news for you, Fannie," said the General The General makes the gravy Pat doing the marketing Pat and Mike building the kitchen Up on the roof sat Mike with his knife Barney and Tommie a-takin' care of the geese The merchant turned to the girl clerk Mrs. O'Callaghan looked astonished Little Jim became downright sulky In they came at that moment Jim made a clatter with the dishes Open the oven door, Jim Look at that Jim work Three cheers for Jim O'Callaghan Pat and Mike were one on each side of him CHAPTER I When Mr. O'Callaghan died, after a long, severe, and expensive sickness, he left to his widow a state of unlimited poverty and seven boys. "Sure, an' sivin's the parfect number," she said through her tears as she looked round on her flock; "and Tim was the bist man as iver lived, may the saints presarve him an' rist him from his dreadful pains!" Thus did she loyally ignore the poverty. It was the last of February. Soon they must leave the tiny house of three rooms and the farm, for another renter stood ready to take possession. There would be nothing to take with them but their clothing and their scant household furniture, for the farm rent and the sickness had swallowed up the crop, the farming implements, and all the stock. Pat, who was fifteen and the oldest, looked gloomily out at one of the kitchen windows, and Mike, the next brother, a boy of thirteen, looked as gloomily as he could out of the other. Mike always followed Pat's lead. When eleven-year-old Andy was a baby Pat had taken him for a pet. Accordingly, when, two years later, Jim was born, Mike took him in charge. To-day Pat's arm was thrown protectingly over Andy's shoulders, while Jim stood in the embrace of Mike's arm at the other window. Barney and Tommie, aged seven and five respectively, whispered together in a corner, and three-year-old Larry sat on the floor at his mother's feet looking wonderingly up into her face. Five days the father had slept in his grave, and still there was the same solemn hush of sorrow in the house that fell upon it when he died. "And what do you intend to do?" sympathetically asked Mrs. Smith, a well-to-do farmer's wife and a neighbor. The widow straightened her trim little figure, wiped her eyes, and replied in a firm voice: "It's goin' to town I am, where there's work to be got, as well as good schoolin' for the b'ys." "But don't you think that seven boys are almost more than one little woman can support? Hadn't you better put some of them out--for a time?"--the kind neighbor was quick to add, as she saw the gathering frown on the widow's face. "Sure," she replied, 'twas the Lord give me the b'ys, an' 'twas the Lord took away their blissid father. Do ye think He'd 'a' done ayther wan or the other if He hadn't thought I could care for 'em all? An' I will, too. It may be we'll be hungry--yis, an' cold, too--wanst in a while. But it won't be for long." "But town is a bad place for boys, I'm told," urged the neighbor. "Not for mine," answered the widow quietly. "They're their father's b'ys, an' I can depind on 'em. They moind me loightest word. Come here, Pat, an' Moike, an' Andy, an' Jim, an' Barney, an' Tommie!" Obediently the six drew near. She raised Larry to her lap, and looked up touchingly into their faces. "Can't I depind on ye, b'ys?" "Yes, mother, course you can," answered Pat for them all. A moment the widow paused to steady her voice, and then resumed, "It's all settled. A-Saturday I goes to town to get a place. A-Monday we moves." The neighbor saw that it was indeed settled, and, like a discreet woman, did not push her counsel further, but presently took her leave, hoping that the future might be brighter than it promised for Mrs. O'Callaghan and her boys. * * * * * "Aise 'em up an' down the hills, Pat, the dear bastes that your father loved!" Mrs. O'Callaghan and Pat were driving to Wennott behind the team that was theirs no longer, and it was Saturday. No need to speak to Pat. The whip rested in the socket, and he wished, for his part, that the horses would crawl. He knew how poor they were, and he did not want to go to town. But mother said town, and town it must be. Down across the railroad track, a little northeast of the depot, was a triangular bit of ground containing about as much as two lots, and on it had been erected a poor little shanty of two rooms. The widow knew of this place, and she meant to try to secure it. "'Twill jist do for the loikes of us, Pat, for it's a low rint we're after, an' a place quiet loike an' free from obsarvers. If it's poor ye are, well an' good, but, says I, 'There's no use of makin' a show of it.' For it's not a pretty show that poverty makes, so it ain't, an', says I, 'A pretty show or none.' I see you're of my moind," she continued with a shrewd glance at him, "an' it heartens me whin ye agree with me, for your father's gone, an' him and me used to agree wonderful." Pat's lips twitched. He had been very fond of his father. And all at once it seemed to him that town and the shanty were the two most desirable things in their future. "But, cheer up, Pat! 'Twas your father as was a loively man, d'ye moind? Yon's the town. It's hopin' I am that our business'll soon be done." Pat's face brightened a little, for he found the entry into even so small a town as Wennott a diversion. To-day he looked about him with new interest, for here were streets and stores that were to become familiar to him. They entered the town from the south and drove directly to its center, where stood the courthouse in a small square surrounded by an iron hitching-rack. Stores faced it on every side, and above the stores were the lawyers' offices. Which one belonged to the man who had charge of the place the widow wished to rent, she wondered, and Pat wondered, as she stood by, while he tied the horses. [Illustration: "It's your father's ways you have."] Above the stores, too, were doctors' offices, and dentists' offices, dress-making-shops, and suites of rooms where young couples and, in some instances, small families lived. "We'll jist be inquirin', Pat. 'Tis the only way. But what to ask for, I don't know. Shall I be sayin' the bit of a place beyant the tracks?" "Yes, mother. That's what you want, ain't it?" "Sure it is, an' nothin' else, nayther. It's your father's ways you have, Pat. 'Twas himsilf as wint iver straight after what he wanted." Pat's eyes beamed and he held himself more proudly. What higher praise could there be for him than to be thought like his father? It chanced that the first lawyer they asked was the right one. "Luck's for us," whispered the little widow. "Though maybe 'twouldn't have been against us, nayther, if we'd had to hunt a bit." And then all three set out to look at the poor little property. "Sure, an' it suits me purpose intoirely," declared Mrs. O'Callaghan when the bargain had been concluded. "An' it's home we'll be goin' at wanst. We've naught to be buyin' the day, seein' we're movin' in on Monday." Pat made no answer. "Did you see thim geese a-squawkin' down by the tracks?" asked Mrs. O'Callaghan, as she and her son settled themselves on the high spring seat of the farm wagon. Pat nodded. "There's an idea," said his mother. "There's more than wan in the world as can raise geese. An' geese is nice atin', too. I didn't see no runnin' water near, but there's a plinty of ditches and low places where there'll be water a-standin' a good bit of the toime. An' thim that can't git runnin' water must take standin'. Yis, Pat, be they geese or min, in this world they must take what they can git an' fat up on it as much as they can, too." The thin little woman--thin from overwork and anxiety and grief--spoke thus to her tall son, who, from rapid growing, was thin, too, and she spoke with a soberness that told how she was trying to strengthen her own courage to meet the days before her. Absorbed in themselves, mother and son paid no heed to their surroundings, the horses fell into their accustomed brisk trot, and they were soon out on the narrow road that lay between the fields. "Now, Pat, me b'y," said Mrs. O'Callaghan, rousing herself, "you're the oldest an' I'll tell you my plans. I'm a-goin' to git washin' to do." The boy looked at his mother in astonishment. "I know I'm little," she nodded back at him, "but it's the grit in me that makes me strong. I can do it. For Tim's b'ys an' mine I can do it. Four days in the week I'll wash for other people, Friday I'll wash for my own, Saturday I'll mind for 'em, an' Sunday I'll rist." A few moments there was silence. The widow seemed to have no more to say. "An' what am I to do?" finally burst out Pat. "An' what's Mike to do? Sure we can help some way." "That you can, Pat. I was comin' to that. Did you notice the biggest room in the little house we rinted the day?" Pat nodded. "I thought you did. You're an obsarvin' b'y, Pat, jist loike your father. Well, I belave that room will jist about hold three beds an' lave a nate little path betwane ivery two of 'em. It's my notion we can be nate an' clane if we are poor, an' it'll be your part to make ivery wan of thim beds ivery day an' kape the floor clane. Larry an' mesilf, we'll slape in the kitchen, an' it's hopin' I am you'll kape that shoinin', too. An' then there's the coal to be got in an' the ashes to be took out. It does seem that iverything you bring in is the cause of somethin' to be took out, but it can't be helped, so it can't, so 'Out with it,' says I. An' there's the dishes to be washed an'--I hate to ask you, Pat, but do you think you could larn cookin' a bit?" She looked at him anxiously. The boy met her look bravely. "If you can work to earn it, 'tis meself as can cook it, I guess," he said. "Jist loike your father, you are, Pat. He wasn't niver afraid of tryin' nothin', an' siven b'ys takes cookin'. An' to hear you say you'll do it, whin I've larnt you, of course, aises me moind wonderful. There's some as wouldn't do it, Pat. I'm jist tellin' you this to let you know you're better than most." And she smiled upon him lovingly. "If the most of 'em's that mean that they wouldn't do what they could an' their mother a--washin', 'tis well I'm better than them, anyway," returned Pat. "Ah, but Pat, they'd think it benathe 'em. 'Tis some grand thing they'd be doin' that couldn't be done at all. That's the way with some, Pat. It's grand or nothin', an' sure an' it's ginerally nothin', I've noticed." A mile they went in silence. And then Mrs. O'Callaghan said: "As for the rist, you'll all go to school but Larry, an' him I'll take with me when I go a--washin'. I know I can foind thim in the town that'll help a poor widow that much, an' that's all the help I want, too. Bad luck to beggars. I'm none of 'em." Pat did not respond except by a kindly glance to show that he heard, and his mother said no more till they drove in at the farm gate. "An' it's quite the man Pat is," she cried cheerily to the six who came out to meet them. "You'll do well, all of you, to pattern by Pat. An' it's movin' we'll be on Monday, jist as I told you. It's but a small place we've got, as Pat will tell you there. Close to the north side of the town it is, down by the railroad tracks, where you can see all the trains pass by day an' hear 'em by night; an' there's freight cars standin' about at all toimes that you can look at, an' they've got iron ladders on the inds of 'em, but you must niver be goin' a-climbin' on top of thim cars." At this announcement Andy and Jim looked interested, and the eyes of Barney and Tommie fairly shone with excitement. The widow had accomplished her object. Her boys were favorably inclined toward the new home, and she slipped into her bedroom to shed in secret the tears she could no longer restrain. CHAPTER II Sunday dawned cold and blustering--a sullen day that seemed hardly to know which way was best to make itself disagreeable, and so tried them all. The stock had been removed. There was no work outside for the two oldest boys, no watching indoors by the hungry little brothers for Pat and Mike to be through milking, and feeding, and pumping water into the trough, so that they might all have breakfast together. Yes, there had been a little work. The two horses which, with the wagon, had been kindly lent them for their next day's moving were in the barn. Mike had fed and watered them, Pat had combed them, and both had petted them. Many a time that day would Mrs. O'Callaghan slip out to stroke their noses and pat their glossy necks and say in a choked voice, "Tim's horses! Tim's horses! and we can't kape 'em!" And many a time that day would she smooth the signs of grief from her face to go into the house again with what cheer she could to her seven sons, who were gathered listlessly about the kitchen stove. Many a time that day would she tell herself stoutly, "I'll not give in! I'll not give in! I've to be brave for eight, so I have. Brave for my b'ys, and brave for mesilf. And shall I fret more than is good for Tim's horses whin I know it's to a kind master they're goin', and he himsilf a helpin' us to-morrow with the movin'? The Lord's will be done! There's thim that thinks the Lord has no will for horses and such. And 'tis mesilf is thankful that I can't agree with 'em." Occasionally, as the morning passed, one of the boys stepped to the window for a moment, for even to glance out at flying flakes and a wintry landscape was a relief from the depression that had settled down upon them all. That was a neighborhood of churches. Seven or eight miles from any town, it was remarkable to see three churches within half a mile of each other. Small, plain buildings they were, but they represented the firm convictions of the United Brethren, the United Presbyterians, and the Methodists for many miles around. Now all these people, vary as they might in church creeds, were united in a hearty admiration for plucky little Mrs. O'Callaghan. They all knew, though the widow would not own it, that destitution was at her door. The women feared that in taking her boys to town she was taking them to their ruin, while the men thought her course the only one, since a destitute woman can hardly run a farm with only seven growing boys to help her. And for a day or two there had been busy riding to and fro among the neighbors. The snow fell fitfully, and the wind howled in gusts, but every farmer hitched up and took his wife and children with him, and no family went empty-handed. For every road to every church lay straight by the widow's door. Short cuts there were to be used on general occasions, but that morning there was but the one road. And so it fell out that by ten o'clock there was a goodly procession of farm wagons, with here and there a buggy, and presently the widow's fence was lined with teams, and the men, women, and children were alighting and thronging up the narrow path to Mrs. O'Callaghan's door. There was no merriment, but there was a kindly look on every face that was beautiful to see. And there were those between whom bitterness had been growing that smiled upon each other to-day, as they jostled burdens on the path; for every one carried something, even the children, who stumbled by reason of their very importance. The widow looked out and saw the full hands, and her heart sank. Was she to be provided for by charity? She looked with her keen eyes into the crowd of faces, and her heart went up into her throat. It was not charity, but neighborliness and good will she read there. "I'd be wan of 'em, if somebody else was me, may the Lord bless 'em," she said as she opened wide the door. In they trooped, and, for a moment, everybody seemed to be talking at once. [Illustration: "For every one carried something."] It sometimes needs a great deal of talk to make a kind deed seem like nothing at all. Sometimes even a great deal of talk fails to do so. It failed to-day. Tears were running unheeded down the widow's face. Not even her boys knew how everything was gone, and she left with no money to buy more. And everybody tried not to see the tears and everybody talked faster than ever. Then the first church bell rang out, and old and young turned to go. There came a little lull as one after another gave the widow's hand a cordial clasp. "My friends," said Mrs. O'Callaghan--she could be heard now--"my dear friends, I thank you all. You have made my heart strong the day." "I call that a pretty good way to put in time on Sunday," said one man to another as they were untying their teams. "Makes going to church seem worth while, for a fact," returned his neighbor. Not till the last vehicle had passed from sight did the widow look round upon what her neighbors had left her, and then she saw sufficient pantry stores to last even seven growing boys for a month. And among the rest of her gifts she found coal for a week. She had not noticed her sons as she busily took account of her stock, but when she had finished she said, "B'ys, b'ys! 'tis your father sees the hearts of these good people this day and rej'ices. Ah, but Tim was a ginerous man himsilf! It's hopin' I am you'll all be loike him." That night when the younger boys were in bed and only Pat and Mike sat keeping her company, the widow rose from her seat, went to a box already packed and took therefrom an account book and pencil. "They're your father's," she said, "but it's a good use I'll be puttin' 'em to." Writing was, for the hand otherwise capable, a laborious task; but no help would she have from either of her sons. "May I ask you not to be spakin'?" she said politely to the two. "It's not used to writin' I am, and I must be thinkin' besides." Two hours she sat there, her boys glancing curiously at her now and then at first, and later falling into a doze in their chairs. She wrote two words and stopped. Over and over she wrote two words and stopped. Over and over until she had written two words and stopped fifty times. And often she wiped away her tears. At last her task was done, and there in the book, the letters misshapen and some of the words misspelled, were the names of all who had come to her that morning. Just fifty there were of them. She read them over carefully to see that she had not forgotten any. "Maybe I'll be havin' the chance to do 'em a good turn some day," she said. "I will, if I can. But whether I do or not, I've got it here in writin', that when all was gone, and I didn't have nothin', the Lord sint fifty friends to help me out. Let me be gettin' down in the heart and discouraged again, and I'll take this book and read the Lord's doin's for me. Come Pat and Moike! It's to bed you must be goin', for we're to move to-morrow, do you moind?" CHAPTER III According to Mrs. O'Callaghan's plans, the moving was accomplished the next day. There was but one load of household goods, so that the two teams of their kind neighbor made only one trip, but that load, with the seven boys and their mother, filled the shanty by the tracks to overflowing. The little boys immediately upon their arrival had been all eyes for the trains, and, failing them, the freight cars. And they had reluctantly promised never to ascend the iron freight car ladders when they had been in their new home only one hour. "Whin you're dailin' with b'ys take 'em in toime," was the widow's motto. "What's the use of lettin' 'em climb up and fall down, and maybe break their legs or arms, and then take their promise? Sure, and I'll take it before the harm's done, so I will." Such tooting the delighted little fellows had never heard. "Barney!" whispered Tommie, in the middle of the night, with a nudge. "Barney! there's another of 'em!" "And listen to the bell on it," returned Barney. "Ain't you glad we moved?" And then they fell asleep to wake and repeat the conversation a little later. Larry was the only one who slept the night through. The rest were waked so many times by the unaccustomed noise that one night seemed like twenty. "We'll be used to it in toime," said the heavy-eyed little widow to yawning Pat and Mike the next morning. "And the more things you get used to in this world the better for you. I belave it's quite something loike to be able to sleep with engines tootin' and blowin' off steam, and bells a-ringin', and cars a-bumpin'. Even a baby can slape where 'tis quiet, you know." Breakfast had been over an hour. "Now, Pat," said his mother, "that's not the way to make beds. Off with them covers and make 'em over again." Mrs. O'Callaghan was standing in the doorway and looking in at the roomful of beds. "I don't mane it for unkindness, Pat, but sure and the way you've got 'em made up they look jist loike pigs' nests with covers over 'em. There, that's better," she commented when Pat had obediently made all the beds over again under her instructions. "You can't larn all there is to bed-makin' in a day. 'Tis practice makes parfect, as your copy book used to say. But I'm thinkin' you'll have it in a week, for you're your father's son, and he was a quick wan to larn, was Tim. And now I'll be teachin' you a bit of cookin' while I have the chance. You must larn that as quick as you can, Pat, for a poor cook wastes a sight, besides settin' dishes of stuff on the table that none but pigs can eat. And in most places the pigs would get their messes, but here we've got no pigs, and whativer you cook we've got to be eatin'. Andy was askin' for beans for to-morrow a bit ago. What's your ideas about bakin' beans, Pat? How would you do it?" Pat thought a moment. "I'd wash 'em good, and put 'em in a pan, and bake 'em," he said. "Sure, then, you've left out one thing. With that receipt, Pat, you'd need a hammer to crack 'em with after they was baked. No, no, Pat, you pick 'em over good and put 'em a-soak over night. In the mornin' you pick 'em over again, and wash 'em good and bile 'em awhile, and pour off the water, and bile 'em again in fresh water with jist enough salt in it, and then you put 'em in the oven and bake 'em along with a piece of pork that's been a-bilin' in another kittle all the toime." Pat looked a trifle astonished, but all he said was, "_Baked beans_ is a queer name for 'em, ain't it?" Mrs. O'Callaghan smiled. "That's the short of it, Pat, jist the short of it. The names of things don't tell half there is to 'em sometoimes. And now for the dinner. It's belavin' I am you can cook it with me standin' by to help you out when you get into trouble." Pat tied on a clean apron, washed his hands and set to work. "That's it! That's it!" encouraged Mrs. O'Callaghan, from time to time, as the cooking progressed. "And I'll jist be tellin' you, Pat, you're not so green as some girls I've seen. I'd rather have a handy b'y as an unhandy girl any day." A little later she stood in the shanty door. "Come, Moike!" she called. "Bring the little b'ys in to dinner. Pat's a-dishin' it a'ready." Mike had been detailed by his prudent mother as a guard to prevent his small brothers from making too intimate acquaintance with freight cars and engines. He was by this time pretty hungry, and he marshaled in his squad with scant ceremony. A week went by and the widow was settled. Each boy was placed in his proper class at the public school, and the mother had her coveted four washing places. "I didn't come to town to be foolin' my toime away, so I didn't," said Mrs. O'Callaghan, as she sat down to rest with a satisfied face. "Pat," she continued, "you've done foine with the work this week. All I've to say is, 'Kape on.' It'll kape you busy at it with school on your hands, but, sure, them as is busy ain't in mischief, nayther." The next week all went well with the widow and Larry as usual, but the boys at school found rough sailing. "Ah, but Mrs. Thompson's the jewel!" cried Mrs. O'Callaghan on Monday evening. "She do be sayin' that Larry's a cute little fellow, and she has him in to play where she is, and he gets to hear the canary bird sing, so he does. Didn't I be tellin' you, Pat, that I knew there was them in this town would help me that way? But what makes you all look so glum? Didn't you foind the school foine the day? Niver moind! You ain't acquainted yet. And jist remember that iverybody has a deal to bear in this world, and the poor most of all. If anybody does you a rale wrong, come tell me of it. But if it's only nignaggin', say naught about it. 'Twon't last foriver, anyway, and them that's mane enough to nignag a poor b'y is too mane to desarve attintion, so they are." The widow looked searchingly at her older sons. She saw them, under the tonic of her sound counsel, straighten themselves with renewed courage, and she smiled upon them. "I'll niver be makin' Tim's b'ys weak-spirited by lettin' 'em tittle-tattle of what can't be helped," she thought. "Now, b'ys, heads up and do your bist!" she said the next morning as she went to her work. But it was one thing to hold up their heads at the shanty, and quite another to hold them up on the noisy, swarming campus where they knew nobody, and where the ill-bred bullies of the school felt free to jeer and gibe at their poor clothing and their shy, awkward ways. "Patrick O'Callaghan!" yelled Jim Barrows derisively. It was recess and the campus was overflowing with boys and girls, but Pat was alone. "Just over from the 'ould coonthry'," he continued. "You can tell by his clothes. He got wet a-comin', and just see how they've shrunk!" The overgrown, hulking fellow lounged closer to the tall and slender Irish boy, followed by the rough set that acknowledged him as a leader. Some measured the distance from the ends of Pat's jacket sleeves to his wrists, while others predicted the number of days that must elapse before his arms burst through the sleeves. The spirit of the country-bred boy quailed before this coarse abuse, which he knew not how to resent. He glanced about him, but no way of escape offered. He was hemmed in. And then the bell struck. Recess was over. He thought of his brothers in different grades from himself, though in the same building. "Is there them that makes it hot for 'em when they can?" he said anxiously to himself. "We'll have to be stayin' more together mornin's and noons and recesses, so we will." But staying together did not avail. Jim Barrows and his set found more delight in tormenting several unresisting victims than they could possibly have enjoyed with only one. "Ah, but this nignaggin's hard to stand!" thought Pat a week later. He was on his way to school. Pat was always last to get off on account of his work. That morning Jim Barrows was feeling particularly valiant. He thought of the "O'Callaghan tribe," as he called them, and his spirits rose. He was seventeen and large for his age. "Them low Irish needs somebody to keep 'em to their places," he said to himself, "and I'm the one to do it." Just then he spied Andy a few steps ahead of him, Andy, who was only eleven, and small and frail. Two strides of his long legs overtook the little boy. A big, ugly hand laid itself firmly on the shrinking little shoulder. Words of abuse assailed the sensitive ears, and were followed by a rude blow. Then Jim Barrows, regarding his duty done for that time, lounged on, leaving the little fellow crying pitifully. A few moments later, Pat came along, and, finding his favorite brother crying, insisted upon knowing the reason. And Andy told him. With all the abuse they had borne, not one of the brothers had been struck before. As Pat listened his anger grew to fury. His blue eyes flashed like steel. "Cheer up, Andy!" he said, "and run on to school. You needn't be afraid. I can't go with you; I've business on hand. But you needn't be afraid." He had just ten minutes till school would call. Who was that, two blocks off, loitering on a corner? Was it?--it was Jim Barrows. [Illustration: "'Cheer up, Andy!' he said."] With a dogged step that did not seem hurried, Pat yet went rapidly forward. Straight up to the bully he walked and looked him firmly in the eye. "You struck my brother Andy because you thought you could," he said. And then, in the language of those Western boys, "he lit into him." "'Tis Andy's fist is on you now!" he cried, while he rained blows on the hulking coward, who did not offer to defend himself. "And there!" with a tremendous kick as Jim Barrows turned to run, "is a taste of his foot. Touch him again if you dare!" Needless to say, he didn't dare. "I hear your brother Andy's been fighting," said the principal, as he stopped Pat the next day in the street. "At least, there are marks of Andy's fist and Andy's foot on Jim Barrows." His eyes twinkled as he spoke and then grew grave again. "Fighting's a bad thing in general, but you are excusable, my lad, you are excusable." Pat looked after the principal going with a quick firm step on his busy way, and thought him the finest man in town, for, so far, nobody had given the poor Irish boy a word of sympathy and encouragement. That evening Pat ventured to tell his mother. "And so that's what the principal said, is it?" commented Mrs. O'Callaghan. "He's a man of sinse. Your father was a man of great sinse, Pat. Fightin' is a bad thing, so it is. But your father's gone, and it's you must kape the little wans from harm in his place. You'd be but a bad brother to stand by and see any wan strike little Andy. There's some things has got to be put a stop to, and the sooner it's done the better, says I." Then after a pause, "I hope you larn your lessons, Pat?" "I do, mother." "I thought you would. Your father always larnt all that come handy to him. Larnin's no load, Pat. Larn all you can." Now Pat, with the exception of Latin, was no whit behind other boys of his age, for he had been sent to school in the country from the time he was five years old. The fight being over, he gave his mind thoroughly to his books, a thing he could not do while he did not know what to expect from Jim Barrows and his set, and his class-standing was high. And now the first of April was at hand. The O'Callaghans had been a month in town and the widow was beginning to see that she had overestimated the purchasing power of what she could earn at four washing places. Four dollars a week needed a supplement. How could it be supplied? Mrs. O'Callaghan cast about in her mind. She had already discovered that Wennott offered a poor field for employment, so far as boys were concerned, and yet, in some way, her boys must help her. By day, by night she thought and could hit upon nothing unless she took her sons from school. "And that I'll not do," she said, "for larnin' is at the root of everything." CHAPTER IV Is Friday an unlucky day? You could not get Mrs. O'Callaghan to think so, for it was upon the Friday that closed a week of anxious thinking that Mrs. Brady called at the shanty. Neither could you get Mrs. Brady to think so, for--but let us begin a little farther back. Hired girls, as they were called in Wennott, were extremely scarce. Mrs. Brady was without one--could not get one, though she had advertised long and patiently. Now she was tired to exhaustion. Sitting in the old wooden rocker that had been Mr. O'Callaghan's, Mrs. Brady rested a few moments closely surrounded on all sides by the O'Callaghan furniture. "'Tis a bit snug, ma'am," Mrs. O'Callaghan had said when piloting her to this seat, "but it's my belafe my b'ys don't moind the snugness of it so much as they would if they was girls." Mrs. Brady mechanically agreed. The four walls of the kitchen were rather too close together to inclose a bed, a wash-bench, two tubs, a cooking stove, a table, seven Windsor chairs, the water pail, the cupboard, and the rocking-chair in which Mrs. Brady sat, and leave anything but a tortuous path for locomotion. The boys knew the track, however, and seldom ran up against anything with sufficient force to disturb it or their own serenity. But there was not a speck of dust anywhere, as Mrs. Brady noticed. The widow's face was a little careworn and anxious as she sat close at hand in one of the wooden chairs listening to Mrs. Brady's explanation of her need of help. "You have been recommended to me by Mrs. Thompson. Could you come to me to-morrow, Mrs. O'Callaghan? It will be a day of sweeping and general cleaning," she concluded. The widow's countenance began to brighten. She saw her way out of the difficulty that had been puzzling her. "I can't come mesilf," she answered politely, "for what with my sivin b'ys I've my own work that can't be neglected. But my son, Pat, will do it for you. I'll come with him jist to get him started loike, for he's niver swept a carpet, though he swapes a bare floor ilegant." Well, to be sure, Mrs. Brady was not overjoyed. But she saw it was Pat or nobody, and she was very tired. So she agreed to try him. "And when will you have him come?" asked Mrs. O'Callaghan. There was no doubt expressed on the mother's face; no fear lest her son might not be able to please. "At eight," responded Mrs. Brady. "I cannot be ready for him sooner." "Then together we'll be there, you may depind." And Mrs. Brady, on the whole dissatisfied, went on her way. "If that boy--Pat, I think she called him--can do housework satisfactorily, he's the only boy that I've heard of here that can," she thought. The next morning when the two presented themselves, Mrs. Brady, after showing Mrs. O'Callaghan where to leave her wraps, led the way at once to her bedroom. "Perhaps you will just make my bed for me before you go, Mrs. O'Callaghan," she insinuated. "It has been properly aired and is ready." "Oh, Pat will make it for you, ma'am," was the answer, and again Mrs. Brady yielded. "Now, Pat, on with your blouse." The two women waited while Pat untied the bundle he carried and put on a clean cotton blouse. "'Twas his father's blouse, ma'am. A bit loose now, but he'll grow to it. He's very loike his father." Mrs. Brady looked at the tall, slender boy wearing his father's blouse and his mother's apron, with an old straw hat on his head for a dust protector, and then at the mother watching his every movement with loving eyes, and only anxious that he might give satisfaction. And all sense of incongruity vanished from her mind. "Now, Pat, show the lady what you can do." And Pat obeyed as if he were five instead of fifteen. The dead father had trained his sons from their babyhood to yield implicit obedience to their mother. Deftly he set to work. He turned the mattress; he smoothed and tucked in each sheet and cover as he put it on; he beat up the pillows, and within ten minutes the bed was perfectly made. There was no need for Mrs. Brady to speak. She showed her surprise and delight in her face. "I was thinkin' Pat could suit you, ma'am," smiled the mother. "And now, if you've more beds, maybe Pat had better make 'em before the dust of the swapin' is on him." "I have no more this morning," responded Mrs. Brady courteously. [Illustration: "Mrs. Brady looked at the tall, slender boy."] "Then, Pat, there's the broom." Then she turned to Mrs. Brady. "Now, ma'am, what's your ideas about swapin'? There's them that says, 'Swape aisy and not be gettin' the wools off the carpet.' But them wools don't many of 'em come off the carpet. There's a plinty of 'em comes on bare floors that ain't swept regular. I says, 'A vigorous swapin' and no light brushin' except by a lady loike yoursilf as hasn't got strength.'" "Those are my ideas, too," said Mrs. Brady as with an air of satisfaction she began to spread the dust covers over her bed. All day Pat swept and dusted and wiped paint and window panes, and at night he went home with seventy-five cents in his pocket. The widow was getting supper, but she worked mechanically, for her heart was in her ears, and they were listening for Pat's step. The brothers, stowed here and there in chinks between the pieces of furniture, watched with eager eyes their mother's movements, and sniffed the savory odors that escaped from a perfectly clean saucepan in capable hands. But no boy lounged on the bed, nor even leaned against it, and no one sat in the father's chair. To sit there meant special honor at the hands of the family. "And it's Pat will sit in the rocking-chair and rest himsilf this avenin'," cried Mrs. O'Callaghan, returning to her cooking from a brief trip to the door. "It's Pat'll be bringin' home money the night; honest money that he's earned." The little boys appeared impressed, and on Mike's face came a look of determination that led his mother to say, "All in good toime, Moike. You're as willin' as Pat any day. I know that. And the way you look after the little b'ys, your father himsilf couldn't do better." And then Pat came stepping in. "Did she praise you, Pat?" cried the little woman as she dished up the supper. She was hungry for appreciation of her boy. "She did that. She said, 'Patrick, you're elegant help, and will you come again next Saturday?" "And what did you tell her?" "I told her I would, and let that Jim Barrows keep a civil tongue in his head when he hears of it, or I'll be teaching him another lesson. He'll not be throwin' it up to me that it's girl's work I'm doin' if he knows what's best for him." "Listen to me, Pat," said his mother, soberly. "I'll be tellin' you now my plans for you so you'll not be runnin' agin 'em. It's to be a gintleman you are, and gintlemen don't fight jist because some Jim Barrows of a fellow says tauntin' words to 'em. You had to kape him off Andy, but moindin' his impudence to yoursilf is another thing." For the first time in his life Pat looked unconvinced of his mother's wisdom, and she went on soothingly, "But sure and I don't belave he'll be sayin' a word to you, Pat. And anyway you know how many of the blissid saints and angels was women on the earth, and how it was their work to kape things clane and pleasant for them they loved. And that ain't a work to be ashamed of by girl or b'y." The little boys busily eating had seemed not to notice. Only Mike had looked on with interest. But into all their hearts had sunk the lesson that gentlemen did not fight. "Are we all to be gintlemen?" asked Barney looking up when his plate was quite empty. "Ivery wan of you. What should your father's b'ys be but gintlemen and him the best man as iver lived?" It was not to be expected that in any place service such as Pat's would be willingly done without, least of all in Wennott. The more Mrs. Brady thought of it, the smaller and more unsatisfactory did Saturday appear, and on Friday morning she went again to the shanty. "And I hope you're not come to say you've changed your moind about wantin' Pat to-morrow," said Mrs. O'Callaghan when civil greetings had been exchanged and Mrs. Brady sat once more in the rocker. "In one sense I have changed my mind," answered Mrs. Brady with a smile. "I want Pat to-morrow, but I want him all the other days of the week, too." The widow was silent. She had not planned so far as this. What would Pat say? Would he do it? "I will give him his board and lodging and a dollar a week to help me Saturday and Sunday, and before and after school the other days of the week. Saturday he would have to work all day, of course, but Sunday he would have almost nothing to do," said Mrs. Brady. "The washing and ironing I put out," she added as Mrs. O'Callaghan still hesitated. "You're very koind, ma'am," responded the widow after a pause. "I hope Pat'll go to you. I'll ask him." "What makes you think he might not like to come?" inquired Mrs. Brady, anxious in her turn. "Well, you see, ma'am, 'tis girl's work entoirely you want him to do. And Pat's been put on and made fun of almost more than he can bear since we moved to Wennott. Sure and them b'ys--I'd call 'em imps, only they're big for imps, bein' bigger and stouter than Pat himsilf--they sets on him and foretells when his arms is goin' to burst through his sleeves and such as that, loike an almanac, ma'am. And him a-loikin' nice clothes as well as any one, only he can't get 'em because it's poor we are, ma'am. Not that there's anything wrong about that. 'Tis the Lord's will that it's so, and we're doin' our best with it. But Pat's young. He didn't mean to tell me of it, but his moind bein' full of it, it slipped out. "Pat, he done as I told him, and come to you a-Saturday, and he'd kape on comin' Saturdays, but I can't tell him he must go out to service loike a girl, when I know what thim b'ys will have in store for him. I must jist ask him, do you see? And what he'll say, I can't tell. He's mighty brave. Maybe he'll come. I've been tellin' him he's not to be lickin' that Jim Barrows if he is impudent to him." "Does Pat fight?" asked Mrs. Brady doubtfully. "He seemed so amiable." "And pleasant he is," cried the widow earnestly. "'Twas not for himsilf he fought, do you understand. 'Twas because Jim Barrows hurt Andy's feelin's and struck him besides. Andy's my third son, ma'am. He's only eleven, and not strong ayther. And Pat, he loves him better, I belave, than he does all the rest of the b'ys put together." "Oh!" said Mrs. Brady with a relieved air. "But havin' got a taste of makin' Jim Barrows kape off Andy has sort of got him in the notion of not takin' nothin' off him, do you see? But it's his father has a good influence over him yet. Tim's in his grave, ma'am, but it's meanin' I am he shall still rule his b'ys. And he does, too." CHAPTER V There was a certain part of Wennott which its own residents were wont to think was _the_ part of town in which to live. Sometimes in confidence they even congratulated themselves over their own good fortune and commiserated the rest of the town who lived upon the flat lands. The rest of the town were not discontented in the least. They thought northeast Wennott was a little far out, themselves. And it was a good three-quarters of a mile from the public square. But the knolls were not to be had any nearer, and those who owned them felt repaid for the walk it took to reach them. The places were larger, the air was fresher and sweeter, and there was only one knoll to rent among them all. Beyond the knolls were the northeast suburbs, built upon as flat land as any the town afforded, and farther on stretched rolling prairie, picturesquely beautiful. It was upon one of the knolls that Mrs. Brady lived, in a square house of an old-fashioned build, having a hall running through the center with rooms on each side. It fronted the west. To the left, as one entered, was the dining-room; to the right, the parlor, whose always open folding doors made the pleasant sitting-room a part of itself. There was a bay window in the east end of the sitting-room, and one's first glance in at the parlor door from the hall always traveled past everything else to rest on the mass of green and blossoms in the bay window. For Mrs. Brady was an expert at floriculture. Here and there on the lawn, not crowded, but just where it seemed natural to find them, were rosebushes of different varieties that waited patiently all winter for the appreciation of their beauty which summer was sure to bring, and among them were some of the kinds Mrs. Brady had loved in the Eastern home of her girlhood. One stepped out from the south door of the sitting-room to find narrow beds for all sorts of summer blooms hugging the house, and looked about to see farther on occasional other beds. Everything was represented in her flower garden, from sweet alyssum and mignonette to roses and lilies, just as a little of all sweet qualities mingled themselves in her disposition. She was no longer young, and she had come to be quite frail. "I hope he will come," she said as she let herself in at the front door. From the shanty she had come the back way, a part of which followed the railroad track, and the walk had not been very long, but wearily she sank down to rest. "He's such a handy boy," she thought. "If he shouldn't come!" And down at the shanty Mrs. O'Callaghan, as she washed vigorously for her boys, was thinking, too. "It's wishin' I am 'twas avenin'," she cried at last, "and then 'twould be off my moind, so 'twould. I can't tell no more than nothin' what Pat'll be sayin'. And what's worse, I can't tell what I want him to be sayin'. 'Tis the best I want him to be doin', but what's the best? If he don't go, there's a chance gone of earnin' what we need. And if he does go, I'll be at my wits' ends to kape him from settlin' that Jim Barrows. It's widows as has their trials when they've sivin b'ys on their hands, and all of 'em foine wans at that." It was a very uncertain day. Cloud followed sunshine, and a sprinkle of rain the cloud, over and over again. "Sure an' the weather an' me's as loike as two peas the day. We're nayther of us to be depinded on, so we ain't, not knowin' what we want. Look at my clothes not dryin' an' me a-frettin'. What's the use of it all? Let Pat do as he will, I'll think no more of it." The little woman was capable. She could work; she could control her boys, though sometimes, when it seemed best, she could give control of them into their own hands, and she could govern her thoughts with some measure of success. So, casting her worries behind her, she went about brightly and cheerily as if nothing of an anxious nature lay before her, amusing Larry with chatter suited to his years, and making him contented to stay indoors while she toiled. For Mrs. O'Callaghan was as young as her youngest child, and as old as her oldest. It was easy for the boys to get close to mother. Only once did her mind revert to the forbidden theme. Dinner was over and she stood watching Pat, who was fast disappearing on his way to school. "There's toimes to be spakin', and toimes to be kapin' still," she said. "Niver a word must I be sayin' till the rest of 'em's abed, and it's hard waitin', so it is. It's my belafe that's what makes some b'ys so unruly--takin' 'em at the wrong toime. Sure and b'ys has their feelin's loike the rest of the world. Spake to 'em by their lone silves when you've aught to say to 'em. There's niver a man of 'em all, not even Gineral Brady himsilf, would loike bein' bawled at in a crowd about somethin' that needed thinkin' over. And Gineral Brady's the foine man, too. Big and straight he walks, a-wearin' his plug hat, and old and young is plazed to meet him. Well, his business is done. There's no more foightin'. But he was a brave foighter! My Tim saw him at it more'n wanst. Tim was a long way behind the Gineral, but Tim, he done his duty, too. Sure some has to be behoind, and if that's your place, 'Make that place respicted,' says I." She turned from the door and went back to her work. "There's some as thinks the Gineral has a business," she went on. "There's them that calls him a banker. But what sort of a business is that now? Jist none at all. All he does is to take in the money, and put it in a safe place where nobody won't steal it, and hand it out again when it's needed, and lend a little now and then to somebody that wants it and is loikely to be payin' it back again. Anybody could do that. There's no work to it. And, by the same token, it's no business. When the war was over, the Gineral's business was done, I say, and it's hopin' I am it'll soon be evenin', for I'm wantin' to hear what Pat'll say." It was, in the main, a quiet supper at the shanty, and, for the most part, a silent evening. One by one the boys went to bed, and Pat and his mother were left alone. "Pat," began Mrs. O'Callaghan, in a tremble of eagerness and apprehension, "who do you think was here the mornin'?" "Sure and I couldn't guess, mother dear. You'll have to be tellin' me." "And so I will," was the prompt reply. "'Twas Mrs. Gineral Brady, then. And she loikes your work that well, Pat, she wants you to go to her house to live." At first the boy looked bewildered. Then a light of understanding flashed over his face, and he blushed as if with shame. To go out to service like a girl! He couldn't do it, and he wouldn't. But even in his fierce young indignation he restrained himself. He had suffered so much of late that he was growing very careful about inflicting suffering upon others, especially upon his mother. He covered his eyes with his hand and sat quite still for a few moments before he inquired, "What did you tell her?" "I told her I'd ask you, Pat. Only that." The boy wheeled round in the old Windsor chair in which he sat, threw his arms over the top of its back and buried his face. They had been in town now six weeks. Pat had learned by his experience in cooking how fast supplies went in a large family. Two weeks before, the generous contributions of their country neighbors had given entirely out, and Pat, as marketer, had learned how much money it took to buy with. Four dollars a week would not, could not, support the family even in summer time. Hard knowledge was this for a boy of fifteen to have, and hardly had it been learned. If he went, there was Jim Barrows and his set with more jeers and insults which he must not avenge. If he did not go--all at once he remembered that ride home from Wennott with his mother, when he had asked her what he could do and what Mike could do to help. Was this the answer? Was he to live out like a girl, and Mike to take his place with the work at home? He lifted his face, and his blue eyes had a pleading look that went to the widow's heart. "Mother, tell me what I must do," he said. "I can't, Pat dear. You must say for yoursilf." There was loving sympathy in look and tone, but the little woman's determination was clear. Pat must decide for himself. And the young head went down again. Ten long minutes went by before Pat spoke again, and his voice had a muffled sound, for his face was not lifted. "Mother, are you willin'?" he asked. "I am, Pat, my son." Heavier the dreadful prospect pressed upon him. He could trust his mother, and she was willing. Then it must be right. More minutes went by. Pat had a telltale voice. Clear and musical, it had ever revealed to the mother the heart of her son. And its sadness and submission smote upon her as he said at last, "You may tell her I'll go, mother." "I always knowed you was brave, Pat," said Mrs. O'Callaghan. Then a rough little hand was laid on his head--the hand of an honest washerwoman--and in a reverent tone came the words, "Your father was brave." The boy looked up gratefully. To be likened to his father was dear to him. "Yes, Pat," went on Mrs. O'Callaghan. "'Most anybody can take a noice payin' job as suits 'em, but it's the brave wans that takes the work they don't want to do and does it good, too." And then the mother who had the courage to battle cheerfully for her children, and the son who had the courage to do what seemed best in the face of contempt and ridicule, went to their rest. CHAPTER VI The next morning Pat stepped out into the kitchen and donned his apron in a downcast mood. The uplift of his mother's praise had passed, and the fact remained that to-day he was to go out to service like a girl. The little boys were up and stowed here and there waiting for breakfast. Some little boys cannot be kept in bed mornings as long as their elders could wish, and the widow's little boys were of that kind. "Get up, if you want to," was Mrs. O'Callaghan's counsel to her youngest sons, "but see to it you don't get under Pat's feet. Nayther must you be runnin' out doors, for Moike to be haulin' you in when breakfast's ready." These orders shut the little fellows into a narrow space, and they were always eager for the morning meal to be over. Andy and Jim were not in such a hurry to rise, having reached the age when boys need a deal of persuasion to get them up. "They'll be along in a minute," thought the widow. "Here comes Moike." [Illustration: "Pat donned his apron."] Along they were in a minute, as their mother had predicted. The little woman was fond of effect. "There's toimes when it's the thing to spake before 'em all," she thought. "This is wan of 'em. Pat needs heartenin' a bit." Then with an air of authority she said: "Pat, off with your apron!" The rest were eyes and ears at once as their mother meant they should be, but Pat only stared in surprise. Some way he felt stupid this morning. "Off with your apron," repeated Mrs. O'Callaghan, "and sit you down in the father's chair. I get the breakfast this mornin'." With a shamefaced blush Pat obeyed, amid the wondering looks of his brothers. "You'll be sayin' farewell to Pat this mornin'," went on the widow, her glance traveling from one to another. "It's lavin' us he is to go to Gineral Brady's to live. 'Tis hard toimes we've been havin' and harder's before us. Pat seen it and he's a-goin' to help. He'll be gettin' his board and he'll still be goin' to school." At this Pat started. "Did you think I'd be willin' for you to lave school, my son?" asked the mother tenderly. Then turning to the rest once more, "And it's a dollar a week he'll be gettin' besides. He's his father's son, and he's got a head older than his years, or he'd niver 'a' been the brave b'y he is, nor seen nothin' to be brave about, nayther. And he'll be comin' to visit us when Mrs. Brady can spare him, and that'll be when his work's done, of course; and always he sits in his father's chair." Redder and redder flushed Pat's cheeks, seeing which the widow adroitly drew the general attention to her second son. "And here's the chance for Moike," she said, going busily on with her work. "Will you be makin' the beds and kapin' things shinin' and doin' the cookin' for us all?" "You know I will, mother." The little woman smiled. "Sure and I knowed you would. I jist asked you. "Now, b'ys, there's what they call permotions. Often and often have I heard your father spake of 'em. We're havin' some of 'em this mornin'. Pat, he goes to earnin' money and his board. That gives Moike a chance to step up into his place, do you see? That's what permotions is for, I'm thinkin'--to give the wans behoind you a chance. Always step up when you honestly can, b'ys, if for no other reason, to give the wan behoind you a chance. There's no tellin' what he can do till he gets a chance, do you see? Tim, he wouldn't 'a' stayed foightin' a private if the wan ahead of him had only done his duty and stepped up. But some folks niver does their duty, and it's hopin' I am you'll none of you be loike 'em. It's a noice place Pat's goin' to, so 'tis. There's a queer little house with a glass roof on jist across the street from it, and, by the same token, it's a wonder how they can kape a glass roof on it. There's them that can't even kape their window glass in, so there is, but goes a-stuffin' up the holes with what they can get. It's full of plants, so 'tis, a sort of a garden house where they sells flowers for weddin's and funerals and such, and maybe Pat'll be showin' you through it some day when he gets acquainted. I'm told anybody can see it. Grane house, I belave they calls it, but why anybody should call a garden house a grane house I can't tell, for sure and it's not a bit of a grane idea to sell flowers if you can find them that has the money to buy 'em." At this, quiet little Andy, who was fond of his book, glanced up. "Maybe they call it greenhouse because it's full of green things," he said. The widow nodded two or three times in a convinced manner. "To be sure. That's the reason," she said. "And it's proud I am to have for my third son a b'y that can give the reasons of things. And there's another permotion we was forgettin'. Andy'll take Moike's place, so he will, and look after the little b'ys. A b'y that can give reasons can look after 'em wonderful, so he can, if he don't get so full of his reasons that he forgets the little b'ys entoirely. But Andy'll not be doin' that. I niver told you before, but your father's favorite brother was named Andy, and a great wan he was for reasons, as I've heard. "Now breakfast's ready, so 'tis. I took my toime to it, for permotions always takes toime. There's them that wants permotion in such a hurry that they all but knocks over the wans in front of 'em. And that's bad, so 'tis. And no way at all, nayther. Jist kape yoursilf ready to step, and when the toime comes step aisy loike a gintleman, and then folks rej'ices with you, instead of feelin' of their bumps and wonderin' at your impudence. And the worst of them koind of tryin's after permotions is that it hurts them behoind you, for they're jist a-breathin' aisy, do you see, when back you come a-tumblin' a-top of 'em, and lucky you are if you don't go past 'em, and land nobody knows where." Seldom were the little boys so deluged with wisdom beyond their power of comprehension, but this was a special occasion, and as the general effect of the widow's remarks was to stir up in all a determination to do their best just where they were, her aim had been accomplished. Pat, in particular, was encouraged. Perhaps he was in line of promotion. He hoped it might come soon. "Now, Moike," cried Mrs. O'Callaghan when Pat was gone, "here's a chance for you. It's lucky I am to be at home the day. I'll be teachin' you a bit of all sorts, so I will, for you've everything to larn, Moike, and that's the truth, barrin' the lay of the tracks, and the switches, and the empty cars a-standin' about, and how to kape the little b'ys from hurtin' thimsilves." Mike looked rather disheartened. "You niver let 'em get hurted wanst, did you, Moike? And that's doin' well, too. I hope Andy'll be comin' up to you in that." So encouragingly did his mother smile upon him as she said these last words that he visibly brightened. He was not tall and slender like Pat, but rather short and of a sturdy build. And he tied on his apron with determination in his eye. "Do you know what you look loike, Moike?" The boy glanced at her inquiringly. "You look loike you was goin' to make short work of your larnin' and come up to Pat before you know it. I niver knowed a b'y to get the worst of it that looked that way out of his eye. It's a sort of 'do it I will, and let them stop me that can' look, Moike dear. Not that anybody wants to stop you, and it's an ilegant look, too, as I've often seen on your father's face when he had a hard job ahead of him." By this time Mike was ready for anything. He really knew more than his mother gave him credit for, having furtively watched Pat more than once. "Well, well, Moike!" exclaimed Mrs. O'Callaghan when the last bed was made. "That's a sight better as Pat's first try at bed-makin'. If he was here he'd say that wasn't so bad nayther, and it's yoursilf as knows Pat's an ilegant bed-maker. If you'd seen him astonishin' Mrs. Gineral Brady you'd 'a' seen a sight now. I was proud that day." Mike smiled with satisfaction and reached for the broom. His mother said nothing, but not a move escaped her critical eye. As far as the beds could be moved, they were moved, and around them and under them went Mike's busy broom. Mike was warm-blooded, and it was a pretty red-faced boy that stood at last before his mother with the dustpan in his hand. There was strong approval on the little woman's face. "Pat himsilf couldn't 'a' beat that. It's my belafe you've got a gift for swapin'," she said. "I can leave home to go to my washin' with an aisy mind, I see, and with no fears of chance callers foindin' dirty floors and mussy-lookin' beds a-disgracin' me. If widows is iver lucky, which I doubt, Moike, I'm lucky this far. I've got some wonderful foine sons, so I have." Mike, at this, beamed with the consciousness that he was one of the sons and a fully appreciated one, too. A long time he had stood in the shadow of Pat's achievements. This morning he was showing what he could do. "This permotion is pretty foine," said Mrs. O'Callaghan. "Moike, my b'y, you have stepped up aisy loike a gintleman into Pat's place, and now let's see you cook." Mike looked crestfallen at once. "I can't cook, mother," he said. "Not the least in the world. Often and often I've watched Pat, but I never could get the hang of it." The widow was silent a moment, "Well, then!" she cried, "you've got the hang of bein' an honest b'y, and not pretindin' to do what you can't do, and that's better as bein' the best cook in the world. Niver do you pretind, Moike, not because there's always somebody about to foind you out, but because pretindin's mean. I'd have no pride left in me if I could think I had a pretindin' b'y about the house. And now, Moike, I'll teach you to cook. It's my belafe you can larn it. Why, Pat didn't know nothin' about it when he begun, and now he can cook meat and potatoes and such better as many a doless girl I've seen. You think Pat's cookin' tastes pretty good, don't you, Moike?" "I do, mother," said Mike earnestly and without a tinge of jealousy in his tone. He loved and admired Pat with all his heart. "You can larn it, too, if you only think so," encouraged Mrs. O'Callaghan. "There's them that think's that cookin's a special gift, and they're right, too. But there's things about cookin' that anybody can attind to, such as havin' kettles and pans clean, and kapin' the fire up when it's needed, and not roastin' a body's brains out when it ain't needed. Yes, and there's other things," she continued with increasing earnestness. "There's them as thinks if they've a book or paper stuck about handy, and them a-poppin' down to read a bit ivery now and then, it shows that cookin's beneath 'em. And then the meat burns or it sogs and gets tough, the potatoes don't get the water poured off of 'em in toime, and things biles over on the stove or don't bile at all, at all, and what does all that show, Moike? Not that they're above cookin', but that they're lackin' in sinse. For a sinsible person always pays attintion to what they're at, but a silly is lookin' all ways but the right wan, and ten to wan but if you looked inside their skulls you'd foind 'em that empty it would astonish you. Not that I'm down on readin', but that readin' and cookin' hadn't ought to be mixed. Now, Moike, if any of these things I've been tellin' you of happens to your cookin', you'll know where to put the blame. Don't say, 'I wasn't made to cook, I guess'. That's what I wanst heard a silly say when she'd burnt the dinner. But jist understand that your wits must have been off a piece, and kape 'em by you nixt toime. But what's that n'ise?" She stepped to the door. A short distance off Jim was trying to get something away from Barney, who was making up in roars what he lacked in strength. Up went Mrs. O'Callaghan's hands to curve around her mouth and form a speaking trumpet. "Jim, come here!" she called. Jim began to obey, and his mother, leaving Mike inside to think over her remarks on cooking, stood waiting for his lagging feet. "Well, Jim," she said when he stood before her, "it's ashamed of you I am, and that's the truth. A big b'y loike you, noine years old, a-snatchin' something from little Barney and him only sivin! It's my belafe your father niver snatched nothin' from nobody." At this Jim's countenance fell, for, in common with all his brothers, he shared a strong desire to be like his father. "You may go now, but remember you'll be takin' Andy's place some day, a-carin' for the little wans." The idea of taking Andy's place, even at so indefinite a period as sometime, quite took the edge off his mother's rebuke, and Jim went stepping off with great importance. "Jim!" she called again, and the boy came back. "That's a terrible swagger you've got on you, Jim. Walk natural. Your father was niver wan of the swaggerin' sort. And jist remember that takin' care of the little b'ys ain't lordin' it over 'em nayther." CHAPTER VII "If I'm goin', I may as well go," thought Pat as he left his mother's door on that mid-April Saturday morning. And away he went on the railroad track at a rapid pace that did not give him much time to think. It was the General himself who answered his knock that had a strange mixture of the bold and the timid. The General had been listening for that knock. He had been wondering what sort of a boy it was who was willing to go out by the day to do housework. The knock, told him. "He hates to come, but he comes, nevertheless," thought the General. And he arose and opened the door. He looked into the boy's face and he saw a determined mouth and pleading eyes. "Grit," thought the General. But he only said, "Come in, my boy." "Yes, sir, if you please, sir, will you be tellin' Mrs. General Brady that I'm here, sir?" was Pat's answer as, with flushing cheeks, he stepped awkwardly into the room. What a fine soldierly bearing the General had, and how he must despise a boy who could turn himself into a girl! "Sit down, Pat," said the General pleasantly. "That's your name, isn't it? I'll tell Mrs. Brady presently." Pat sat down. He could not imagine the General with an apron on doing housework, though that was what he was trying to do while he sat there with cheeks that grew redder and more red. "Mrs. Brady tells me you are excellent help, Pat," went on the General. "Yes, sir," stammered Pat. "Have you come to stay, or just for the day?" The boy's eyes were almost beseeching as he answered, "I've come to stay, sir." What would the General think of him now? "I suppose you like housework, then?" "No, sir," came the answer in a low tone. "But father's gone, and there's mother and the boys and there's no work for boys in Wennott unless they turn themselves into girls." "Better turn into a girl than into a tough from loafing on the streets, Pat," said the General heartily, as he rose from his chair. "I'll tell Mrs. Brady you are here." There was not so much in what the genial master of the house had said, but Pat's head lifted a little. Perhaps the General did not despise him after all. "I've good news for you, Fannie," said the General as he entered the dining-room. "Your boy has come, and come to stay." "Oh, has he? I'm so glad." And she smiled her pleasure. "He's such a nice boy." "He's a brave boy," said her husband with emphasis. "That boy has the grit of a hero. He may come into our kitchen for a time, but, please God, he shan't stay there. I know what he will have to take from those street boys for doing the best he can for his mother and younger brothers and he knows it, too. I saw it in his face just now. The boy that has the moral courage to face insult and abuse deserves to rise, and he shall rise. But, bless me! I'm getting rather excited over it, I see." And he smiled. [Illustration: "'I've good news for you, Fannie,' said the General."] "Perhaps, Tom, you could shield him a little in the street," suggested Mrs. Brady. "I'll do my best, my dear." And then the General went away to his bank, and Mrs. Brady went into the kitchen to see Pat. Pat was sensitive. There was something in the General's manner as he left him, something in Mrs. Brady's tones as she directed him, that restored his self-respect. "If only I never had to be goin' on the street till after dark, 'twouldn't be so bad," thought Pat. "But there's school, and there's Jim Barrows. I'll just have to stand it, that's what I will. Mother says I'm brave, but it's not very brave inside I'm feelin'. I'd run if I could." But Pat was to learn some day, and learn it from the General's lips, that the very bravest men have been men who wanted to run and _wouldn't_. At General Brady's there was light lunch at noon and dinner at five, which was something Pat had already become accustomed to from having to do his own family cooking for the last six weeks. He was pretty well used to hurrying home the moment the afternoon session of school was over to prepare the meal of the day for his hungry brothers and his tired mother. On Monday, therefore, he came flying into the Brady kitchen at fifteen minutes of five. There was the dinner cooking, with no one to watch it. Where was Mrs. Brady? Pat did not stop to inquire. His own experience told him that that dinner needed immediate attention. Down went his books. He flew to wash his hands and put on his apron. He turned the water off the potatoes in a jiffy. "Sure and I just saved 'em, and that's all!" he cried, as he put them to steam dry. "I'll peep in the oven, so I will," he said. "That roast needs bastin', so it does." He heard the General come in. "There's a puddin' in the warm oven," he continued, "but I don't know nothin' about that. It's long since we've had puddin' at home. I'll just dress the potatoes and whip 'em up light. I can do that anyway, and give the roast another baste. It's done, and I'll be settin' it in the warm oven along with the puddin'. For how do I know how Mrs. Brady wants her gravy? Where is she, I wonder?" "Why, Pat," said a surprised voice, "can you cook?" "Not much, ma'am," answered Pat with a blush. "But I can sometimes keep other people's cookin' from spoilin'." "Well said!" cried the General, who was determined to make Pat feel at ease. "Fannie, give me an apron, and I'll make the gravy. I used to be a famous hand at it in the army." Pat stared, and then such a happy look came into his eyes that the General felt a little moisture in his own. "How that boy has been suffering!" he said to himself. "I was detained by a caller," explained Mrs. Brady. "The dinner would surely have been spoiled if Pat had not come just when he did." And then Pat's cup was full. He blushed, he beamed. Here was the General, the man whom his mother had held up to Pat's admiration, with an apron on, cooking! And Mrs. Brady said that he had saved the dinner. "Let Jim Barrows say what he likes," he thought. "I'd not like to be eatin' any of his cookin'." Cooking had risen in Pat's estimation. "She asked me, 'Will you please not be nickin' or crackin' the dishes, Pat?' And says I, 'I'll be careful, Mrs. Brady.' But I wonder what makes 'em have these thin sort of dishes. I never seen none like 'em nowhere else." Dinner was over and Pat was alone in the kitchen. [Illustration: The General makes the gravy.] "But the General makin' the gravy was fine, and sure I never tasted no better gravy neither. I wish I could just be lettin' 'em know at home. Mike will have to be turnin' into a girl, too, one of these days, and it might ease him a bit if he could know the General wasn't above cookin'. My mother said I'd be comin' to visit 'em when my work was done, if Mrs. Brady could spare me." A half-hour later a trim-looking boy presented himself at the sitting-room door. "Come in, Pat," invited the General, looking up from his paper with a smile. Pat smiled back again, but it was to Mrs. Brady that he turned as he entered the room. "Mrs. Brady, ma'am," he said, "the dishes are done and the kitchen made neat. Will you have me to be doin' something more for you this evenin'?" "No, Pat," replied Mrs. Brady kindly. "Your work, for to-day, is done. You may take off your apron." "Yes, ma'am. Would you kindly be lettin' me go home a little while then?" Pat's look was eager but submissive. "Certainly, Pat," was the reply. "Take the kitchen key with you." "Thank you, kindly, ma'am," returned Pat gratefully. And with another smile for the General, who had not resumed his reading, the boy left the room, and, shortly after, the house. "Listen!" cried Mrs. O'Callaghan, with uplifted ringer. And the rollicking talk about her ceased on the instant. "'Tis Pat's step I hear outside, and here he is, sure enough. Now, b'ys, don't all of you be on him at wanst. Let him sit down in the father's chair." Pat, feeling the honor paid him, and showing that he felt it, sat down. The little boys crowded around him with their news. Jim and Andy got as near to him as they could for furniture, while Mike looked at him from the farther side of the tiny room with a heart full of love and admiration in his eyes. They had not seen Pat since Saturday morning except at school that day, and that was not like having him at home with them. "And how does your work come on?" asked his mother as soon as she could get in a word. "Fine," said Pat. "'Tis an elegant place." Then, with an air that tried hard to be natural, he added, "The General himself made the gravy to-day." "What!" exclaimed his mother. "The Gineral!" "He did," said Pat. "He put on one of Mrs. Brady's aprons, and 'twas fine gravy, too." The widow looked her astonishment. "And do you call that foine?" she demanded at last. "The Gineral havin' to make his own gravy? What was you a-doin', Pat?" "I was helpin' Mrs. Brady with the puddin' sauce and dishin' up. 'Twas behind we all was, owin' to a caller, and Mrs. Brady said if it hadn't been for me the dinner would have been spoiled sure. I got there just in time." "The Gineral," said Mrs. O'Callaghan, looking about her impressively, "is the handsomest and the foinest gintleman in the town. Iverybody says so. And the Gineral ain't above puttin' an apron on him and makin' gravy. Let that be a lesson to you all. The war's over. You'll none of you iver be ginerals. But you can all make gravy, so you can." "When, mother, when?" asked Barney and Tommie eagerly, who saw at once that gravy would be a great improvement on mud pies, their only culinary accomplishment at present. "When?" repeated the widow. "All in good toime, to be sure. Pat will be givin' Moike the Gineral's receipt, and the b'y that steps into Moike's place--and that'll be Andy, I'm thinkin'--he'll larn it of Moike, and so on, do you see?" "And I was just thinkin'," put in Pat, with an encouraging glance at Mike, "that Jim Barrows's cookin' was like to be poor eatin'." "True for you, my b'y!" exclaimed the widow. "The idea of that Jim Barrows a-cookin' niver struck me before. But, as you say, no doubt 'twould be poor. Them that's not above nignaggin' the unfortunate is apt to be thinkin' themsilves above cookin', and if they tried it wanst, no doubt their gravy would be a mixture of hot water and scorch, with, like enough, too little salt in it if it didn't have too much, and full of lumps besides. 'Tis your brave foightin' men and iligant gintlemen loike the Gineral that makes the good gravy." CHAPTER VIII "Pat, I forgot to give Mr. Brady the list of things that I want sent up this morning." Pat looked up from his dishwashing sympathetically, for there was perplexity in the kindly tone and on the face no longer young. It was always a mystery to the boy why Mrs. Brady called her husband "Mr. Brady" when everybody else said General Brady. "But it's none of my business, of course," he told himself. It was Saturday morning. "Do you think you could go down, Pat, when the dishes are finished?" "Indeed, and I can that, ma'am," returned Pat heartily. "Do so, then," was the reply. And Mrs. Brady walked away with a relieved air. "I'm ready, ma'am," announced Pat, coming to the sitting-room door a little later. "Will you be havin' me to take the list to General Brady, or will you be havin' me to be doin' the buyin' myself?" Mrs. Brady thought a moment. Her husband very much disliked marketing. If Pat should prove as capable in that direction as in every other, the General would be saved what was to him a disagreeable task. She resolved to try him. So she said, "You may do the buying yourself, Pat." "Thank you kindly, ma'am," answered Pat respectfully. "Do you like to buy things?" asked Mrs. Brady, surprised at the expression of anticipated pleasure on the boy's face. "I don't like nothin' better, ma'am. 'Twas but a taste I'd got of it before I left home. Mike does our buyin' now. Buyin's next best to sellin', we both think." He took the list Mrs. Brady held out and ran his eye over it. "I'll be takin' my basket and bring the little things home myself", he said. "Would you believe it, ma'am, some of them delivery boys is snoopy, I've been told. Not all of 'em, of course, but some of 'em just. Now raisins, you've got here. Raisins is mighty good, but let 'em buy their own,' says I. And don't you be doin' nothin' but restin', ma'am, while I'm gone. If I'm off enjoyin' myself 'tain't fair as you should be up here a-workin'. There's not much to be done anyway, but I'll get through with it," he ended with a smile. Away went Pat, stepping jauntily with his basket on his arm. It was the first of June, and Wennott, embowered in trees, was beautiful. He had almost reached the square before he thought, "She never told me where to go. I can't be wastin' my time goin' back. I'll just step into the bank and ask the General." Pat loved the General. A woman's apron was the bond that bound the poor Irish boy to the fine old soldier, and it was with the smile that the boy kept exclusively for him that he stepped in at the open door of the bank. The General was engaged, but he found time to answer the smile and to say in his most genial tone, "In a moment, Pat." He was soon at liberty, and then he said, "Now, Pat, what is it?" "Please, sir, have you any one place where you want me to be tradin', or am I to buy where the goods suit me?" "Are you doing the marketing to-day, Pat?" "Yes, sir. Mrs. Brady give me leave." "And what is your own idea about trading?" "Buy where you can do the best for the money, sir," was the prompt reply. The banker looked at him thoughtfully. He had the key to Pat's future now. He knew along what line to push him, for he was determined to push Pat. And then he said, "Buy where you think best. But did Mrs. Brady give you money?" "She did, sir. This creditin' is poor business. Show 'em your money, and they'll do better by you every time." The General listened in so interested a manner that Pat added, "It's because the storemen can get all the creditin' they want to do and more, too, but them as steps up with the cash, them's the ones they're after." "And who taught you this, Pat?" "Sure and my mother told me part of it, and part of it I just picked up. But I'll be goin' now, or Mrs. Brady will think I'm never comin'. She'll be teachin' me to-day to make a fine puddin' for your dinner." The first store Pat went into had already several customers. As he entered, the clerks saw a tall boy wearing a blouse shirt and cottonade trousers, and having on his head a broad-brimmed straw hat well set back. And they seemed not at all interested in him. The basket on his arm was also against him. "Some greeny that wants a nickel's worth of beans, I suppose," said one. But if the clerks seemed to make little of Pat, Pat, for his part, regarded them with indifference. The sight of the General making gravy had changed the boy's whole outlook; and he had come to feel that whoever concerned himself with Pat O'Callaghan's business was out of his province. Pat was growing independent. Other customers came in and were waited upon out of their turn while Pat was left unnoticed. "That's no way to do business," he thought, "but if they can stand it, I can." And he looked about him with a critical air. He was not going off in a huff, and perhaps missing the chance of buying to advantage for the General. At last a clerk drew near--a smallish, dapper young fellow of about twenty. "I'll be lookin' at raisins," said Pat. "How many'll you have?" asked the clerk, stepping down the store on the inside of the counter, while Pat followed on the outside. "I said I'd be lookin' at 'em," answered Pat. "I don't want none of 'em if they don't suit." The clerk glanced at him a little sharply, and then handed out a sample bunch of a poor quality. Pat did not offer to touch them. "They'll not do," he said. "Have you no better ones? I want to see the best ones you've got." "What's the matter with these?" asked the clerk quickly. "And how can I tell what's the matter with 'em? They're not the kind for General Brady, and that you know as well as I." At mention of the General's name the clerk pricked up his ears. It would be greatly to his credit if, through him, their house should catch General Brady's trade. He became deferential at once. But he might as well have spared his pains. No one, with Pat as buyer, would be able to catch or to keep the General's trade. Whoever offered the best for the money would sell to him. The boy had the same experience in every store he entered, as he went about picking up one article here and another there till all were checked off his list. "There's more'n me thinks the General's a fine man," he thought as he went home. "There didn't nobody care about sellin' to me, but they was all after the General's trade, so they was. And now I must hurry, for my work's a-waitin' for me, and the puddin' to be learnin' besides. Would I be goin' back to live off my mother now, and her a-washin' to keep me? Indeed and I wouldn't. The meanest thing a boy can be doin', I believe, is to be lettin' his mother keep him if he can get a bit of work of any sort." With his mother's shrewd counsel backing him up, and with the General constantly before him to be admired and imitated, Pat was developing a manly spirit. When he went to live with Mrs. Brady, he had offered his mother the dollar a week he was to receive as wages. "Sure and I'll not be takin' it, Pat," said the little woman decidedly. To-night he had come home again, and this time he had brought three dollars with him. [Illustration: Pat doing the marketing.] "I told you I'd not be takin' it, Pat, and I won't nayther." Though the widow would not touch the coin, she looked lovingly at her son and went on, "It's ginerous you are, loike your father, but you're helpin' me enough when you take your board off my hands. You must save your money to buy clothes for yoursilf, for you need 'em, Pat dear. Mrs. Brady can't be puttin' up with too badly dressed help. Now don't you be spakin' yet," she continued, as she saw him about to remonstrate. "It's a skame of my own I've got that I want to be tellin' you about, for it's a comfort you are to me, Pat. Many's the mother as can't say that to her oldest son, and all on account of the son bein' anything but a comfort, do you see? But I can say it, Pat, and mean it, too. A comfort you are to me." Pat smiled as he listened. "Do you know, Pat," pursued his mother earnestly, "as I'm goin' to my washin' places, I goes and comes different ways whiniver I can, for what's the use of always goin' the same way loike a horse in a treadmill when you don't have to? Course, if you have to, that's different. "Well, Pat, sure there's an awful lot of cows kept in this town. And I've found out that most of 'em is put out to pasture in Jansen's pasture north of the railroad. It runs north most to the cemetery, I'm told. But what of that when the gate's at this end? You don't have to drive the cows no further than the gate, Pat, dear. And the gate you almost passes when you're goin' to Gineral Brady's by the back way up the track. It's not far from us, by no manes." Pat's face expressed surprise. Did his mother want him to drive cows in addition to his other work? "Now all these cows. Pat," continued his mother impressively, "belongs wan cow at a house. I don't know but wan house where they kapes more, and their own b'ys does the drivin', and that wouldn't do us no good. The pay is fifty cents a month for drivin' a cow out in the mornin' and drivin' it back at night, and them drivin' b'ys runs 'em till the folks, many of 'em, is wantin' a different koind of b'ys. Now what if I could get about ten cows, and put Andy and Jim to drive 'em turn about, wan out and the other back. Wouldn't that be a good thing? Five dollars a month to put to the sixteen I earn a-washin', and not too hard on the b'ys, nayther. Don't you think 'twould be a good thing, Pat?" "I do, indeed, mother," answered the son approvingly. "I knowed you would, and I belave your father would. How is it you come to be so like him, Pat, dear? The blessed angels know. But you're a comfort to me. And now will you help me to get the cows? If you could get a riference, I belave they calls it, from the Gineral, for we're mostly strangers yet. You can say you know Andy and Jim won't run the cows." The reference was had from the General that very evening, though the old soldier could not help smiling to himself over it, and the first of the week found Andy and Jim trudging daily to and from the pasture. It was not without something like a spirit of envy that Barney and Tommie saw Jim and Andy driving the cows. "Mother, why can't we be goin', too?" teased Barney, while Tommie stood by with pouting lips. "And what for would you be goin'?" asked the widow. "Most cows don't loike little b'ys. They knows, does the cows, that little b'ys is best off somewhere else than tryin' to drive them about sayin,' 'Hi! hi!' and showin' 'em a stick." The two still showing discontent, she continued: "But geese, now, is different. And who's to be moindin' the geese, if you and Tommie was to go off after the cows? Sure geese is more your size than cows, I'm thinkin', and, by the same token, I hear 'em a-squawkin' now. What's the matter with 'em? Go see. Not that anybody iver knows what's the matter with a goose," she ended as the little boys chased out of the shanty. "It's for that they're called geese, I shouldn't wonder." CHAPTER IX There is no whip to ambition like success. Every day the widow thought, and toiled, and kept her eyes open for chances for her boys. "For, after all," said she, "twenty-one dollars a month is all too small to kape six b'ys and mesilf when the winter's a-comin', and 'twon't be twenty-one then nayther, for cows ain't drove to pasture in winter." It was the second son who was listening this time, and the two were alone in the shanty kitchen. "The days is long, and I belave, Moike, you could do something else than our own housework, with Andy here to look after the little b'ys." "Say what it is, mother dear, and I'll do it," cried Mike, who had been envying Pat his chance to earn. "Well, then, to be telling you the truth, Moike, who should be askin' me if I knowed of a boy to kape his lawn clean this summer but the Gineral. Says I, 'I do, Gineral Brady. I'll be bold to say my Moike will do it.' So there I've promised for you, Moike, and you're to have a dollar a month." The boy's delight at the prospect shone in his eyes and his mother went on, "Strong and hearty you are, Moike, and I've been thinkin' what's to hinder your gettin' other lawns with school out next week and nothin' to bother you." The little woman looked tired and warm. She was just home from Thursday's wash, and she sat down wearily on one of the wooden chairs. Mike saw it, and, to the boy who would be fourteen the next day, there suddenly came a realizing sense of the stay his mother was to the family. He noted with anxiety the lines that were deepening on her face. "Sit in father's chair, mother dear," he coaxed. "'Twill rest you more." The widow looked at him with a pleased expression creeping over her face. "You're father and mother both, so you are. Sit in father's chair," persuaded Mike. "No," she answered, as she rose and went over to the seat of honor. "Don't praise me too much. I'm jist your mother, doin' the best I can for you, though." And she sat down and leaned her head against the back of the chair. The sturdy figure of the boy began to move briskly about. He made up the fire and then he slipped out at the door and took an observation. No shade anywhere but at the east end of the shanty, where the building itself threw a shade. He hurried in again. "Will you be gettin' up, mother dear, if you please?" In surprise she stood up. The strong, young arms reached past her, lifted the chair, and then the boy began to pick his way carefully so as not to strike this treasured possession against anything. "What are you doin', Moike?" asked Mrs. O'Callaghan in astonishment. "I'm takin'--the chair--outside--where--there's a cool shade. 'Tis too hot--for you here where I'm cookin'." He turned and looked back as he stood in the doorway. "Come, mother dear, and rest you in the cool." "Moike! Moike!" cried the widow, touched by this attention. "'Tis what your father would have done if he was here. Always afraid he was, that I would be gettin' overtired or something. 'Tis sweet to have his b'y so loike him." Mike's heart gave a great throb. He knew now the taste of that praise that kept Pat pushing ahead. "'Tis for Pat to lead--he's the oldest," he thought over his cooking. "But see if I don't be lookin' out for mother after this, and makin' it as easy for her as I can. I'd lug forty chairs ten miles, so I would, to have her praise me like that." The next morning the widow rose still weary. The kitchen was uncomfortably warm as a sleeping place now, but what could be done about it? Nothing. "It's all there is, and I won't be sayin' a word about it, so I won't," she thought. "I'll jist tuck Larry in with Moike, and I guess I can stand it." Wash day for the home. She hardly felt equal to her task. Breakfast was over, but what was Mike doing? Not making his beds, nor washing his dishes. He had put on and filled the boiler. Now he was carrying out wash bench and tubs to the west side of the shanty. The west was the shady side of a morning. In he came again--this time for the father's chair. "'Tis an iligant breeze there is this mornin'," he cried. "Come out, mother, dear, and sit in father's chair. You've got a wash boy this mornin', so you have, and he'll need a lot of showin'." He reached for the washboard as he ceased, and smiled lovingly on his mother. "Moike! Moike!" cried Mrs. O'Callaghan in a trembling tone, "'tis sweet to be took care of. I hain't been took care of since your father died." "Then 'tis time you was!" answered Mike. "And I'm the boy to do it, too. Come out, mother dear." And the mother went out. "But there's your housework, Moike." "That can wait," was the positive reply. "But there's your schoolin'." "I'm not goin' to school to-day. I know my lessons. I learnt 'em last night. Will I be goin' to school and sittin' there all day, and you all tired out a-washin' for us? I won't that." "Moike, 'twas your father was dreadful headstrong when he set out to be. It's fearin' I am you're loike him there." But the happy light in her eyes was reflected on the face of her son as he answered: "It's wantin' I am to be like him in everything, headstrong and all. I'm not goin' to school to-day." "And you needn't, Moike. I'll be ownin' to you now I didn't feel equal to the washin', and that's the truth." Mike nodded and went gayly into the house for warm water and the clothes. "There's more than one kind of a boy needed in a house," he said to himself. "With seven of us mother ought to have 'em of all kinds. I'm the one to be aisin' her. I'm built for it." And he rolled up his shirt sleeves over his strong, muscular young arms. "Now be careful," began Mike's first lesson in washing, "and don't waste the soap and your strength a-tryin' to get the dirt out of the places that ain't dirty. Rub where the rubbin's needed, and put the soap where it's wanted. That's it. You're comin' on foine." And the widow resumed her seat. For a few moments she sat silent in thought. Then she said: "Do you know what's the matter with this town, Moike? All the b'ys in it that wants to work at all wants to do somethin' aisy, loike drivin' a delivery wagon. Though the way they drive 'em ain't so aisy on the horses, nayther. There's a lesson for you, Moike. Them that's so aisy on themsilves is the very wans to be hard on iverything and iverybody. Them that's got snail's feet of their own can't get a horse to go fast enough for 'em, specially when the horse belongs to somebody else. And I'm jist a-gettin' my courage up, Moike. I belave there'll be always something for my b'ys to do, because my b'ys will _work_. And if they can't get b'ys' work they'll do girls' work. Betwane you and me, Moike, I'm proud of Pat. Have you heard the news? When school closes he's to have two dollars a week, and three afternoons out all summer. And what do you think Mrs. Brady says? She says she hain't had such help since she lived in the East. She says she's restin', and she feels ten years younger. That's your brother's work, Moike,--makin' a lady like Mrs. Gineral Brady feel ten years younger. If there's aught to be ashamed of in that, sure 'twould take a ninny to find out what it is. I'll warrant them delivery b'ys' horses ain't feelin' ten years younger, anyway." Mike's face showed that he relished his mother's talk; seeing which, she went on: "You're doin' foine, Moike. Do you know there was a girl wanst set to washin', and she had it in her moind to do a good job, too. The first thing she got hold of was a pillow case with lace on the ind of it--wide lace. And what does she do but lather that clean lace with soap and put in her best licks on it, and all to no purpose at all only to wear the lace to strings, and then, don't you think, she quite skipped the body of the case where the head had been a-layin'." Mike laughed. That night as the widow and her boys sat outside the door in the cool, quick steps came down the track, crunching the slack and cinders that filled the spaces between the ties. It was Pat who was coming, and his face was anxious. "What ails you, mother dear?" he cried lovingly. "Why, nothin', Pat, only I've got some sons that spoils me, so I have, a-makin' much of me. 'Tis a dreadful complaint, ain't it? But there's mothers as is not loike to die of it." And she laughed half tearfully. She had been nearer breaking down that morning than she would admit, and her nerves were still a little unsteady. "Andy told me at recess Mike was stayin' home to wash, and I didn't know what to think. I've been worryin' about it ever since, and the minute my work was done I come a-flyin' to see." "You needn't worry no more, Pat. Sure, and I thought when the chance come for you to go to Mrs. Gineral Brady 'twas because the Lord saw our need. And that was it, no doubt, but there's more to it, Pat. You went that I might foind out what koind of a b'y Moike is. You moind what I told you about permotions, Pat? 'Twas your steppin' up that give Moike his chance to show what he could do. And Moike was ready for it. Chances don't do nobody no good that ain't ready for 'em. Andy there is a-watchin', I know." The frail little fellow smiled. There was some light on the group, thrown from the electric light tower, but not enough to show the wistfulness of the boy's face, and the widow burned no oil in summer. Privately, Andy was afraid chances would not do him much good. "Why," continued the widow, "even the little b'ys, Barney and Tommie, was a-watchin' the other day for chances. 'Twas them that wanted to be takin' the job of drivin' the cows from Andy and Jim, and leavin' their geese to do it, too. There's big b'ys, I'm thinkin', that's after cows when geese would be better suited to 'em." Barney and Tommie were drowsing, but Jim blushed. He knew that reproof was meant for him. Mrs. O'Callaghan had been thinking about her fourth son to-day in the unaccustomed leisure given her by Mike. "How it is I don't know," she mused, "but he do have a wonderful knack at rilin' up the little b'ys, and he'd iver be doin' somethin' he can't do at all. I'll be lookin' into Jim's case. There shan't wan of Tim's b'ys be sp'iled if I can help it." "It's time you was goin', ain't it, Pat?" suggested Mike. At this breach of hospitality the widow was astounded. Mike to speak like that! For a second Pat seemed hurt. "I could have stayed half an hour longer, but I'll go," he said, rising. "And I'll go with you a ways!" exclaimed Mike, jumping up very promptly. Pat's farewells were said and the two were off before Mrs. O'Callaghan had recovered herself enough to remonstrate. "I wanted to be talkin' to you, Pat, and I didn't want mother to hear. That kitchen's too hot for her to sleep in, and that's the truth." "But there ain't no other place," answered Pat anxiously. "No," returned Mike triumphantly. "There ain't no other place for mother to sleep, but there is a place we could put the stove, and that's outside." "What in?" inquired Pat gloomily. "What in? In nothin', of course. There's nothin' there. But couldn't we stick in four poles and put old boards across so's the stove would be covered, and run the pipe out of a hole in the top?" "We might," returned Pat, "but you'll have to make up your mind to get wet a-cookin' more days than one. All the rains don't come straight down. There's them that drives under. And you'd have to be carrying the things in through the wet when you got 'em cooked, too." "And what of that?" asked Mike. "Do you think I care for that? What's me gettin' wet to makin' mother comfortable? There's July and August comin' yet, and June only begun." Pat looked at his brother admiringly, though the semi-darkness did not permit his expression to be seen. "We'll do it!" said he. "I'll help you dig the holes for the posts and all. We'll begin to-morrow evenin'. I know Mrs. Brady will let me come when my work's done." CHAPTER X The next morning Pat went about with a preoccupied air. But all his work was done with his accustomed dispatch and skill, nevertheless. "What is on my boy's mind?" thought Mrs. Brady. Yes, that is what she thought--"_my_ boy." And just then Pat looked into the sitting-room with his basket on his arm. "I'll just be doin' the marketin' now, ma'am," he said. "Very well," smiled Mrs. Brady. "Here's a rose for your buttonhole. You look very trim this morning." Pat blushed with pleasure, and, advancing, took the flower. The poor Irish boy had instinctively dainty tastes, and the love of flowers was one of them. But even before the blossom was made fast, the preoccupied look returned. "Mrs. Brady, ma'am, would you care if I stopped at the lumber yard while I'm down town? I'd like to be gettin' some of their cheapest lumber sent home this afternoon." "Why, no, Pat. Stop, of course." Pat was encouraged. "I know I was out last night," he said. "But could I be goin' again this evenin' after my work's done? Mike's got a job on hand that I want to help him at." "Yes, Pat." "You see, ma'am," said the boy gratefully, "we're goin' to rig up something to put the cook-stove in so as mother will be cooler. It's too hot for her sleepin' in the kitchen." Mrs. Brady looked thoughtful. Then she said: "You are such a good, dutiful boy to me, Pat, that I think I must reconsider my permission. Lunch is prepared. You may go home as soon as you have finished your marketing and help Mike till it is time to get dinner. We will have something simple, so you need not be back until four this afternoon, and you may go again this evening to finish what remains to be done." "Mrs. Brady, ma'am," cried Pat from his heart, "you're next to the General, that's what you are, and I thank you." Mrs. Brady smiled. She knew the boy's love for her husband, and she understood that to stand next to the General in Pat's estimation was to be elevated to a pinnacle. "Thank you, Pat," she replied. Then she went on snipping at the choice plants she kept in the house, even in summer, and Pat, proudly wearing his rose, hurried off. But when Pat arrived at home and hastened out behind the shanty, the post-holes were dug. Mike had risen at three o'clock that morning, dug each one and covered it with a bit of board before his mother was up. "And have you come to say you can't come this evenin'?" asked Mike, as Pat advanced to where he was sorting over such old scraps of boards as he had been permitted to pick up and carry home. "I've come to get to work this minute," replied Pat, throwing off his blouse and hanging it on the sill of the open window, with the rose uppermost. "Where'd you get that rose?" inquired Mike, bending to inhale its fragrance. "Mrs. Brady give it to me." "Mother would think it was pretty," with a glance at his older brother. "And she shall have it," said Pat. "But them boards won't do. I've bought some cheap ones at the lumber yard, and they're on the way. And here's the nails. We'll get that stove out this day, I'm thinkin'. I couldn't sleep in my bed last night for thinkin' of mother roastin' by it." "Nor I, neither," said Mike. "Well, let's get to diggin' the holes." "They're dug." "When did you dig 'em?" "Before day." "Does mother know?" "Never a word." Pat went from corner to corner and peered critically down into each hole. "You're the boy, Mike, and that's a fact," was his approving sentence. Just then the boards came and were thrown off with a great clatter. Mrs. O'Callaghan hurried to the door. "Now, b'ys, what's the meanin' of this?" she questioned when the man had gone. "Have my rose, mother dear," said Pat. "And it's a pretty rose, so it is," responded Mrs. O'Callaghan, receiving it graciously. "But it don't answer my question. What'll you be doin' with them boords?" "Now, mother, it's Mike's plan, but I'm into it, too, and we want to surprise you. Can't you trust us?" "I can," was the answer. "Go on with your surprise." And she went back into the shanty. Then the boys set to work in earnest. Four scantlings had come with the boards, and were speedily planted firmly. [Illustration: Pat and Mike building the kitchen.] "We don't need no saw, for the boards are of the right length, so they are. A man at the yard sawed 'em for me. He said he could as well as not. Folks are mighty good to us, Mike; have you noticed?" "The right sort are good to us, of course. Them Jim Barrows boys are anything but good. They sets on all of us as much as they dares." By three o'clock the roof was on, and the rough scraps Mike had collected were patched into a sort of protection for a part of the east side of the new kitchen. "Now let's be after the stove!" cried Mike. In they went, very important. "Mother, dear, we'd like to be takin' down your stove, if you'll let us," said Pat. The widow smiled. "I lets you," she answered. Down came the stovepipe to be carried out. Then the lids and the doors were taken off to make the heavy load lighter. And then under went the truck that Andy had run to borrow, and the stove was out. Mrs. O'Callaghan carefully refrained from looking at them, but cheerful sounds came in through doors and windows as the big boys worked and the little ones crowded close with eager enjoyment of the unusual happening. Presently there came tones of dismay. "Pat," said Mike, "there's no hole to run the pipe through. What'll we do?" "We'll have to be cuttin' one, and with a jackknife, too, for we've nothin' else. But I'll have to be goin' now. I was to be back by four, you know." "Then we'll call the mother out and show her the surprise now," said Mike. "I'll make short work of cuttin' that hole after you're gone." "Will you be steppin' out, mother dear?" invited Mike gallantly. "You'll not be roastin' by the stove no more this summer," observed Pat. The widow came out. She looked at the rough roof supported by the four scantlings, and then at her boys. "Sure, 'tis a nice, airy kitchen, so it is," she said. "And as for the surprise, 'tis jist the koind of a wan your father was always thinkin' up. As you say, I'll not be roastin' no more. But it's awful warm you've made my heart, b'ys. It's a warm heart that's good to have summer and winter." And then she broke down. "Niver do you moind me, b'ys," she went on after a moment. "'Tis this sort of tears that makes a mother's loife long, so 'tis." "Well, Mrs. Brady, ma'am, we're done," reported Pat at a few minutes before four. "Mike, he'd got up and dug all the holes before day, and it didn't take us so long." "And is the stove out?" inquired Mrs. Brady kindly. "It is, ma'am. Mike will be cookin' out there this evenin'. Mike's gettin' to be the cook, ma'am. I show him all I learn here, and he soon has it better than I have myself." Mrs. Brady smiled. How Mike could do better than Pat she did not see, but she could see the brotherly spirit that made Pat believe it. "Perhaps you had better go over again this evening," she said, "just to see if the stove draws well in the new kitchen." "Do you mean it, ma'am?" asked the boy eagerly. "Yes." "Thank you, kindly. I'd like to go, but I wasn't goin' to ask. My mother says askin's a bad habit. Them that has it is apt to ask more than they'd ought to many times." Meanwhile, up on the roof of the new kitchen in the hot afternoon sun sat Mike with his knife. He had marked out the size of the pipe-hole with a pencil, and with set lips was putting all the force of his strong, young arms into the work. A big straw hat was on his head--a common straw, worth about fifteen cents. Clustered below were the little boys. "No, you can't come up," Mike had just said in answer to their entreaties. "The roof won't bear you." "'Twould bear me, and I could help you cut the hole," said Jim. "There goes Jim again," soliloquized the widow. "Wantin' to cut a round hole in a boord with a knife, when 'tis only himself he'd be cuttin', and not the boord at all. It's not so much that he's iver for doin' what he can't, but he's awful set against doin' what he can. Jim, come here!" she called. Jim obeyed. "You see how loike your father Pat and Moike and Andy is, some wan way and some another. Do you want to be loike him, too?" [Illustration: "Up on the roof sat Mike with his knife."] Jim owned that he did. "Well, then, remimber your father would niver have been for climbin' to the roof of the new kitchen and cuttin' a round hole in a boord with a knife so as to run the pipe through when he was your soize. But he would have been for huntin' up some dry kindlin' to start the fire for supper. So, now, there's your job, Jim, and do it good. Don't come back with a skimpin' bit that won't start the coal at all." With lagging steps Jim set off to the patch of hazel brush north of the shanty to pick up such dry twigs as he could. His mother gazed after him. "Tim left me a fortune when he left me my b'ys, all but Jim," she said, "and see if I don't make something out of him, too. Pat and Moike and Andy--showin' that you sense what they're doin' is enough for 'em. Jist that will kape 'em goin' foine. But Jim, he'll take leadin' with praise and shovin' with blame, and he'll get both of 'em from me, so he will. For sure, he's Tim's b'y, too, and will I be leavin' him to spoil for want of a harsh word now and then? I won't that. There's them in this world that needs settin' up and there's them that needs takin' down a peg. And wanst in a while you see wan that needs both of 'em, and that's Jim, so 'tis. Well, I know it in toime, that's wan thing." Jim made such slow progress that the hole was cut, the pipe run through, and Mike was beginning to look about for his own kindling when he made his appearance. "Well, Jim," said his mother, taking him aside, "there's something the matter with your feet, I'm thinkin', you've been gone so long. You was all but missin' the chance of seein' the first fire started in the new kitchen. There's something to remimber--seein' a sight loike that--and then you have it to think about that it was yoursilf that provided the kindlin' for it. All this you was on the p'int of losin' through bein' slow on your feet. Your father was the spriest koind of a b'y, I'm told. Only show him an errand, and he was off on it. Get some spryness into your feet if you want to be like your father, and run, now, to see Moike loight the fire. And don't be reachin' to take the match out of his hand, nayther. Your toime of fire buildin' will come." Away went Jim. He was certainly spry enough now. Mike was just setting the blazing match to the kindling when he reached the group around the stove. At the front stood the little boys, and in a twinkling Jim had pushed them one this way, one that, in order to stand directly in front of the stove himself. "There he goes again," sighed the widow. "'Tis a many pegs Jim will have to be took down, I'm thinkin'." CHAPTER XI It was the last day of August that Pat went walking down to do his marketing with a jubilant air. Next week school was to begin, and with the beginning of the term he had expected to go back to his old wages of a dollar a week. But that morning Mrs. Brady had told him that he was still to have two dollars. "And me goin' to school?" asked the boy in surprise. "Yes, Pat. You have come to be very skillful about the house and you are worth it." "I wasn't thinkin' about gettin' skillful, ma'am, so as to have my wages raised," was the earnest answer. "I was just thinkin' how to please you and doin' my best." Mrs. Brady was touched. "You have pleased me, Pat, and you have pleased Mr. Brady, too. We both take a great interest in you." "Do you, ma'am? Then that's better than havin' my wages raised, though it's glad of the raise I am, too, and thank you for it. 'Twill be great news to be takin' home the next time I go." But Pat was to take home greater news than that, though he did not know it as he went along with all the light-heartedness of his race. The sight of the tall, slender boy with his basket on his arm had grown familiar in the streets of Wennott. He was never left waiting in the stores now, and nothing but the best was ever offered him. Not only did the grocers know him, but the butchers, the poulterers, and even the dry goods merchants. For he often matched silks and wools for Mrs. Brady, and he had been known to buy towels of the common sort. A group of loafers shrugged their shoulders as he passed them this morning, and fell to repeating anecdotes of his shrewdness when certain dealers had tried to sell him poor goods at market prices. "There's nobody in this town ever got ahead of him yet on a deal," said one. "He's so awful honest." "Bein' square himself, he won't take nothin' but squareness from nobody, and while he's lookin' out for his own chances he looks out for the other fellow's, too. Times and times he's handed back nickels and dimes when change wasn't made straight," contributed a second. "There's two or three store men in town got their eye on him. They don't like to say nothin', seem' he's cookin' at General Brady's, but if he ever leaves there, he'll have pick and choice. Yes, sir, pick and choice," concluded a third. At that very moment a dry goods merchant of the west side of the square was in the bank talking to General Brady. "I might as well speak," Mr. Farnham had thought. "If I don't get him, somebody else will." What the loafers had said was true. "General," began Mr. Farnham, after the two had exchanged greetings, "I dislike to interfere with your family arrangements, but I should like to have Pat in the store this fall. I'll give him fifteen dollars a month." The General smiled. "Fifteen dollars is cheap for Pat, Mr. Farnham. He's no ordinary boy." "But that's the regular price paid here for beginners," responded Mr. Farnham. "And he'll have a great deal to learn." "Have you spoken to him yet?" "No, I thought I would speak to you first." "Well, Mr. Farnham, Mrs. Brady and I some time ago decided that, much as we should like to keep Pat with us, we would not stand in his way when his chance came, I think this is his chance. And I don't doubt he'll come to you." After a little further talk between the two General Brady said: "There is another matter I wish to mention. Mrs. O'Callaghan has set her heart on having Pat graduate from the public school. He could do so easily in another year, but with his strong mercantile bent, and taking into consideration the struggle his mother is obliged to make to keep him there, I don't think it best. For, while Pat supports himself, he can do nothing to help at home. I ask you to give him one evening out a week, Mr. Farnham, and I will direct his reading on that evening. If I can bring him up and keep him abreast of the times, and prevent him from getting into mischief, he'll do." "I shouldn't think he could accomplish much with one evening a week, General," objected Mr. Farnham, who did not wish to give Pat a regular evening out. An occasional evening was enough, he thought. "Oh, yes, he can," insisted the General. "The most of his reading he will do at odd minutes, and that evening will be chiefly a resume and discussion of what he has gone over during the week." "You must take a strong interest in the boy, General." "I do. I don't mind telling you privately, Mr. Farnham, that I mean to push him. Not by charity, which, to the best of my belief, not an O'Callaghan would take, but by giving him every opportunity in my power to advance for himself." "In other words, you mean to protect the boy's interests, General?" "I do. As I said before, fifteen dollars a month is cheap for Pat. I suppose he is to have, in addition, his one evening a week?" "Yes," agreed Mr. Farnham, reluctantly. "Thank you," said the General, courteously. General Brady had intended to keep his news from Pat until the next morning, but it would not keep. As the boy, with his spotless apron on, brought in the dinner and stood ready to wait at table, the old soldier found the words crowding to the tip end of his tongue. His keen eyes shone, and he regarded with a most kindly gaze the lad who, to make life a little easier for his mother, had faced jeers and contempt and had turned himself into a girl--a kitchen girl. It was not with his usual smoothness, but quite abruptly, that he began: "Pat, you are to leave us, it seems." Pat so far forgot his manners as to stop and stare blankly at his employer. "Yes, Pat. You are going into Mr. Farnham's store this fall at fifteen dollars a month." If anything could have more endeared him to the General and his wife it was the way in which Pat received this, to him, important communication. He looked from one to the other and back again, his face radiant with delight. The born trader was to have an opportunity to trade. And then his expression sobered. "But what will Mrs. Brady be doin' without me?" he cried. "Sure she's used to me now, and she's not strong, either." "Perhaps Mike would come," suggested Mrs. Brady. "He'll be glad to do it, ma'am!" exclaimed Pat, his joy returning. "'Tis himself that thinks its first the General and then you, just as I do." "I hope you may always think so," said Mrs. Brady, smiling. "Sure and I will. How could I be thinkin' anything else?" And then the meal went on. That evening, by permission, Pat went home. He sang, he whistled, he almost danced down the track. "And it's Pat as is the happy b'y this evenin'," said Mrs. O'Callaghan. "Listen to him singin' and whistlin', first wan and then the other. Gineral Brady's is the place for any one." The family were sitting in the kitchen, for the evening was a trifle cool. But the windows were open and there was a lamp burning. "He's got some good news, I guess," remarked quiet Andy. The mother gave him a quick glance. "Andy," she said, "you're the b'y as is different from all the rest, and a comfort you are, too. 'Tisn't ivery family has a b'y as can hear good news when it's comin'." And then Pat came in. His eyes were ablaze, and his wide mouth wore its most joyous smile. He looked round upon them all for one second, and then, in a ringing voice, he cried: "Mother! Oh, mother, it's to Mr. Farnham's store I'm to go, and I'm to have fifteen dollars a month, and the General is going to help me with my books, and Mrs. Brady wants Mike to go to her!" It was all out in a breath, and it was such a tremendous piece of news that it left them all gasping but Larry, who understood not a thing but that Pat had come, and who stood waiting to be noticed by the big brother. For a full moment there was neither speech nor motion. Then the widow looked slowly round upon her sons. Her heart was full of gratitude to the Bradys, of pride in Pat, of exultation over his good fortune, and, at the same time, her eyes were brimming with tears. "B'ys," she said at last, "I wasn't looking for permotions quite so soon again. But I belave that where they've come wanst, they're loikely to be comin' again, if them that's permoted lives up to their chances. Who's been permoted in Mr. Farnham's store, I can't say. But sure Pat, he steps up, and Moike steps into the good place Pat has stepped out of, and gives Andy his chance here at home. There's them that says there's no chances for anybody any more, but the world's full of chances. It's nothin' but chances, so 'tis. Sure a body don't want to be jerked from wan thing to another so quick their head spins, and so chances come along pretty middlin' slow. But the world's full of 'em. Let Andy wanst get larned here at home, and you'll be seein' what he'll do. Andy's not so strong as some, and he'll need help. I'm thinkin' I'll make a team out of him and Jim." "I don't want to be helpin'. I want to be doin' mesilf," objected Jim. "And what will you be doin'?" asked the widow. "You're full short for spreadin' bedclothes, for though nine years makes a b'y plinty big enough for some things, it laves him a bit small for others. You can't be cookin' yet, nor sweepin', nor even loightin' fires. But you shall be doin', since doin's what you want. You shall wipe the dishes, and set the table, and do the dustin', and get the kindlin', and sure you'll be tired enough when you've all that done to make you glad you're no older and no bigger. Your father, when he was noine, would have thought that a plinty for him, and so it's a plinty for you, as you'll foind. You're quite young to be permoted that high," went on his mother, seeing a discontented expression on the little fellow's face. "Only for the big b'ys gettin' ahead so fast, you wouldn't have no chance at all, and folks wouldn't think you much bigger than Barney there, so they wouldn't. B'ys of nine that gets any sort of permotion is doin' foine, let me tell you. And now's your chance to show Moike that you can kape the dishes shinin', and niver a speck of dust on anything as well as he could himsilf." Jim straightened himself, and Mike smiled encouragingly upon him. "You can do it, Jim," he said with a nod. And Jim decided then and there that he would do it. "I'll be lookin' round when I come to visit you all from Mrs. Brady's, and I expect to be proud of Jim," added Mike. And Jim increased his determination. He wanted to have Mike proud of him. Very likely Mike would not be proud of the little boys. There was nothing about them to be proud of. "He shall be proud of me," thought Jim, and an important look stole over his face. "He'll be tellin' me I'm the b'y, I shouldn't wonder." And now the widow's mind went swiftly back to the General. "Sure, and it's a wonderful man he is," she cried. "Your father was jist such a man, barrin' he was Irish and no Gineral at all. 'Twas him that was at the bottom of your gettin' the place to Mr. Farnham's, a-trustin' you to do all the buyin' so's folks could see what was in you. It's sorry I am about the graduation, but the Gineral knows best, so he does." [Illustration: "Barney and Tommie a-takin' care of the geese."] Then her thought turned to the finances of the family. "And how much is sixteen and fifteen?" she asked. "Sure, and it's thirty-wan. Thirty-wan dollars a month for us this winter, and Moike takin' care of himself, to say nothin' of what Moike has earned with the lawn mower. 'Blessin's on the man that invented it,' says I, 'and put folks in the notion of havin' their lawns kept neat, 'cause they could do it cheap.' And there's what Andy and Jim has made a-drivin' the cows, and Barney and Tommie a-takin' care of the geese. Wennott's the town for them as can work. And bad luck to lazy bones anyway. It's thankful I am I've got none of 'em in my family." She paused a moment in reflection. "Them geese now is foine. Do you think, Pat, the Gineral and Mrs. Brady would enjoy eatin' wan of 'em when it's a bit cooler? You knows what they loikes by this time." "I think they would, mother." "Then it's the best of the lot they shall have. Bad luck to them that's always a-takin' and niver wantin' to be givin' back." CHAPTER XII The fall term opened and found Mike the head of the O'Callaghan tribe, as the brothers had been jeeringly called by the Jim Barrows set. And Mike was a good head. The sort of boy to impress others with the good sense of minding their own business. His blue eyes had a determined look, as he came on the campus the first morning of the new term, that made his old persecutors think it best to withhold such choice epithets as "Biddy," "Kitchen Girl," and "Scrub Maid," which they had laid up for him. For they knew that it was Mike who now did housework at General Brady's. They had never seen Mike fight. He had always stood back and let Pat lead. But there was something in his erect and independent bearing on this autumn morning that made it very evident to the school bullies that if Mike did not fight it was not because he could not. "Them O'Callaghans think they're some since General Brady picked 'em up," commented Jim Barrows, safely out of Mike's hearing. "General Brady had never heard of them when Pat gave you a licking, Jim, or don't you remember?" asked Bob Farnham, who was passing. "Say, Jim," advised a crony, as the two sauntered off together, "we'd better let them O'Callaghans alone. I don't like the looks of that Mike. 'Twasn't any wonder that Pat licked you, for you're not much on the fight anyway. But I tell you, I wouldn't like to tackle that Mike myself. He's one of them pleasant kind that's a regular tiger when you stir him up." "He's been runnin' lawn mowers all summer," observed Jim reflectively. "I reckon he's got his muscle up. Don't know but we had best leave him alone." "Let me tell you, Jim, 'twon't do just to let him alone. We've got to let 'em all alone--Andy and Jim and Barney and Tommie--or he'll light into us same as Pat did into you." "Why can't a fellow do just his own fightin'," grumbled Jim Barrows, "and let the kids look out for themselves?" "Some of 'em can, but the O'Callaghans ain't that kind. Touch one, touch 'em all, as you'd ought to know, Jim." "Oh, shut up! You needn't be throwin' up that lickin' to me every minute. I was surprised, I tell you. Astonished, as I might say. I wasn't lookin' to be pitched into by a low down Irish boy." "Oh, wasn't you?" queried his friend ironically. "Well, you keep on a-hectorin', and you'll be surprised again, or astonished, as you might say. That's all." Jim Barrows had not looked into Mike's eye for nothing. He knew for himself the truth of all his companion had been saying, and from that hour the little boys had peace. That same Monday was the most exciting and important day of his life to Pat. He saw other clerks lagging along without interest, and he wondered at them. Hitherto, in all transactions, he had been a buyer. Now he was to sell. Farnham's store was on the west side of the square--a fair-sized room--but rather dark, and not the best place in the world to display goods. It was not even the best place in Wennott, the storerooms of both Wall and Arnold being newer and better fitted. But displaying goods was not Pat's affair that morning. It was his part to display a clean floor and well-dusted shelves and counters to the first customer. Mr. Farnham came in at the hour when he had usually found his other boy through with the sweeping and dusting, and Pat was still using the broom. His employer, seeing the skillful strokes of the broom, wondered. But he was soon enlightened. Pat was not giving the middle of the floor a brush out. He was sweeping thoroughly into every corner where a broom could find entrance. For Pat knew nothing of "brush outs," though he knew all about clean floors. Every little while he stopped, swept up his collection into the dust-pan and carried it to a waste box in the back of the store. Mr. Farnham watched his movements. "He's business," he commented to himself. "Neither hurry nor lag." At last Pat was through. One of the clerks came in, and she stared to see the shelves still wearing their dust curtains. But Pat was unconcerned. He had never opened a store before, nor seen one opened. He had been told to sweep out and dust, and he was obeying orders. That was all he was thinking about. The sweeping done, Pat waited for the little dust that was flying to settle. Then he walked to the front end of the store and began to unhook the dust curtains. Very gingerly he took hold of them, being careful to disturb them as little as possible. Mr. Farnham and the girl clerk watched him. Every other boy had jerked them down and chucked them under the counter in a jiffy. Out went Pat with them to the rear door, gave them a vigorous shaking, brought them back, folded them quickly and neatly, and then, turning to Mr. Farnham said, "Where will you have 'em, sir?" In silence Mr. Farnham pointed out a place, and then handed him a feather duster, showing him, at the same time, how to fleck the dust off the edges of the bolts of goods along the shelves, and also off the counter. "This thing's no good for the glass show cases, sir. I'd ought to have a soft cloth. Something to take the dust up with, sir." The merchant turned to the girl clerk. "Cut him off a square of cheesecloth, Miss Emlin, please," he said. [Illustration: "The merchant turned to the girl clerk."] "Ordinary boy!" exclaimed Mr. Farnham to himself and thinking of the General. "I should say he wasn't. But cleaning up a store and selling goods are two different things." It was a very small place that was given to Pat in the store that day--just the calicoes, ginghams, and muslins. And Pat was dissatisfied. "'Tisn't much of a chance I've got," he murmured to himself. "Gingham--that's for aprons, and calico--that's for dresses, and muslin--that's for a lot of things. Maybe I'll sell something. But it looks as if I'd be doin' nothin', that's what it does." He thought of the home folks and how his mother's mind would be ever upon him during this his first important day. "Maybe I'm a bit like little Jim--wantin' to do what I can't do. Maybe geese are my size," and he smiled. "Well, then I'll tend to my geese and tend 'em good, so I will." He began emptying his calico tables upon the counter. Mr. Farnham saw him from the desk, and walked that way at once. "What's the matter, Pat?" he inquired. "Sure I'm just gettin' acquainted with the goods, sir. I was thinkin' I could sell better, if I knew what I'd got. I'll put 'em back, sir, when I've looked 'em over." And entirely satisfied with his newest clerk, though Pat did not suspect it, Mr. Farnham returned to his writing. Pat had often noticed and admired the way in which the dry goods clerks ran off a length of goods, gathered it in folds, and held it up before the customer. "If I thought nobody was lookin', I'd try it, so I would," he said to himself. He glanced around. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention. Pat tried it, and a funny affair he made of it. Mr. Farnham, who was only apparently busy, had to exert all his will power to keep back a smile. For Pat, with the fear of observers before his eyes, unrolled the web with a softness that was almost sneaking; he held up the length with a trembling hand and a reddening cheek; and, putting his head on one side, regarded his imaginary customer with a shamefaced air that was most amusing. Pat seemed to feel that he had made himself ridiculous. He sighed. "There's too much style to it for me yet," he said. "I'll just have to sell 'em plain goods without any flourishes. But I'll do it yet, so I will, only I'll practice it at home." "And what did you be sellin' to-day, Pat dear?" asked his mother when at half-past nine he entered the kitchen door. She would not ask him at supper time. She wished to hear the sum total of the day's sales at once, and she had prepared her mind for a long list of articles. "Well, mother," answered Pat drawing a long breath, "I sold two yards and a half of gingham." The widow nodded. But Pat did not go on. "And what else, Pat dear?" "Nothin' else, mother." Mrs. O'Callaghan looked astonished. [Illustration: "Mrs. O'Callaghan looked astonished."] "That's little to be sellin' in a whole day," she observed. "Didn't you sell no silks and velvets and laces?" "I'm not to sell them, mother." "And why not?" with a mystified air. "Sure and I don't know. I've just the calicoes and the ginghams and the muslins." "Ah!" breathed the widow. And she sat silent in thought a while. The small lamp on the pine table burned brightly, and it lit up Pat's face so that with every glance his mother cast at him she read there the discouragement he felt. "Pat dear," she began presently, "there's beginnin's in all things. And the beginnin's is either at the bottom or at wan ind, depindin' which way you're to go. Roads has their beginnin's at wan ind and runs on, round corners, maybe, to the other ind. Permotions begin at the bottom. You moind I was tellin' you 'twas loikely there was permotions in stores?" Pat gazed at his mother eagerly. "Do you think so, mother?" "I think so. Else why should they put the last hand in to sweepin' out and sellin' naught but ginghams and calicoes and muslins? And will you be tellin' me what the b'y that swept out before you is sellin'?" continued the little woman, anxious to prove the truth of her opinion. "Sure and he ain't sellin' nothin'," responded the son. "He ain't there." "And why not?" interrogated Mrs. O'Callaghan. "I'm told he didn't do his work good." Mrs. O'Callaghan looked grave. "Well," she said, "there's a lesson for them that needs it. There's gettin' out of stores as well as gettin' in, so there is. And now, Pat, cheer up. 'Tis loikely sellin' things is a business that's got to be larned the same as any other." "Well, but, mother, I know every piece I've got, and the price of it." "Can you measure 'em off handy and careless loike, so that a body wonders if you ain't makin' a mistake, and measures 'em over after you when they gets home, and then foinds it's all roight and trusts you the nixt toime?" Pat was obliged to admit that he could not. "And can you tie up a bundle quick and slick and make it look neat?" Again Pat had to acknowledge his deficiency. His mother regarded him with an air of triumph. "I knowed I could put my finger on the trouble if I thought about it. You've got it in you to sell, else Mr. Farnham wouldn't have asked for you. But he wants you for what you can do after a while more than for what you can do now. Remimber your beds and your cookin', Pat, and don't be bakin' beans by your own receipt down there to the store. It's a foine chance you've got, so 'tis. Maybe you'll be sellin' more to-morrow. And another thing, do you belave you've got jist as good calicoes and ginghams and muslins to sell as there is in town?" "Yes, mother, I know I have." "Then you've got to make the ladies belave it, too. And it won't be such a hard job, nayther, if you do your best. If they don't like wan thing, show 'em another. There's them among 'em as is hard to plaze, and remimber you don't know much about the ladies anyhow, havin' had to do only with your mother and Mrs. Gineral Brady. And there's different sorts of ladies, too, so there is, as you'll foind. It's a smart man as can plaze the half of 'em, but you'll come to it in time, if you try. Your father had a great knack at plazin' people, so he had, Pat. For folks mostly loikes them that will take pains for 'em; and your father was always obligin'. And you are, too, Pat, but kape on at it. Folks ain't a-goin' to buy nothin', if they can help it, from a clerk that ain't obligin'. Sellin' goods is pretty much loike doin' housework, you'll foind, only it's different." CHAPTER XIII "Pat," said his mother the next morning at breakfast, "what's that book you used to be studyin' that larns you to talk roight?" "Grammar, mother." "Well, then, your studyin' has done you small good, for you talk pretty much the way I do mysilf, and niver a bit of that book did I be larnin' in my loife. It don't make a bit of difference what you know, if you don't go and _do_ what you know. But you're not too old to begin over again, Pat, and practice talkin' roight. Roight talkin' will help you in the store. You've got in, and that's only half of it, for you'll not stay in if you don't do your best. And that's why helpin' a body don't do so much good after all." Pat blushed, and the widow felt a little compassion. She threw increased confidence into her tone as she went on. "Not as anybody thinks you won't stay, Pat, for, of course, you'll do your best. But about your talkin'--you'll need somebody to watch you close, and somebody that loves you well enough to tell you your mistakes koindly, and Andy's the b'y to do it. He's the wan among you all that talks roight, for he loves his book, do you moind." And now it was Andy's turn to blush, while the widow smiled upon him. "I hear a many of them grammar folks talk," she said, "and it's mysilf that sees you talk jist loike 'em, barrin' the toimes when you don't. And them's not so many, nayther." At this little Jim scowled scornfully, but of him his mother took no notice as she looked around with pride upon her sons. "And it's proud I am to be havin' all sorts of b'ys in my family, barrin' bad wans," she continued. "I'll jist be tryin' to larn a little better ways of talkin' mysilf, so I will, not as I think there's much chance for me, and, as there's no good of waitin' till you get as old as Pat, Jim, you'll be takin' heed to Andy's talkin'. Andy's the talker as would have plazed his father, for his father loiked everything done roight, so he did." It was pleasant to see Andy's sensitive face glow with delight at being thus publicly commended by that potentate of the family, his mother. Mrs. O'Callaghan saw it. "And did you think I wasn't noticin' because I didn't say nothin'?" she asked him. Then turning to the rest, "B'ys, you mostly niver knows what folks is a-noticin' by what they says--that is, to your face--but you sometoimes foinds out by hearin' what they've been sayin' behoind your back. And, by the same token, it's mostly bad they says behoind your back." "I don't want to be larnin' from Andy," interrupted Jim. "He's but two years older than me anyway." The widow eyed him severely. "Well, Jim, is it bigger and older than Pat you are? Pat's goin' to larn from Andy. And is it older than your mother you are, that's forty years old? Sure I'm goin' to larn from Andy." But Jim still appeared rebellious. "Some of these days little Barney and Tommie and Larry will be set to larn from you. Take care they're not set to larn what not to do from lookin' at you. 'Tis Andy that's got the gift ne'er a wan of us has, and he'll show us how to profit by it, if we has sinse. It's thinkin' I am your father, if he was here, would not have been above touchin' up his own talkin' a bit under Andy's teachin'. Your father was for larnin' all he could, no matter who from, old or young." Now the widow might have talked long to Jim without affecting him much, but for one thing. She had said that Andy had a gift that all the rest lacked. He resolved from that moment that he would talk better than Andy yet, or know why. A pretty big resolve for so young a boy, but Jim could not endure to yield the supremacy to Andy in anything. Pat and Mike he was content to look up to, but Andy was too near his own age, and too small and frail to challenge Jim's respect. That morning Jim said little, but his ears were open. Every sentence that Andy spoke was carefully listened to, but the little fellow went to school not much enlightened. He could see the difference between his speech and Andy's, but he could not see what made the difference. And ask Andy he wouldn't. "I'll be askin' the teacher, so I will," he thought. That morning at recess, a small, red-headed, belligerent-looking boy, with a pair of mischievous blue eyes, went up to Miss Slocum's desk. But the eyes were not mischievous now. They were very earnest as they gazed up into his teacher's face. "Plaze, ma'am, will you be sayin': I'll be larnin' it yet, so I will?" Miss Slocum was surprised. "What did you say, Jim?" she asked. "Plaze, ma'am, will you say: I'll be larnin' it yet, so I will?" Miss Slocum smiled, and obligingly repeated, "I'll be larnin' it yet, so I will." "No," said Jim. "That's the way I said it. Say it right." "Say it right!" exclaimed Miss Slocum. "Yes, say it like the grammar book." "Oh," said Miss Slocum wonderingly. "I _will_ learn it yet. Is that what you wanted?" "Yes, ma'am. Will you be tellin' me some more when I want to know it?" "Certainly," responded the gratified teacher, whereat Jim went away satisfied. He smiled to himself knowingly, as he caught sight of Andy at a distance on the campus. "I'll not be askin' him nayther," he said. "I _will_ learn it yet." As for Pat, he went to the store that same morning a trifle disconsolate. He was fond of trade, but he knew almost nothing of dry goods; and here was his mother counseling him to improve his speech, and holding up to him the warning that his own inefficiency might lose him his place. "Well, I know how to sweep and dust, anyway," he thought as he unlocked the store door, went in and took up his broom. As thoroughly as before he went over everything, but much more quickly, not having the accumulated shiftlessness of former boys to contend with. And Mr. Farnham, on his arrival, found everything spotless. Customers at Pat's department that day found a very silent clerk, but one eager to oblige. Many times before he went home for the night did he display every piece of goods in his charge, and that with such an evident wish to please, that his sales were considerable. And the widow heard his report at bedtime with something like satisfaction. "And what did you say to make 'em buy?" she inquired. "Well, mother, I mostly didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say, and I couldn't say it right, neither, and so I just watched, and if they so much as turned their eyes on a piece, I got it out of the pile and showed it to 'em. I just wished with all my might to sell to 'em, and I sold to 'em." His mother's eyes were fixed on him, and she nodded her head approvingly. "Sure and if you couldn't do no better, that was good enough, so 'twas," was her comment. "You'll larn. But didn't nobody say nothin' to you?" "They did, mother, of course." "And who was they that spoke to you and what about?" "Well, mother, there was old Mrs. Barter, for one. She's awful stingy. I've seen her more than once in the groceries. Always a-wantin' everything a little lower, and grumblin' because the quality wasn't good. Them grocers' clerks mostly hates her, I believe. And they don't want to wait on her, none of 'em. 'Twas her, I'm told, washed up two or three of them wooden butter dishes and took 'em up and wanted to sell 'em back to them she got her butter from." "Ah!" said Mrs. O'Callaghan, with her eyes sympathetically upon her son. "And she was to buy of you to-day, was she?" "Yes, mother." "And did she buy anything?" "She did." "What was it?" "A calico dress." "And how come she to do it?" "I don't know. She begun by lookin' everything over and runnin' everything down. And at last she took hold of a piece, and says she, 'Come, young man, I've seen you a-buyin' more than once. Can you tell me this is a good piece that won't fade?' 'I can, ma'am,' says I. 'You won't find no better in town.' "'Ah! but you're sellin',' says she. 'Would you tell your mother the same?' And she looked at me sharp. "'I would, ma'am,' says I. "'Then I'll take it,' says she. 'I've not watched you for nothin'.'" "And then what?" asked Mrs. O'Callaghan eagerly. This, in her opinion, was a triumph for Pat. "Why, nothin', mother, only I wrapped it up and give it to her, and I says, Come again, ma'am,' and she says, 'I will, young man, you may depend.'" The little woman regarded him proudly. But all she said was: "When you're doin' well, Pat, the thing is to see if you can't do better. You had others a-buyin' of you to-day, I hope?" "Yes, mother." "'Tis too late to hear about it to-night, for 'tis good sleep that sharpens the wits. And the broightest wits will bear that koind of sharpening', so they will. I wouldn't be knowin' what to do half the time if it wasn't for sleepin' good of nights. And, by the same token, if any of them high-steppin' clerks comes around with a cigar and a-wantin' you to go here and yon of nights, jist remimber that your wits is your stock in trade, and Mr. Farnham's not wantin' dull wans about him, nayther." Thus having headed off any designs that might be had upon Pat, his mother went to sharpen her own wits for whatever the morrow might have in store for her. And now a change began to come over Jim. He left his younger brothers in unhectored peace. He had not much to say, but ever he watched Andy from the corner of a jealous eye, and listened for him to speak. All his pugnacity was engaged in what seemed to be a profitless struggle with the speech of the grammar. "I _will_ larn it yet," he repeated over and over. And even while the words were in his mouth, if he had had less obstinacy in his make-up, he would have yielded himself to despair. But a good thing happened to him. Miss Slocum, not knowing his ignoble motive, and seeing a very earnest child striving to improve himself, set about helping him in every possible way. One day she called him to her. "Jim," she said, "asking me questions is slow work. Suppose I correct you every time you make a mistake?" "Yes, ma'am," answered Jim vaguely, not knowing the meaning of _correct_. "You don't understand me?" "No, ma'am." "_Correct_ means to make right. Suppose I set you right whenever you go wrong?" "That's it!" cried Jim enthusiastically. "That's it! I can larn that way sure." "_Learn_, not _larn_, Jim." Jim looked at her. "'Tis learn and not larn I'll be sayin'," he declared. "Not _I'll be sayin'_," corrected Miss Slocum, "but _I'll say_." "_Learn_, not _larn_, and _I'll say_, not _I'll be sayin'_," amended the obedient Jim, and then he sped away. And that night he did what never a child of Mrs. O'Callaghan's had done before. The family were at supper. Pat, paying good heed to his tongue, was manifestly improving, and the widow was congratulating him in her own way. "What did I be sayin' to you, Pat dear? Did I be tellin' you you wasn't too old to larn? And I'll be sayin' it again, so I will." "_Larn's_ not the right of it," interrupted Jim. "_Learn's_ what you ought to be sayin'. _I'll be sayin'_ ain't right, nayther," he continued. "It's _I'll say_," and he looked very important. Pat and Andy regarded him in displeased astonishment, but the widow could take care of her own. "And it's glad I am to see that you know so much, Jim," she said quietly. "What more do you know? Let's hear it." Thus brought to book Jim grew confused. He blushed and stammered under the unfavorable regard of his mother and two older brothers, and finally confessed that he knew nothing more. At which Barney and Tommie nudged each other. They did not understand what all the talk was about, but they could see that Jim was very red in the face, and not at all at his ease, and their beforetime hectored little selves rejoiced. "B'ys," said the mother, "I told you if your blessed father was here he'd not be above learning from any one, old or young. And he wouldn't, nayther. And sure he said _larn_ himsilf. And from Jim here he'd learn better than that, and he'd learn, too, how them that knows very little is the quickest to make a show of it. But kape on, Jim. It's glad I am you know the difference betwane _larn_ and _learn_, and sure the only difference is that wan's wrong and the other's roight." Jim had hoped to quite extinguish Andy by his corrections, and he hardly knew where he was when his mother finished; and he was still more abroad when Pat took him out after supper and vigorously informed him that bad manners were far worse than bad grammar. "Well, well," thought the widow that evening as she waited alone for Pat, "Jim do be gettin' ahead of me, that he do. He's loike to have the consate, so he is, take him down as a body will. But there's wan good thing about it. While he's studyin' to beat us all on the talkin' he's lettin' the little b'ys alone famous. He didn't never do much to 'em, but he jist riled 'em completely, so he did, and made 'em cross at iverybody." CHAPTER XIV A month went along very quietly and, following that, another month. The weeds that had flourished along the sides of the ditches were all dead. No more did the squawking O'Callaghan geese delight themselves among them. The kitchen stove had long been brought back into the shanty, and Barney and Tommie, sitting close behind it on their short evenings that ended in bedtime at half-past seven o'clock, had only the remembrance of their labors. But that memory sweetened the prospect of savory dinners to come, for even Barney and Tommie liked to feel that they were of some importance in the family world. Often had their mother praised them for their care of the geese, and once she had bought for them a whole nickel's worth of candy and had bestowed this great treat with the words, "And how could I be havin' geese only for the little b'ys? You'll jist be givin' Larry a bit, for sure and he'll be past four nixt summer, and helpin' you loike anything." The candy, like the summer, was only a memory now, but, without putting their hope into words, there lingered in the minds of the two an anticipation of more candy to come. As for Larry, he lived from day to day and took whatever came his way cheerfully, which he might well do, since he was a general pet wherever he was known. But now a new difficulty confronted the widow. Snowtime had come. How was she to get Larry along to her wash places? She was sitting late one Friday afternoon thinking about it. All day the snow had been falling, and many times, in the early dusk, had Jim been out to measure the depth with his legs. And each time he returned he had worn a more gratified smile. "Well, Jim," said his mother finally, "you do be grinnin' foine ivery toime you come in, and a lot of wet you're bringin' with you, too, a-stampin' the snow off on the floor. You'll remimber that toimes are changed. Wanst it was old men as had the rheumatism, but now b'ys can have it, to say nothin' of colds and sore throats and doctors' bills. You'll stay in now. The snow can deepen without you, I'm thinkin'." Thus admonished, Jim went with a bad grace to wash his hands, and then to set the table for supper. Presently in came Pat. "Where's the clothes basket, mother?" he inquired. "I'll be bringing in the clothes from the line for you." Mrs. O'Callaghan handed him the basket with a smile, and out went Mr. Farnham's newest clerk to the summer kitchen, under whose roof the line was stretched in parallel lengths. "I couldn't be dryin' the clothes in the house with no place to put 'em, but the new kitchen's the thing, so 'tis," the mother had said. "Clothes will dry there famous, 'specially when it's rainin' or snowin'. Pat and Moike did a good thing when they made it. I've heard tell of them as has dryin' rooms for winter, and 'tis mysilf has wan of 'em." These were the words that had caused Pat to smile with pleasure, and had stirred Mike's heart with determination to do yet more for his mother. And that same evening the widow's sturdy second son came to the shanty, and behind him on the snow bumped and slid his newest handiwork--a sled for Larry to ride on. "And what have you got there?" asked Mrs. O'Callaghan when he dragged it into the house. "A sled!" cried Barney and Tommie together, pausing on their bedward way, and opening wide their sleepy eyes. "And 'twas mysilf was wonderin' how to get Larry along with me!" exclaimed the mother when Mike had explained the object of the sled. "What's the good of me wonderin' when I've got Moike for my b'y? 'Twas his father as would have made a sled jist loike it, I'm thinkin'. But Moike," as she saw the light of affection in his eyes, "you'll be spoilin' me. Soon I'll not be wonderin' any more, but I'll be sayin', 'Moike will fix it some way.'" "Will you, mother?" cried the boy. "Will you promise me that?" "Moike! Moike!" said the widow, touched by his eager look and tone, "what a b'y you are for questions! Would I be layin' all my burdens on you, when it's six brothers you've got? 'Twouldn't be fair to you. But to know you're so ready and willin' loightens my ivery load, and it's a comfort you are to me. Your father was always for makin' easy toimes for other people, and you're loike him, Moike. And now I've something else to be talkin' of. Will you be havin' the goose for Gineral and Mrs. Brady to-morrow?" "I will, mother," answered Mike respectfully. "Then, Moike, when you get ready to go back, you'll foind the foinest wan of the lot all by himsilf in a box Pat brought from the store. Mr. Farnham give it to him, though he mostly sells 'em. And I've larned that goose to slape in it, so I have, and an awful job it was, too. Geese and pigs now, Moike, are slow to larn. But he knows his place at last, so he does, and you'll foind him in it." Then catching sight, around the corner of the table, of the enraptured two on the kitchen floor busy over the new family treasure, she cried: "Now, Barney and Tommie, to bed with you, and dream of havin' the sled Saturdays, for that's what you shall have. 'Tis Moike makes the treats for us all." * * * * * That evening at half-past nine there was a knock on the sitting-room door. "Come!" called the General. The door opened and in walked Mike with the sleek goose under his arm. "My mother's sending you a goose, Mrs. Brady," he said with a bow. The Bradys were already much attached to Mike; and the General had been heard to say that the very name of O'Callaghan seemed to be a certificate of worthiness. So the goose was made much of and the next time Mike went home he carried a bunch of roses from Mrs. Brady. "And sure 'tis roses as are the gift of a lady!" cried Mrs. O'Callaghan, receiving the flowers with an air of pride. "There's some as would have took the goose as their due and have made you feel loike dirt under their feet while they was takin' it. But the General and Mrs. Brady are quite another sort. And it's proud I am that they et the goose and found it good. Though it wouldn't have been good nayther if you hadn't cooked it good, Moike. There's them as can cook 'most anything and have it good, jist as there's them as can spoil the best. And now, Moike, I've news for you. But first do you notice how clean Jim kapes things? Him and Andy makes a foine team, so they do." Mike looked about him with a critical air that increased in mock severity as he saw little Jim rapidly donning his regalia of importance. "See a speck of dust if you can," spoke Jim's look. And then Mike was lavish with his praise. "You don't kape Mrs. Brady's things no cleaner, do you, Moike?" "I don't, mother, for I can't," was the answer. Hearing which, Jim became pompous, and the widow judged that she might tell her news without unduly rousing up his jealousy. "Well, then, Moike, you'll niver be guessin' the news, only maybe you've heard it already, for 'tis school news. Andy's to be set ahead of his class into the nixt higher wan. It's proud I am, for ivery family needs a scholar, so it does." Mike turned upon Andy a look of affectionate interest. "I hadn't heard your news, mother, but it's good news, and I'm glad to hear it," he said heartily. "I knowed you would be glad, Moike, for 'tis yoursilf as sees that when your brother gets up you get up with him. It's bad when wan brother thinks to be gettin' ahead of all the rest." And she looked gravely at Jim. "Brothers are made each wan to do his part, and be glad when wan and another gets up." But little Jim appeared discontented. All this praise of Andy quite took the edge off what he himself had received. His mother sighed. "But I'll not give him up yet," she thought after a moment. "No, I'll not give him up, for he's Tim's b'y, though most unlike him. I do moind hearin' wanst that Tim had a brother of that sort. Jim's loike him, no doubt, and he come to a bad end, so he did, a-gettin' to be an agitator, as they calls 'em. And sure what's an agitator but wan that's sour at iverybody's good luck but his own, and his own good luck turnin' out bad on account of laziness and consate? I'm needin' more wisdom than I've got when I'd be dealin' with Jim." While the mother sat silent her sons were talking together in low tones. Andy and Jim told of the rabbits they had trapped in the hazel brush, and how they had eaten some and some they had sold in the stores. And Mike, in his turn, told them how many rabbits there were in the Brady neighborhood, and how nobody seemed to wish to have them disturbed. "What are they good for, if you can't catch 'em?" asked Jim, who could never catch enough. "Good to look pretty hopping about, I guess," responded Mike. "Huh!" exclaimed Jim, who, like many a one older than he, had small respect for opinions that clashed with his own. "He'll be turnin' to be an agitator sure, only maybe I can head him off," thought the mother, who had been idly listening. "Jim," she said, "'twas your father as was iver for hearin' both sides of iverything. If there's them that thinks rabbits looks pretty jumpin' around, why, no doubt they do. 'Tisn't iverybody that's trappin', you'll moind. If you was a horse now, you'd be called strong in the mouth, and you'd need a firm hand on the lines. And if you'd been brung up among horses, as your father was, you'd know as them obstinate wans as wants the bits in their teeth are the wans as gets the beatin's. You're no horse, but things will go crossways to you all your loife if you don't do different. When there's nayther roight nor wrong in the matter let iverybody have their own way." And then little Jim became downright sulky. [Illustration: "Little Jim became downright sulky."] "Rabbits is for trappin'," he said stubbornly. "Well, well," thought the widow, "I'll have to be waitin' a bit. But I'll be makin' something out of Jim yet." Then she turned to Mike. "And how are you comin' on at the Gineral's?" she inquired. "It's hopin' I am you're watchin' him close and larnin' to be loike him." "I'm trying, mother," was the modest answer. Mrs. O'Callaghan nodded approvingly. "A pattern's a good thing for us all to go by," she said. "Your father's gone, and you can only be loike him by heedin' to what I'm tellin' you about him. But the Gineral you can see for yoursilves. If you can get to be loike your father and the Gineral both, it's proud I'll be of you. And I will say that you're a-comin' to it, Moike. "And there's another thing. The little b'ys has their chance, too. And it's because Andy here takes as natural to bein' a gintleman as thim geese takes to squawkin'. Whether it's loikin' his book or what it is, he's the wan to have handy for the little b'ys to pattern by. As far as he's gone he knows, and he can't be beat in knowin' how to treat other folks nice. And he's that quiet about what he knows that you wouldn't think he knows anything only for seein' him act it out." And now little Jim was completely miserable. Constantly craving praise was little Jim, and the loss of it was torture to him. The widow glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She saw it was time to relieve him. "But there's wan thing Jim's got that no other wan of my b'ys has," she continued. Jim pricked up his ears. "He's the born foighter, is Jim. If he was big now, and there was a war to come, he'd be a soldier, I'm thinkin'. He's for foightin' iverything, even the words of a body's mouth." This praise might be equivocal, but little Jim did not so understand it, and his pride returned. His mother observed it. "But what you need, Jim," she went on, "is to be takin' a tuck in yoursilf. Look at the Gineral. Does he go foightin' in toimes of peace? That he don't. Will you look at the Gineral, Jim?" Now Pat and Mike had been instructed to look at the General as their pattern. This appeal was placing Jim alongside of his two big brothers. "Will you look at the Gineral, Jim?" repeated Mrs. O'Callaghan. "I will," said Jim. CHAPTER XV Jim was enterprising. Far more enterprising than anybody gave him credit for. He had been set to copy the General, and that night as he lay down to sleep he resolved to outdo Pat and Mike. The little boys were insignificant in his eyes as he thought of what was before him, and even Andy offered small food for jealousy. To excel the two big boys was worth trying for. Now the General was more familiar to Jim's ears than to his eyes. He at once resolved to remedy that. "I'll have to be followin' him around and be seein' how he does, so I will," he told himself. "And I'll have to be gettin' my work done quick to be doin' it." Accordingly he hustled through the dishwashing at a great rate the next morning, for his mother had lately decided that he might wash the dishes as well as wipe them. The dusting, usually carefully done, was a whisk here and a wipe there in the most exposed places. By such means did he obtain a half hour of extra time, and off he went up the railroad track on his way to General Brady's. He soon came to the point where he must leave the track for the street, and, the street being comparatively unused and so without a pavement, he was compelled to wade the snow. Into it with his short legs he plunged, only anxious to reach the house before the General started down town. And he was almost out of breath when he came to the corner and turned south on the cleared sidewalk. On he hurried and around to the kitchen door. "Is he gone?" he inquired, poking his head into the room where his brother was busily washing dishes. Mike stared. The door had opened so softly, the words were so breathless, and the little boy so very red in the face. "Who?" he asked in astonishment. "The Gineral," said Jim impatiently. "Just going," returned Mike. And at the words Jim was out with the door shut behind him. "What's got into little Jim?" thought Mike. Out of the yard flew Jim, and took on an air of indifferent loitering as he waited. Yes, there came the General. How broad his shoulders were! How straight his back! How firm his tread! At sight of all this little Jim squared himself and, a half block in the rear, walked imitatively down the street. It was all very well for his mother to say that Jim was a born fighter. But she had entirely overlooked the fact that he was a born mimic also. Here and there a smiling girl ran to the window to gaze after the two as they passed--the stately old General and his ridiculous little copy. But it was when they neared the square that the guffaws began. The General, being slightly deaf, did not notice, and little Jim was so intent on following copy that he paid no attention. Thus they went the entire length of the east side of the square, and then along the south side until, at the southwest corner, the old soldier disappeared in the doorway of the bank. By this time little Jim's shoulders were aching from the restraint put upon them, for Jim was not naturally erect. And his long walk at what was, to him, an usually slow pace had made his nose blue with cold. But instead of running off to get warm he pressed close against the big window and peered in at his pattern. He knew his back and his walk now, and he wanted to see his face. Presently one of the amused spectators stepped into the bank and spoke a few words to its president, and the General turned to look at the little fellow. "Who is he?" he asked. "One of your O'Callaghans, General," was the laughing answer. The General flushed. Then he beckoned to Jim, who immediately came in. "Go back to the stove and get warm, my boy," he said. "You look cold." Jim obeyed and presently the General's friend went out. "Now, my boy," said the General, walking back to the stove, "what did you mean by following me?" Little Jim's blue eyes looked up into the blue eyes of the old soldier. "Our eyes is the same color," he thought. And then he answered: "My mother told me to be makin' a pattern out of you. She told the same to Pat and Mike, too, and I'm goin' to do it better than they do, see if I don't. Why, they don't walk fine and straight like you do. But I can do it. I larned this morning." The General laughed. "And what were you peering in at the window for?" "Sure and I wanted to be watchin' your face, so I did. 'Tis my mother as says I'm the born fighter, and she says, 'Look at the General. Does he be goin' round fightin' in times of peace? That he don't.' And she wants me to be like you and I'm goin' to be." "What's your name?" "Jim." "Well, Jim, I don't think your mother meant that you should follow me through the street and try to walk like me. And you must not do so any more." "But I knows how now, sir," objected Jim, who was loth to discard his new accomplishment. "Nevertheless you must not follow me about and imitate my movements any more," forbade the General. "And how am I to be like you then, if you won't let me do the way you do?" For a moment the General seemed perplexed. Then he opened the door and motioned Jim out. "Ask your mother," he said. "I won't," declared little Jim obstinately, when he found himself in the street. "I won't ask her." But he did. The coasting was excellent on a certain hill, and the hill was only a short distance northwest of the O'Callaghan home. "'Twill do Andy good to have a bit of a change and eat wanst of a supper he ain't cooked," the widow had said. And so it was that she was alone, save for Larry, when Jim came in after school. Presently the whole affair of the morning came out, and Mrs. O'Callaghan listened with horrified ears. "And do you know how that looked to them that seen you?" she asked severely. "Sure and it looked loike you was makin' fun of the Gineral." "But I wasn't," protested little Jim. "Sure and don't I know that? Would a b'y of mine be makin' fun of Gineral Brady?" "He said I wasn't to do it no more," confided little Jim humbly. The widow nodded approbation. "And what did you say then?" she asked. "I says to him, 'How can I get to be like you, sir, when you won't let me do the way you do?'" "And then?" "Then he opened the door, and his hand said, 'Go outside.' And just as I was goin' he said, 'Ask your mother.'" "'Twasn't for naught he got made a gineral," commented Mrs. O'Callaghan. "'Tis himsilf as knows a b'y's mother is the wan. For who is it else can see how he's so full of brag he's loike to boorst and a-wantin' to do big things till he can't dust good nor wash the plates clean? Dust on the father's chair, down on the rockers where you thought it wouldn't show, and egg on the plates, and them piled so slick wan on top of the other and lookin' as innocent as if they felt thimsilves quite clean. Ah, Jim! Jim!" The widow's fourth son blushed. He cast a hasty glance over the room and was relieved to see that Larry, his mother's only other auditor, was playing busily in a corner. Mrs. O'Callaghan went on. She had Jim all to herself and she meant to improve her chance. "You haint got the hang of this ambition business, Jim. That's the trouble. You're always tryin' to do some big thing and beat somebody. 'Tis well you should know the Lord niver puts little b'ys and big jobs together. He gives the little b'ys a chance at the little jobs, and them as does the little jobs faithful gets to be the men that does the big jobs easy." Jim now sought to turn the conversation, the doctrine of faithfulness in small things not being at all to his taste. "And will _I_ be havin' a bank, too, like the Gineral?" he asked. His mother looked at him. "There you go again, Jim," she said. "And sure how can I tell whether you'll have a bank or not? 'Tisn't all the good foightin' men as has banks. But you might try for it. And if you've got a bank in your eye, you'd best pay particular attintion to your dustin' and your dishwashin'. Them's your two first steps." Little Jim pondered as well as he was able. It seemed to him that the first steps to everything in life, according to his mother, were dusting and dishwashing. His face was downcast and he put the dishes on the table in an absent-minded way. "What are you thinkin' about, Jim?" asked his mother after many a sidelong glance at him. "Cheer up!" "Ain't there no other first steps?" he asked gloomily. "Not for you, Jim. And it's lucky you are that you don't loike the dustin' and the dishwashin'." Jim was evidently mystified. "Because, do you see, Jim, iverybody has got to larn sooner or later to do things they don't loike to do. You've begun in toime, so you have, and, if you kape on, you can get a lot of it done before you come to the place where you can do what you loike, such as kapin' a bank and that. But it's no business. The Gineral's business was foightin', you know. He kapes a bank jist to pass the toime." Little Jim's eyes widened. Here was a new outlook for him. "But you must do 'em good," admonished his mother. "There's nothin' but bad luck goes with poor dustin' and dirty dishwashin'. And spakin' of luck, it's lucky you are I caught you at it the first toime you done 'em bad, for, do you see, I'll be lookin' out for you now for a good bit jist to be seein' that you're a b'y that can be trusted. It's hopin' I am you'll be loike your father, for 'twas your father as could be trusted ivery toime. And now I've a plan for you. We'll be havin' Moike to show you how they lays the table at the Gineral's. 'Twill be a foine thing for you to larn, and 'twill surprise Pat, and be a good thing for the little b'ys to see. Them little b'ys don't get the chance to see much otherwheres, and they'll have to be larnin' their manners to home, so they will. Pat and Moike with the good manners about eatin' they've larned at the Gineral's, and the little b'ys without a manner to their back! Sure and 'twill be a lesson to 'em to see the table when you've larned to set it roight." Jim brightened at once. He had had so much lesson himself to-day that it was a great pleasure to think of his younger brothers being instructed in their turn. In they came at that moment, their red little hands tingling with cold. But they were hilarious, for kind-hearted Andy had taken them to the hill, and over and over they had whizzed down its long length with him. At another time Jim might have been jealous; but to-night he regarded them from the vantage ground of his superior information concerning them. They were to be instructed. And Jim knew it, if they did not. He placed the chairs with dignity, and hoped instruction might prove as unwelcome to Barney and Tommie as it was to him. And as they jounced down into their seats the moment the steaming supper was put upon the table, and gazed at it with eager, hungry eyes, and even gave a sniff or two, he felt that here was a field for improvement, indeed. And he smiled. Not that Jim was a bad boy, or a malicious one, but when Barney and Tommie were wrong, it was the thing that they should be set right, of course. [Illustration: "In they came at that moment"] CHAPTER XVI Pat had now been in Mr. Farnham's employ two months and more, and never had his faithfulness slackened. He had caught the knack of measuring goods easily and tying up packages neatly. He could run off a length of calico and display it to any customer that came to him, and what most endeared him to Mr. Farnham was that he could sell. "Best clerk I ever had," the merchant told himself. But he did not advance this "best clerk" although Pat longed and hoped for promotion. Upon every opportunity he studied dress goods at the front end of the store, and carpets and cloaks at the rear. And day by day he went on patiently selling prints, ginghams and muslins. "'Tis the best things as are longest a-comin' sometimes," said his mother encouragingly. "Are you sellin' what you've got as well as you know how?" "I am, mother." "Well, if you are, be sure Mr. Farnham knows it, and, by the same token, he'd be knowin' it if you was gapin' in the customers' faces or hummin' or whistlin' soft like while you waited on 'em. Mr. Wall had a clerk wanst that done that way. I've seen him. And, by the same token, he ain't got him now. Ladies don't care for hummin' and whistlin' when they're buyin' goods." And now trade was growing heavier. The other clerks were overburdened, while Pat in his humble place had little to do. Suddenly there came a call for him at the dress counter. A lady had come in and both the other clerks were busy. She was one who continually lamented in an injured tone of voice that she lived in so small a town as Wennott, and she rarely made purchases there. Her name was Mrs. Pomeroy. "Let us see if Pat sells her anything. It will be a wonder if he does," thought Mr. Farnham. Languidly Mrs. Pomeroy examined this and that in an uninterested way, and all the time Pat was paying the closest attention, trying to discover just what she wanted. His heart was beating fast. If only he could make a sale, what might it not mean to him? "Here is a pattern for a street dress, madam." Pat's voice was musical, and his manner most respectful. Mrs. Pomeroy felt interested and attracted at once. She looked on while Pat drew out the dress pattern from its box, displaying to advantage its soft coloring and fine texture. Mrs. Pomeroy put her head on one side and regarded it through half-shut eyes. "The only pattern of exactly its sort and color," said the persuasive voice of Pat. He had learned from the other clerks that this was a great recommendation to a piece of goods and helped to sell it. Mrs. Pomeroy reflected. She asked the price and reflected again, and all the time she noticed that Pat's interest was real and not simulated; that he was doing his best to please her. She liked the goods, but not better than a pattern she had seen at Wall's. But Wall's clerks were inattentive and indifferent. They had an air that said "There are the goods. Buy 'em or leave 'em. 'Tis nothing to us." She was thinking of this as well as of the dress goods before her and finally she said, "You may wrap the pattern up. I will take it." Then did Pat's eyes dance with delight, and he thought of his mother. But it was only a glancing thought, for in a second he was saying: "Mr. Farnham has gloves to match." "I will look at them." To look was to buy when Pat was salesman, and, in a few moments, the happiest clerk in the store, Pat walked modestly back to his own place. "Well done, Pat!" exclaimed Mr. Farnham, going up to him. "I wish you would keep an eye on the dress counter, and, whenever another clerk is needed, attend there." "I will, sir," answered Pat gratefully. Three times more was Pat needed before the day closed, and every time he made a good sale. As usual Mrs. O'Callaghan was waiting alone for Pat. She was extremely tired and almost despondent. For to earn what she could and keep her sons up to the mark she had set for them was a great strain on her. And she missed her husband. More and more she missed him. "Ah, Tim!" she cried, "'twas a great thing you done for me when you taught our b'ys that moind me they must and that without questions about it. Only for that I couldn't do much with 'em. And without you it's hard enough, so it is. I hain't never laid finger on wan of 'em, and I won't nayther, for sure they're not beasts but b'ys. I mistrust my hardest toimes are ahead of me. Pat and Moike and Andy don't trouble me none. Sure and a bloind man can see them three is all roight. But Jim and Barney and Tommie and Larry now--how can I be tellin' what's comin' of them? And I can't set the big b'ys over 'em only to take care of 'em loike, for sure b'ys as are worth anything won't be bossed by their big brothers. They sees the unfairness of it." And then intruding upon her thoughts came a boy's merry whistle; a whistle that told of a heart where happiness was bubbling up and overflowing, and the whistling came nearer and nearer. "Whativer do be makin' Pat come home with a tune loike that?" she asked. And she half rose as Pat's hand opened the door and the tall young fellow stepped in. The tiny lamp was very bright, and in its light the boy's eyes were brilliant. "Well, Pat!" exclaimed his mother. "The lamp's but a poor match for your eyes to-night. You've got news for me. What is it?" And Pat told with an eager tongue how, at last, he had a chance to attend at the dress counter when the two regular clerks there were busy and another one was needed. The widow was silent a moment. It was not quite what she had hoped to hear, knowing her Pat as she did, but she was determined to keep her son's courage up. So she said, "Well, then, if you've got so far, it rests with yoursilf to go farther. 'Tis a blessed thing that there are such a many things in this world a-restin' on a body's lone silf. But there's them that niver foinds it out, and that goes about layin' their own blame here, there and yon." Pat's elation lasted him overnight and even well on into the next day. And that day was more wonderful than the one before it. For, about the middle of the forenoon, General Brady came into the store and walked back to Mr. Farnham's desk, giving Pat a smile and a bow as he passed him, and receiving in return an affectionate look. The one evening a week with the General had not served to diminish the boy's fondness for him, but it had served to make Pat a greater favorite than ever with the old soldier. "Mr. Farnham," said the General, after a few pleasant words had been exchanged, "Mr. Wall offers thirty dollars a month for Pat. Do you wish to keep him?" "I suppose I shall have to come up to Wall's offer if I do?" "Exactly," was the response with a smile. The General was delighted with Pat's success, and he could not help showing it. "Pat is getting himself a reputation among your customers," he remarked pleasantly. "Frankly, General," replied Mr. Farnham, "he's the best boy I ever had. He shall have his thirty dollars." If the whistle was merry the night before, it was mad with joy on that Wednesday evening. "Pat! Pat! what ails you?" cried his mother as the boy came bounding in with a shout and a toss of his cap. "You'll be wakin' your brothers." "I'd like to wake 'em, mother," was the jubilant answer. "I've got news that's worth wakin' 'em for." "And what is it?" was the eager question. "Well, mother, then it's this. I'm to have thirty dollars a month and to stay at the dress counter." "Pat! Pat!" exclaimed the little woman, excited in her turn. "It's forty years old I am, and sure and I know better than to be wakin' b'ys out of their slape jist to be hearin' a bit of news. But I'm goin' to wake 'em. They shall be knowin' this night what comes to a b'y that does his best when he's got Gineral Brady to back him. And would Gineral Brady back you if you didn't desarve it? That he wouldn't. I ain't heard nothin' of his backin' up street loafers nor any sort of shiftless b'ys." The boys were wakened, and a difficult task it was. But when, at last, they were all thoroughly roused and were made to understand that there was no fire, nor any uproar in the streets, nor a train off the track, they stared about them wonderingly. And when they had been told of Pat's good fortune, "Is _that_ all?" asked jealous little Jim, and down went his red head on the pillow, and shut went his eyes in a twinkling. Barney and Tommie, who knew not the value of money, gazed solemnly at their mother and Pat, and then into each other's eyes and composedly laid themselves down to renewed slumber. And Larry howled till the windows rattled, for Larry was a strong child for his years, and never before had he been waked up in the night. But Andy sat up in bed and clasped his brother's hand in both his while his face showed his delight. And then something happened to Andy. His mother, disgusted at the conduct of the little boys, put her arm around his neck and kissed him. "It's a jewel you are, Andy," she said, "with good understandin' in you. You'll be wakin' up Pat in the noight some day." "Huh!" thought jealous little Jim, who was only feigning sleep. "Now, mother," said Pat when the tiny lamp stood once more on the kitchen table, and the two sat beside the stove, "will you give up two of your wash places?" "Not I, Pat dear. With six of us, not countin' you and not countin' Moike, who cares for himsilf, we need all the money we can honestly get." "Only one, then, mother; only one. My good luck is no comfort to me if I can't think of your getting a day's rest every week out of it." The widow regarded him earnestly. She saw how her refusal would pain him and she yielded. "Well, then," she said, "wan place, Pat dear, I'll give up. And it'll be Wednesday, because 'twas on a Wednesday that your luck come to you." Another month went by and the holiday trade was over. Nevertheless the amount of custom at Mr. Farnham's did not diminish much. Ladies who went out on looking tours, if they began at Farnham's ended there by purchasing. If they stopped first at Wall's they went on to Farnham's and bought there. Mr. Wall was not blind. And so, one day General Brady walked into Mr. Farnham's store and back to his desk again. "Another rise?" asked the merchant laughingly. "Something of the sort," was the rejoinder. "Mr. Wall offers forty dollars a month for Pat." "He doesn't take him though," was the significant answer. The General laughed. "I see you appreciate him," he said. "Well, to tell the truth, General, I know my right hand man when I see him, and Pat O'Callaghan is his name. I only wish there were two of him." The General's face grew thoughtful. "There may be," he said at length. "His next brother, Mike, is at our house, and just as much of a born trader as Pat. His ways, however, are a little different." Mr. Farnham put out his hand. "I take this hint as very kind of you, General. When may I have him?" "Could you wait till next fall? He ought to finish this school year. Next winter I could take charge of him one evening a week together with Pat. The terms must be the same for him as they were for Pat when he began--fifteen dollars a month and one evening each week out." "All right, General. I'll be frank with you---I'm glad to get him on those terms. I begin to think that it's enough of a recommendation for a boy to be an O'Callaghan." The General smiled as he left Mr. Farnham's desk, and on his way out of the store, he stopped to speak to Pat. "What is your greatest ambition, my boy?" he asked. And he knew what answer he would receive before Pat replied, "To have a store with O'Callaghan Brothers over the door." Again the General smiled, and this time very kindly. "I'll tell you a sort of a secret," he said, "that isn't so much of a secret that you need to hesitate about speaking of it. Mike's coming to Mr. Farnham next fall." Then the boy got hold of the man's hand. "General Brady," he began after a moment of silence, "you know I can't thank you as I ought in words, but----" and then he stopped. This boy who could fight to defend his small brother, who could face contempt to ease his mother's burdens, who could grub and dig and win a chance for his own promotion, was very near to tears. He did not wish to shed those tears, and the General knew it. So with a hearty "Good-by, Pat," the fine old soldier passed on. CHAPTER XVII The shanty by the tracks had never seen such rejoicing as occurred within its cheap walls that January evening. Pat had said nothing at supper time of his wonderful news concerning Mike. He knew how anxious his brother would be to tell it himself, and he had left the tale of his own advancement to follow Mike's disclosure. For he felt sure that he should find Mike upon his return from the store at nine o'clock, and that he would spend the night at home, as he sometimes did. Many times that day he glanced at the print and gingham counter and imagined Mike's sturdy figure behind it. Pat's hands were long and slender, while Mike's were of the sort known as "useful." "Before ever he comes in he shall know how to measure and display goods, and how to make neat packages," he thought. "I'll teach him myself odd times." And then followed visions of the increased comfort to come to the shanty. He saw his mother, with never a wash place, staying at home every day to guide and control the little boys. He saw Andy, quiet, studious Andy, moving gently about in General Brady's house, and the thought came to him that the General would probably like him better than he did either Mike or himself, though Andy would never be much of a hand at marketing. And then came the most daring thought of all--"Andy shall go to college. Mike and I will help him to it." But never an opportunity of making a sale did Pat miss. With that last decision to send Andy to college he had hung upon himself a new weight. Not a weight that oppressed and bent him down, but a weight that caused him to hold his head up and resolve, as never before, to do his best. "Andy's not strong," his busy brain, in the intervals of trade, ran on. "But with Mike on one side of him and me on the other, he'll get to the place where he can do his best. General Brady is helping Mike and me. It's a pity if the two of us can't help Andy." It was hard to keep still at supper time, but Pat succeeded, only allowing himself to bestow a look of particular affection on his favorite brother. But his mother was not to be deceived. She followed him to the door and, putting her head outside, said softly, "You may kape still if you want to, Pat dear, but 'tis mysilf as knows you've somethin' on your moind." "Well, then, mother," prophesied Pat with a laughing backward glance, "I think Mike will be over to spend the evening with you." And he was off. "And what does he mean by that?" wondered Mrs. O'Callaghan, looking after him. "There's somethin' astir. I felt it by the look of him." She turned back and shut the door, and there was little Jim loitering as if he hardly knew whether to wash the dishes or not. "'Tis the bank that's ahead of you, do you moind, Jim? Hurry up with your dish pan. Pat was sayin' maybe Mike'll be home this evenin'." In response to this urging little Jim made a clatter with the dishes that might be taken by some to represent an increase of speed, but his mother was not of that number. "Come, Jim," she said, "less n'ise. If you was hustlin' them thin china dishes of Mrs. Gineral Brady's loike that there'd be naught left of 'em but pieces--and dirty pieces, too, for they'd all be broke before you'd washed wan of 'em." "I ain't never goin' to wash any of Mrs. Gineral Brady's dishes," remarked Jim calmly. "You're young yet, Jim, to be sayin' what you're goin' to do and what not," was the severe response. "At your age your father would niver have said he would or he would not about what was a long way ahead of him, for your father was wise, and he knowed that ne'er a wan of us knows what's comin' to us." [Illustration: "Little Jim made a clatter with the dishes."] But Jim's countenance expressed indifference. "Gineral Brady's got a bank without washin' dishes for it," he observed. The widow stared. This was a little nearer to impertinence than anything she had before encountered. "You moind the Gineral made gravy, do you?" she said at last. "And good gravy, too?" Jim was obliged to own that he remembered it. "And that he done it with an apron on to kape from gettin' burnt and spattered?" Jim nodded. "Him that ain't above makin' gravy, ain't above washin' dishes, nayther," was the statement made in Mrs. O'Callaghan's most impressive manner. "Show Gineral Brady a pile of dishes that it was his place to wash, and he'd wash 'em, you may depind. 'Tis iver the biggest folks as will do little things loike that when they has to, and do 'em good, too. What's got into you, Jim?" "You think Pat and Mike and Andy's better than me," burst out the jealous little fellow. "I think," said his mother, "that Pat and Moike and Andy _does_ better than you, for they takes what's set for 'em and does it as good as they can. But you're all Tim's b'ys, so you are." "If I done like Pat and Mike and Andy," asked Jim hesitatingly, "would you think I was just as good?" "Sure and I would, Jim," said his mother earnestly. "Will you try?" "I will." And then steps crunched on the snowy path that led to the shanty door, and Mike came in. There was that in his face that told his mother without a word that he brought good news. "Moike! Moike! 'Tis the shanty's the luckiest place in town, for there's naught but good news comes to it, do you see? What have you got to tell?" "I've got to tell," cried Mike in ringing tones, "that next fall I'm to go to Mr. Farnham's store at fifteen dollars a month. Pat shan't do all for you, mother. I'll do some myself." For a moment the widow was dazed. Then she said, "I don't know what I was lookin' for, but it wasn't anything so good as this. 'Twas Gineral Brady got you the place, was it?" "It was, mother." "I knowed it. He's the man to be loike." She looked around upon her sons, and then she said, "I want all my b'ys to remimber that it's honorable empl'yment to do anything in the world for Gineral Brady and Mrs. Gineral Brady, too. The toime may come when you can do some big thing for 'em, but the toime's roight here when you can sweep and cook and wash dishes for 'em, and make 'em aisy and comfortable, and so lingthen out their days. Moike goin' to the store gives Andy a chance to show that the O'Callaghans knows how to be grateful. And, Moike, you'll be takin' home another goose for 'em when you go. A goose ain't much, but it shows what I'd do if I had the chance. And that's all that makes a prisint seem good anyway--jist to know that the giver's heart is warm toward you." She paused and then went on, "Well, well, and that's what Pat was kapin' still about at supper toime. I could see that he knowed somethin' that he wouldn't tell. He'd be givin' you the chance to bring your own good news, Moike, do you see? Pat's the b'y to give other folks the chances as is their due. There's them that fond of gabblin' and makin' a stir that they'd have told it thimsilves, but sure O'Callaghan ain't their name." At this every face grew bright, for even Barney and Tommie saw that no undue praise of Pat was meant, but that, as O'Callaghans, they were all held incapable of telling other people's stories, and they lifted their heads up. All but Larry who, with sleepily drooping crown, was that moment taken up and prepared for bed. "And now, Moike," said Mrs. O'Callaghan when Larry had been disposed of, "'tis fitting you should sit to-night in the father's chair. Sit you down in it." "Not I, mother," responded the gallant Mike. "Sit you in it, and 'twill be all the same as if I sat there myself." "Well, well, Moike," said the widow with a pleased smile. "Have it your own way. Kape on tryin' to spoil your mother with kindness. 'Tis somethin' you larned from your father, and I'll not be denyin' it makes my heart loight." And then the talk went on to Andy's promotion to General Brady's kitchen. "Andy and me won't be a team then," put in little Jim. "I'll run things myself. I guess I can cook." "Well said, Jim!" cried his mother. "To be sure you can cook--when you've larned how. There's them that takes to cookin' by nature, I've heard, but I've niver seen any of 'em. There's rules to iverything, and iverybody must larn 'em. For 'tis the rule that opens the stingy hand, and shuts a bit the ginerous wan, and so kapes all straight." But little Jim turned a deaf ear to his mother's wisdom. He was thinking what wonderful dishes he would concoct, and how often they would have pudding. Pudding was Jim's favorite food, and something seldom seen on the widow's table. Little Jim resolved to change the bill of fare, and to go without pudding only when he must. He could not hope to put his plans into operation for many months to come, however; so, with a sigh, he opened his eyes and ears again to what was passing around him, and was just in time to see Barney and Tommie marching to bed an hour later than usual. They had been permitted to sit up till half-past eight in honor of Mike's good fortune. Had their mother known all, they might have stayed in the kitchen engaged in the difficult task of keeping their eyes open at least an hour longer. But they were fast enough asleep in their bed when Pat came gaily in. "Ah, Pat, my b'y, you kept still at supper toime famous, so you did, but the news is out," began Mrs. O'Callaghan. "It's Moike that's in luck, and sure he desarves it." "That he does, mother," agreed Pat heartily. "But will you say the same for me if I tell you something?" The widow regarded him anxiously. There could not be bad news! "Out with it quick, Pat!" she cried. "Well, then, mother," said Pat with mock resignation in his tone and a sparkle of fun in his eye, "I'm to have forty dollars a month." "Forty dollars!" repeated the mother. "Forty dollars! That's the Gineral's doin's again. B'ys, I'd be proud to see any wan of you crawl on your knees to sarve the Gineral. Look at all he's done for us, and us doin' nothin' to desarve it, only doin' our best." And there were tears in the widow's eyes. "But, mother," resumed Pat, "'tis yourself has the bad luck." "And what do you mean, Pat?" "You've lost another wash place to-night." Mrs. O'Callaghan smiled. "Are you sure of it?" she asked. "I am," was the determined answer. "Have it your own way. You and Moike are headstrong b'ys, so you are. If you kape on I'll have nothin' to do but to sit with my hands folded. And that's what your father was always plazed to see me do." The two brothers exchanged glances of satisfaction, while Andy looked wistfully on and little Jim frowned jealously. "Now, mother," said Pat, "I've the thought for you. It came to me to-day in the store. 'Tis the best thought ever I had. Andy's going to college." The delicate boy started. How had Pat divined the wish of his heart? "'Tis Andy that will make us all proud, if only he can go to college," concluded this unselfish oldest brother. The widow glanced at the lit-up countenance and eager eyes of her third son, and, loth to rouse hopes that might later have to be dashed down, observed, "Thim colleges are ixpinsive, I belave." Andy's face clouded with anxiety. There must be a chance for him, or Pat would not have spoken with so much certainty. "They may be," replied Pat, "but Andy will have Mike on one side of him and me on the other, and we'll make it all right." "That we will," cried Mike enthusiastically. "By the time he needs to go I'll be making forty dollars a month myself, and little Jim will be earning for himself." Sturdy Mike as he spoke cast an encouraging look on his favorite brother, who laid by his frown and put on at once an air of importance. "I'm goin' to be a foightin' man loike the Gineral," he announced pompously. "Well, well," cried the widow. "I'm gettin' old fast. You'll all be growed up in a few minutes." And then they all laughed. But presently the mother said, "Thank God for brothers as is brothers. Andy is goin' to college sure." CHAPTER XVIII Summer time came again. The stove went out into the airy kitchen, and a larger flock of geese squawked in the weeds and ditches. Again Andy and Jim drove the cows, Andy of a morning with a dreamy stroll, and Jim of an evening with a strut that was intended for a military gait. Who had told little Jim of West Point, the family did not know. But he had been told by somebody. And his cows were to him as a battalion to be commanded. The General used to watch him from his front veranda with a smile. Somewhere Jim had picked up the military salute, and he never failed to honor the General with it as he strutted past with his cows. And always the old soldier responded with an amused look in his eyes which Jim was too far away to see, even if he had not been preoccupied with his own visions. Jim was past ten now, and not much of a favorite with other boys. But he was a prime favorite with himself. "West P'int," mused Mrs. O'Callaghan. "Let him go there if he can. 'Twill be better than gettin' to be an agitator." The widow continued her musings and finally she asked, "Where is West P'int, Jim?" "It's where they make foightin' men out of boys." "Is it far from here?" "I don't know. I can get there anyway." His mother looked at him and she saw pugnacity written all over him. His close-cropped red hair, which was of a beautiful shade and very thick, stood straight on end all over his head. His very nature seemed belligerent. "The trouble with you, Jim," she said, "is that you'd iver go foightin' in toimes of peace. Foight when foightin's to be done, and the rest of the toime look plissant loike the Gineral." "I ain't foightin' in times of peace any more," responded little Jim confidentially. "I ain't licked a boy for three weeks. Mebbe I won't lick any one all summer." His mother sighed. "I should hope you wouldn't, Jim," she said. "'Tisn't gintlemanly to be lickin' any wan with your fist." "And what would I be lickin' 'em with?" inquired Jim wonderingly. "You're not to be lickin' 'em at all. Hear to me now, Jim, and don't be the only wan of your father's b'ys I'll have to punish. Wait till you get to your West P'int, and larn when and where to foight. Will you, Jim?" Little Jim reflected. The request seemed a reasonable one, and so "I will," said he. Evening after evening he drove the cows and gave his commands at the corners of the streets. And the cows plodded on, swinging their tails to brush the flies away from their sides, stopping here and there where a mouthful of grass might be picked up, stirring the dust in dry weather with their dragging feet, and sinking hoof-deep in the mud when there had been rain. But always little Jim was the commander--even when the rain soaked him and ran in rills from his hat brim. On rainy mornings Andy, wearing rubber boots and a rubber coat and carrying an umbrella, picked his way along, following his obedient charges to the pasture gate. But little Jim liked to have bare legs and feet and to feel the soft mud between his toes, and the knowledge that he was getting wetter and wetter was most satisfactory to him. At home there was always a clean shirt and a pair of cottonade pantaloons waiting for him, and nothing but a "Well, Jim!" by way of reproof. "File right!" little Jim would cry, or "File left!" as the case might be. And when the street corner was turned, "Forward!" All this circumstance and show had its effect on the two small Morton boys and at last, on a pleasant June evening, they began to mock him. Jim stood it silently for a quarter of a second, while his face grew red. Then he burst out, "I'd lick both of you, if I was sure this was a where or when to foight!" His persecutors received this information with delight, and repeated it afterward to their older brother with many chuckles. "Lucky for you!" was his answer. "He can whip any boy in town of your size." Whereat the little fellows grew sober, and recognized the fact that some scruple of Jim's not understood by them had probably saved them unpleasant consequences of their mockery. Jim's ambition, in due time, came to the ears of General Brady, and very soon thereafter the old soldier, who had now taken the whole O'Callaghan family under his charge, contrived to meet the boy. "Jim," said he, "I hear you're quite set on West Point. I also hear that you did not stand well in your classes last year. I advise you to study hard hereafter." Jim touched his hat in military style. "What's larnin' your lessons got to do with bein' a foightin' man, sir?" he asked respectfully. "A great deal, my boy. If you ever get to West Point you will have to study here, and you will have to go to school there besides." Jim sighed. "You can't get to be nothin' you want to be without doin' a lot you don't want to do," he said despondently. "I was goin' to have a bank loike you, sir, but my mother said the first steps to it was dustin' and dishwashin', so I give up the notion." The General laughed and little Jim went his way, but he remembered the General's words. As the summer waned and the time for school approached the cows heard no more "File right! File left! Forward!" Little Jim had no love for study and he drove with a "Hi, there! Get along with you!" But it was all one to the cows. And so his dreams of West Point faded. He began to study the cook book, for now Andy was to go to General Brady's, and on two days of the week he was to make the family happy with his puddings. Mrs. O'Callaghan, having but two days out now, had decided to do the cooking herself on those days when she was at home. But never a word said little Jim to his mother on the subject of puddings. "I can read just how to make 'em. I'll not be botherin' her," he thought. "Pat and Mike is always wantin' her to take it aisy. She can take it aisy about the puddin', so she can." The week before school began his mother had given him some instructions of a general character on cooking and sweeping and bed-making. "I'm home so much, Jim," she told him, "that I'll let you off with makin' the bed where you're to slape with Mike. That you must make so's to be larnin' how." "Wan bed's not much," said little Jim airily. "See that you makes it good then," was the answer. "And don't you be burnin' the steak nor soggin' the potatoes," was her parting charge when she went to her washing on Monday, the first day of school. "Sure and I won't," was the confident response. "I know how to cook steak and potatoes from watchin' Andy." That night after school little Jim stepped into Mr. Farnham's store. "I'm needin' a few raisins for my cookin'," he said to Pat. Pat looked surprised, but handed him the money and little Jim strutted out. "What did Jim want?" asked Mike when he had opportunity. "Raisins for his cooking." And both brothers grinned. "I'll just be doin' the hardest first," said little Jim as, having reached home, he tossed off his hat, tied on his apron, and washed his hands. "And what's that but the puddin'?" He slapped the pudding dish out on the table, opened his paper of raisins, ate two or three just to be sure they were good, and then hastily sought the cook book. It opened of itself at the pudding page, which little Jim took to be a good omen. "Puddin's the thing," he said. "Now how much shall I make? Barney and Tommie is awful eaters when it comes to somethin' good, and so is Larry. I'd ought to have enough." He read over the directions. "Seems to me this receipt sounds skimpin'," was his comment. "Somethin's got to be done about it. Most loike it wasn't made for a big family, but for a little wan loike General Brady's." He ate another raisin. "A little puddin's just nothin'," he said. "I'll just put in what the receipt calls for, and as much more of everything as it seems to need." Busily he measured and stirred and tasted, and with every taste more sugar was added, for little Jim liked sweets. At last it was ready for the oven, even down to the raisins, which had been picked from their stems and all unwashed and unstoned cast into the pudding basin. And never before had that or any other pudding dish been so full. If Jim so much as touched it, it slopped over. "And sure and that's because the puddin' dish is too little," he remarked to himself. "They'll have to be gettin' me a bigger wan. And how long will it take it to bake, I wonder? Till it's done, of course." He turned to the stove, which was now in the house again, and the fire was out. "Huh!" exclaimed little Jim. "I'll soon be makin' a fire." He rushed for the kindling, picking out a swimming raisin as he ran. "They'll see the difference between Andy's cookin' and mine, I'm thinkin'. Dustin' and dishwashin'! Just as if I couldn't cook with the best of them!" The sugar was sifted over the table, his egg-shells were on the floor, and a path of flour led to the barrel when, three-quarters of an hour later, the widow stepped in. But there was a roaring fire and the pudding was baking. "Well, Jim," cried his mother, "'tis a big fire you've got, sure. But I don't see no potatoes a-cookin'." Jim looked blank. He had forgotten the potatoes. He had been so busy coaling up the fire. "Run and get 'em," directed his mother. "There's no toime for palin' 'em. We'll have to b'ile 'em with their jackets on." But there was no time even for that, for Pat and Mike came in to supper and could not be kept waiting. Hastily the widow got the dishpan and washed off the sticky table, and her face, as Jim could see, was very sober. Then, while Jim set the table, Pat fried the steak and Mike brushed up the flour from the floor. And now a burnt smell was in the air. It was not the steak. It seemed to seep out of the oven. "Open the oven door, Jim," commanded Mrs. O'Callaghan, after one critical sniff. [Illustration: "Open the oven door, Jim."] The latest cook of the O'Callaghans obeyed, and out rolled a cloud of smoke. The pudding had boiled over and flooded the oven bottom. Poor Jim! "What's in the oven, Jim? Perhaps you'll be tellin' us," said his mother gravely. "My puddin'," answered little Jim, very red in the face. At the word pudding the faces of Barney and Tommie and Larry, who had come in very hungry, lit up. But at the smell they clouded again. A pudding lost was worse than having no pudding to begin with. For to lose what is within reach of his spoon is hard indeed for any boy to bear. "And what was it I told you to be cookin' for supper?" asked the widow when they had all sat down to steak and bread and butter, leaving the doors and windows wide open to let out the pudding smoke. But little Jim did not reply and his downcast look was in such contrast to his erect hair, which no failure of puddings could down, that Pat and Mike burst out laughing. The remembrance of the raisins little Jim had so pompously asked for was upon them, too. And even Mrs. O'Callaghan smiled. "Was it steak and potatoes I told you to be cookin'?" she persisted. Little Jim nodded miserably. "I'll not be hard on you, Jim," said his mother, "for I see you're ashamed of yourself, and you ought to be, too. But I'll say this to you; them that cooks puddin's when they're set to cook steak and potatoes is loike to make a smoke in the world, and do themsilves small credit. Let's have no more puddin's, Jim, till I give you the word." That was all there was of it. But Jim had lost his appetite for pudding, and it was long before it returned to him. CHAPTER XIX There were three to sit by the kitchen stove now and talk of an evening from half-past nine till ten, and they were the widow and Pat and Mike. "It's Andy that makes me astonished quite," observed Mrs. O'Callaghan. "Here it is the first of December and him three months at Gineral Brady's and gettin' fat on it. He niver got fat to home, and that's what bates me." "Well, mother, he's got a nice big room by himself to sleep in. The Physiology's down on crowding, and five boys in one bedroom ain't good for a nervous boy like Andy." "Nor it ain't good for the rest of you, nayther," responded Mrs. O'Callaghan, with conviction. "What do you say, b'ys? Shall we ask the landlord to put us on another room in the spring? He'll raise the rint on us if he does." The widow regarded her sons attentively, and they, feeling the proud responsibility of being consulted by their mother, answered as she would have them. "Then that's settled," said she. "The more room, the more rint. Any landlord can see that--a lawyer, anyway. Do you think, b'ys, Andy'll be a lawyer when he comes from college?" "Why, mother?" asked Pat. "'Cause I don't want him to be. He ain't got it in him to be comin' down hard and sharp on folks, and so he won't be a good wan. He'll be at the law loike little Jim at puddin's. You niver was to coort, was you, b'ys?" Pat and Mike confessed that they had never been at court. "I knowed you hadn't. I jist asked you. Well, you see, b'ys, them lawyers gets the witnesses up and asks 'em all sorts of impudent questions, and jist as good as tells 'em they lies quite often. Andy couldn't niver do the loikes of that. 'Tain't in him. Do you know, b'ys, folks can't do what ain't in 'em, no matter if they do go to college. Now little Jim's the wan for a lawyer. He'd be the wan to make a man forget his own name, and all on account of impudent questions." Pat and Mike looked surprised. They were both fond of little Jim, Mike particularly so. "I see you wonders at me, but little Jim's a-worryin' me. I don't know what to be doin' with him. B'ys, would you belave it? I can't teach him a thing. Burn the steak he will if I lave him with it, and Moike knows the sort of a bed he makes. He's clane out of the notion of that West P'int and bein' a foightin' man, and the teacher's down on him at the school for niver larnin' his lessons. And the fear's with me night and day that he'll get to be wan of them agitators yet." Pat and Mike looked at each other. Never before had their mother said a word to them about any of their brothers. And while they looked at each other the brave little woman kept her eyes fixed on the stove. "The first step to bein' an agitator," she resumed as if half to herself, "is niver to be doin' what you're set to do good. Then, of course, them you work for don't loike it, and small blame to 'em. And the nixt thing is to get turned off and somebody as _will_ do it good put in your place. And then the nixt step is to go around tellin' iverybody you meets, whether you knows 'em or not, how you're down on your luck. And how it's a bad world with no chance in it for poor folks, when iverybody knows most of the rich folks begun poor, and if there's no chance for poor folks, how comes them that's rich now to be rich when they started poor? And then the nixt step is to make them that's content out of humor, rilin' 'em up with wishin' for what they've got no business with, seein' they hain't earned it. And that's all there is to it, for sure when you've got that far you're wan of them agitators." The boys listened respectfully, and their mother went on: "Little Jim's got started that way. He's that far along that he don't do nothin' good he's set at only when it's a happen so. You can't depind on him. I've got to head him off from bein' an agitator, for he's your father's b'y, and I can't meet Tim in the nixt world if I let Jim get ahead of me. B'ys, will you help me? I've always been thinkin' I couldn't have your help; I must do it alone. But, b'ys, I can't do it alone." The little woman's countenance was anxious as she gazed into the sober faces of Pat and Mike. Nothing but boys themselves, though with the reliability of men, they promised to help. "I knowed you would," said the widow gratefully. "And now good night to you. It's gettin' late. But you've eased my moind wonderful. Just the spakin' out has done me good. Maybe he'll come through all roight yet." The next morning Mrs. O'Callaghan rose with a face bright as ever, but Pat and Mike were still sober. "Cheer up!" was her greeting as they came into the kitchen where she was already bustling about the stove. "Cheer up, and stand ready till I give you the word. I'm goin' to have wan more big try at Jim. You took such a load off me with your listenin' to me and promisin' to help that it's heartened me wonderful." The two elder sons smiled. To be permitted to hearten their mother was to them a great privilege, and suddenly little Jim did not appear the hopeless case he had seemed when they went to bed the night before. They cheered up, and the three were pleasantly chatting when sleepy-eyed little Jim came out of the bedroom. "Hurry, now, and get washed, and then set your table," said his mother kindly. But little Jim was sulky. "I'm tired of gettin' up early mornin's just to be doin' girl's work," he said. Mrs. O'Callaghan nodded significantly at Pat and Mike. "What was that story, Moike, you was tellin' me about the smartest fellow in the Gineral's mess, before he got to be a gineral, you know, bein' so handy at all sorts of woman's work? Didn't you tell me the Gineral said there couldn't no woman come up to him?" "I did, mother." "I call that pretty foine. Beatin' the women at their own work. There was only wan man in the mess that could do it, you said?" "Yes, mother," smiled Mike. "I thought so. 'Tain't often you foind a rale handy man loike that. And he was the best foighter they had, too?" "Yes, mother." "I thought I remimbered all about it. Jim, here, can foight, but do woman's work he can't. That is, and do it good. He mostly gets the tablecloth crooked. No, he's no hand at the girl's work." "I'll show you," thought little Jim. On a sudden the tablecloth was straight, and everything began to take its proper place on the table. "Mother," ventured Pat, though he had not yet received the word, "the table's set pretty good this morning." "So it is, Pat, so it is," responded the widow glancing it over. "Maybe Jim can do girl's work after all." "Maybe he can, Pat, but he'll have to prove it before he'll foind them that'll belave it. That's the way in this world. 'Tis not enough to be sayin' you can do this and that. You've got to prove it. And how will you prove it? By doin' it, of course." Little Jim heard, though he did not seem to be listening, being intent on making things uncomfortable for Barney and Tommie as far as he could in a quiet way. It was a passion with little Jim to prove things--not by his mother's method, but by his own. So far his disputes had been with boys of his own size and larger, and if they doubted what he said he was in the habit of proving his assertions with his fists. The result was that other boys either dodged him or agreed with him with suspicious readiness. His mother had given him a fair trial at the housework. He would prove to her that it was not because he could not, but because he would not, that he succeeded no better. He washed the dishes with care and put them shining on their shelves, and, a little later, poked his head out of the bedroom door into the kitchen. "Mother," he said, "you think I can't make a bed good, don't you?" The widow smiled. "I think you _don't_ make it good," was her answer. Jim's face darkened with resolution. "She thinks I can't," he said to himself. "I will, I guess." With vim he set to work, and the bed was made in a trice. Little Jim stood off as far as he could and sharply eyed his work. "'Tain't done good," he snapped. And he tore it to pieces again. It took longer to make it the next time, for he was more careful, but still it didn't look right. He tore the clothes off it again, this time with a sigh. "Beds is awful," he said. "It's lots easier to lick a boy than to make a bed." And then he went at it again. The third time it was a trifle more presentable, and the school bell was ringing. "I've got to go, and I hain't proved it to her," he said. "But I'll work till I do, see if I don't. And then when I have proved it to her I won't make no more beds." Jim was no favorite at school, where he had fallen a whole room behind the class he had started with. His teacher usually wore a long-suffering air when she dealt with him. "She looks like she thought I didn't know nothin' and never would," he said to himself that morning when he had taken his seat after a decided failure of a recitation. "I'll show her." And he set to work. His mind was all unused to study, and--that day he didn't show her. "Who'd 'a' thought it was so hard to prove things?" he said at night. "There's another day a-comin', though." Now some people are thankful for showing. To little Jim, showing was degrading. Suddenly his mother perceived this, and felt a relief she had not known before. "Whativer else Jim's got or not got," she said, "he's got a backbone of his own, so he has. Let him work things out for himsilf. Will I be showin' him how to make a bed? I won't that. I've been praisin' him too much, intoirely. I see it now. Praise kapes Pat and Moike and Andy doin' their best to get more of it. But it makes little Jim aisy in his moind and scornful loike, so his nose is in the air all the toime and nothin' done. A very little praise will do Jim. And still less of fault-findin'," she added. "B'ys," she announced that evening "Jim's took a turn. We'll stand off and watch him a bit. If he'll do roight for his own makin', sure and that'll be better than for us to be havin' a hand in it. Give him his head and plinty of chances to prove things, and when he has proved 'em, own up to it." The two brightened. "I couldn't believe little Jim was so bad, mother," said Mike. "Bad, is it? Sure and he ain't bad yet. And now's the toime to kape him from it. 'Tis little you can be doin' with a spoiled anything. Would you belave it? He made his bed three toimes this mornin' and done his best at it, and me a-seein' him through the crack of the door where it was open a bit. But I can't say nothin' to him nor show him how, for showin's not for the loike of him. And them that takes iverything hard that way comes out sometimes at the top of the hape. Provin' things is a lawyer's business. If Jim iver gets to be a lawyer, he'll be a good wan." Mike, when he went to bed that night, looked down at the small red head of the future lawyer, snuggled down into the pillow, with the bedclothes close to his ears. "I'll not believe that Jim will ever come to harm," he said. CHAPTER XX "There's another day comin'," little Jim had said when he lay down in acknowledged defeat on the night that followed his first day of real trying. The other day came, and after it another and another, and still others till the first of March was at hand. In the three months, which was the sum of those "other days," Jim had made good progress. For many weeks he had been perfect in the art of bed-making, but instead of giving up the practice of that accomplishment, as he had declared he would do so soon as he could prove to his mother that he could make a bed, he had become so cranky and particular that nobody else could make a bed to suit him. And as for studying--he was three classes ahead of where the first of December had found him. He could still whip any boy rash enough to encounter him, but his days and even his evenings, in great part, were given to preparing a triumph over his mates in his lessons, and a surprise for his teacher. The widow used to lean back in her husband's chair of an evening and watch him as he sat at the table, his elbows on the pine and his hands clutching his short hair, while the tiny, unshaded lamp stared in his face, and he dug away with a pertinacity that meant and insured success. "And what book is that you've got?" she would ask when he occasionally lifted his eyes. He would tell her and, in a moment, be lost to all surroundings. For little Jim was getting considerable enjoyment out of his hard work. "Pat nor Moike niver studied loike that," thought Mrs. O'Callaghan. "Nor did even Andy. Andy, he always jist loved his book and took his larnin' in aisy loike. But look at that little Jim work!" As for little Jim, he did not seem to observe that he was enjoying his mother's favorable regard. "And what book is it you loike the best?" she asked one evening when Jim was about to go to bed. "The history book," was the answer. "And why?" "'Cause there's always a lot about the big foightin' men in it." [Illustration: "'Look at that little Jim work!'"] "Ah!" said the widow. "Andy, he loiked the history book best, too. But I didn't know before 'twas for the foightin'." "'Tain't," briefly replied little Jim. And seeing his mother's questioning look he went on: "The history book's got a lot in it, too, about the way the people lived, and the kings and queens, and them that wrote poems and things. 'Tis for that Andy loikes the history book. He'll be writin' himself one of these days, I'm thinkin'. His teacher says he writes the best essays in the school already." And having thus artlessly betrayed Andy's ambition, little Jim went to bed. "Ah!" thought the widow, getting out her darning, for only one could use the lamp at a time, and if Jim was of a mind to study she was of no mind to hinder him. "And is that what Andy'd be at? I wonder now if that's a good business? I don't know none of them that has it, and I can't tell." She drew one of Jim's stockings over her hand and eyed ruminatingly the prodigious hole in the heel. "That b'y do be gettin' through his stockin's wonderful," she said dismissing Andy from her thoughts. "Well, if he niver does no worse than that I'll not be complainin', but sure and he can make more darnin' than Pat and Moike and Andy put together." Why are the winds of March so high? This spring they blew a gale. As they roared around corners and through tree tops and rushed down the streets with fury they made pedestrians unsteady. But they did not disturb little Jim, who buttoned up his coat tight, drew down his hat and squared his shoulders as he went out to meet their buffets. There was that in little Jim that rejoiced in such weather. One day those frantic winds reached down the big schoolhouse chimney and drew up a spark of fire from the furnace in the basement. They lodged it where it would do the most harm, and, in a short time, the janitor was running with a white face to the principal's office. As quietly as possible each teacher was called out into the hall and warned. And, in a few moments more, the pupils in every room were standing in marching order waiting for the word to file out. Something was wrong each room knew from the face of its teacher. And then came the clang of the fire bell, and the waiting ranks were terrified. Little Jim's teacher on the second floor was an extremely nervous young woman. In a voice that trembled with fright and excitement she had managed to give her orders. She had stationed most of the boys in a line running north and south and farthest from the door. Nearest the door were the girls and some of the smaller boys. And now they must wait for the signal that should announce the turn of their room to march out. As it happened, little Jim stood at the head of the line of boys, with the girls not far from him. The fire bell was ringing and all the whistles in the town screaming. Below them they could hear the little ones hurried out; above them and on the stairs the third-floor pupils marching; and then in little Jim's room there was panic. The girls huddled closer together and began to cry. The boys behind little Jim began to crowd and push. The nearest boy was against him when little Jim half turned and threw him back to place by a vigorous jerk of his elbow. "Boys! Boys!" screamed the teacher. "Standstill!" But they did not heed. Again they struggled forward, while the teacher covered her face with her hands in horror at the thought of what would happen on the crowded stairways if her boys rushed out. And then little Jim turned his back on the door and the girls near him and made ready his fists. "The first boy that comes I'll knock down!" he cried. And the line shrank back. "We'll be burned! We'll be burned up!" shrieked a boy, one of the farthest away. "You won't be burned nayther," called back little Jim. "But you'll wish you was to-morrow if wan of you gets past me. Just you jump them desks and get past me and I'll lick you till you'll wish you was burnt up!" Little Jim's aspect was so fierce, and the boys knew so well that he would do just as he said, that not one moved from his place. One minute little Jim held that line of boys. Then the door opened and out filed the girls. When the last one had disappeared little Jim stepped aside. "Go out now," he said with fine contempt, "you that are so afraid you'll get burned yourselves that you'd tramp the girls down." The last to leave the room were the teacher and little Jim. Her grasp on his arm trembled, but it did not let go, even when they had reached the campus which was full of people. Every business man had locked his doors and had run with his clerks to the fire. For this was no ordinary fire. The children of the town were in danger. At a distance Jim could see Pat with Larry in his arms and Barney and Tommie close beside him, and here and there, moving anxiously through the crowd, he saw General Brady and Mike and Andy. But the teacher's grasp on his arm did not relax. The fire was under control now and no damage had been done that could not be repaired. And the teacher was talking. And everybody near was listening, and more were crowding around and straining their ears to hear. Those nearest were passing the story on, a sentence at a time, after the manner of interpreters, and suddenly there was a shout, "Three cheers for little Jim O'Callaghan!" [Illustration "'Three cheers for little Jim O'Callaghan.'"] And then Mike came tearing up and gave him a hug and a pat on the back. And up came Andy with a look in his eyes that made little Jim forgive him on the spot for being first in that housework team in which he himself had been placed second by his mother. And the General had him by the hand with a "Well done, Jim!" At which Jim appeared a trifle bewildered. His fighting propensities had been frowned on so long. At her wash place the widow had heard nothing, the wind having carried all sounds of commotion the other way, and there were no children in the family to come unexpectedly home bringing the news. It was when she stepped into her own kitchen, earlier than usual, and found Barney and Tommie there with Larry, who had accompanied them that day as visitor, that she first heard of the fire. And the important thing to Barney and Tommie was that their vacation had come sooner than they had hoped. Later came Jim, stepping high from the General's praise. But his mother thought nothing of that. Jim's ways were apt to be airy. But when Pat and Mike came to supper the story was told. The widow listened with an expression of pride. And when the story and the supper were finished she took little Jim by the hand and led him along the tortuous path through the furniture to the family seat of honor. "Sit there in the father's chair," she commanded. "I niver thought to be puttin' wan of my b'ys there for foightin', but foightin's the thing sometimes." This was on Tuesday. The next day the leading paper of the town came out, and it contained a full account of little Jim's coolness and bravery. "They'll be spoilin' little Jim, so they will," said the widow as she read with glistening eyes. Then she rose to put the paper carefully away among the few family treasures, and set about making little Jim a wonderful pudding. If he were to be spoiled she might as well have a hand in it. "Though maybe he won't be nayther," she said. "Him that had that much sinse had ought to have enough to stand praisin'." That evening home came Andy to find his mother absorbed in the fascinating occupation of hearing from little Jim's own lips what each individual person had said to him during the day. "Well," little Jim was saying just as Andy came in, "I should think they'd said 'most enough. I didn't do anything but keep them lubberly boys from trampin' the girls down, and it was easy enough done, too." At which speech the widow perceived that, as yet, little Jim was not particularly spoiled by all his praise. "'Twas the history book that done it," thought the mother thankfully. "Sure and he knows he's done foine, but he ain't been braggin' on himself much since he took to that, I've noticed. There's books of all sorts, so there is, some for wan thing and some for another, but it's the history book that cures the consate." "We're very busy up at our house," observed Andy. And the widow could scarcely bring herself to heed him. "Yes," went on Andy. "We've been baking cake to-day, and there's more to do to-morrow. The General and Mrs. Brady are going to give little Jim a party Friday evening. General Brady is wonderfully pleased with Jim." Then indeed he had his mother's attention. "A party, is it?" she said with gratified pride. "'Tis the Gineral and Mrs. Brady that knows how to take a body's full cup and jist run it over. I couldn't have wished nothin' no better than that. And nobody couldn't nayther. I'll be up to-morrow mysilf to help and the nixt day, too. Don't tell me there's nothin' I can't be doin'. Jim can run things to home, can't you, Jim?" Little Jim thought he could. "I'll have Pat and Moike see to gettin' him a new suit to-morrow. It's late to be gettin' him a new suit and him a-growin'; but if he can't wear it nixt fall Barney can, and it's proud he'll be to do it, I'm thinkin'. 'Tisn't often the nixt youngest b'y has a chance to wear a new suit got for his brother because he done good and hadn't nothin' fit to wear to a party, nayther. But Wennott's the town. A party for my Jim, and at Gineral Brady's, too! Would anybody have belaved it when we come with nothin' to the shanty? 'Tis the proudest thing that iver come to us, but no pride could there be about it if little Jim hadn't desarved it." The widow's heart was full. "Ivery b'y? as he has come along, has made me proud," she went on. "First Pat and then Moike and then you, Andy, with your book, and now little Jim with his foightin'. And that's what beats me, that I should be proud of my b'y's foightin'. And I am that." Friday evening seemed a long way off to little Jim when he lay down on his bed that night. He had never attended a party in his life. Andy had spoken of cake, and, by private questioning, little Jim had discovered that there would be ice cream. He tried to imagine what a party was like, but having no knowledge to go on, he found the effort wearisome and so dropped asleep. CHAPTER XXI Little Jim had never been farther than General Brady's kitchen. It was a kitchen of which he approved because it had no path in it. One might go through it in a great hurry without coming to grief on some chair back, or the footboard of the mother's bed, or the rocker of the father's chair. Neither was one in danger of bringing up suddenly on the corner of the table, or against the side of the stove. The younger O'Callaghans were free from numerous bruises only because they knew their way and proceeded with caution. There was no banging the door open suddenly at the shanty, because there was always some article of furniture behind the door to catch it and bang it back sharply into a boy's face. It was upon these differences in the two kitchens that little Jim reflected when, arrayed in the new suit, he slipped around the house and was ushered in by Andy. "What's this!" cried the General, who had caught a glimpse of the swiftly scudding little figure as it rounded the corner. "What's this!" and he stood smiling at the door that opened from the back of the hall into the kitchen. "The hero of the hour coming in by the back door. This will never do, Jim. Come with me." Bravely little Jim went forward. He stepped into the hall close behind the General, and suddenly glanced down. He could hardly believe his ears. Was he growing deaf? There walked the General ahead of him, and little Jim could not hear a footfall, neither could he hear his own tread. But little Jim said nothing. They were now come to the hall tree, and the General himself helped his guest off with his overcoat and hung it beside his own. And as for little Jim, he could hang up his own cap when his host showed him where. Then in through the parlor door they went and on through the folding doors into the sitting-room where Mrs. Brady stood among her plants. She had just cut two lovely roses from the same bush, and one she pinned on her husband's coat and the other on little Jim's jacket. "Parties is queer," thought little Jim, "but they're nice." For Mrs. Brady, in her quiet way, was contriving to let the boy understand that she thought exceedingly well of him. It began to grow dusk, but it was not yet so dark that little Jim failed to see Pat and Mike come in and run lightly up the stairs. And then there was a tramp of feet outside, the doorbell rang, and as the electric light flooded the house, Andy opened the front door and in trooped boys and girls. Little Jim was amazed. Not one came into the parlor, but Andy sent them all upstairs. "Is them boys and girls the party?" he asked quickly of Mrs. Brady. "Yes, Jim," was the kind answer. "Your party." Little Jim reflected. "I'd best not be lickin' any of the boys then this evenin'?" And he turned inquiring eyes on Mrs. Brady. Mrs. Brady smiled. "No, Jim," she replied. "You must try to please them in every way that you can, and make them enjoy themselves." "Let 'em do just as they're a moind to, and not raise a fuss about it?" "Yes." Little Jim straightened himself. "I never seen no parties before," he said, "but I guess I can run it." And then downstairs came the guests and into the parlor to shake hands with General and Mrs. Brady and Jim. The gay company spread themselves through the parlor and sitting-room. They chattered, they laughed, they got up from their seats and sat down again, and all the time little Jim had a keen eye upon them. He had never before seen little girls dressed so, and he noticed that every boy had a flower on his jacket. And then little Jim bestirred himself. He was here, there, and everywhere. Did a girl suggest a game, Jim so engineered that the whole company were soon engaged in it, and he himself was the gayest player of all. Not once did he suggest anything. But often he slipped up to Mrs. Brady or the General and did what he had never done before in his life--asked advice. "Am I runnin' it right?" he would whisper in Mrs. Brady's ear; and murmur apologetically to the General, "I never seen no parties before." "And how do you like parties, Jim?" asked the General indulgently. "I think there's nothin' to equal 'em," was the fervent answer. And then away went the young host. At half-past nine Andy appeared at the hall door. Jim saw him and his heart sank. Was the party over? He feared so, since Mrs. Brady, followed by the General, went out of the room. But in a moment the General came back to the doorway. The guests seemed to understand, for a sudden hush fell on the talkative tongues. The General saw Jim's uncertain expression and beckoned to him. "We are going out to supper," he said. "Go ask Annie Jamieson to walk out with you." Jim obeyed promptly. All at once he remembered the cake and ice cream. His heart swelled with pride as he led the pretty little girl across the hall and into the dining-room. And there were Pat and Mike and Andy showing the guests to their places and prepared to wait upon them. And if they beamed upon little Jim, he beamed back with interest. He was supremely happy. How glad he was that Mike had taught him Mrs. Brady's way of laying the table, and how to eat properly! He thought of his mother and wished that she might see him. But she was at home caring for Barney and Tommie and Larry. "Sure and I can't lave 'em by thimsilves in the evenin'. Something moight happen to 'em," said this faithful mother. Such food Jim had not tasted before, but he ate sparingly. He was too happy to eat, for little Jim, although extremely fond of pudding, was no glutton. There he sat with his auburn hair on end, his blue eyes bright and shining, smiles and grave looks chasing themselves over his face till the General was prouder of him than ever. "I'm not sure but he's _the_ O'Callaghan," he told his wife, when the children had gone back to the parlor for a final game before the party should break up. "But it is that mother of his and his older brothers who have brought him on." Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Pat and Mike and Andy washed the dishes and put things to rights with three hearts full of pride in little Jim. "To think the mother was afraid he would turn out an agitator!" said Pat. "This night settles that," responded Mike. "He's more likely to turn out a society man. He'll be a credit to us all." At last the guests were gone. And then for the first time little Jim's eyes examined with keen scrutiny the pretty rooms, while the General and Mrs. Brady kept silence, content to observe him with affectionate interest. Finally the boy came back from things to people, and he came with a sigh. "Have you enjoyed yourself?" asked the General, smiling. "Yes, sir. I never had such a toime before in my loife. 'Tis parties as are the thing." He paused and then asked, "How will I be goin' at it to get me a house like this?" And then the General looked astonished. He had not yet fully measured little Jim's ambition that stopped at nothing. Hitherto it had been that pernicious ambition that desires, and at the same time, lazily refuses to put forth the exertion necessary to attain, or it had been that other scarcely less reprehensible ambition that exerts itself simply to outshine others, and Mrs. O'Callaghan had had good cause to be anxious about Jim. Tonight it was the right sort of ambition, backed by a remarkably strong will and boundless energy. He looked up at the General with confidence and waited to be told just how he could get such a house for himself. The General gazed down into the clear, unashamed depths of little Jim's blue eyes. The attitude of the O'Callaghan's toward him always touched him. His money had nothing to do with it, nor had his superior social position. It was he himself that the O'Callaghans respected, admired, loved and venerated, and this without in the least abating their own self-respect and independence. It was like being the head of a clan, the General told himself, and he liked it. So now he answered with his hand on little Jim's shoulder, "Work, my boy, and study, work and study." "And is that all?" questioned Jim disappointedly. "Sure and that's like my mother tellin' me dustin' and dishwashin' was my two first steps." "Well, they were your first steps, Jim, because they were the duties that lay nearest you. But it will take more than work and study, after all." "I thought it would, sir. This is an awful nice house." "Would you like to walk upstairs and look about?" asked the General. "I would," was the eager answer. So the General and Mrs. Brady and Jim went up. "This is the sort of a room for my mother," declared little Jim, after he had carefully examined the large guest chamber. "Pat and Mike got her the summer kitchen, but I'll be gettin' her a whole house, so I will. Sleepin' in the kitchen will do for them that likes it. And now what's the rest of it besides work and study?" "Have you ever seen any poor boys smoke cigars, Jim?" "Yes, sir." "And cigarettes?" "Yes, sir." "And pipes?" "Yes, sir." "And drink beer?" "Yes, sir." "And whisky?" "Yes, sir." "And chew tobacco?" "Yes, sir." "Those are the boys who, when they are men, are going to be poor. Mark that, Jim. They are going to be poor." "They won't have any house like this?" "Not unless somebody who has worked hard gives it to them, or unless they cheat for it, Jim." "Huh!" said Jim. "I'm down on cheatin'. I'll lick any boy that cheats me or tries to, and I don't want nobody to give me nothin'." And with that little Jim cooled down to pursue his former train of thought. "And if I work and study and let them things alone I can have a house like this some day?" "Yes, Jim, if some misfortune does not befall you, like a long sickness in the family, or an accident to you." "I'm goin' to try for it," declared Jim with decision. "Them that would rather have cigars and such than a nice house like this can have 'em, and it's little sense they've got, too. I'll take the house." The General laughed. "You will take it, Jim, I don't doubt," he said. "Come to me whenever you wish to ask any questions, and I will answer them if I can." "I will, sir," replied little Jim. "And when you want me to I'll wash your dishes. I said once I wouldn't, but now I will." "Thank you, Jim," responded the General. Peppery, headstrong little Jim went home that night walking very erect. Pat and Mike were one on each side of him, but he hardly knew it, he was so busy looking forward to the time when he should have a house like the General's, when his mother would pin a flower on his coat, and he should give parties, and as many of them as he chose. [Illustration: "Pat and Mike were one on each side of him."] And of all these plans his mother heard with wonder and astonishment. "Your party's made a man of you, Jim," said the widow at last. "I'd niver have thought of a party doin' it, nayther, though I was wantin' it done bad. Your father was the man as loiked noice things, and he'd have got 'em, too, if sickness hadn't come to him." And now little Jim's reward had come. At last his mother had said he was like his father. He was as good as Pat and Mike and Andy, and his heart swelled. "But, Jim, dear, you'd be gettin' your house quicker if we was all to help toward it." "And then 'twouldn't be mine," objected Jim. "No more it wouldn't," assented Mrs. O'Callaghan, "but 'twould be better than livin' in the shanty years and years. You don't want to kape livin' here till you have a foine house loike the Gineral's, do you, Jim?" "No," reluctantly answered the little fellow, glancing about him. "I knowed you didn't. For sure you're not the wan to let your ambition run away with your sinse. A neat little house, now, with only two b'ys to a bedroom and wan bedroom for me--what do you say to it, Jim?" Then and there it was settled, and that night each boy had a different dream about the neat little house to be--Jim's, of course, being the most extravagant. That week the first five dollars toward it was deposited with the General. "And I'll be keepin' a sharp lookout on Barney and Tommie," was Jim's unasked promise to his mother. "You've no idea what little chaps smoke them cigarettes. I can fix it. I'll just be lettin' the boys know that every wan of 'em that helps Barney and Tommie to wan of them things will get a lickin' from me." "Is that the best way, do you think, Jim?" "Sure and I know it is. I've seen them big boys givin' 'em to the little wans, particular to them as their folks don't want to use 'em. The General's down on them things, and Barney and Tommie shan't have 'em." "Five dollars in the bank!" exclaimed the widow. She was surrounded by her eldest four sons, for it was seven o'clock in the morning. "Two years we've been in town, and them two years has put all four of you where I'm proud of you. All four of you has sat in the father's chair for good deeds done. What I'm thinkin' is, will Barney and Tommie and Larry sit there, too, when their turn comes?" "They will that!" declared Jim with authority. "Of course they will, mother," encouraged Pat. "They are father's boys, too," said Andy. "And _your_ boys, mother. Where else would your boys sit?" asked Mike. And then the widow smiled. "I belave you'll ivery wan of you come to good," she said. "There's small bad ahead of b'ys that has a bit of heartsome blarney for their mother, and love in their eyes to back their words. Some has farms and money. But if any one would be tellin' of my riches, sure all they've got to say is, 'The Widow O'Callaghan's b'ys.'" THE END. _Good Reasons for the Popularity of_ THE Widow O'Callaghan's Boys It has succeeded by its own sterling merit and without the assistance of exaggerated advertising, and a popularity of this kind is always permanent. The charm of the book lies in the human interest of the sympathetically told story; its value in the excellent lessons that are suggested to the youthful mind in the most unobtrusive manner. Nothing is so distasteful to a healthy youngster as an overdose of obvious moral suasion in his fiction. EXPERT TESTIMONY _Principal Ferris, of the Ferris Institute, Michigan, expresses somewhat the same idea in a letter to the publishers_: "I bought the book and read it myself, then read it to my ten-year-old boy. He was captivated. I then tried it on my school of 600 students--relatively mature people. They were delighted. 'Widow O'Callaghan's Boys' is an exceptional book. It is entirely free from the weaknesses of the ordinary Sunday school book. The methods used by the Widow O'Callaghan in training her boys are good methods for training boys in the school room. The truth of the matter is the book contains first-class pedagogy. There are comparatively few first-class juvenile books. 'Widow O'Callaghan's Boys' is a jewel. It is worthy of being classed as first-class literature." A.C. McCLURG & CO. PUBLISHERS _Newspaper Opinions of_ The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys "It is a story of sturdy, level-headed effort to meet the world on its own rather severe terms, and to win from it success and progress. No strokes of miraculous good luck befall these young heroes of peace; but they deserve what they gain, and the story is told so simply, and yet with so much originality, that it is quite as interesting reading as are the tales where success is won by more sensational methods. The good sense, courage, and tact of the widow herself ought to afford inspiration to many mothers apparently more fortunately situated. It is a book to be heartily commended."--_Christian Register_. "They are but simple adventures in 'The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys,' but they are pleasant to read of. The seven boys, whom the widow trains to be good and useful men, are as plucky as she; and they have a good bit of Irish loyalty as well as of the Irish brogue."--_The Dial_. "The brave little Irishwoman's management and encouragement of them, amid poverty and trouble, the characters of the boys themselves, their cheerfulness, courage, and patience, and the firm grip which they take upon the lowest rounds of the ladder of success, are told simply and delightfully."--_Buffalo Express_. "The smile of pleasure at the happy ending is one that will be accompanied by a dimness of vision in the eyes of many readers."--_Philadelphia Press_. _Newspaper Opinions of_ The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys "There is many a quaint bit of humor, many a strong, sound lesson in manliness and womanliness which must appeal to us in the telling. The story was probably written for children, but it will interest older people as well."--_The Living Church_. "The Widow O'Callaghan is the greatest philosopher since Epictetus, and as bright and glowing as a well-cut gem."--_Topeka Capital_. "The refreshing thing about the book is that its dialect approximates to the real brogue, and is not disfigured by the affected misspelling of English words which are pronounced almost as correctly by the Irish as by one to the tongue born."--_Detroit Journal_. "This is a story that will be enjoyed by readers of every age. It is capitally written, and deals with the struggles of a brave little Irish widow, left in poverty with seven boys, ranging in age from three to fifteen years."--_Book News_. "It is one of the best books for young people which we ever have seen. It describes the mother love, the shrewd sense, and the plucky perseverance of an Irish widow with seven young children."--_The Congregationalist_. _Another Use for_ The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys The following news item from the Chicago Tribune of Nov. 7 describes a unique testimonial to the practical usefulness of a good book. "The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys," the story referred to, is now in its eighth edition, and seems to increase in popularity constantly: "Barney Ryan, 12 years old and wearing a sweater twice his size, yesterday was sentenced by Judge Tuthill to read to his mother each night from a book designated by the court. The boy had been arrested for smashing a store window and stealing merchandise to the value of $200. "'I'll let you go, Barney,' said Judge Tuthill, 'if your mother will buy a copy of "Mrs. O'Callaghan's Boys" and agree to make you read to her each night from it.' "Mrs. Ryan, who lives at 139 Gault court, agreed to the stipulation." 
4729	----	at the Distributed Proofreaders project. HTML version by Al Haines. Observations by Mr. Dooley by Finley Peter Dunne A Little Essay on Books The Law's Delays Sherlock Holmes International Amenities Art Patronage Immigration White House Discipline Money and Matrimony Prince Henry's Visit Prince Henry's Reception Cuba vs. Beet Sugar Bad Men From The West European Intervention The Philippine Peace Soldier and Policeman King Edward's Coronation One Advantage of Poverty The Fighting Word Home Life of Geniuses Reform Administration Work and Sport The Names of a Week The End of the War Newport Arctic Exploration Machinery Swearing The War Game Newspaper Publicity Adventure Rights and Privileges of Women Avarice and Generosity The End of Things Hypocrisy History Enjoyment Gratitude A Little Essay on Books "Hogan tells me that wan iv th' first things man done afther he'd larned to kill his neighborin' animals, an' make a meal iv wan part iv thim an' a vest iv another, was to begin to mannyfacther lithrachoor, an' it's been goin' on up to th' prisint day. Thim was times that th' Lord niver heerd about, but is as well known to manny a la-ad in th' univarsity iv southren Injyanny as if th' histhry iv thim was printed on a poster. Hogan says a pro-fissor with a shovel an' a bad bringin'-up can go out annywhere along th' dhrainage-canal an' prove to ye that th' Bible is no more thin an exthry avenin' edition iv th' histhry iv th' wurruld, an' th' Noah fam'ly was considhered new arrivals in th' neighborhood where they lived. He says he'll show ye th' earth as though 't was a section iv a layer-cake or an archytect's dhrawin' iv a flat-buildin', an' p'int out how 't was accumylated. "First 't was a mere squdge in which ne'er a livin' thing cud be found. This peryod lasted a few millyion years, an' thin th' mush caked an' become buildin'-materyal, an' threes grew out iv th' buildin'-materyal an' fell down an' become coal. Thin th' wather come--but where it come fr'm I don't know, f'r they was no God at th' time--an' covered th' earth, an' thin th' wather evaporated an' left little p'ints iv land shtickin' up with ready-made men an' women occypyin' thim, an' at that moment th' Bible begun. Ye might say we 're livin' on th' roof iv a flat, with all th' apartmints beneath us occypied be th' bones iv submarine monsthers an' other tinants. "Lasteways that's what Hogan tells me, but I don't believe a wurrud he says. Most iv th' people iv this wurruld is a come-on f'r science, but I'm not. Ye can't con-vince me, me boy, that a man who's so near-sighted he can't read th' sign on a cable-car knows anny more about th' formation iv th' earth thin Father Kelly. I believe th' wurruld is flat, not round; that th' sun moves an' is about th' size iv a pie-plate in th' mornin' an' a car-wheel at noon; an' it 's no proof to me that because a pro-fissor who 's peekin' through a chube all night says th' stars ar-re millyions iv miles away an' each is bigger thin this wurruld, that they 're bigger thin they look, or much higher thin th' top iv th' shot-tower. I've been up tin thousand feet on a mountain, an' they seemed so near that I kept whiskin' thim off me nose as I lay there on me back, but they wasn't anny larger thin they were on th' sthreet-level. I believe what I see an' some iv th' things I'm told, if they 've been told often, an' thim facts iv science has not been hung long enough to be digistible." But, annyhow, they say that man first begun writin' whin he had to hammer out his novels an' pomes on a piece iv rock, an' th' hammer has been th' imblim iv lithrachoor iver since. Thin he painted it on skins, hince th' publisher; thin he played it an' danced it an' croshayed it till 't was discovered that ink an' pa-aper wud projooce wurruds, an' thin th' printin'-press was invinted. Gunpowdher was invinted th' same time, an' 't is a question I've often heerd discussed which has done more to ilivate th' human race. A joke. Th' longer th' wurruld lasts th' more books does be comin' out. Day be day I r-read in th' pa-apers announcemints iv new publications that look like th' dilinquent tax-list. They 's a publisher in ivry block, an' in thousan's iv happy homes some wan is pluggin' away at th' romantic novel or whalin' out a pome on th' type-writer up-stairs. A fam'ly without an author is as contimptible as wan without a priest. Is Malachi near-sighted, peevish, averse to th' suds, an' can't tell whether th' three in th' front yard is blue or green? Make an author iv him! Does Miranda prisint no atthractions to th' young men iv th' neighborhood, does her overskirt dhrag, an' is she poor with th' gas-range? Make an authoreen iv her! Forchunitly, th' manly insthinct is often too sthrong f'r th' designs iv th' fam'ly, an' manny a man that if his parents had had their way might have been at this moment makin' artificial feet f'r a deformed pome is l'adin' what me fri'nd Hogan calls a glad, free, an' timperymintal life on th' back iv a sthreet-car. "But lithrachoor is th' gr-reat life-wurruk iv th' modhren woman. Th' conthrol is passin' into th' hands iv th' fair sect, an' th' day will come whin th' wurrud book will mane no more to an able-bodied man thin th' wurrud gusset. Women write all th' romantic novels that ar-re anny good. That's because ivry man thinks th' thrue hayroe is himsilf, an' ivry woman thinks he's James K. Hackett. A woman is sure a good, sthrong man ought to be able to kill anny number iv bad, weak men, but a man is always wondherin' what th' other la-ad wud do. He might have th' punch left in him that wud get th' money. A woman niver cares how manny men are kilt, but a man believes in fair play, an' he'd like to see th' polis intherfere about Chapter Three. "Women writes all th' good romantic novels, an' read thim all. If anny proud la-ad in th' gum business thinks he riprisints th' ideal iv his wife's soul, he ought to take a look at th' books she reads. He'll larn there th' reason he's where he is, is because he was th' on'y chanst, not because he was th' first choice. 'Twud humble th' haughtiest prince iv thrade to look into th' heart iv th' woman he cares most f'r an' thinks laste about, an' find that, instead iv th' photygraft iv a shrewd but kindly man with a thriflin' absence iv hair on his head an' a burglar-proof safe on his watch-charm, there's a pitcher iv a young la-ad in green tights playin' a mandolin to a high front stoop. On th' stoop, with a rose in her hand, is his lawful-wedded wife, th' lady Annamariar Huggins iv Peotone. Ye can't keep her away fr'm a romantic novel. No matther what Edward Atkinson tells ye, she prefers 'Th' Age iv Chivalry' to th' mos' atthractive housewurruk. A woman's readin' is niver done. Hardly a day passes but some lady frind iv mine stops me on me way to catch a car, an' asks me if I don't regard Morse Hewlett as th' gr-reatest an' mos' homicidal writer iv our time, an' what I've got to say about Hinnelly's attack on Stevenson. 'Madam,' says I, 'I wud n't know Morse if I was to see him goin' down th' sthreet ax in hand, an' as f'r Hinnelly, his name escapes me, though his language is familiar to anny wan who iver helped load a scow. Stevenson,' I says, 'does n't appeal to me, an' if he shud, I'll revarse th' decision on th' ground iv th' bad prevyous charackter iv th' plaintiff, while,' I says, 'admittin' th' thruth iv what he said. But,' says I, 'th' on'y books in me libr'y is th' Bible an' Shakspere,' says I. 'They 're gr-reat f'r ye,' says she. 'So bully f'r th' style. D' ye read thim all th' time?' she says. 'I niver read thim,' says I. 'I use thim f'r purposes iv definse. I have niver read thim, but I'll niver read annything else till I have read thim,' I says. 'They shtand between me an' all modhren lithrachoor,' says I. 'I've built thim up into a kind iv breakwather,' I says, 'an' I set behind it ca'm an' contint while Hall Caine rages without,' says I. "Yes, sir, th' readin' an' writin' iv books is as much woman's wurruk as th' mannyfacther iv tidies. A woman is a nachral writer. She don't mind givin' hersilf away if 't will bring a tear to th' eye or a smile to th' lips. But a man does. He has more to give away. I'm not sayin' that anny man can't write betther thin a woman if he wants to. But so can he cuk betther, an' sew betther, an' paint minichoors betther, an' do annything betther but nurse th' baby--if he wants to; but he don't often want to. He despises such thrivyal pursuits. Mos' iv th' gr-reat writers I iver see th' pitchers iv was little, thin, peevish men that was always gettin' licked. Wanst in a while a sthrong man got into th' game, a bull-necked, round-headed man that might have made a fine thrackmaster or boiler-maker, but was addicted to dhrink, an' niver had energy enough left in th' mornin' f'r annything more thin writin' th' best plays or th' finest novels or th' gr-reatest histhries in th' wurruld. But if ye got at th' rale feelin' iv three-meal-a-day men about writin', ye'd find they classed it with preachin', school-teachin', play-actin', dancin', an' lace-wurruk. A man iv that kind might start to write, but if he did, he'd stop an' think afther a while, an' say to himsilf: 'What's a big, sthrong, able-bodied, two-hundhred-an'-tin-pound, forty-four-acrost-th'-chest crather like me doin' here, pokin' these funny hireyoglyphics into a piece iv pa-aper with a little sthick? I guess I'll go out an' shoe a horse.' "So it is with readin'. I'm tol' I ought to read more be Hogan, who's wan iv th' best-read an' mos' ignorant men I know. Well, maybe I ought, though whin I was a young man, an' was helpin' to build up this counthry, th' principal use iv lithrachoor was as a weepin. In thim days, if a little boy was seen readin' a book, his father took it away fr'm him an' bate him on th' head with it. Me father was th' mos' accyrate man in th' wurruld with letthers. He found th' range nachrally, an' he cud wing anny wan iv us with th' 'Lives iv th' Saints' as far as he cud see. He was a poor man, an' on'y had such books in his libr'y as a gintleman shud take, but if ye'd give him libr'y enough, he'd capture Giberaltor. If lithrachoor niver pinethrated me intelleck, 'twas not his fault. But nowadays, whin I go down th' sthreet, I see th' childher settin' on th' front steps studyin' a book through double-compound-convex spectacles, lookin' like th' offspring of a profissyonal diver. What'll they iver grow up to be? Be hivins! that la-ad Carnaygie knows his business. He is studied th' situation, an' he undhersthands that if he builds libr'ies enough an' gets enough people readin' books, they won't be anny wan left afther a while capable iv takin' away what he's got. Ye bet he didn't larn how to make steel billets out iv 'Whin Knighthood was in Flower.' He larned it be confabulatin' afther wurrukin' hours with some wan that knew how. I think he must be readin' now, f'r he's writin' wan or two. 'Tis th' way with a man who takes to readin' late in life. He can't keep it down. "Readin', me frind, is talked about be all readin' people as though it was th' on'y thing that makes a man betther thin his neighbors. But th' thruth is that readin' is th' nex' thing this side iv goin' to bed f'r restin' th' mind. With mos' people it takes th' place iv wurruk. A man doesn't think whin he's readin', or if he has to, th' book is no fun. Did ye iver have something to do that ye ought to do, but didn't want to, an' while ye was wishin' ye was dead, did ye happen to pick up a newspaper? Ye know what occurred. Ye didn't jus' skim through th' spoortin' intillygince an' th' crime news. Whin ye got through with thim, ye read th' other quarther iv th' pa-aper. Ye read about people ye niver heerd iv, an' happenin's ye didn't undhersthand--th' fashion notes, th' theatrical gossip, th' s'ciety news fr'm Peoria, th' quotations on oats, th' curb market, th' rale-estate transfers, th' marredge licenses, th' death notices, th' want ads., th' dhrygoods bargains, an' even th' iditoryals. Thin ye r-read thim over again, with a faint idee ye'd read thim befure. Thin ye yawned, studied th' design iv th' carpet, an' settled down to wurruk. Was ye exercisin' ye-er joynt intelleck while ye was readin'? No more thin if ye'd been whistlin' or writin' ye-er name on a pa-aper. If anny wan else but me come along they might say: 'What a mind Hinnissy has! He's always readin'.' But I wud kick th' book or pa-aper out iv ye-er hand, an' grab ye be th' collar, an' cry 'Up, Hinnissy, an' to wurruk!' f'r I'd know ye were loafin'. Believe me, Hinnissy, readin' is not thinkin'. It seems like it, an' whin it comes out in talk sometimes, it sounds like it. It's a kind iv nearthought that looks ginooine to th' thoughtless, but ye can't get annything on it. Manny a man I've knowed has so doped himsilf with books that he'd stumble over a carpet-tack. "Am I again' all books, says ye? I'm not. If I had money, I'd have all th' good lithrachoor iv th' wurruld on me table at this minyit. I mightn't read it, but there it'd be so that anny iv me frinds cud dhrop in an' help thimsilves if they didn't care f'r other stimylants. I have no taste f'r readin', but I won't deny it's a good thing f'r thim that's addicted to it. In modheration, mind ye. In modheration, an' afther th' chores is done. F'r as a frind iv Hogan's says, 'Much readin' makes a full man,' an' he knew what he was talkin' about. An' do I object to th' pursuit iv lithrachoor? Oh, faith, no. As a pursuit 'tis fine, but it may be bad f'r anny wan that catches it." The Law's Delays "If I had me job to pick out," said Mr. Dooley, "I'd be a judge. I've looked over all th' others an' that's th' on'y wan that suits. I have th' judicyal timperamint. I hate wurruk. "Ivrybody else is pushed an' hurrid in this tumulchuse age. Th' business man has to get to th' bank befure it closes an' th' banker has to get there befure th' business man escapes, an' th' high-priced actor has to kill off more gradyates iv th' school iv actin' thin iver he did, an' th' night editions iv th' pa-apers comes out arlier ivry mornin'. All is rush an' worry. Kings an' imprors duck about their jooties like bell-hops, th' pampered son iv luxury at Newport is thryin' f'r a mile a minyit in his autymobill an' th' on'y leisure class left in th' wurruld is th' judicyary. Mind ye, Hinnissy, I'm not sayin' annything again' thim. I won't dhrag th' joodicyal ermine in th' mud though I haven't noticed that manny iv thim lift it immodestly whin they takes th' pollytical crossing. I have th' high rayspict f'r th' job that's th' alternative iv sixty days in jail. Besides, me boy, I invy thim. "Somewhere a la-ad hits somewan on th' head with an axe or sinds him a bunch iv proosic acid done up to look like candy. Maybe he does an' maybe he don't; but annyhow that's what he's lagged f'r. Th' polis are in a hurry to get to th' pool-room befure th' flag falls in th' first race an' they carry th' case to th' gran' jury; th' gran' jury indicts him without a thought or a suspicion iv ax har-rd feelin', th' judge takes his breakfast on th' bench to be there in time an' charges th' jury to be fair but not to f'rget th' man done it, an' th' jury rayturns a verdict iv guilty with three cheers an' a tiger. Th' pris'ner has hardly time to grab up his hat befure he 's hauled off to his funeral obsequies, an' th' onprejudiced public feels happy about it. I don't believe in capital punishmint, Hinnissy, but 'twill niver be abolished while th' people injye it so much. They 're jus' squarin' thimsilves f'r th' rayvoltin' details whin wurrud comes that Judge Tamarack iv Opolis has granted a stay iv proceedin's. Stays iv pro-ceedin's is devices, Hinnissy, be which th' high coorts keep in form. 'Tis a lagal joke. I med it up. Says Judge Tamarack: 'I know very little about this ease excipt what I've been tol' be th' larned counsel f'r th' dayfinse, an' I don't believe that, but I agree with Lord Coke in th' maxim that th' more haste th' less sleep. Therefore to all sheriffs, greetin': Fen jarrin' th' pris'ner till ye hear fr'm us.' "So th' pris'ner waits an' dhreams he 's a lightnin' rod an' th' public waits an' ivrybody waits. Th' high coort is busy in its way. Ivry two or three years it is discovered takin' a nap at a county seat in th' corn belt, an' it hands down a decision f'r th' defindant in a case f'r damages growin' out iv th' Shay rebillion. Then it dhrops off again. Th' judge that thried th' case retires to a well-arned job with a railrood comp'ny, th' jury has ceased to look f'r their pitchers in th' pa-apers an' th' insurance comp'nies insure young Cyanide's life f'r the lowest known premyum. Occasionally a judge iv th' coort iv appeals walkin' in his sleep meets another judge, an' they discuss matthers. 'How ar-re ye gettin' on with th' Cyanide case, judge?' 'I'm makin' fair headway, judge. I r-read part iv th' vardict iv th' coroner's jury las' year an' nex' month whin th' fishin' is over, I expict to look into th' indictment. 'Tis a puzzlin' case. Th' man is not guilty.' 'Well, good bye, judge; I'll see ye in a year or two. Lave me know how ye're gettin' on. Pleasant dhreams!' An' so they part. Th' higher up a coort is, th' less they see iv each other. Their office hours are fr'm a quarther to wan leap years. Ye take a lively lawyer that's wurruked twinty hours a day suin' sthrect railrood comp'nies an' boost him onto a high coort an' he can't think out iv a hammock. Th' more exalted what Hogan calls th' joodicyal station, th' more it's like a dormitory. Th' years rowl by an' th' tillygraft op'rator that's been expictin' to sind a rush tillygram through young Cyanide sees his ohms an' his volts mouldin' an' no wurrud comes fr'm th' coort iv appeals but th' murmur iv th' chief justice discussin' th' nullification theery. But wan day, th' decision is wafted down. 'Th' coort finds,' it says, 'that th' vardict was conthry to th' law an' th' ividince. We seen this fr'm th' first. It's as plain as th' nose on ye'er face. Th' judge was prejudiced an' th' jury was ignorant. Th' ividince wasn't sufficient to hang a cat. We revarse th' decision an' ordher a new thrile that full justice may be done. We cannot help remarkin' at this time on th' croolty iv subjectin' this unforchnit man to all these years iv torture an' imprisonment with a case again' him which we see at a glance durin' th' Mexican war cud not shtand th' test iv th' law.' "But whin th' decision is carried to th' pris'ner, th' warden says 'Who?' 'P. Cyanide,' says th' clark iv th' coort. 'He's not here,' says th' warden. 'On consultin' me books, I find a man iv that name left in th' year sivinty-wan.' 'Did he escape?' 'In a sinse. He's dead.' "So, Hinnissy, I'd like to be a judge iv a high coort, dhreamin' th' happy hours away. No hurry, no sthrivin' afther immejet raysults, no sprintin', no wan hollenin' 'Dooley J. hurry up with that ne exeat,' or 'Dooley, hand down that opinyion befure th' batthry gives out.' 'Tis th' thrue life iv aise an' gintlemanly comfort. 'Tis wait till th' clouds rowl by; 'tis time was meant for slaves; 'tis a long life an' a happy wan. Like th' Shamrock II, th' coort acts well in stays but can't run befure th' wind. A jury is f'r hangin' ivry man, but th' high coort says: 'Ye must die, but take ye'er time about it an' go out th' way ye like.' If I wanted to keep me money so that me gran'childher might get it f'r their ol' age, I'd appeal it to th' supreme coort. Oh, th' fine judge I'd make, f'r I can sleep annywhere, an' I'm niver impatient f'r annywan to get his jooes." "I don't see," said Mr. Hennessy, "why they have anny juries. Why don't they thry ivry man before th' supreme coort an' have done with it?" "I have a betther way than that," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye see they'e wurrukin' on time now. I wondher if they wudden't sthep livelier if they were paid be th' piece." Sherlock Holmes "Dorsey an' Dugan are havin' throuble," said Mr. Hennessy. "What about?" asked Mr. Dooley. "Dorsey," said Mr. Hennessy, "says Dugan stole his dog. They had a party at Dorsey's an' Dorsey heerd a noise in th' back yard an' wint out an' see Dugan makin' off with his bull tarryer." "Ye say he see him do it?" "Yis, he see him do it." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "'twud baffle th' injinooty iv a Sherlock Holmes." "Who's Sherlock Holmes?" "He's th' gr-reatest detictive that iver was in a story book. I've been r-readin' about him an' if I was a criminal, which I wud be if I had to wurruk f'r a livin', an' Sherlock Holmes got afther me, I'd go sthraight to th' station an' give mesilf up. I'd lay th' goods on th' desk an' say: 'Sargeant, put me down in th' hard cage. Sherlock Holmes has jus' see a man go by in a cab with a Newfoundland dog an' he knows I took th' spoons.' Ye see, he ain't th' ordh'nry fly cop like Mulcahy that always runs in th' Schmidt boy f'r ivry crime rayported fr'm stealin' a ham to forgin' a check in th' full knowledge that some day he'll get him f'r th' right thing. No, sir; he's an injanyous man that can put two an' two together an' make eight iv thim. He applies his brain to crime, d'ye mind, an' divvle th' crime, no matther how cunnin' it is, will escape him. We'll suppose, Hinnissy, that I'm Sherlock Holmes. I'm settin' here in me little parlor wearin' a dhressin' gown an' now an' thin pokin' mesilf full iv morpheen. Here we are. Ye come in. 'Good-mornin', Watson.'" "I ain't Watson," said Mr. Hennessy. "I'm Hinnissy." "Ah," said Mr. Dooley; "I thought I'd wring it fr'm ye. Perhaps ye'd like to know how I guessed ye had come in. 'Tis very simple. On'y a matther iv observation. I heerd ye'er step; I seen ye'er refliction in th' lookin' glass; ye spoke to me. I put these things together with me thrained faculty f'r observation an' deduction, d'ye mind. Says I to mesilf: 'This must be Hinnissy.' But mind ye, th' chain iv circumstances is not complete. It might be some wan disguised as ye. So says I to mesilf: 'I will throw this newcome, whoiver he is, off his guard, be callin' him be a sthrange name!' Ye wudden't feel complimented, Hinnissy, if ye knew who Watson is. Watson knows even less than ye do. He don't know annything, an' annything he knows is wrong. He has to look up his name in th' parish raygisther befure he can speak to himsilf. He's a gr-reat frind iv Sherlock Holmes an' if Sherlock Holmes iver loses him, he'll find him in th' nearest asylum f'r th' feeble-minded. But I surprised ye'er secret out iv ye. Thrown off ye'er guard be me innocent question, ye popped out 'I'm Hinnissy,' an' in a flash I guessed who ye were. Be th' same process iv raisonin' be deduction, I can tell ye that ye were home las' night in bed, that ye're on ye'er way to wurruk, an' that ye'er salary is two dollars a day. I know ye were at home las' night because ye ar-re always at home between iliven an' sivin, bar Pathrick's night, an' ye'er wife hasn't been in lookin' f'r ye. I know ye're on ye'er way to wurruk because I heerd ye'er dinner pail jingle as ye stepped softly in. I know ye get two dollars a day because ye tol' me ye get three an' I deducted thirty-three an' wan third per cint f'r poetic license. 'Tis very simple. Ar-re those shoes ye have on ye'er feet? Be hivins, I thought so." "Simple," said Mr. Hennessy, scornfully; "'tis foolish." "Niver mind," said Mr. Dooley. "Pass th' dope, Watson. Now bein' full iv th' cillybrated Chow Sooey brand, I addhress me keen mind to th' discussion iv th' case iv Dorsey's dog. Watson, look out iv th' window an' see if that's a cab goin' by ringin' a gong. A throlley car? So much th' betther. Me observation tol' me it was not a balloon or a comet or a reindeer. Ye ar-re a gr-reat help to me, Watson. Pass th' dope. Was there a dog on th' car? No? That simplifies th' thing. I had an idee th' dog might have gone to wurruk. He was a bull-tarryer, ye say. D'ye know annything about his parents? Be Mulligan's Sloppy Weather out iv O'Hannigan's Diana iv th' Slough? Iv coorse. Was ayether iv thim seen in th' neighborhood th' night iv th' plant? No? Thin it is not, as manny might suppose, a case iv abduction. What were th' habits iv Dorsey's coyote? Was he a dog that dhrank? Did he go out iv nights? Was he payin' anny particular attintions to anny iv th' neighbors? Was he baffled in love? Ar-re his accounts sthraight? Had Dorsey said annything to him that wud 've made him despondent? Ye say no. He led a dog's life but seemed to be happy. Thin 'tis plainly not a case iv suicide. "I'm gettin' up close to th' criminals. Another shot iv th' mad mixture. Wait till I can find a place in th' ar-rm. There ye ar-re. Well, Watson, what d'ye make iv it?" "If ye mane me, Dugan stole th' dog." "Not so fast," said Mr. Dooley. "Like all men iv small minds ye make ye'ers up readily. Th' smaller th' mind, th' aisier 'tis made up. Ye'ers is like a blanket on th' flure befure th' fire. All ye have to do to make it up is to lave it. Mine is like a large double bed, an' afther I've been tossin' in it, 'tis no aisy job to make it up. I will puncture me tire with th' fav'rite flower iv Chinnytown an' go on. We know now that th' dog did not elope, that he didn't commit suicide an' that he was not kidnaped be his rayturnin' parents. So far so good. Now I'll tell ye who stole th' dog. Yisterdah afthernoon I see a suspicious lookin' man goin' down th' sthreet. I say he was suspicious lookin' because he was not disguised an' looked ivry wan in th' face. He had no dog with him. A damning circumstance, Watson, because whin he'd stolen th' dog he niver wud 've taken it down near Dorsey's house. Ye wudden't notice these facts because ye'er mind while feeble is unthrained. His coat collar was turned up an' he was whistlin' to himsilf, a habit iv dog fanciers. As he wint be Hogan's house he did not look around or change his gait or otherwise do annything that wud indicate to an unthrained mind that there was annything wrong, facts in thimsilves that proved to me cultivated intilligence that he was guilty. I followed him in me mind's eye to his home an' there chained to th' bed leg is Dorsey's dog. Th' name iv th' criminal is P. X. O'Hannigan, an' he lives at twinty-wan hundhred an' ninety-nine South Halsted sthreet, top flat, rear, a plumber be pro-fission. Officer, arrest that man! "That's all right," said Mr. Hennessy; "but Dugan rayturned th' dog las' night." "Oh, thin," said Mr. Dooley, calmly, "this is not a case f'r Sherlock Holmes but wan f'r th' polis. That's th' throuble, Hinnissy, with th' detictive iv th' story. Nawthin' happens in rale life that's complicated enough f'r him. If th' Prisidint iv th' Epworth League was a safe-blower be night th' man that'd catch him'd be a la-ad with gr-reat powers iv observation an' thrained habits iv raisonin'. But crime, Hinnissy, is a pursoot iv th' simple minded--that is, catchable crime is a pursoot iv th' simple-minded. Th' other kind, th' uncatchable kind that is took up be men iv intellict is called high fi-nance. I've known manny criminals in me time, an' some iv thim was fine men an' very happy in their home life, an' a more simple, pasth'ral people ye niver knew. Wan iv th' ablest bank robbers in th' counthry used to live near me--he ownded a flat buildin'--an' befure he'd turn in to bed afther rayturnin' fr'm his night's wurruk, he'd go out in th' shed an' chop th' wood. He always wint into th' house through a thransom f'r fear iv wakin' his wife who was a delicate woman an' a shop lifter. As I tell ye he was a man without guile, an' he wint about his jooties as modestly as ye go about ye'ers. I don't think in th' long run he made much more thin ye do. Wanst in a while, he'd get hold iv a good bunch iv money, but manny other times afther dhrillin' all night through a steel dure, all he'd find 'd be a short crisp note fr'm th' prisidint iv th' bank. He was often discouraged, an' he tol' me wanst if he had an income iv forty dollars th' month, he'd retire fr'm business an' settle down on a farm. "No, sir, criminals is th' simplest crathers in th' wide wide wurruld--innocent, sthraight-forward, dangerous people, that haven't sinse enough to be honest or prosperous. Th' extint iv their schamin' is to break a lock on a dure or sweep a handful iv change fr'm a counter or dhrill a hole in a safe or administher th' strong short arm to a tired man takin' home his load. There are no mysteryous crimes excipt thim that happens to be. Th' ordh'nry crook, Hinnissy, goes around ringin' a bell an' disthributin' hand-bills announcin' his business. He always breaks through a window instead iv goin' through an open dure, an' afther he's done annything that he thinks is commindable, he goes to a neighborin' liquor saloon, stands on th' pool table an' confides th' secret to ivrybody within sound iv his voice. That's why Mulligan is a betther detictive thin Sherlock Holmes or me. He can't put two an' two together an' he has no powers iv deduction, but he's a hard dhrinker an' a fine sleuth. Sherlock Holmes niver wud've caught that frind iv mine. Whin th' safe iv th' Ninth Rational Bank was blowed, he wud've put two an' two together an' arristed me. But me frind wint away lavin' a hat an' a pair iv cuffs marked with his name in th' safe, an' th' polis combined these discoveries with th' well-known fact that Muggins was a notoryous safe blower an' they took him in. They found him down th' sthreet thryin' to sell a bushel basket full iv Alley L stock. I told ye he was a simple man. He ralized his ambition f'r an agaracoolchral life. They give him th' care iv th' cows at Joliet." "Did he rayform?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "No," said Mr. Dooley; "he escaped. An' th' way he got out wud baffle th' injinooty iv a Sherlock Holmes." "How did he do it?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "He climbed over th' wall," said Mr. Dooley. International Amenities "Be hivins," said Mr. Dooley, "I wisht I'd been there." "Where?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "At th' bankit iv th' Ancyent an' Hon'rable Chamber iv Commerce in New York," said Mr. Dooley. "'Tis a hard fate that compels me to live out here on th' prairies among th' aborig'nal Americans fr'm Poland an' Bohaymya. Me heart at times is burstin' f'r to jine in th' festivities iv me fellow Britons in New York. F'r I'm a British subjick, Hinnissy. I wasn't born wan. I was born in Ireland. But I have a little money put away, an' ivry American that has larned to make wan dollar sthick to another is ex-officio, as Hogan says, a British subjick. We've adopted a foster father. Some iv us ain't anny too kind to th' ol' gintleman. In th' matther iv th' Nicaragoon Canal we have recently pushed him over an' took about all he had. But our hearts feels th' love iv th' parent counthry, though our hands is rebellyous, an' ivry year me fellow-merchants gets together in New York an' f'rgets th' cares iv th' wool an' tallow business in an outburst iv devotion to th' ol' land fr'm which our fathers sprung or was sprung be th' authorities. "Th' prisidint iv th' bankit was me frind Morse K. Cheeseshop a mimber iv an ol' Yorkshire fam'ly born in th' West Riding iv Long Island befure th' Crimeyan War. At his right sat th' Sicrety iv state f'r th' colony, an' at his left me frind th' ambassadure to th' Coort iv Saint James. Why we shud sind an ambassadure I don't know, though it may be an ol' custom kept up f'r to plaze th' people iv Omaha. He's a good man, th' ambassadure, who is inthrajoocin' th' American joke in England. Hogan says th' diff'rence between an American joke an' an English joke is th' place to laugh. In an American joke ye laugh just afther th' point if at all, but in an English joke ye laugh ayether befure th' point or afther th' decease iv th' joker. Th' ambassadure hopes to inthrajooce a cross iv th' two that ye don't laugh at at all that will be suited to th' English market. His expeeriments so far has been encouragin'. "At th' conclusion iv th' eatin' th' chairman, Sir Morse Cheeseshop inthrajooced th' sicrety iv state in a few well chosen wurruds. 'Fellow Colonists,' says he, 'I desire to presint His Majesty's ripresentative in this counthry who is doin' more thin anny other man in th' plastherin' business,' he says. 'Owin',' he says, 'to mimbers iv th' Sinit lavin' a hod iv bricks fall on his head recently, he has not been able to do much on th' job,' he says. 'But he has brought his throwel and morthar here to-night an' if ye will kindly lave off singing' "Brittanya rules th' prosperity wave" f'r a minyit he'll give ye an exhibition iv how he wurruks. Me Lords an' gintlemen, th' sicrety iv state:' "'Fellow subjicks,' says th' sicrety iv state, 'diplomacy is far diff'rent business thin it used to be. (A voice, 'Good f'r you.') In th' days iv Bismarck, Gladstun an' Charles Francis Adams 'twas a case iv inthrigue an' deceit. Now it is as simple as a pair iv boots. In fifteen years th' whole nature iv man is so changed that a diplomat has on'y to be honest, straight-forward an' manly an' concede ivrything an' he will find his opponents will meet him half way an' take what he gives. Unforchunitly diplomacy on'y goes as far as the dure. It is onable to give protection to th' customer, so whin he laves th' shop th' sthrong arm men iv th' Sinit knocks him down an' takes fr'm him ivrything he got inside an' more too. Di-plomacy has become a philanthropic pursoot like shop-keepin', but politics, me lords, is still th' same ol' spoort iv highway robb'ry. But I done what I cud to protict th' intherests iv th' mother, father an' brother-in-law counthry, an' between you an' me if I don't desarve th' Victorya cross f'r presintin' that threaty to th' Sinit nobody does. I will on'y say that hinceforth th' policy iv this gover'mint will be as befure not to bully a sthrong power or wrong a weak, but will remain thrue to th' principle iv wrongin' th' sthrong an' bullyin' th' weak.' "Th' sicrety iv state was followed be th' ambassadure. 'I wish to tell ye,' said he, 'what a good time I had in England. Befure I wint there I was sthrongly prejudiced again' England. I thought it was th' noblest counthry on which, as Dan'l Webster says, th' sun niver set without hatchin' out a new colony. But I did it a great injustice. It is betther thin what I thought. It does not care f'r chaff or gush such as goes down in this counthry. All an English gintleman demands is that ye shall be ye'ersilf, frank, manly an' sincere. A little cry on th' shouldher, a firm grasp iv th' hand, a brief acknowledgment that we owe our language an' are payin' it back, our lithrachoor an' our boots to him, an' his heart opens. He cannot conceal his admiration f'r ye. He goes away. Ah, niver will I f'rget th' day I peeked out iv me bed-room window at Windsor Castle an' see manny iv th' sturdy lielists here befure me bein' received in th' back yard be th' king. I mind well th' wurruds that fell fr'm his lips whin ye left to take lunch in th' rile woodshed. "Chote," he says, "thim were a fine lot iv Americans," he says. "What thribe did ye say they belonged to? Soos?" he says.' "So th' avenin' proceeded until it was time to go home, whin th' chairman proposed th' customary toast. 'Me lords an' gintlemen, charge ye'er glasses an' jine me in a toast,' he says. 'His majesty Edward th' Sivinth, iv Gr-reat Britain an' possibly Ireland, iv Inja, Egypt, iv Austhralya, iv South Africa in a sinse, an' iv th' Dominions beyant th' sea, includin' New York, King, Definder iv th' Faith. I hope I got it all in.' 'Ye did,' said th' ambassadure. An' th' toast was dhrunk with enthusyasm. Other toasts was dhrunk to th' rile fam'ly an' th' Protestant Succession, to th' Jook iv Argyle who used to own Andhrew Carnaygie, an' in manny cases th' rile merchants carrid th' glasses away in their pockets. Jus' as th' comp'ny was breakin' up a man whose gaiters creaked rose an' said: 'Isn't there wan more toast?' 'Good hivins have I f'rgotten somewan?' said Lord Cheeseshop. 'That was all there was in th' book. Who d'ye mane?' he says. 'I mane th' prisidint iv th' United States,' says th' man, who comes fr'm Baraboo. 'Oh him,' says th' chairman in a relieved tone. 'Well, annywan that wants to can dhrink his health at th' bar,' he says. "As th' comp'ny filed out a band was playin' in th' adjinin' room where they was a meetin' iv th' Amalgamated Stove-polish men fr'm th' neighborhood iv Terry Hut. 'What's that outlandish chune?' says Lord Cheeseshop. ''Tis th' naytional air, west iv Hoboken,' says th' man fr'm Baraboo. 'What's it called?' says Lord Cheeseshop. 'Th' Star Spangled Banner,' says th' man. 'Well,' says Lord Cheeseshop, ''tis very intherestin',' he says. ''Tis th' on'y Indyan music I iver heerd,' he says." "Ah well," said Mr. Hennessy, "who cares?" "Faith I think ye're right," said Mr. Dooley. "A man will swallow annything with a dinner. What is good f'r what Hogan calls th' iliminthry canal has nawthin' to do with th' Nicaragoon Canal an' I'd be more afraid iv Lord Cheeseshop if he thought th' toast an' didn't say it. Our Anglo-Saxon relations is always a give-away--on some wan." Art Patronage "I see in this pa-aper," said Mr. Dooley, "they'se a fellow kickin' because an American painther ain't got anny chanst again' foreign compytition." "Sure," said Mr. Hennessy; "he's aisy displazed. I niver knew th' business to be betther. Wages is high an' 'tis a comfortable thrade barrin' colic." "I don't mane that kind iv painthers," said Mr. Dooley. "I don't mane th' wans that paint ye'er barn, but th' wans that paints a pitcher iv ye'er barn an' wants to sell it to ye f'r more thin th' barn is worth. This man says no matther how industhrees an American painther is, no matther if he puts on his overalls arly in th' mornin' an' goes out with a laddher an' whales away all day long, he can hardly arn a livin', while th' pauper artists iv Europe is fairly rowlin' in th' lap iv luxury. Manny a la-ad that started in life with th' intintion iv makin' th' wurruld f'rget that what's his name--Hogan's frind--ye know who I mane--Michael Angelo--ever lived, is now glad to get a job decoratin' mountain scenery with th' latest news about th' little liver pills. "Ye see, Hinnissy, whin a man gets hold iv a large hatful iv money, wan iv th' first things he does is to buy some art. Up to th' time whin th' top blew off th' stock market, he bought his art out iv th' front window iv a news an' station'ry shop or had it put in be th' paperhanger. He took th' Sundah pa-apers that ar-re a gr-reat help if ye're collectin' art, an' he had some pitchers iv fruit that looks nachral enough to ate, d'ye mind, a paintin' iv a deer like th' wan he shot at in th' Manotowish counthry in Eighty-eight, an' a livin' likeness iv a Lake Supeeryor white fish on a silver plate. That was th' peeryod, mind ye, whin th' iron dogs howled on his lawn an' people come miles an' miles f'r to see a grotto made out iv relics iv th' Chicago fire. "Manetime his daughter was illustratin' suspinders an' illuminatin' china plates an' becomin' artistic, an' afther awhile whin th' time come that he had to keep a man at th' dure to sweep out th' small bills, she give him a good push to'rd betther things. Besides, his pardner down th' sthreet had begun collectin' pitchers, an' ivry time he wint abroad th' mannyfacthrers iv pitcher frames bought new autymobills f'r th' Champs All Easy. So 'twas a soft matther f'r our frind Higbie to be persuaded that he ought to be a pathron iv art, an' he wint abroad detarmined to buy a bunch iv chromos that'd make people come out iv th' gallery iv his pardner down th' sthreet stiflin' their laughter in their hands. "Now ye'd think seein' that he made his money in this counthry, he'd pathronize American art. Ye'd believe he'd sind wurrud down to his agent f'r to secure forty feet iv Evansville be moonlight an' be con-tint. But he don't. "Ye don't catch Higbie changin' iv anny iv his dividends on domestic finished art. He jumps on a boat an' goes sthraight acrost to th' centhral deepo. The first thing he gets is a porthrait iv himsilf be wan iv th' gr-reat modhren masthers, Sargent be name. This here Sargent, Hogan tells me, used to live in this counthry, an' faith, if he'd stayed here ye might see him to-day on a stagin'. But he had a mind in his head an' he tore off f'r Europe th' way a duck hunter goes f'r a rice swamp. Afther awhile, Higbie shows up, an' says he: 'I'm Higbie iv th' Non-Adhesive Consolidated Glue Company,' he says. 'Can ye do me?' 'I can an' will,' says Sargent. 'I'll do ye good. How much have ye got?' he says. 'Get some more an' come around,' he says. An' Higbie puts on his Prince Albert coat an' laves it open so that ye can see his watch charm--th' crown iv Poland with th' Kohinoor in th' top iv it--an' me frind Sargent does him brown an' red. He don't give him th' pitcher iv coorse. If ye have ye'er porthrait painted be a gr-reat painther, it's ye'er porthrait but 'tis his pitcher, an' he keeps it till ye don't look that way anny more. So Higbie's porthrait is hung up in a gallery an' th' doctors brings people to see it that ar-re sufferin' fr'm narvous dyspepsia to cheer thim up. Th' pa-apers says 'tis fine. 'Number 108 shows Sargent at his best. There is the same marvellous ticknick that th' great master displayed in his cillybrated take-off on Mrs. Maenheimer in last year's gallery. Th' skill an' ease with which th' painther has made a monkey iv his victim are beyond praise. Sargent has torn th' sordid heart out iv th' wretched crather an' exposed it to th' wurruld. Th' wicked, ugly little eyes, th' crooked nose, th' huge graspin' hands, tell th' story iv this miscreant's character as completely as if they were written in so manny wurruds, while th' artist, with wondherful malice, has painted onto th' face a smile iv sickenin' silf-complacency that is positively disgustin'. No artist iv our day has succeeded so well in showin' up th' maneness iv th' people he has mugged. We ondershtand that th' atrocious Higbie paid wan hundherd thousan' dollars f'r this comic valentine. It is worth th' money to ivrybody but him.' "But Higbie don't see th' pa-aper. He's over in Paris. Th' chimes are rung, bonefires are lighted in th' sthreets an' th' Pannyma Comp'ny declares a dividend whin he enters th' city. They'se such a demand f'r paint that th' supply runs out an' manny gr-reat imprishonist pitcher facthries is foorced to use bluein'. Higbie ordhers paintin's be th' ton, th' r-runnin' foot, th' foot pound, th' car load. He insthructs th' pitcher facthries to wurruk night an' day till his artistic sowl is satisfied. We follow his coorse in th' pa-apers. 'Th' cillybrated Gainsborough that niver wud be missed has been captured be Misther Higbie, th' American millyionaire. Th' price paid is said to be wan hundherd thousan' dollars. Th' pitcher riprisints a lady in a large hat fondlin' a cow. It is wan iv th' finest Gainsboroughs painted be th' Gainsborough Mannyfacthrin' comp'ny iv Manchester. At th' las' public sale, it was sold f'r thirty dollars. Misther Higbie has also purchased th' cillybrated Schmartzmeister Boogooroo, wan iv th' mos' horrible examples iv this delightful painther's style. He is now negotyatin' with th' well-known dealer Moosoo Mortheimer f'r th' intire output iv th' Barabazah School. Yisterdah in a call on th' janial dealer, th' name iv th' cillybrated painther Mooney was mintioned. "How manny pitchers has he painted?" "Four hundherd and forty-three thousan' at ilivin o'clock to-day," says th' dealer. "But four hundherd thousan' iv thim ar-re in America." "Get th' r-rest iv thim f'r me," says th' connysoor. "What did ye say th' gintleman's name was?" We ondershtand that Misther Mooney has had to put in two new four-deck machines to meet th' ordhers, which include thirty green an' mauve haystacks, forty blue barns or childher at play, an' no less thin ninety riprisintations iv mornin' at sea, moonlight avenin', flock iv sheep, or whativer ye may call thim.' "An' whin he comes home, he hangs thim in his house, so that his frinds can't turn around without takin' off a pasthral scene on their coats, an' he pastes th' price on th' frame, an' whin he dies, he laves his pitcher to some definceless art museem. An' there ye ar-re. "So I tell ye, Hinnissy, if I was a young an' ambitious American painther, I'd go to Europe. Whin Hannigan was over there, he met a young man that painted that fine head iv Murphy that looks so much like Casey that hangs in Schwartzmeister's back room. 'Ar-re ye still at th' art?' says Hannigan. 'I am,' says th' young man. 'How does it go?' asks Hannigan. 'I've more thin I can do,' says th' young man. 'Since steel rails got so high, I've had to hire an assistant. Ye see, I didn't get on in Chicago. Me "Bridgepoort in a Fog" was th' on'y pitcher I sold, an' a sausage mannyfacthrer bought that because his facthry was in it. I come over here, an' so's me pitchers will have a fair show, I sign annywan's name ye want to thim. Ye've heerd iv Michael Angelo? That's me. Ye've heerd iv Gainsborough? That's me. Ye've heerd iv Millet, th' boy that painted th' pitcher give away with th' colored supplimint iv th' Sundah Howl? That's me. Yis, sir, th' rale name iv near ivry distinguished painther iv modhren times is Remsen K. Smith. Whin ye go home, if ye see a good painther an' glazier that'd like a job as assistant Rimbrandt f'r th' American thrade, sind him to me. F'r,' he says, 'th' on'y place an American artist can make a livin' is here. Charity f'r artists,' he says, 'begins abroad,' he says." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "perhaps a bum Europeen pitcher is betther thin a good American pitcher." "Perhaps so," said Mr. Dooley. "I think it is so. Annyhow, no matther how bad a painther he is, annywan that can get money out iv an American millyionaire is an artist an' desarves it. There's th' rale art. I wish it was taught in th' schools. I'd like to see an exhibition at th' Museem with 'Check iv American Gintleman, dhrawn fr'm life,' hung on th' wall." Immigration "Well, I see Congress has got to wurruk again," said Mr. Dooley. "The Lord save us fr'm harm," said Mr. Hennessy. "Yes, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "Congress has got to wurruk again, an' manny things that seems important to a Congressman 'll be brought up befure thim. 'Tis sthrange that what's a big thing to a man in Wash'nton, Hinnissy, don't seem much account to me. Divvle a bit do I care whether they dig th' Nicaragoon Canal or cross th' Isthmus in a balloon; or whether th' Monroe docthrine is enfoorced or whether it ain't; or whether th' thrusts is abolished as Teddy Rosenfelt wud like to have thim or encouraged to go on with their neefaryous but magnificent entherprises as th' Prisidint wud like; or whether th' water is poured into th' ditches to reclaim th' arid lands iv th' West or th' money f'r thim to fertilize th' arid pocket-books iv th' conthractors; or whether th' Injun is threated like a depindant an' miserable thribesman or like a free an' indepindant dog; or whether we restore th' merchant marine to th' ocean or whether we lave it to restore itsilf. None iv these here questions inthrests me, an' be me I mane you an' be you I mane ivrybody. What we want to know is, ar-re we goin' to have coal enough in th' hod whin th' cold snap comes; will th' plumbin' hold out, an' will th' job last. "But they'se wan question that Congress is goin' to take up that you an' me are intherested in. As a pilgrim father that missed th' first boats, I must raise me claryon voice again' th' invasion iv this fair land be th' paupers an' arnychists iv effete Europe. Ye bet I must--because I'm here first. 'Twas diff'rent whin I was dashed high on th' stern an' rockbound coast. In thim days America was th' refuge iv th' oppressed iv all th' wurruld. They cud come over here an' do a good job iv oppressin' thimsilves. As I told ye I come a little late. Th' Rosenfelts an' th' Lodges bate me be at laste a boat lenth, an' be th' time I got here they was stern an' rockbound thimsilves. So I got a gloryous rayciption as soon as I was towed off th' rocks. Th' stars an' sthripes whispered a welcome in th' breeze an' a shovel was thrust into me hand an' I was pushed into a sthreet excyvatin' as though I'd been born here. Th' pilgrim father who bossed th' job was a fine ol' puritan be th' name iv Doherty, who come over in th' Mayflower about th' time iv th' potato rot in Wexford, an' he made me think they was a hole in th' breakwather iv th' haven iv refuge an' some iv th' wash iv th' seas iv opprission had got through. He was a stern an' rockbound la-ad himsilf, but I was a good hand at loose stones an' wan day--but I'll tell ye about that another time. "Annyhow, I was rayceived with open arms that sometimes ended in a clinch. I was afraid I wasn't goin' to assimilate with th' airlyer pilgrim fathers an' th' instichoochions iv th' counthry, but I soon found that a long swing iv th' pick made me as good as another man an' it didn't require a gr-reat intellect, or sometimes anny at all, to vote th' dimmycrat ticket, an' befure I was here a month, I felt enough like a native born American to burn a witch. Wanst in a while a mob iv intilligint collajeens, whose grandfathers had bate me to th' dock, wud take a shy at me Pathrick's Day procission or burn down wan iv me churches, but they got tired iv that befure long; 'twas too much like wurruk. "But as I tell ye, Hinnissy, 'tis diff'rent now. I don't know why 'tis diff'rent but 'tis diff'rent. 'Tis time we put our back again' th' open dure an' keep out th' savage horde. If that cousin iv ye'ers expects to cross, he'd betther tear f'r th' ship. In a few minyits th' gates 'll be down an' whin th' oppressed wurruld comes hikin' acrost to th' haven iv refuge, they'll do well to put a couplin' pin undher their hats, f'r th' Goddess iv Liberty 'll meet thim at th' dock with an axe in her hand. Congress is goin' to fix it. Me frind Shaughnessy says so. He was in yisterdah an' says he: ''Tis time we done something to make th' immigration laws sthronger,' says he. 'Thrue f'r ye, Miles Standish,' says I; 'but what wud ye do?' 'I'd keep out th' offscourin's iv Europe,' says he. 'Wud ye go back?' says I. 'Have ye'er joke,' says he. ''Tis not so seeryus as it was befure ye come,' says I. 'But what ar-re th' immygrants doin' that's roonous to us?' I says. 'Well,' says he, 'they're arnychists,' he says; 'they don't assymilate with th' counthry,' he says. 'Maybe th' counthry's digestion has gone wrong fr'm too much rich food,' says I; 'perhaps now if we'd lave off thryin' to digest Rockyfellar an' thry a simple diet like Schwartzmeister, we wudden't feel th' effects iv our vittels,' I says. 'Maybe if we'd season th' immygrants a little or cook thim thurly, they'd go down betther,' I says. "'They're arnychists, like Parsons,' he says. 'He wud've been an immygrant if Texas hadn't been admitted to th' Union,' I says. 'Or Snolgosh,' he says. 'Has Mitchigan seceded?' I says. 'Or Gittoo,' he says. 'Who come fr'm th' effete monarchies iv Chicago, west iv Ashland Av'noo,' I says. 'Or what's-his-name, Wilkes Booth,' he says. 'I don't know what he was--maybe a Boolgharyen,' says I. 'Well, annyhow,' says he, 'they're th' scum iv th' earth.' 'They may be that,' says I; 'but we used to think they was th' cream iv civilization,' I says. 'They're off th' top annyhow. I wanst believed 'twas th' best men iv Europe come here, th' la-ads that was too sthrong and indepindant to be kicked around be a boorgomasther at home an' wanted to dig out f'r a place where they cud get a chanst to make their way to th' money. I see their sons fightin' into politics an' their daughters tachin' young American idee how to shoot too high in th' public school, an' I thought they was all right. But I see I was wrong. Thim boys out there towin' wan heavy foot afther th' other to th' rowlin' mills is all arnychists. There's warrants out f'r all names endin' in 'inski, an' I think I'll board up me windows, f'r,' I says, 'if immygrants is as dangerous to this counthry as ye an' I an' other pilgrim fathers believe they are, they'se enough iv thim sneaked in already to make us aborigines about as infloointial as the prohibition vote in th' Twinty-ninth Ward. They'll dash again' our stern an' rock-bound coast till they bust it,' says I. "'But I ain't so much afraid as ye ar-re. I'm not afraid iv me father an' I'm not afraid iv mesilf. An' I'm not afraid iv Schwartzmeister's father or Hinnery Cabin Lodge's grandfather. We all come over th' same way, an' if me ancestors were not what Hogan calls rigicides, 'twas not because they were not ready an' willin', on'y a king niver come their way. I don't believe in killin' kings, mesilf. I niver wud've sawed th' block off that curly-headed potintate that I see in th' pitchers down town, but, be hivins, Presarved Codfish Shaughnessy, if we'd begun a few years ago shuttin' out folks that wudden't mind handin' a bomb to a king, they wudden't be enough people in Mattsachoosetts to make a quorum f'r th' Anti-Impeeryal S'ciety,' says I. 'But what wud ye do with th' offscourin' iv Europe?' says he. 'I'd scour thim some more,' says I. "An' so th' meetin' iv th' Plymouth Rock Assocyation come to an end. But if ye wud like to get it together, Deacon Hinnissy, to discuss th' immygration question, I'll sind out a hurry call f'r Schwartzmeister an' Mulcahey an' Ignacio Sbarbaro an' Nels Larsen an' Petrus Gooldvink, an' we 'll gather to-night at Fanneilnoviski Hall at th' corner iv Sheridan an' Sigel sthreets. All th' pilgrim fathers is rayquested f'r to bring interpreters." "Well," said Mr. Hennessy, "divvle th' bit I care, on'y I'm here first, an' I ought to have th' right to keep th' bus fr'm bein' overcrowded." "Well," said Mr. Dooley, "as a pilgrim father on me gran' nephew's side, I don't know but ye're right. An' they'se wan sure way to keep thim out." "What's that?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Teach thim all about our instichoochions befure they come," said Mr. Dooley. White House Discipline "Where did ye spind th' New Year's?" asked Mr. Dooley. "I didn't go to th' White House rayciption," said Mr. Hennessy, pleasantly. "I see ye didn't," said Mr. Doolcy. "Ye'er ar-rm is not in a sling. Man an' boy, Hinnissy, I've taken manny a chanst on me life, but I'd as lave think iv declarin' th' sintimints iv me heart in an Orange meetin' as dhroppin' in f'r a socyal call at what Hogan calls th' ixicutive mansion. That is, if I was a govermint emplyee, which I ain't, havin' been born wrong. "Th' time was whin a man lost his job an' his heart to th' prisidint at th' same time. A reproof was administhered to him with chloryform. He woke up an' rubbed his eyes an' says, 'Where am I?' an' th' polisman says: 'Ye're in an ash bar'l.' He come fr'm th' White House with tears in his eyes an' was tol' he was out iv wurruk. But, Hinnissy, th' prisint occypant iv th' White House is a heartier person. A reproof fr'm him is th' same thing as a compound fracture. A wurrud iv caution will lay a man up f'r a week an' a severe riprimand will sind him through life with a wooden leg. "There was me frind, Gin'ral Miles. No more gallant sojer iver dhrew his soord to cut out a patthern f'r a coat thin Gin'ral Miles. He's hunted th' Apachy, th' Sioux, th' Arapahoo, th' Comanchee, th' Congressman an' other savages iv th' plain; he's faced death an' promotion in ivry form, an' no harm come to him till he wint up th' White House stairs or maybe 'twas till he come down. Annyhow, Gin'ral Miles was pursooin' th' thrue coorse iv a nachral warryor an' enlightenin' th' wurruld on th' things he happened to think iv. 'Tis what is ixpicted iv him. If ye don't read him ye don't know what's goin' on in th' wurruld. Ivry Sundah I pick up me pa-aper an' hurry through th' articles on what's a suitable Christmas gift f'r th' hired girl who'll pizen th' soup if she gets three yards iv calico, be Winnyfield Scott Schley, an' what ought to be done f'r th' Chinee, be Cap. Mahan, an' get down to what Gin'ral Miles thinks. 'Tis always good an' full iv meaty advice. 'Is Mars inhabited?' 'Th' future iv th' Columbya river salmon,' 'Is white lead good f'r th' complexion?' 'What wud I do if I had a millyion dollars an' it was so,' 'England's supreemacy in Cochin China,' 'Pink gaiters as a necissity iv warfare,' 'Is th' Impire shouldhers goin' out?' 'Waist measurements iv warriors I have met,' an' so on. Gin'ral Miles is th' on'y in-an'-out, up an' down, catch-as-catch-can, white, red or black, with or without, journylist we have left. On anny subject fr'm stove polish to sun worship, I'd take th' wurrud iv me frind Gin'ral Miles befure th' man that made th' goods. "'Twas that got him into throuble. Wan day afther inspictin' th' army, Gin'ral Miles give a chat to wan iv his fav'rite journals on what he thought about th' navy, him bein' a great authority on navy affairs befure steam come in. I don't know what th' divvle he said an' I don't care, f'r me mind was made up long ago, an' ivrybody that don't agree with me is little betther thin a thraitor or a cow'rd. But annyhow he give his opinyion, an' afther givin' it he took his bonnet out, had a goold beater in to fix up th' epylets, got th' ilicthric lights goin' in th' buttons, found th' right pair iv blue an' pink pants, pulled on th' shoes with th' silver bells, harnessed to his manly hips th' soord with the forget-me-nots on th' handle an' pranced over to th' White House. As he wint up th' hall, he noticed an atmosphere iv what Hogan calls cold hatoor, f'r wan iv th' durekeepers said th' prisidint wasn't home an' another lightly kicked him as he passed, but like a sojer he wint on to th' East room where Mr. Rosenfelt, th' pa-apers tells me, shtud in front iv th' fireplace, nervously pluckin' Sicrety Gage be th' beard. 'I've come,' says Gin'ral Miles, 'to pay me rayspicts to th' head iv th' naytion.' 'Thank ye,' says th' prisidint, 'I'll do th' same f'r th' head iv th' army,' he says, bouncin' a coal scuttle on th' vethran's helmet. 'Gin'ral, I don't like ye'er recent conduct,' he says, sindin' th' right to th' pint iv th' jaw. 'Ye've been in th' army forty year,' he says, pushin' his head into th' grate, 'an' ye shud know that an officer who criticizes his fellow officers, save in th' reg'lar way, that is to say in a round robin, is guilty iv I dinnaw what,' he says, feedin' him with his soord. 'I am foorced to administher ye a severe reproof,' he says. 'Is that what this is?' says Gin'ral Miles. 'It is,' says th' prisidint. 'I thought it was capital punishnmint,' says Gin'ral Miles as he wint out through th' window pursooed be a chandelier. His nex' article will be entitled 'Hospital Sketches,' an' I undhershtand he's dictatin' a few remarks to his nurse on providin' atthractive suits iv steel plate f'r gin'rals in th' army. "Well, sir, they'll be gr-reat times down there f'r a few years. A movement is on foot f'r to establish an emergency hospital f'r office holders an' politicians acrost th' sthreet fr'm th' White House where they can be threated f'r infractions iv th' Civil Sarvice law followed be pers'nal injuries. I'll be watchin' th' pa-apers ivry mornin'. 'Rayciption at th' White House. Among th' casulties was so-an'-so. Th' prisidint was in a happy mood. He administhered a stingin' rebuke to th' Chief Justice iv th' Supreme Coort, a left hook to eye. Sinitor Hanna was prisint walkin' with a stick. Th' prisidint approached him gaily an' asked him about his leg. "'Tis gettin' betther," says th' sinitor. "That's good," says th' prisidint. "Come again whin it is entirely well an' we'll talk over that appointment," he says. Th' afthernoon was enlivened be th' appearance iv a Southern Congressman askin' f'r a foorth-class post-office. Th' prisidint hardly missed him be more thin a foot at th' gate, but th' Congressman bein' formerly wan iv Mosby's guerillas escaped, to th' gr-reat chagrin iv Mr. Rosenfelt, who remarked on his return that life at th' White House was very confinin'. "I will niver be able to enfoorce th' civil sarvice law till I take more exercise," he said heartily. Th' ambulance was at th' dure promptly at five, but no important business havin' been thransacted nearly all th' cabinet was able to walk to their homes.' "Yes, sir, 'twill be grand an' I'm goin' to injye it. F'r th' first time since I've been at it, Ar-rchey road methods has been inthrajooced in naytional polliticks. I knew th' time wud come, Hinnissy. 'Tis th' on'y way. Ye may talk about it as much as ye want, but govermint, me boy, is a case iv me makin' ye do what I want an' if I can't do it with a song, I'll do it with a shovel. Th' ir'n hand in th' velvet glove, th' horseshoe in th' boxin' mit, th' quick right, an' th' heavy boot, that was th' way we r-run polliticks when I was captain iv me precinct." "But ye niver was prisidint," said Mr. Hennessy. "I always had too soft a spot f'r age," said Mr. Dooley; "an' 'tis th' aged that does up us young fellows. An' annyhow I done betther." Money and Matrimony "Can a man marry on twinty-five dollars?" asked Mr. Dooley. "He can if he can get th' money," said Mr. Hennessy. "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley; "here's a judge on th' binch says twinty-five dollars is as much as a man needs to enther th' sacred bonds--twinty-five dollars beside th' nerve, an' he has to have that annyhow. Th' pa-apers has took it up an' some is f'r it an' some is again' it. A few iditors believes it can be done on less; others thinks it can't be done undher thirty at th' outside. A larned lawyer says that a man who wud lure a young girl away fr'm her music lessons whin if she asked him f'r twinty-six dollars he'd have to signal f'r help, is nawthin' short iv a crim'nal. Nearly all th' ladin' acthresses in th' counthry has been interviewed an' they say that if marrid at all they cud not see their way clear f'r less thin a millyion iv money. They think th' judge meant a divoorce. Lookin' over th' argymints pro an' con, Hinnissy, I come to th' conclusion that th' judge is wrong an' times has changed. "Whin I was a boy all a man needed was a little encouragement fr'm th' fam'ly, an account with a liveryman an' a small pull with th' parish priest an' there he was. 'Twas well if he had a job too but if he hadn't it wasn't a bar. A marrid man can always find wurruk to do. He's got to. But no wan iver thought iv askin' him to skin open his bank book. They wasn't anny such things. They wasn't anny banks. He didn't have to pin a cashier's check to th' proposal an' put in a sealed bid. If th' girls in my time an' this part iv town had to wait f'r an opulent business man with twinty-five or thirty dollars, manny iv thim wud be waitin' at this minyit. "We looked on mathrimony as a dhraft on posterity, as Mark Hanna wud say, an' not as an invistmint. We argyied that while th' childher was growin' up we'd be undher no expinse, an' when they'd finished their schoolin' an' was able to take up th' stern jooties iv life an' go to wurruk, say between th' age iv sivin an' nine, they cud support us in luxury. Th' young ladies had none th' best iv us. They had no money too, along with th' rest iv their charms. It was no case iv matchin' coopons in thim happy days. Th' father iv th' fam'ly niver thought iv sindin' in an expert accountant to look over th' young man's books an' decide whether his invistmints was sound, an' if th' young man had th' nerve to ask his father-in-law was he still on th' payroll, 'twudn't be the sacramint iv mathrimony he'd require. If th' young man was kind to th' dog, smoked seegars that were not made be th' rubber thrust an' cud pass ivry second saloon without a pang, he was illegible f'r to enther th' first fam'lies in th' neighborhood an' sometimes even th' last. We was too dilicate f'r to speak iv marredge as though it was like buyin' a pound iv tinpinny nails. Durin' th' coortship no wan around th' house iver let on that annything was in th' air, though wanst in awhile they was a giggle whin th' dure bell rang an' th' ol' man wud give a wink to th' clock an' go out into th' kitchen. We spint most iv our time in th' kitchen while th' preliminaries was bein' arranged. Th' coortship I think wint on be a complete system iv signals long befure Marconi come into th' wurruld, but wan night th' wealthy heiress come hack fr'm th' parlor an' fell into a clinch with her mother, an' th' proud father yawned an' wint to bed. That was all they was to it. No wan assayed young Lotharyo Hinnissy iv th' sixth ward. If they heard he had twinty-five dollars, they'd begin f'r to make an allybi ready f'r him. I mind whin Hogan was goin' to marry Cassidy's daughter. 'I haven't a cint,' he says. 'Hurry up an' marry thin,' says Cassidy, 'or ye might have.' "That's th' way it was in thim good ol' days an', be hivins, I think that's th' way it is now among th' likes iv us. An' that's a good thing f'r th' men that own th' rollin' mills. It wudden't do to take anny chances goin' up an' down Ar-rchey road offerin' ye'ersilf without th' cash forfeit. Some wan might call ye. But it's diff'rent among th' best fam'lies. 'Tis far diff'rent. I read be th' pa-apers in this conthrovarsy, that if a man can't show down a bank account that wud make Andhrew Carnaygie feel like goin' back to wurruk, he might as well make up his mind to remain a gay bachelor till he falls fr'm th' cab f'r th' las' time. Not f'r him th' joys iv marrid life, th' futman at th' dure tellin' him his wife has not come home yet, th' prattlin' iv th' tendher infant as it is rocked to sleep in th' incybator, th' frequent letthers fr'm abroad askin' him if th' dhraft come. No rayspictible woman wud have him while he was gettin' th' money an' none ought to have him afther he's got it. "Manetime th' price iv mathrimonyal coopon fours goes up till hardly annywan can think iv entherin' thim. A man believes th' judge was wrong an' says he, 'I'll niver condimn Mary Josephine to be a poor man's wife. I'll wait till I get a millyion.' It's not so hard to get a millyion nowadays if ye pick out th' right people to get it fr'm, but it takes some time, an' befure th' eager suitor has landed enough to sit in th' game, he's considherably past th' age iv consint. Manetime father, too, hasn't been idle. He's bethrayed a few thrusts himsilf an' put a story or two on th' house. So whin th' young man comes up wan night an' lays down his pile an' suggests that th' time has come f'r to hasten th' glad evint, father says: 'I'm afraid, me boy, that ye're a little slow. Ye haven't kept pace with th' socyal requiremints. Since seein' ye last, Mary Josephine has acquired th' use iv a private yacht an' is slowly mastherin' th' great truth that if ye have a club suit, ye ought to pass up th' make. A slight oversight some afthernoon in distinguishin' thrumps an' they wudden't be enough iv that bundle left to put a rubber band around. No, Mike, I think a gr-reat deal iv ye, but niver, niver will I consint that a daughter iv mine shud suffer th' pangs iv poverty.' An' so it goes through th' years until marredge, Hinnissy, is resthricted to th' very rich an' th' exthremely poor who're almost all marrid already. "I don't know mesilf what to think iv it, Hinnissy, an' I don't know that I ought to worry about it. I haven't noticed anny reduction in th' number iv marredge licenses day be day. Th' Kubelowskis an' th' Witsinskis still are exchangin' vows, an' if they've got more thin twinty-five dollars apiece I'd like to know where they got it an' notify th' polis. No, sir, th' gloryous ol' instichooshion iv which I'm as proud as I am shy is here to stay, an' I'm thinkin' it'll be here whin money becomes extinct. If th' rich are becomin' richer, th' poor are becomin' more foolish about these things, an' there's hope in that." "D'ye ra-ally think a man ought to marry on twinty-five dollars?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "If he's that kind iv a man, more money thin that wud be wasted on him," said Mr. Dooley. Prince Henry's Visit "It's goin' to be gr-reat times f'r us Germans whin Prince Hinnery comes over," said Mr. Dooley. "By th' way," said Mr. Hennessy with an air of polite curiosity, "what relation's he to th' impror iv Germany? Is he th' son or th' nevvew?" "He's nayther," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' impror has no sons that I iver heerd iv. If he had a son he'd be a steam injine. No, sir, this man is th' impror's brother Hinnery or Hans. I don't exactly know what th' usual jooties iv an impror's brother is. I know what an impror has to do. His wurruk's cut out f'r him. I cud fill th' job mesilf to me own satisfaction an' th' on'y wan an impror has to plaze is himsilf. Th' German impror frequently mintions another, but on'y in th' way iv politeness. I know what an impror's jooties is, but I don't know what an impror's brother has to do ex officio, as Hogan says. But this boy Hinnery or Hans has more wurruk thin a bartinder in a prohibition town. He's a kind iv travellin' agent f'r th' big la-ad. His bag is ready packed ivry night, he sleeps like a fireman with his pants in his boots beside his bed, an' they'se a thrap dure alongside th' cradle f'r him to slide down to th' first flure. "He's no more thin got to sleep whin th' three iliven sounds on th' gong. In Hinnery leaps to th' pantaloons, down th' laddher he goes pullin' up his suspinders with wan hand an' puttin' on his hat with th' other an' off he is f'r Corea or Chiny or Booloochistan at a gallop. His brother stands at th' dure an' hollers farewell to him. 'Go, Hinnery,' he says. 'Go, me dear brother, to th' land iv perpetchooal sunshine an' knock in nails f'r to hang up th' German armor,' he says. 'Knock in th' nails, an' if ye happen to hit ye'ersilf on th' thumb, swear on'y be th' German Mike an' raymimber ye done it f'r me,' he says. 'I will remain at home an' conthrol th' rest iv th' wurruld with th' assistance iv that German Providence that has been as kind to us as we desarve an' that we look up to as our akel,' he says. An' Hinnery goes away. He travels o'er land an' sea, be fire an' flood an' field. He's th' ginooine flyin' Dutchman. His home is in his hat. He hasn't slept all night in a bed f'r tin years. 'Tis Hinnery this an' Hinnery that; Hinnery up th' Nile an' Hinnery to Injy; Hinnery here an' Hinnery there. Th' cuffs iv his shirt is made iv th' time cards iv railroads. Ivry time they'se a change in schedool he ordhers new shirts. He knows th' right iv way fr'm Berlin to Ballymaehoo; he speaks all known languages, an' ivrywhere he goes he makes a frind or an inimy, which is th' same thing to th' Germans. He carries a sample case undher wan arm an' a gun undher th' other, an' if ye don't like Rhine wine perhaps ye'll take lead. On second considherations he won't shoot ye but he'll sell ye th' Krupp. They'se more where it come fr'm. "I tell ye, Hinnissy, this Impror or Kaiser iv Germany is a smart man. I used to think 'twas not so. I thought he had things unaisy in his wheel-house. I mind whin he got th' job, ivrywan says: 'Look out f'r war. This wild man will be in that office f'r a year whin he'll just about declare fight with th' wurruld.' An' ivrybody framed up f'r him. But look ye what happened. 'Tis twinty years since he was swore in an' ne'er a fight has he had. Ivrybody else has been in throuble. A screw-maker iv a sindintary life has ploonged England into a war; me frinds th' Greeks that were considhered about akel to a flush iv anger over a raid on a push cart has mixed it up with th' Turks; th' Japs has been at war, an' th' Dagoes; our own peace-lovin' nation has been runnin' wan short an' wan serryal war, an' aven th' Chinese has got their dandher up, be hivins, but Willum, th' Middleweight Champeen, Willum th' Potsdam Game Chicken, Willum, th' Unterdenlinden Cyclone, Willum has been ladin' th' ca'm an' prosperous life iv a delicatessen dealer undher a turner hall. He's had no fights. He niver will have anny fights. He'll go to his grave with th' repytation iv nayether winnin' nor losin' a battle, but iv takin' down more forfeits thin anny impror pugilist iv our time. "What do I think iv him? Well, sir, I think he's not a fighter but a fight lover. Did ye iver see wan iv thim young men that always has a front seat at a scrap so near th' ring that whin th' second blows th' wather he gets what's left on his shirt front? Well, that's me frind Willum. He is a pathron iv spoort an' not a spoort. His ideel is war but he's a practical man. He has a season ticket to th' matches but he niver will put on the gloves. He's in the spoortin' goods business an' he usu'lly gets a percintage iv th' gate receipts. If he sees two nations bellowin' at each other th' assurances iv their distinguished considheration, he says: 'Boys, get together. 'Tis a good match. Ye're both afraid. Go in, uncle; go in, Boer.' He is all around th' ringside, encouragin' both sides. 'Stand up again' him there, Paul; rassle him to th' flure. Good f'r ye, uncle. A thrifle low, that wan, but all's fair in war. Defind ye'er indipindance, noble sons iv Teutonic blood. Exercise ye'er sov'reign rights, me English frinds.' If wan or th' other begins to weaken th' first bottle through th' ropes is Willum's. Whin annybody suggests a dhraw, he demands his money back. Nawthin' but a fight to a finish will do him. If ayether iv th' contestants is alive in th' ring at th' end, he congratulates him an' asks him if he heerd that German cheer in th' las' round. "Oh, he's good. He'll do all right, that German man. In high di-plomacy, he's what in low di-plomacy wud be called a happy jollyer. But he knows that if a man's always slappin' ye on th' back, ye begin to think he's weak; so he first shakes his fist undher ye'er nose an' thin slaps ye on th' back. Sometimes he does both at th' same time. An' he's got th' thrue jollyer's way iv provin' to ye that he's ye'er frind alone an' th' deadly inimy iv all others. He's got th' Czar iv Rooshya hypnotized, th' King iv England hugged to a standstill, an' th' Impror iv Chiny in tears. An' he's made thim all think th' first thing annywan knows, he'll haul off an' swing on wan iv th' others. "So, havin' fixed ivrything up in Europe, he cast his eyes on this counthry, an' says he: 'I think I'll have to dazzle thim furriners somewhat. They've got a round-headed man f'r prisidint that was born with spurs on his feet an' had a catridge-belt f'r a rattle, an' some day his goolash won't agree with him an' he'll call th' bluff I've been makin' these manny years. What'll I do to make thim me frinds so that 'twud be like settin' fire to their own house to attackt me? Be hivins, I've got it. They're a dimmycratic people. I'll sind thim a prince. They can't keep him away, an' whin he lands, th' German popylation'll come out an' get up schootzenfists f'r him an' me fellow impror acrost th' say'll see how manny iv them there ar-re, an' he'll think twict befure he makes faces at me. F'r, wanst a German, always a German be it iver so far,' he says. 'I'll sind thim Hinnery. Hinnery! Turn in th' alarm f'r Hinnery,' he says. Hinnery slides down th' pole an' th' Impror says: 'Brother, catch th' night boat f'r America an' pay a visit to whativer king they have there. Take along annywan ye like an' as manny thrunks as ye need, an' stay as long as ye plaze. Don't ring. Back th' dhray again' th' front dure an' hurl ye'ersilf into th' first bed room ye see. Act just as if ye was me,' he says. 'But I'm not invited,' says Hinnery. 'Write ye'er own invitation,' says Willum. 'Here's th' answer: 'Fellow Potyntate, Ye'ers iv th' second instant askin' me brother Hinnery to spind a year with ye, not received. In reply will say that nawthin' cud give me gr-reater pleasure. He can stay as long as he plazes. Him an' his soot will not need more thin th' whole house, so ye can have th' barn to ye'ersilf. If ye have a brother, don't neglect to sind him over to see me. I know a good hotel at four a day, all included but candles, an' if he stands at th' front window, he can see me go by anny day. Ye'ers, Willum, Rex an' a shade more.' "So here comes Hinnery, an' we're goin' to give him a gloryous rayciption. Th' war vessels will be out to welcome him, th' prisidint will meet him at th' dock an' he will be threated to wan continyous round iv schutzenfists, turnd'yeminds, sangerbunds, katzenjammers, skats, an' other German fistivals. Th' aristocracy iv New York is practicin' Dutch an' th' Waldorf-Astorya will be festooned with dachshunds. He'll see more Germans an' more German Germans thin he iver see in Prooshya. An' I hope he'll have a good time." "I wondher what Tiddy Rosenfelt thinks iv it?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Well, what wud ye think if ye'd had to intertain a German Prince unawares? Ye'd give him th' best ye'd got, ye'd dig up a bottle iv Knockimheimer down th' sthreet an' ye'd see that he got a noodle ivry time he reached. An' whin he wint away, ye'd go as far as th' dure with him an' pat him on th' back an' say: 'Good-bye, good-bye, Hinnery. Good-bye, Hans. Guten nobben, oof veedersayin, me boy. Good luck to ye. Look out f'r that shtep! There ye ar-re. Be careful iv th' gate. D'ye think ye can get home all right? I'd go as far as th' car with ye if I had me coat on. Well, good-bye lanksman. Raymimber me to ye'er brother. Tell him not to f'rget that little matther. Oh, of coorse, they'se no counthry in th' wurruld like Germany an' we're uncivilized an' rapacyous an' will get our heads knocked off if we go into a fight. Good-bye, mein frind.' An' whin ye'd shut th' dure on him, ye'd say: 'Well, what d'ye think iv that?'" Prince Henry's Reception "That Prince Hinnery seems to be havin' a good time," said Mr. Hennessy. "He's havin' th' time iv his life," said Mr. Dooley. "Not since th' Hohnezollern fam'ly was founded be wan iv th' ablest burglars iv th' middle ages has anny prince injyed such a spree as this wan. Ye see, a prince is a gr-reat man in th' ol' counthry, but he niver is as gr-reat over there as he is here. Whin he's at home he's something th' people can't help an' they don't mind him. He's like an iron lamp post, station'ry, ornymintal, an' useful to let people know where they are. But whin he comes to this home iv raypublican simplicity, he's all that th' wurrud prince wud imply, an' it implies more to us thin to annywan else. I tell ye, we're givin' him th' best we have in th' shop. We're showin' him that whativer riv'rince we may feel tow'rd George Wash'nton, it don't prejudice us again' live princes. Th' princes we hate is thim that are dead an' harmless. We've rayceived him with open arms, an' I'll say this f'r him, that f'r a German he's a good fellow. "That's as far as I care to go, havin' lived f'r manny years among th' Germans. I'm not prejudiced again' thim, mind ye. They make good beer an' good citizens an' mod-rate polismen, an' they are fond iv their fam'lies an' cheese. But wanst a German, always Dutch. Ye cudden't make Americans iv thim if ye called thim all Perkins an' brought thim up in Worcester. A German niver ra-aly leaves Germany. He takes it with him wheriver he goes. Whin an Irishman is four miles out at sea he is as much an American as Presarved Fish. But a German is niver an American excipt whin he goes back to Germany to see his rilitives. He keeps his own language, he plays pinochle, he despises th' dhrink iv th' counthry, his food is sthrange an' he on'y votes f'r Germans f'r office, or if he can't get a German, f'r somewan who's again' th' Irish. I bet ye, if ye was to suddenly ask Schwarzmeister where he is, he'd say: 'At Hockheimer in Schwabia.' He don't ra-aly know he iver come to this counthry. I've heerd him talkin' to himsilf. He always counts in German. "But I say about Prince Hinnery that f'r a German he's all right an' I'm glad he come. I hear he wrote home to his brother that is th' Imp'ror over there: 'Dear Willum: This is a wondherful counthry, an' they've give me a perfectly killin' rayciption. I've almost died laughin'. We was met forty miles out at sea be a band on a raft playin' th' Watch on th' Rhine. We encountered another band playin' th' same plazin' harmony ivry five miles till we got up to New York. I wisht I had come over on a man-iv-war. In th' Bay we was surrounded be a fleet iv tugs carryin' riprisintatives iv th' press, singin' th' Watch on th' Rhine. I rayceived siveral offers through a migaphone to write an article about what ye say in ye'er sleep f'r th' pa-apers, but I declined thim, awaitin' insthructions fr'm ye. At th' dock we was greeted be a band playin' th' Watch on th' Rhine an' afther some delay, caused be th' Delicatessen Sangerbund holdin' us while they sung th' Watch on th' Rhine, we stepped ashore on a gangplank neatly formed be th' guv'nor iv th' state holdin' onto th' feet iv th' mayor, him clutchin' th' iditor iv th' Staats Zeitung an' so on, th' gangplank singin' th' Watch on th' Rhine as we walked to th' dock. "'I am much imprissed be New York. I hate it. Th' buildin's are very high here but th' language is higher. If I was to go home now, ye wudden't know me. Afther I hear a speech I don't dare to look in th' glass f'r fear I might be guilty iv treason to ye, mein lieber. Our illustrious ancesthor, Fridrick th' Great, was a cheap an' common man compared to me, an' ye, august brother, niver got by th' barrier. I hope I'll have time to cool down befure I get home or ye'll have to lock me up. "'They're givin' me th' fine line iv entertainmint. Ivrywhere I go, they'se music or something that does as well. I have a musical insthrument called a catastrophone in me room that plays th' Watch on th' Rhine whin I go in at night an' get up in th' mornin'. Whin I go out on th' sthreet, th' crowd cries "Hock th' Kaiser." I wish they'd stop hockin' ye, dear brother, an' hock th' Watch on th' Rhine. (This here is an American joke. I'm gettin' on fast.) I'm goin' to be took to th' opry some night this week. They've fired a lot iv la-ads out iv their boxes to make room f'r me. Wan iv thim objected, but he was fired annyhow. Aftherward I'm goin' to ate dinner with th' iditors iv th' counthry. Won't that be nice? I suppose I'm th' first Hohnezollern that iver took dinner with an iditor, though our fam'ly has often given thim food an' lodgin'--in jail. I wish ye was here to go with me. Ye've had more journylistic expeeryence an' manny iv th' things ye've had printed wudden't seem too unthrue to th' other guests. Th' newspapers has been mos' kind to me, I might say almost too kind. I am sindin' ye a photygraft iv mesilf in me bath, took be flashlight be an iditor concealed on th' top iv th' clothes press, an' an interview be a lady rayporther who riprisinted hersilf as th' Queen iv Ohio. "'But th' big ivint comes off tomorrah. I am actually invited to a dinner iv wan hundherd iv th' riprisintative business men iv New York an' a few Christyans ast in aftherward. Hooray, hooray! Mind ye, these ar-re not ordhn'ry business men. Far fr'm it. No one gets in unless he has made at laste eight millyion marks out iv th' sivinty millyion marks in this counthry. An' I'm ast to meet thim! What fun! I bet 'twill be jolly. I'm goin' to buy me a table f'r computin' inthrest, a copy iv th' naytional bankin' act an' a good account iv th' thransactions in sterlin' exchange f'r th' current year an' whin th' quip an' jest go round, I'll be no skeleton at th' feast. "'Ye can see be this that me life has been almost too gay, but th' merrymint goes blithely on. Fr'm here I go to Bawstown where I expict to pat th' Bunker Hill monymint on th' head an' have a look at th' new railway station. Then I will take in Buffly, Cichago (pro-nounced Sichawgo), Saint Looey, Three Rapids, Idaho, Pinnsylvanya, an' mos' iv th' large cities iv th' west, includin' Chatahooga where wan iv th' gr-reat battles iv th' rivolution was fought between Gin'ral Sigel an' Gin'ral Zollycoffer. I ixpict to larn a good deal about th' steel, pork, corn, lard an' lithrachoor iv th' counthry befure I rayturn. But this buttherfly existence is killin' me. It is far too gay. I suppose whin I was younger, I wud've injyed it, but me time f'r socyal fistivities has passed an' I long f'r th' quiet iv home life among th' simple ryelties iv Europe. Ye'ers, Hinnery.' "Yes, he's havin' a good time. But what th' pa-apers calls th' climax iv th' intertainmint will be reached whin he arrives in Chicago. Schwartzmeister an' I will rayceive him. Schwartzmeister's fam'ly knew his in th' ol' counthry. He had an uncle that was booted all th' way fr'm Sedan to Paris be a cousin iv th' Prince. We've arranged th' programme as far as Ar-rchey road is consarned. Monday mornin', visit to Kennedy's packin' house; afthernoon, Riordan's blacksmith shop; avenin', 'Th' Two Orphans,' at th' Halsted sthreet opry house. Choosdah, iliven A.M., inspiction iv th' rollin' mills ; afthernoon, visit to Feeney's coal yard; avenin', 'Bells iv Corneville,' at th' opry house. Winsdah mornin', tug ride on th' river fr'm Thirty-first sthreet to Law's coal yard; afthernoon, a call on th' tanneries, th' cable barn an' th' brick yards; avenin', dinner an' rayciption be th' retail saloonkeepers. There's th' whole programme. They may think in New York they are givin' him a good time but we'll show him what gayety ra-aly is, an' inform him iv th' foundation iv our supreemacy as a nation. That's what he wants to see an' we'll show it to him." "Goowan," said Mr. Hennessy. "He don't know ye." "I bet ye he knows me as much as he knows thim," said Mr. Dooley. "To a ra-ale prince, they can't be much diff'rence between a man who sells liquor be th' pail an' wan that sells it be th' distillery, between a man that makes a horseshoe an' wan that makes a mlllyion tons iv steel. We're all alike to him--Carnaygie, Rockyfellar, Morgan, Schwartzmeister an' me." "Well, he certainly has been well rayceived," said Mr. Hennessy. "I wondher," said Mr. Dooley, "if he thinks 'tis on th' square!" Cuba vs. Beet Sugar "What's all this about Cubia an' th' Ph'lippeens?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "What's beet sugar?" "Th' throuble about Cubia is that she's free; th' throuble about beet sugar is we're not; an' th' throuble about th' Ph'lippeens is th' Ph'lippeen throuble," said Mr. Dooley. "As rega-ards Cubia, she's like a woman that th' whole neighborhood helps to divoorce fr'm a crool husband, but nivertheless a husband, an' a miserable home but a home, an' a small credit at th' grocery but a credit, an' thin whin she goes into th' dhressmakin' business, rayfuse to buy annything fr'm her because she's a divoorced woman. We freed Cubia but we didn't free annything she projooces. It wasn't her fault. We didn't think. We expicted that all we had to do was to go down to Sandago with a kinetoscope an' sthrike th' shackles fr'm th' slave an' she'd be comfortable even if she had no other protiction f'r her poor feet. We f'rgot about th' Beet. Most iv us niver thought about that beautiful but fragile flower excipt biled in conniction with pigs' feet or pickled in its own life juice. We didn't know that upon th' Beet hangs th' fate iv th' nation, th' hope iv th' future, th' permanence iv our instichoochions an' a lot iv other things akelly precious. Th' Beet is th' naytional anthem an', be hivins, it looks as though it might be th' naytional motto befure long. "Well, Cubia got her freedom or something that wud look like th' same thing if she kept it out iv th' rain, but somehow or another it didn't suit her entirely. A sort iv cravin' come over her that it was hard to tell fr'm th' same feelin' iv vacancy that she knew whin she was opprissed be th' Hated Casteel. Hunger, Hinnissy, is about th' same thing in a raypublic as in a dispotism. They'se not much choice iv unhappiness between a hungry slave an' a hungry freeman. Cubia cudden't cuk or wear freedom. Ye can't make freedom into a stew an' ye can't cut a pair iv pants out iv it. It won't bile, fry, bake or fricassee. Ye can't take two pounds iv fresh creamery freedom, a pound iv north wind, a heapin' taycupfull iv naytional aspirations an' a sprinklin' iv bars fr'm th' naytional air, mix well, cuk over a hot fire an' sarve sthraight fr'm th' shtove; ye can't make a dish out iv that that wud nourish a tired freeman whin he comes home afther a hard day's wurruk lookin' f'r a job. So Cubia comes te us an' says she: 'Ye done well by us,' she says. 'Ye give us freedom,' says she, 'an' more thin enough to go round,' she says, 'an' now if ye plaze we'd like to thrade a little iv it bhack f'r a few groceries,' she says. 'We will wear wan shackle f'r a ham,' says she, 'an' we'll put on a full raygalia iv ball an' chain an' yoke an' fetters an' come-alongs f'r a square meal,' says she. "That sounds raisonable enough an' bein' be nature a gin'rous people whin we don't think, we're about to help her disthress with whativer we have cold in th' panthry whin th' thought iv th' Beet crosses our minds. What will th' Beet say, th' red, th' juicy, th' sacchrine Beet, th' Beet iv our Fathers, th' Beet iv Plymouth Rock, Beet iv th' Pilgrim's Pride, Sweet Beet iv Liberty, iv thee I sing? If we do annything f'r Cubia, down goes th' Beet, an' with th' Beet perishes our instichoochions. Th' constichoochion follows th' Beet ex propria vigore, as Hogan says. Th' juice iv th' Beet is th' life blood iv our nation. Whoiver touches a hair iv yon star spangled Beet, shoot him on th' spot. A bold Beet industhry a counthry's pride whin wanst desthroyed can niver be supplied. 'Beet sugar an' Liberty Now an' Foriver, wanan' insiprable'--Dan'l Webster. 'Thank Gawd I--I also--am a Beet'--th' same. 'Gover'mint iv th' Beet, by th' Beet an' f'r th' Beet shall not perish fr'm th' earth,'--Abraham Lincoln. An' so, Hinnissy, we put th' pie back into th' ice-chest where we keep our honor an' ginerosity an' lock th' dure an' Cubia goes home, free an' hopeless. D'ye think so? Well, I don't. Be hivins, Hinnissy, I think th' time has come whin we've got to say whether we're a nation iv Beets. I am no serf, but I'd rather be bent undher th' dispotism iv a Casteel thin undher th' tyranny iv a Beet. If I've got to be a slave, I'd rather be wan to a man, even a Spanish man, thin to a viggytable. If I'm goin' to he opprissed be a Beet, let it be fr'm th' inside not fr'm without. I'll choose me masther, Hinnissy, an' whin I do, 'twill not be that low-lyin', purple-complected, indygistible viggytable. I may bend me high head to th' egg-plant, th' potato, th' cabbage, th' squash, th' punkin, th' sparrow-grass, th' onion, th' spinach, th' rutabaga turnip, th' Fr-rench pea or th' parsnip, but 'twill niver be said iv me that I was subjygated be a Beet. No, sir. Betther death. I'm goin' to begin a war f'r freedom. I'm goin' to sthrike th' shackles fr'm a slave an' I'm him. I'm goin' to organize a rig'mint iv Rough Riders an' whin I stand on th' top iv San Joon hill with me soord in me hand an' me gleamin' specs on me nose, ye can mark th' end iv th' domination iv th' Beet in th' western wurruld. F'r, Hinnissy, I tell ye what, if th' things I hear fr'm Wash'nton is thrue, that other war iv freedom stopped befure it was half done." "An' what about th' Ph'lippeens?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "They'se nawthin' to say about th' Ph'lippeens," said Mr. Dooley, "excipt that th' throuble down there is all over." "All over?" "All over." Bad Men From The West "I see," said Mr. Hennessy, "th' Sinit has rayfused f'r to confirm th' nommynation iv a man f'r an office out West because he'd been in jail." "Pro-fissyonal jealousy," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye see, th' fact iv th' matther is th' Sinit don't know what th' people iv th' Far West want an' th' prisidint does. Th' Sinit thinks th' jooty iv th' counthry to th' land iv th' tarantuly is done if they sind out a man too weak in th' lungs to stay in th' East an' wan that can multiply com-pound fractions in his head. But th' prisidint he knows that what's needed in th' Far West is active, intilligent officers that can shoot through th' pocket. Th' other day it become necess'ry to thrust on th' impeeryal terrytory iv Aryzony a competint person f'r to administher th' laws an' keep th' peace iv said community, an' th' pollyticians in Wash'nton was f'r givin' thim somewan fr'm Connecticut or Rhode Island with a cough an' a brother in th' legislachure. But th' prisidint says no. 'No,' he says, 'none but th' best,' he says, f'r th' domain iv th' settin' sun, 'he says. 'I know th' counthry well,' he says, 'an' to cope with th' hardy spirits iv Aryzony 'tis issintial we shud have a man that can plug a coyote fr'm th' hip at fifty paces,' he says. 'How can you dhraw to yon hectic flush so's to make him good again' th' full hands iv thim communities where life is wan gay an' tireless round iv shoot,' he says. 'Ye can't expict him to riprisint th' majesty iv th' govermint iv Wash'nton an' Lincoln. He'd be bucked off befure he got his feet in th' sturrups. No, sir, th' man iv me choice is Tarantula Jake, th' whirlwind iv Zuina Pass. This imminint statesman has pocketed more balls thin anny other disperado west iv Tucson, an' anny docymints iv state enthrusted to his hands is sure to be delivered to their object,' he says, 'or,' he says, 'th' heirs iv th' object,' he says. "'But,' says th' Sinit, 'he lost an ear in a fight.' "'A boyish error,' says th' prisidint. 'Th' man threw th' knife at him,' he says. "'And he kilt a man,' says they. "'Ye do him an injustice,' says th' prisidint. 'Kilt a man, says ye! Kilt a man! Such is fame. Why,' he says, 'he's kilt more men thin th' Sinit has repytations,' he says. 'Ye might jus' as well say me frind Sinitor Bivridge wanst made a speech, or that Shakespere wrote a play, or that it's a fine tooth I have. If all th' people Jake has kilt was alive to-day, we'd be passin' congisted disthrict ligislachion f'r Aryzony. Kilt a man is it? I give ye me wurrud that ye can hardly find wan home in Aryzony, fr'm th' proudest doby story-an'-a-half palace iv th' rich to th' lowly doby wan-story hut iv th' poor, that this flagrant pathrite hasn't deprived iv at laste wan ornymint. Didn't I tell ye he is a killer? I didn't mane a man that on'y wanst in a while takes a life. He's a rale killer. He's no retailer. He's th' Armour iv that particular line iv slaughter. Ye don't suppose that I'd propose f'r to enthrust him with a lofty constichoochinal mission if he on'y kilt wan man. Me notions iv th' jooties iv public office is far higher thin that, I thank hivin. Besides in th' case ye speak iv 'twas justifiable homicide. He had ast th' man to dhrink with him. No, sir, I have examined his record carefully an' I find him fully equipped f'r anny emergency. He niver misses. He's th' man f'r th' place, th' quick dhrawin', readily passionate, hammerless gun firin' Terror iv th' Great Desert.' "But th' Sinit didn't approve iv him. Th' sinitor fr'm Matsachoosetts, where human life is held so cheap that no wan thinks iv takin' it, pro-tested again' him, an' 'twas fin'lly discovered that early in his career he'd been caught runnin' off a bunch iv cows an' pushed into jail, an' that was too much f'r th' hon'rable body, hardly wan member iv which has iver been caught. So they give Jake th' go-by. "But it'll come out all right in th' end. Th' prisidint knows what th' West wants an' he 'll get it f'r thim. Th' West is no effete community, where th' folks likes a quiet book-keepin' life, an early supper, a game iv cards, lock th' windy, wind th' clock an' so to bed. That may do f'r th' East. But in th' West, we demand Sthrenuse Life an' Sudden Death. We're people out here on th' des'late plains where th' sun sets pink acrost th' gray desert an' th' scorpion clings to th' toe. We don't want pianny tuners or plasther saints to govern us. We want men who go to bed with their spurs on, an' can break a gun without spikin' their thumbs. We'll have thim too. Undher precedin' administhrations, th' job wint to th' la-ads with no more qualifications thin is needed to run a dairy lunch. Some iv th' bes' places in th' West is held be th' poorest shots, while men capable iv th' mos' sthrikin' gun plays is left to devote their talents to private functions. An' they call that th' merit system! I expict th' time is near at hand whin justice will be done thim worthy citizens. At prisint whin a man is needed f'r a govermint office, he is called on to set down with a sheet of pa-aper an' a pot iv ink an' say how manny times eight-an'-a-half will go into a line dhrawn fr'm th' base iv th' hypothenoose, an' if he makes th' answer bright an' readable, they give him a place administherin' th' affairs iv a proud people that cudden't tell a hypothenoose fr'm a sea-lion. But whin things gets goin' right undher this administhration, th' civil sarvice commission consistin' iv th' Hon. Bill Cody, th' Hon. Texas Jack, an' th' Hon. Bat Masterson will put th' boys through an examination that'll bring out all there is in thim. I'm preparin' a pa-aper f'r an examination iv candydates f'r sup'rintindint iv th' Smithsonyan Institoot: "1. Describe a round-up. "2. Name five iv th' best brands (a) cattle (b) whiskey, ye have used. "3. Afther makin' a cinch, is it proper f'r to always kick th' critter in th' stomach or on'y whin ye feel like it? "4. Undher what circumstances shud a Mexican not be shot, and if so, why? "5. How long shud a tinderfoot dance befure he is entitled to live? "6. Name eighty reasons f'r dhrawin' a gun. "7. State ye'er opinyion iv sheep men. "8. Write a brief account iv th' life an' death iv Billy th' Kid. "Iv coorse, Hinnissy, this is on'y a part iv th' exercise. They'll be practical tests as well. Th' iligible list'll be taken out into th' yard an' required to shoot at movin' an' stationary targets, at pedesthreens an' horsemen, fr'm th' pocket, fr'm th' hip, over th' shouldher, fr'm a window with a sawed-off shot gun, an' so on. They'll be required to bust a buckin' bronc, cut out a steer fr'm th' herd without stampedin' th' rest, lassoo movin' objects an' give other exhibitions iv science. An' th' la-ad that wins out'll have to defind his job again' all comers f'r a month. "I want to see this day. We're a nation iv hayroes, an' none but hayroes shud enjye th' spoil. Thin we'll read that th' Hon. Mike McCorker has been appinted Ambassadure to England: 'Mike is wan iv th' mos' detarmined statesmen between Rapid City an' Rawlins. His early life was spint in seclusion, owin' to a little diff'rence about a horse, but he had no sooner appeared in public life thin he made his mark on th' marshal iv Red Gulch. He applied himsilf to his chosen career with such perseverance an' so thrue an aim that within two years he had risen to th' head iv his pro-fission, a position that he has since held without interruption excipt durin' th' peryod whin th' Hon. Grindle H. Gash shelled him f'r three days with a howitzer. His remarkable night attack on that gallant but sleepy statesman will not soon be f'rgotten. A great ovation will be given Bill whin he pulls his freight f'r th' coort iv Saint James. Some iv th' boys is loadin' up f'r it already, an' near all th' Chinese has moved into th' hills. Ambassadure Gash was a Rough Rider durin' th' late Cubian War. "'Th' appintment iv Judge Rufus Flush to be Chief Justice iv th' United States Supreeme Coort is hailed with delight be all citizens iv New Mexico. Judge Flush is th' recognized authority on gun shot wounds an' lynch law in th' Southwest, besides bein' in private life a pretty handy man with knife or gun himsilf. He was wan iv th' first men up San Joon Hill on th' mim'rable day. "'Th' sicrety iv state was visited yisterdah be throop B iv th' Rough Riders, includin' th' sicrety iv th' threesury, th' postmasther gin'ral, nine disthrick judges, forty postmasthers, an' wan hundherd an' eight collictors iv intarnal rivinoo. Th' conversation was informal, but it is undhershtud that th' advisability iv an excursion to Boston to shoot up th' anti-impeeryalist saloons was discussed. Th' prisidint dhropped in durin' th' conference an' greeted all prisint be their first name, which is Bill. There was some good-natured chaff as to which iv th' gintlemen was first at th' top iv San Joon Hill befure th' meetin' broke up. Th' postmasther gin'ral is sufferin' fr'm a slight knife wound.'" "Ar-re all th' people West iv th' park shootin' men?" asked Mr. Hennessy timidly. "I think so," said Mr. Dooley, "but a man that's been out there tells me not. He says annywan but an Englishman cud go fr'm wan end iv th' West to th' other without carryin' a gun, an' that people that kill each other are not considhered rayspictable in Tucson anny more thin they wud be in Eysther Bay, but that they are mostly dhrunk men an' th' like iv that. Th' towns, he says, is run be fellows that sell ribbons, milk, yeast, spool thread an' pills an' pull teeth an' argye little foolish law suits, just as th' towns down here are run, an' th' bad men are more afraid iv thim thin they are iv each other. He says there are things doin' out West that niver get into th' dime novels, an' that whin people lose their lives they do it more often in a saw mill or a smelter thin in a dance hail. He says so but I don't believe him." "I suppose," said Mr. Hennessy, "a man iv me peaceable disposition wud niver get a job." "Make a repytation," said Mr. Dooley. "Buy a gun." European Intervention "Th' question befure th' house is," said Mr. Dooley, "which wan iv th' Euro-peen powers done mos' f'r us in th' Spanish war." "I thought they were all again' us," said Mr. Hennessy. "So did I," said Mr. Dooley, "but I done thim an injustice. I was crool to thim crowned heads. If it hadn't been f'r some wan power, an' I can't make out which it was, th' Cubians to-day wud be opprissed be th' Casteel instead iv th' Beet Sugar Thrust an' th' Filipinos'd be shot be Mausers instead iv Krag-Jorgensens. Some wan power sthretched out its hand an' said, 'No. No,' it said, 'thus far but no farther. We will not permit this misguided but warrum-hearted little people to be crushed be th' ruffyan power iv Spain,' it said. 'Niver,' it said, 'shall histhry record that th' United States iv America, nestlin' there in its cosy raypublic fr'm th' Atlantic to th'Passyfic, was desthroyed an' th' hurtage iv liberty that they robbed fr'm us wasted because we did not give thim support,' it says. An' so whin th' future looked darkest, whin we didn't know whether th' war wud last eight or be prolonged f'r tin weary, thragic minyits, whin it seemed as though th' Spanish fleet wud not sink unless shot at, some kindly power was silently comfortin' us an' sayin' to itsilf: 'I do so hope they'll win, if they can.' But I don't know which wan it was. "At first I thought it was England. Whiniver ye hear iv anny counthry helpin' us, ye think it is England. That's because England has helped us so much in th' past. Says Lord Cranburne in reply to a question in th' House iv Commons: 'I am reluctantly foorced be mesilf to blushin'ly admit that but f'r us, people on their way to China to-day wud be gettin' up an' lookin' over th' side iv th' ship an' sayin', "This is where America used to be." Whin war was first discussed, mesilf an' th' rest iv th' fam'ly met an' decided that unless prompt action was took, our cousins an' invistmints acrost th' sea wud be damaged beyond repair, so we cabled our ambassadure to go at wanst to th' White House an' inform th' prisidint that we wud regard th' war as a crool blot on civilization an' an offinse to th' intillygince iv mankind. I am glad to say our inthervintion was iffycacious. War was immeedjately declared. I will not tell ye how high our hearts beat as we r-read th' news fr'm day to day. Ye know. I will on'y say that we insthructed our ambassadure to do ivrything in his power to help our kinsmen an' he faithfully ixicuted his ordhers. He practically lived at th' White House durin' th' thryin' peeryod, an' his advice to th' prisidint such as: "If ye go on with this binnyficint war th' United Powers will knock ye'er head off," or "I think I can secure fav'rable terms fr'm th' Powers if ye will abdicate in favor iv a riprisintative iv th' house iv Bourbon an' cede New England to Spain," done more thin annything else to put heart into th' American foorces. I will add that durin' this time we was approached be an ambassadure iv wan iv th' powers who ast us to inthervene. I will not say which power it was, excipt that it was Austhrya-Hungary an' I'm previnted be th' obligations iv me office fr'm mintionin' what powers was behind th' move beyond hintin' that they was as follows: Germany, France, Rooshya, It'ly, China, Turkey, Monaco, San Marino, Boolgahrya, Montinaygro, Booloochistan an' Pershya. Pah's reply to th' ambassadure was: "I will do all I can" as he kicked him down stairs. It ill becomes me to say what else we done f'r that home iv freedom--an' hiven knows I wisht it'd stay there an' not be wandherin' over th' face iv th' wurruld--but I'm not proud iv me looks an' I will remark that Tiddy Rosenfelt was capably directed be th' iditors iv England, thim hearts iv oak, that th' American navy was advised be our mos' inargetic corryspondints an' that, to make th' raysult certain, we lint a few British gin'rals to th' Spanish. Cud frindship go farther? As they say in America: "I reckon, be gosh, not."' "Well, whin I read this speech I was prepared to hang th' medal f'r savin' life on th' breasts iv th' hands acrost th' sea where there's always plinty iv hooks f'r medals. But th' nex' day, I picks up th' pa-aper an' sees that 'twas not England done it but Germany. Yes, sir, 'twas Germany. Germany was our on'y frind. They was a time whin it looked as though she was goin' to shoot at us to keep us fr'm th' consequences iv our rash act. They'se nawthin' Germany wudden't do for or to a frind. Yes, it was Germany. But it was France, too. La Belle France was there with a wurrud iv encouragemint an' a glance iv affection out iv her dark eyes that kep' growin' darker as th' war proceeded. An' it was Rooshya. Whin th' Czar heerd iv th' war, th' first thing he said was: 'I'm so sorry. Who is th' United States?' 'An' 'twas It'ly an' Booloochistan an' Boolgahrya an' even Spain. Spain was our frind till th' war was over. Thin she rounded on us an' sold us th' Ph'lippines. "They was all our frinds an' yet on'y wan iv thim was our frind. How d'ye make it out, Hinnissy? Hogan has a sayin' that onaisy lies th' head that wears a crown, but it seems to be as aisy f'r some iv thim as f'r th' mos' dimmycratic American. But whoiver it was that saved us I'm thankful to thim. It won't do f'r ye to look at th' map an' say that th' pow'rful protictin' nation wud be hardly big enough f'r a watch charm f'r a man fr'm Texas, or that Europeen assistance f'r America is about as useful as a crutch f'r a foot-runner. But f'r th' inthervention iv our unknown frind, we'd've been annihilated. Th' powers wud've got together an' they wud've sint over a fleet that wud've been turrble if it didn't blow up an' th' crews didn't get sea-sick. They wud've sint an irresistible ar-rmy; an' fin'ly if all else failed, they wud rayfuse food. That's goin' to be th' unsixpicted blow iv anny war that th' parishes iv Europe wages again' us. They will decline to eat. They will turn back our wheat an' pork an' short rib sides. They'll starve us out. If left to their own resoorces, Europe cud outstarve America in a month." "I'm not afraid iv thim," said Mr. Hennessy. "Whin I was a young man, I cud take a runnin' jump acrost Germany or France, an' as f'r England we'd hardly thrip over it in th' dark." "Perhaps ye're right," said Mr. Dooley. "But if all thim gr-reat powers, as they say thimsilves, was f'r to attack us, d'ye know what I'd do? I'll tell ye. I'd blockade Armour an' Comp'ny an' th' wheat ilivators iv Minnysoty. F'r, Hinnissy, I tell ye, th' hand that rocks th' scales in th' grocery store, is th' hand that rules th' wurruld." The Philippine Peace "'Tis sthrange we don't hear much talk about th' Ph'lippeens," said Mr. Hennessy. "Ye ought to go to Boston," said Mr. Dooley. "They talk about it there in their sleep. Th' raison it's not discussed annywhere else is that ivrything is perfectly quiet there. We don't talk about Ohio or Ioway or anny iv our other possissions because they'se nawthin' doin' in thim parts. Th' people ar-re goin' ahead, garnerin' th' products iv th' sile, sindin' their childher to school, worshipin' on Sundah in th' churches an' thankin' Hiven f'r th' blessin's iv free govermint an' th' pro-tiction iv th' flag above thim. "So it is in th' Phi'lippeens. I know, f'r me frind Gov'nor Taft says so, an' they'se a man that undherstands con-tintmint whin he sees it. Ye can't thrust th' fellows that comes back fr'm th' jools iv th' Passyfic an' tells ye that things ar-re no betther thin they shud be undher th' shade iv th' cocoanut palm be th' blue wathers iv th' still lagoon. They mus' be satisfied with our rule. A man that isn't satisfied whin he's had enough is a glutton. They're satisfied an' happy an' slowly but surely they're acquirin' that love f'r th' govermint that floats over thim that will make thim good citizens without a vote or a right to thrile be jury. I know it. Guv'nor Taft says so. "Says he: 'Th' Ph'lippeens as ye have been tol' be me young but speechful frind, Sinitor Bivridge, who was down there f'r tin minyits wanst an' spoke very highly an' at some lenth on th' beauties iv th' scenery, th' Ph'lippeens is wan or more iv th' beautiful jools in th' diadem iv our fair nation. Formerly our fair nation didn't care f'r jools, but done up her hair with side combs, but she's been abroad some since an' she come back with beautiful reddish goolden hair that a tiara looks well in an' that is betther f'r havin' a tiara. She is not as young as she was. Th' simple home-lovin' maiden that our fathers knew has disappeared an' in her place we find a Columbya, gintlemen, with machurer charms, a knowledge iv Euro-peen customs an' not averse to a cigareet. So we have pinned in her fair hair a diadem that sets off her beauty to advantage an' holds on th' front iv th' hair, an' th' mos' lovely pearl in this ornymint is thim sunny little isles iv th' Passyfic. They are almost too sunny f'r me. I had to come away. "'To shift me language suddintly fr'm th' joolry counther an' th' boodore, I will say that nawthin' that has been said even be th' gifted an' scholarly sinitor, who so worthily fills part iv th' place wanst crowded be Hendricks an' McDonald, does justice to th' richness iv thim islands. They raise unknown quantities iv produce, none iv which forchnitly can come into this counthry. All th' riches iv Cathay, all th' wealth iv Ind, as Hogan says, wud look like a second morgedge on an Apache wickeyup compared with th' untold an' almost unmintionable products iv that gloryous domain. Me business kept me in Manila or I wud tell ye what they are. Besides some iv our lile subjects is gettin' to be good shots an' I didn't go down there f'r that purpose. "'I turn to th' climate. It is simply hivenly. No other wurrud describes it. A white man who goes there seldom rayturns unless th' bereaved fam'ly insists. It is jus' right. In winter enough rain, in summer plinty iv heat. Gin'rally speakin' whin that thropical sky starts rainin' it doesn't stop till it's impty, so th' counthry is not subjected to th' sudden changes that afflict more northerly climes. Whin it rains it rains; whin it shines it shines. Th' wather frequently remains in th' air afther th' sun has been shinin' a month or more, th' earth bein' a little overcrowded with juice an' this gives th' atmosphere a certain cosiness that is indescribable. A light green mould grows on th' clothes an' is very becomin'. I met a man on th' boat comin' back who said 'twas th' finest winter climate in th' wurruld. He was be profission a rubber in a Turkish bath. As f'r th' summers they are delicious. Th' sun doesn't sit aloft above th' jools iv th' Passyfic. It comes down an' mingles with th' people. Ye have heard it said th' isles was kissed be th' sun. Perhaps bitten wud be a betther wurrud. But th' timprachoor is frequently modified be an eruption iv th' neighborin' volcanoes an' th' inthraduction iv American stoves. At night a coolin' breeze fr'm th' crather iv a volcano makes sleep possible in a hammock swung in th' ice-box. It is also very pleasant to be able to cuk wan's dinner within wan. "'Passin' to th' pollytical situation, I will say it is good. Not perhaps as good as ye'ers or mine, but good. Ivry wanst in a while whin I think iv it, an iliction is held. Unforchnitly it usually happens that those ilicted have not yet surrindhered. In th' Ph'lippeens th' office seeks th' man, but as he is also pursooed be th' sojery, it is not always aisy to catch him an' fit it on him. Th' counthry may be divided into two parts, pollytically,--where th' insurrection continues an' where it will soon be. Th' brave but I fear not altogether cheery army conthrols th' insurrected parts be martiyal law, but th' civil authorities are supreme in their own house. Th' diff'rence between civil law an' martiyal law in th' Ph'lippeens is what kind iv coat th' judge wears. Th' raysult is much th' same. Th' two branches wurruks in perfect harmony. We bag thim in th' city an' they round thim up in th' counthry. "'It is not always nicessry to kill a Filipino American right away. Me desire is to idjacate thim slowly in th' ways an' customs iv th' counthry. We ar-re givin' hundherds iv these pore benighted haythen th' well-known, ol'-fashioned American wather cure. Iv coorse, ye know how 'tis done. A Filipino, we'll say, niver heerd iv th' histhry iv this counthry. He is met be wan iv our sturdy boys in black an' blue iv th' Macabebee scouts who asts him to cheer f'r Abraham Lincoln. He rayfuses. He is thin placed upon th' grass an' given a dhrink, a baynit bein' fixed in his mouth so he cannot rejict th' hospitality. Undher th' inflooence iv th' hose that cheers but does not inebriate, he soon warrums or perhaps I might say swells up to a ralization iv th' granjoor iv his adoptive counthry. One gallon makes him give three groans f'r th' constitchoochion. At four gallons, he will ask to be wrapped in th' flag. At th' dew pint he sings Yankee Doodle. Occasionally we run acrost a stubborn an' rebellyous man who wud sthrain at me idee iv human rights an' swallow th' Passyfic Ocean, but I mus' say mos' iv these little fellows is less hollow in their pretintions. Nachrally we have had to take a good manny customs fr'm th' Spanyard, but we have improved on thim. I was talkin' with a Spanish gintleman th' other day who had been away f'r a long time an' he said he wudden't know th' counthry. Even th' faces iv th' people on th' sthreets had changed. They seemed glad to see him. Among th' mos' useful Spanish customs is reconcenthration. Our reconcenthration camps is among th' mos' thickly popylated in th' wurruld. But still we have to rely mainly on American methods. They are always used fin'lly in th' makin' iv a good citizen, th' garotte sildom. "'I have not considhered it advisable to inthrajooce anny fads like thrile be jury iv ye'er peers into me administhration. Plain sthraight-forward dealin's is me motto. A Filipino at his best has on'y larned half th' jooty iv mankind. He can be thried but he can't thry his fellow man. It takes him too long. But in time I hope to have thim thrained to a pint where they can be good men an' thrue at th' inquest. "'I hope I have tol' ye enough to show ye that th' stories iv disordher is greatly exaggerated. Th' counthry is pro-gressin' splindidly, th' ocean still laps th' shore, th' mountains are there as they were in Bivridge's day, quite happy apparently; th' flag floats free an' well guarded over th' govermint offices, an' th' cherry people go an' come on their errands--go out alone an' come back with th' throops. Ivrywhere happiness, contint, love iv th' shtep-mother counthry, excipt in places where there ar-re people. Gintlemen, I thank ye.' "An' there ye ar-re, Hinnissy. I hope this here lucid story will quite th' waggin' tongues iv scandal an' that people will let th' Ph'lippeens stew in their own happiness." "But sure they ought do something f'r thim," said Mr. Hennessy. "They will," said Mr. Dooley. "They'll give thim a measure iv freedom." "But whin?" "Whin they'll sthand still long enough to be measured," said Mr. Dooley. Soldier and Policeman "Th' life iv a sojer though gloryous is hard," said Mr. Dooley. "Here's me frind, Gin'ral Fustian, wan iv th' gallantest men that has come out iv Kansas since Stormy Jordan's day, has been called down f'r on'y suggistin' that Sinitor Hoar an' th' rest iv thim be hanged be th' heels. I'm with th' gallant gin'ral mesilf. I'm not sure but he'd like to hang me, though as ye know, me opinyions on th' Ph'lippeens is varyous an' I don't give a dam ayether way. If he runs me to earth I on'y ast him as a fellow pathrite that he won't give me th' wather cure. Th' very thought iv it makes me flesh creep. "But th' prisidint called him down. Afther th' publication iv th' fifteenth speech whin ivry colledge pro-fissor in this broad an' fair land was undher sintince iv death fr'm th' gin'ral, th' prisidint wrote to him sayin': 'Dear Fred: Me attintion has been called to ye'er pathriotic utthrances in favor iv fryin' Edward Atkinson on his own cuk shtove. I am informed be me advisers that it can't be done. It won't fry beans. So I am compilled be th' reg'lations iv war to give ye a good slap. How ar-re ye, ol' commerade-in-arms? Ye ought to 've seen me on th' top iv San Joon hill. Oh, that was th' day! Iver, me dear Fred, reprovingly but lovingly, T. Rosenfelt, late colonel First United States Volunteers Calv'ry, betther known as th' Rough Riders, an' ex-officio prisidint iv th' United States.' That was wan f'r Fred. I wisht th' same cud be handed to Gin'ral Miles. Ivry time he opins his mouth, if 'tis on'y to say 'tis a fine day--which I must say is seldom--all they do to him is to break his back. "'Tis a hard life, a sojer's, but a gloryous wan. I wisht me father had enthered me f'r a martial career instead iv tachin' me be precipt an' example to be quick on me feet. In these days whin a man gets to be a gin'ral because he's been a long time a doctor or because he's supprissed a naygur rite, 'tis me that wud go boundin' up to th' top iv th' laddher. "'Janooary wan, Private Dooley distinguished himsilf at th' Battle iv Ogoowan in th' island iv Samar be rushin' out in a perfect hell iv putty-balls, rice, arrers, an' harsh cries, an' seizin' th' gin'ral iv th' Tamalese an' batin' him over th' head with his own bean-blower. "'Janooary twinty: Colonel Dooley iv th' hunderth an' eighth Macabebee scouts yisterdah administhered th' best an' muddyest part iv th' Gingong river to Gin'ral Alfico Bim in th' prisince iv a large an' smilin' audjeence. Th' ribil had rayfused to communicate his plans to th' gallant colonel, but afther he had had sufficient irrigation his conversation was more extinded. So was th' gin'ral. "'Feb'ry eighth: Gin'ral Dooley, th' hayro iv th' Ph'lippeens who is at home with a large spleen which he got into him in our beautiful island possissions made a speech before th' Locoed club las' night. He said we shud niver give up th' Ph'lippeens which had been wathered be some iv th best blood in our land--he might say all. He didn't know much about th' constichoochion, but fr'm what he heerd about it fr'm a man in his rig'mint who cud spell, it wasn't intinded f'r use out iv coort. He thought no wan shud be ilicted to congress undher th' rank iv major. There was much talk iv pro-gress in lithrachoor an' science which he was in favor iv hangin'. All th' army needed was rope enough an' all wud be well. Th' Supreme Coort was all right but if ye wanted justice hot out iv th' oven, ye shud see it administhered be three or four laughin' sub-alturns on th' stumps iv threes, jus' afther lunch. "'March eighth: Prisidint Dooley, chafin' at th' delay in th' Sinit requirin' all civilyans to submit their opinyons on th' tariff to th' neighborin' raycruitin' sergeant wanst a week, wint over to th' capitol this mornin' with a file iv sojers an' arristed th' anti-administhration foorces who are now locked up in th' barn back iv th' White House. Th' prisidint was severely lacerated be Sinitor Tillman durin' th' encounther.' "Yes, sir, I'd like to be a sojer. I want to be a military man. An' yet I niver wanted to be a polisman. 'Tis sthrange, too, f'r if ye think it over they ain't th' lot iv diff'rence between th' mos' ordhinry, flat-footed elbow that iver pulled wan leg afther another to mornin' roll-call an' th' gr-reatest gin'ral that iver wint through a war behind a band on horse. They both belong to th' race iv round-headed men. Whin ye lenthen th' head iv a man or dog, ye rayjooce his courage. That's thrue iv all but th' bull-tarryer an' th' Turk. Both iv thim fight like th' divvle. Th' jooties is much th' same but th' polisman's is harder. Th' polisman has to fight night an' day but th' sojer on'y wanst a month. A man's got to be five foot nine to get on th' foorce. He can be five foot eight an' get into th' army through West Pint, or three foot two an' get in through th' War Department. Didn't Mike Gilligan take more chances whin he wint up to th' patch where Red Starkey was holdin' th' fort with a Krupp gun an' took him be th' hand an' pivoted with him out iv a window, thin me frind Fearless Freddy win he assumed false whiskers, pretinded to be a naygur an' stole little Aggynaldoo out iv his flat? Ye wudden't expict a pathrolman to be promoted to be sergeant f'r kidnapin' an organ-grinder, wud ye? An' Gilligan didn't ask f'r lave iv absence an' go down town to th' Union Lague Club an' tell th' assembled mannyfactherers iv axle-grease what ought to be done with th' wather taxes. No, sir! What happened to Gilligan was at roll-call th' nex' mornin' th' Loot says: 'Officer Gilligan, in capturin' Starkey, ye reflicted gr-reat credit on this precinct an' ye'er own bringin' up. But I want ye to know, officer, that this important arrist is no excuse f'r ye goin' out an' loadin' ye'ersilf to th' joo-pint with Hannigan's paint. Th' nex' time ye miss pullin' ye'er box, I'll have ye up befure th' thrile boord. Put that in ye'er pipe an' smoke it, Mike Gilligan.' An' Gilligan blushed. "No, sir, between th' two, th' polisman's life's th' hard wan. He can't rethreat f'r reinfoorcemints or surrindher with all th' honors iv war. If he surrindhers, he's kilt an' if he rethreats, his buttons comes off. He gets no soord fr'm Congress whin he brings in Starkey be th' burnin' hair iv his head. If he's promoted to sergeant, he's sure to be bounced be th' first rayform administhration. He takes his ordhers, carries his stick iv timber up hill an' down dale undher th' gleamin' stars, has nawthin' to say but 'Move on there, now,' an' if his foot slips another round-headed man pushes him into a cell an' a impartyal jury iv men that's had throuble with th' polis befure convicts him heartily. "Now, suppose Gilligan's father whin he was young had looked him over an' said: 'Agathy, Michael's head is per-fictly round. It's like a baseball. 'Tis so pecoolyar. An' he has a fightin' face. 'Tis no good thryin' to tache him a thrade. Let's make a sojer iv him.' An' he wint into th' army. If he'd done there what he's done in th' patch, 'tis Gin'ral Gilligan he'd be be this time--Gin'ral Gilligan stormin' th' heights iv San Joon Hill; Gin'ral Mike Gilligan suspindin' th' haveas corpus in th' Ph'lippeens an' th' anti-impeeryalists at home; Gin'ral Mike Gilligan capturin' Aggynaldoo, an' he'd do it with bare hands an' without th' aid iv a mustache; Gin'ral Mike Gilligan abolishin' th' third reader; Gin'ral Mike Gilligan discoorsin' to th' public on 'Books I have niver read: Series wan, th' Histhry iv th' United States.' If his foot slips an' he grows a little cross with a pris'ner iv war on th' way to th' station an' dhrops his soord or his club on th' top iv him, is he up befure th' judge an' thried be a jury iv his peers? Officer Mike, yes; Gin'ral Mike, no. Gin'ral Mike has no peers. He raceives a letther notifyin' him that he has broken a human skull divine an' th' reg'lations iv th' army an' must be thried. 'Who will me brave frind have go through with this here austere but hail-fellow inquiry?' 'Oh, annywan will do. Anny iv th' gallant lift'nants iv me brigade will do,' says Gin'ral Mike. So th' Gin'ral is put on thrile an' a frind iv his addhresses th' coort. 'Gintlemen,' says he, 'th' question befure th' coort is not so much did our gallant leader hammer th' coon as whether our flag wanst stuck up where we have wathered so many precious citizens shall iver come down. (Th' coort: 'No, no!') That's th' pint. What do th' people at home who know nawthin' about this here war, excipt what we tell thim, what do they mane be subjectin' this here hayro, gray an' bent with infirmities but pretty spry at that, to this ignominy? He has fought f'r thim an' what have they done f'r him? In more thin wan year he has on'y risen fr'm th' rank iv captain to brigadier gin'ral an' his pay is less thin twinty times what it was. (Here th' coort weeps.) I ast ye, I ast ye, ye fine little boys, is it meet an' proper, nay, is it meat an' dhrink f'r us, to punish him?' "An' th' coort puts th' vardict iv acquittal in th' shape iv th' pop'lar song 'F'r he's a jolly good fellow' an' adds a ricommindation that Harvard colledge is gettin' too gay annyhow. "That's th' diff'rence between sojer an' polisman. Why is it that th' fair sect wudden't be seen talkin' to a polisman, but if ye say 'Sojer' to thim, they're all out iv th' window but th' feet? I want to know." "I can't tell," said Mr. Hennessy. "I heerd a frind iv Willum J. Bryan say we was in danger iv havin' thim run th' counthry like they do in--in Germany, d'ye mind." "Niver fear," said Mr. Dooley. "There's too manny Gilligans not in th' ar-rmy f'r that." King Edward's Coronation "Now that th' king iv Great Britain an' Ireland, but Ireland don't know it, an' th' Dominyons beyond th' sea, f'r awhile, has been cawrnated," said Mr. Dooley, "we can raysume where we left off." "So it has been done at last, has it?" said Mr. Hennessy. "Yes," said Mr. Dooley, "in th' prisince iv th' mos' illusthrees iv his subjects, except me frind Whitelaw Reid, he was cawrnated las' Saturdah. 'Tis too bad it was put off. 'Twas got up, d'ye mind, f'r th' thrue an' staunch subjects on this side iv th' wather. Th' king didn't need it. He's been king all th' time. A lot iv us knew it. All he had to do anny time was to take his caubeen fr'm th' rack, but his subjects fr'm beyond th' sea wanted to see a cawrnation, an' they cudden't convaniently have wan here where th' counthry is still run be univarsal suffering an' there are a good manny shootin' gall'ries, an' annyhow he thought he'd like to keep on good terms with th' Captains iv Industhry f'r fear they might get mad an' put his furniture out into th' channel an' use th' island f'r storin' ex-prisidints. So he got up th' cawrnation. An' afther all, most iv thim didn't see it. They had to come home here where they were born an' lave th' land where they expict to die an' will, too, if they an' us have luck. "But 'twas a gorgyous spicticle annyhow, Hinnissy. F'r weeks an' weeks some iv th' finest minds in Europe has been debatin' whether th' king shud stand on th' Earl iv Whinkie or th' markess iv Ballyhoo durin' th' ceremony. It was decided that th' honor shud go to th' noble earl, but that it was th' privilege iv th' noble markess that his majesty shud put his feet on his back whin he set down. Th' king ain't supposed to do annything f'r himsilf but go up an' be cawrnated. At ivry turn they must be a jook or somebody akelly as good to pull his tie sthraight, hand him his gloves, an' haul his coat down whin it gets up over th' collar. An' ivrybody cudden't do it, mind ye. It had to be done be th' right party, whose folks had done it f'r other kings. I've been readin' about it an' I've come to th' con-clusion, Hinnissy, that th' Scotch nobility is mos'ly dayscinded fr'm tailors. "Annyhow, these here mighty questions was all decided accoordin' to th' rules iv th' game, whin wan day I read in th' pa-aper: 'Th' king dines with Wall sthreet magnates. Jools missin' fr'm th' crown.' Ye see, th' hat had not been out f'r a long time an' whin they come to get it fr'm th' box, 'twas found that manny iv th' vallyable gems in th' band was missin'. I don't know whether 'tis thrue or not, but 'tis said that th' ancesthors iv th' prisint king, bein' hard up, was used to pick a jool out iv th' hat iv a Saturdah night an' go down to Mose at th' corner an' get something on it. An' whin times was slack an' th' ponies backward, they cudden't get th' jools out, so they cut a piece fr'm th' window an' pasted it in. It looked f'r awhile as though th' king wud have to be cawrnated be a glazier. They cudden't find th' tickets high or low. It wudden't do to cawrnate him in a glass hat, an' there was gr-reat thribylations, but Pierpont Morgan come along at th' right moment an' give thim a handful iv his unimportant jools an' th' hat was properly decorated. Fr'm that time on we saw that if we were to get th' worth iv our money, we'd have to do th' job oursilves, an' ivrybody turned in to help our depindant cousins. Andhrew Carnaygie lint Wistminsther Abbey which was superbly dicorated with tapestries lint be J. Pierpont Morgan; Yerkes lint thim th' sthreets; Frohman th' theatres; th' American syndicate give thim th' use iv th' river, an' a hundherd thousand lile American hearts an' lungs lint thim a pathriotic howl that made th' king jump ivry time he heerd it. "An' th' American duchesses! Were they there? Look in th' pa-apers. I sometimes wondher whin I read th' palajeems iv our liberties whether an English nobleman iver marries at home. Is it a law that prevints thim fr'm marryin' thim fresh-faced, clear-eyed daughters iv ol' Albion or is it fear? Annyhow, th' American duchesses is about all there is to it in London. They were at th' cawrnation, ye bet. They were th' cawrnation. They bore th' thrain iv th' queen. No wan can lift a thrain betther or higher thin a free-born American lady. At th' side iv her majesty walked th' beautiful Duchess iv Binkie-whistle, born Lucy hicks iv Dobbs Ferry. Th' Duchess' father an' mother come over las' week with their respictive fam'lies, an' it is undhershtud that wan iv th' happiest ivints iv th' whole glad cawrnation season was th' determination iv Ma Hicks to devote her alimony intire to rebuildin' th' ancesthral mansion iv th' jook. Pa Hicks, not to be outdone, announced that he wud add th' rent derived fr'm th' ancesthral mansion iv th' duchess, which is now used as a livery stable. "An' so th' gr-reat ivint come off. I won't describe it to ye. It's been done betther thin I cud do it be a fearless press. Ye know ye'ersilf how th' pro-cission winded its way through th' sthreets; how Wistminsther Abbey was crowded with peers an' peeresses, an' what a mighty shout wint up fr'm Willum Waldorf Astor whin he come in an' sat on his hat near th' dure. It was all right. First come th' prelates backin' to'rd th' althar. Thin all th' jooks bowin' low. Thin th' queen, attinded be a bevy iv American duchesses. Thin th' king lookin' ivry inch a king--sixty-four be sixty-two in all. Thin th' Rile Shoes, th' Rile Socks, th' Rile Collar an' Cuffs, an' th' Rile Hat borne be th' hereditary Sockbearers, Shoesters, Collariferios, an' th' High an' Magnificint Lid-Lord (in chains). Suddenly all is silent. A hush falls on th' assimblage, broken on'y be a low, sad cry. Willum Waldorf Astor has fainted. "An' so, says th' pa-aper, in th' prisince iv th' mighty dead an' th' mighty near dead, among th' surroundings that recalled th' days iv shivaree an' in an atmosphere full iv aristocratic assocyations, on account iv th' vintilation bein' poor, Albert Edward Ernest Pathrick Arthur, king, definder iv th' faith, put on his hat. Th' organ pealed off a solemn peal, th' cannons boomed, th' duchesses et hard-biled eggs out iv a paper bag, an' a pale man in silk tights wept over th' tomb iv Major Andhre. It was Joseph Chote. That night all Great Britain rejoiced, fr'm wan end iv Ireland to th' other th' lile popylace showed their joy an' th' sky was lit up be hundherds iv burnin' barns an' a salute iv forty-four guns was fired in th' County Kerry at a landlord's agent comin' home fr'm a ball. "I hope he'll make a good king. I ain't so much down on kings as I used to be, Hinnissy. I ain't down on thim anny more because I don't invy thim, an' ye can't be down on anny man ye don't invy. 'Tis a hard job an' a thankless wan. A king nowadays is no more thin a hitchin' post f'r wan pollytician afther another. He ain't allowed to move himsilf, but anny crazy pollytician that ties up to him is apt to pull him out be th' roots. He niver has anny childhood. He's like th' breaker-boys in th' mines; he's put to wurruk larnin' his thrade as soon as he can walk. Whin it comes time f'r him to marry, th' prime ministher takes him out wan day an' says: 'There's th' on'y woman in th' wurruld f'r ye.' 'But I niver see her befure,' says th' unforchnit king. 'Ye'll see less iv her afther nex' week,' says th' prime ministher. 'Ye're goin' to marry her,' he says. An' he backs him up to th' bench where th' young lady sets an' inthrajooces thim an' they're marrid. Think iv havin' th' boord iv aidhermen silict a wife f'r ye an' ye'll know how th' king feels whin a warrant is sarved again' him to hook up with his cousin Agoosta Ann, a German lady who freckles aisily an' croshays neckties f'r a lift'nant in th' army. All his life long a king is bossed about like a hired girl in a boardin' house, an' he can't aven die without havin' a lot iv people runnin' in ivry tin minyits to ask has he done it yet so they can be on th' mark to holler 'God save th' king' out iv th' front window th' moment th' flag falls. No, sir; I don't want to be a king an' whiniver I see a good fellow takin' th' job, I feel sorry f'r him. I know what he is up again'." "I believe ye're no betther thin th' rest iv thim thraitors," said Mr. Hennessy. "I'm diff'rent," said Mr. Dooley, calmly. "They helped him in an' I'd do annything in me power, now that he is king, to help him out." One Advantage of Poverty "Well, sir," said Mr. Dooley, "ye ought to be glad ye're not sick an' illusthrees at th' same time." "How's that?" Mr. Hennessy demanded. "Well, ye see," said Mr. Dooley, "suppose annything happens to ye now; a fellow counthryman dhrops a hammer on ye th' day afther th' picnic or ye'er di-gestion listens to a walkin' dillygate fr'm th' Union iv Microbes an' goes out on sthrike. Th' polisman on th' corner has th' usual suspicions among gintlemen an' hits ye over th' head an' calls th' wagon an' sinds ye home. Th' good woman wrings her hands an' calls Hiven to witness that if ye have a toothache ye wake th' neighborhood, an' slaps a mustard plasther on ye. If she comes back later an' finds ye haven't put th' sheet between ye an' th' plasther an' gone to sleep, she knows 'tis seeryous an' sinds f'r th' doctor. We continyoo to have doctors in what th' pa-apers calls th' outlyin' wards. They live above th' dhrug-store an' practice midicine on us. Th' physicians an' surgeons are all down town editin' th' pa-apers. Well, dock comes to ye afther awhile in a buggy. On th' way up he sets a broken leg, removes an arm, does a little something f'r th' city directhry, takes a dhrink, talks pollyticks with th' unhappy parent an' fin'lly lands at ye'er dure with th' burglar's tools. Afther he's closed that dure th' secrets iv th' inner man is known on'y to him. No wan hears or wants to hear annything about it. Th' nex' time we see ye, ye come out lookin' pale an' emacyated an' much younger an' betther lookin' thin annywan iver raymimbers seein' ye, an' afther awhile ye obsarve that whin ye start to tell how manny stitches it took an' what ye see whin ye smelled th' dizzy sponge, ye'er frinds begin to sprint away. An' ye go back reluctantly to wurruk. Ye niver hear annywan say: 'Hinnissy is great comp'ny whin he begins to talk about his sickness.' I've seen men turn fr'm a poor, helpless, enthusyastic invalid to listen to a man talkin' about th' Nicaragoon canal. "But with th' great 'tis far diff'rent. I've often thanked th' Lord that I didn't continyoo in pollytics whin I was cap'n iv me precinct, f'r with th' eyes iv all th' wurruld focussed, as Hogan says, on me, I cud niver injye th' pleasure iv a moment's sickness without people in far-off Boolgahrya knowin' whether me liver was on sthraight. Sickness is wan iv th' privileges iv th' poor man that he shares with no wan. Whin it comes kindly to him, th' four walls iv his room closes in on him like a tent, folks goes by on th' other side iv th' sthreet, th' rollin' mill disappears, an' with th' mornin' comes no honest day's tile. He lies there in blessid idleness an' no matther what's th' matther with him, he don't suffer half as much pain as he would in pursoot iv two dollars a day. I knowed a man wanst who used to take his vacations that way. Whin others wint off f'r to hunt what Hogan calls th' finny monsthers iv th' deep, he become seeryously ill an' took to bed. It made him very sthrong. "But suppose I hadn't resigned fr'm cap'n iv me precinct whin I was defeated. If annything had happened to me, ye'd pick up th' pa-apers an' see: 'Seeryous news about th' Cap'n iv th' twinty-sicond precinct iv th' sixth ward. He has brain fever. He has not. He got in a fight with a Swede an' had his ribs stove in. He fell out iv th' window iv a joolry store he was burglarizin' an' broke th' left junction iv th' sizjymoid cartilage. Th' throuble with th' Cap'n is he dhrinks too much. A man iv his age who has been a soak all his life always succumbs to anny throuble like hyperthroopily iv th' cranium. Docthor Muggers, dean iv th' Post Gradyate Vethrinary school iv Osteopathy says he had a similar case las' year in Mr. Hinnery Haitch Clohessy, wan iv th' best known citizens iv this city. Like th' Cap, Mr. Clohessy was a high liver, a heavy dhrinker, a gambler an' a flirt. Th' cases are almost identical. Owin' to th' code iv pro-fissional eethics Dr. Muggers cud not tell th' bereaved fam'ly what ailed Misther Clohessy, but it was undoubtedly his Past Life.' "Thin come th' doctors. Not wan doctor, Hinnissy, to give ye a whiff out iv a towel an' make ye sleep f'r an hour an' wake up an' say 'I fooled ye. Whin do ye begin?' No, but all iv thim. They escort th' prisoner up th' sthreet in a chariot, an' th' little newsboys runs alongside sellin' exthry papers. 'Our night edition will print th' inside facts about Cap Dooley's condition, an' th' Cap himsilf with a cinematograph iv th' jolly proceedin's be Dock Laparatonny.' What happens to th' criminal at first is th' same as if he was a dacint, wurrukin' man. But whin that is done, an' 'tis gettin' so aisy they tell me they'se not much diff'rence between a good clam-salesman an' a first-class surgeon, th' lithry wurruk begins. Ye think 'tis all over whin ye say: 'Dock, put ye'er hand undher th' pillow an' take what's there.' But not so. Th' assembled docks adjourn to a large hall an' prepare th' story iv 'Cap Dooley; a Stormy Career. Be wan who knows.' "'Upon seein' th' Cap, we at once diagnosed th' case as peritclipalitickipantilitisitis, or chicken bone in th' throat. Dr. Pincers operated, Dr. Smothers administhered th' annysthetic, Dr. Hygeen opened th' window, Dr. Anodyne turned on th' gas, Dr. Aluompaine turned th' pitchers to th' wall, Dr. Rambo looked out th' window, Docthors Peroxide, Gycal, Cephalgern, Antipyreen an' Coltar took a walk in th' park, an' Doctor Saliclate figured up th' bill. As we have said we diagnosed th' case as above. We can't raymimber th' name. It depinds on how th' syllables came out iv th' hat. We were wrong, although what we see whin we got in more thin made up f'r th' error. We made a long incision fr'm th' chin down an' another acrost an' not findin' what we expicted, but manny things that ought to be kept fr'm th' fam'ly, we put th' Cap back an' wint on. Th' op'ration was a complete success. Th' wretch is restin an' swearin' easily. We have given him a light meal iv pickles an' antiseptic oats, an' surgical science havin' done its duty, mus' lave th' rest to Nature, which was not in th' consultation, bein' considhered be some iv us, slightly irregular. (Signed) Look at our names: 'Pincers, Anodyne, Peroxide, Smothers, Coltar, Antipyreen, Cepalgeen, Alicompane, Gycal, Hygeen, Rambo, Saliclate.' "But that's nawthin'. If ye think they'se annything ye wud like to keep up ye'er sleeve, look f'r it in th' pa-apers. 'Th' followin' facts is stated on th' authority iv wan iv th' attindin' surgeons: Cap Dooley cut up terribly undher th' chloryform, singin' songs, swearin' an' askin' f'r Lucy. His wife's name is Annamariar. She was in th' adjinin' room. It seems they have had throuble. Th' room was poorly furnished. Th' Cap's clothes was much worn as was most iv him. He must have led a shockin' life. It is doubtful if he will iver raycover f'r he is very, very old. He has been concealin' his age f'r manny years. He is a notoryous profligate, as was well shown be th' view we had. Th' flash light pitcher iv th' Cap will appeal to all who know his inner histhry.' "An' there ye ar-re. Think iv a man comin' out in th' light iv day afther all that. He can't get on clothes enough to cover him. He may bear himsilf with a haughty manner, but he feels that ivry man he meets knows more about him thin he knows himsilf. Th' fellow on th' sthreet has been within th' walls. He's sayin' to himsilf: 'Ye're a hollow sham composed akelly iv impaired organs an' antiseptic gauze.' To th' end iv his life, he'll niver be annything more thin an annytomical chart to his frinds. His privacy is over f'river, f'r what good can it do annywan, Hinnissy, to pull down th' blinds iv his bed room if ivrybody knows exactly th' size, shape an' location iv his spleen? "No, sir, if I've got to be sick, give me th' ordhn'ry dacencies iv poverty. I don't want anny man to know anny more about me thin he can larn fr'm th' handiwork iv Marks, th' tailor, an' Schmitt, th' shoemaker, an' fr'm th' deceitful expression iv me face. If I have a bad heart, let him know it be me eyes. On me vest is written: 'Thus far an' no farther.' They'se manny a man on intimate terms with th' King iv England to-day that don't know anny more about me thin that I'm broadcloth on Sundah an' serge on week days. An' I don't intind they shall. I hide behind th' privileges iv me position an' say: 'Fellow-citizens, docks an' journalists, I cannot inthrajooce ye to th' Inner Man. He's a reecloose an' avarse to s'ciety. He's modest an' shy an' objects to callers. Ye can guess what kind iv man I am but I wudden't have ye know.' An' I can do that as long as I stay poor." "I'm glad I'm poor," said Mr. Hennessy. "It gives ye less to talk about but more to think about," said Mr. Dooley. The Fighting Word "That man Bailey iv Texas f'r me ivry time," said Mr. Dooley. "What's he been doin'?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "He done me frind Biv'ridge iv Injyanny," said Mr. Dooley. "An' I'm f'r him f'r leader iv th' party. He's wan iv th' best two-handed orators in th' sinit or annywhere. He has a wondherful left an' his repartee with th' right is said to be very stingin'. He's inthrajooced th' sthrangle holt be means iv which th' debate can be suddenly cut off. He's me ideel leader. "I want a leader who's got a good grip on public affairs an' men, who can take hold iv anny question or anny raypublican an' choke it or him till they're black in th' face. Bailey's th' boy. I followed Tillman f'r awhile, but he's gone back. He belongs to th' ol' school iv parlymintaryans, th' same that Jawn L. Sullivan belongs to. He's clever f'r an old 'un an' I'd be willin' to back him again anny raypublican in New England at catch-weights. His reply to Sinitor McLaurin was said to be wan iv th' quickest iver heerd since th' days iv Dan'l Webster. It laid open th' scalp. But they tell me Tillman's speeches is not what Hogan calls impromptchu. He rehearses thim ivry mornin' with a punchin'-bag. Bailey is more iv a nachral debater. No holds barred with him. Hand or fut, 'tis all th' same. "What was it all about, says ye? Well, ye see this sinitor fr'm Injyanny, me frind Jeremiah Biv'ridge made a mos' insultin' remark to Misther Bailey. What did he say? I mustn't tell ye. No, no, 'tis too horrible. Well, if ye must hear it, close th' dure an' pull down th' blinds. Whisper! There! There ye have it. I blush to raypeat th' wurruds. To think that anny man shud so demean himsilf as to imagine such a thing, lave alone say it. But he did--right out in th' Sinit befure Hinnery Cabin Lodge. Oh, it was turr'ble. Here it is in th' pa-apers: 'Misther Biv'ridge said th' st-t-m-nts iv th' hon'rable sinitor fr'm Texas was unw-r-nted.' Modesty where was thy blush? as Shakespere says. Now, th' sinitors iv th' United States is not aisily shocked. That's not th' way ye get into th' Sinit. Th' bright blush iv shame hasn't been used there more thin twice since th' war. Ye can say almost annything ye like to a sinitor. Ye can say he wanst stole a horse, that he's livin' undher an assumed name, that he was made be a thrust, that his on'y nourishment is beets, or that he belongs to New York s'ciety, an' th' Sinit will on'y yawn. But wanst even hint that his such-an'-such is so-an'-so (I will not repeat th' heejous wurruds) an' ye mus' hurry an' slip on th' brass knuckles, f'r they'se a slap comin' to ye. "Here's what happened: 'Sinitor Bailey stepped quickly over Sinitors Hoar, Mason, Quay, an' others an' made f'r where Sinitor Biv'ridge was quitely smokin' a cigar an' talkin' to himsilf. Sinitor Bailey says: "Hon'rable sir, ye must withdraw that loathsome insinooation again' me good name," he says. "I have not led a pure life. No man has. I don't claim to be anny betther thin others. But no wan befure has iver said about me such things as these, an' if ye don't take thim back at wanst, I'll kill ye, I'll choke ye, I'll give ye a poke in th' eye," he says. "I cannot consint," says th' bold sinitor fr'm Injyanny, "I cannot consint to haul back me epithet. It wud not be sinitoryal courtesy," he says. "Thin," says Sinitor Bailey, "here goes f'r an assault an' batthry." An' with a gesture iv th' thrue orator, he seized him be th' throat. Th' debate become gin'ral. Sinitor Spooner iv Wisconsin led f'r th' raypublicans an' Sinitor Morgan iv Alabama counthered f'r th' dimmycrats. Sinitor Platt made a very happy retort with a chair, to which Sinitor Gorman replied with a sintintious cuspidor. Owin' to th' excitin' nature iv th' debate on'y a few iv th' best remarks reached th' gall'ry, wan iv thim, a piece iv hard coal, layin' out a riprisintative iv th' Sultan iv Zulu. At th' hospital he declared himsilf much imprissed. Durin' th' proceedin's Biv'ridge acted in th' mos' gintlemanly an' even ladylike manner. His face wore a smile iv complete sang fraud or pain, an' he niver took his cigar fr'm his mouth wanst. Indeed, it was siv'ral hours befure th' Havana cud be exthracted be th' surgeon who was called in. While th' debate was in progress, a pitcher iv Thomas Jefferson was obsarved to give a slight moan an' turn its face to th' wall. Th' Sinit thin took up routine business an' th' janitor swept up th' hair an' neckties. Sinitor Biv'ridge was not much hurt. Th' tinder outside iv th' wind-pipe was somewhat bruised, but th' wurrukin' inside is still intact.' "'Twas a pretty scene, Hinnissy, an' wan that makes me proud iv Bailey f'r his courage in pouncin' on his collague; iv Biv'ridge f'r th' manly self resthraint an' rayspict f'r th' dignity iv th' Sinit that par'lyzes a man's hands whin his wind is cut off; iv our noble counthry that projooces such sturdy sons, iv th' Sinit that brings thim together in a clinch an' iv mesilf because I wasn't there. I'm with Bailey. Bailey f'r prisidint! Bailey or bust or choke! "I'm not sure that if I was in th' same place I'd do th' same thing. But I'm no statesman. Who am I to say that what wudden't be manners in a bar-room is not all right in th' Sinit? Diff'rent men has diff'rent raisons f'r fightin'. Ivry man will fight. Ye can bet on that. A brave man will fight because he is brave an' a cow'rd because he is a cow'rd. All men will fight an' all men will run. Some will fight befure they'll run, but they'll run; some men will run befure they'll fight, but they'll fight. They'se a pretty good fight an' a pretty fast run in ivry man I know. Th' debate in th' Sinit don't prove annything about th' merits iv ayether pug. In some other circumstances, Biv'ridge might have hunted Bailey up a three. It happened to be Bailey's day. "As I get on in years, I believe less in fightin'. 'Tis a turr'ble thing to see th' aged an' infirm swingin' away at each other. 'Tis so unscientific. I hate to think iv a man with one leg in th' grave usin' th' other to thrip th' free foot iv a fellow aged. I'm glad Bailey an' Biv'ridge ar-re young men. What a scandal if Sinitor Cullom an' Sinitor Morgan shud mix it up! Wan iv th' things a man larns as he grows old is to dislike fightin'. He dislikes annything he can't do as well as he cud. I'm that way. But I wasn't always so. No, sir. They was a time whin I'd fight at th' dhrop iv a hat, f'r money or marbles or pool checks, f'r th' good name iv women or th' revarse, f'r political principles or unprincipled politics, f'r th' gate receipts, f'r me relligion, f'r th' look iv th' thing, because th' barkeeper heard what he said, because he whispered to her, f'r th' sacred theery that th' buildin's is higher in Chicago thin in New York, f'r th' fun iv th' thing, an' f'r th' Fight. That last's th' best iv all. A man that won't fight f'r th' fight itsilf is no rale fighter. I don't know what wud make me fight nowadays. I know lots iv things that wud make me want to fight, but I've larned to repress me desires. Me heart is full iv song but I've lost me voice. In me dhreams I'm always punchin' somebody's head. I shall niver f'rget th' night whin I put Jeffries out iv th' business with wan well-directed punch an' me in me bare feet, too. I can niver f'rget it f'r I fell out iv bed and bumped me head again' th' rocker iv a chair. But in me wakin' hours, I'm a man iv vi'lent impulses an' peaceful raysults. In a fight I'd be like a deef-mute in a debatin' s'ciety. But as I said, Hinnissy, they was a day whin th' lightest wurrud was an insult. Nowadays I say to mesilf: 'Considher th' soorce. How can such a low blaggard as that insult me? Jus' because some dhrunken wretch chooses to apply a foul epitaph to me, am I goin' to dignify him be knockin' him down in th' public sthreet an' p'raps not, an' gettin' th' head beat off me? No, sir. I will raymimber me position in th' community. I will pass on with a smile iv bitter contempt. Maybe I'd betther run a little.' "Th' las' throuble I got into I begun to think iv th' new suit I had on an' I knew me warryor days was over. Whin a man raymimbers his clothes or his appearance in battle, 'tis high time f'r him to retire fr'm th' ring. Th' ca'm, almost deathlike smile that rests upon a man's face whin another man is cloutin' him about is on'y th' outward exprission iv something about two numbers up th' chest fr'm sea sickness. That's all I've got to say about fightin'. Ye can't lay down anny rules about it." "Ye niver will go to th' Sinit with thim views," said Mr. Hennessy. "I don't want to," said Mr. Dooley. "Some day th' Sinit will be pulled." Home Life of Geniuses "A woman ought to be careful who she marries," said Mr. Dooley. "So ought a man," said Mr. Hennessy, with feeling. "It don't make so much diff'rence about him," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin a man's marrid, he's a marrid man. That's all ye can say about him. Iv coorse, he thinks marredge is goin' to change th' whole current iv his bein', as Hogan says. But it doesn't. Afther he's been hooked up f'r a few months, he finds he was marrid befure, even if he wasn't, which is often th' case, d'ye mind. Th' first bride iv his bosom was th' Day's Wurruk, an' it can't be put off. They'se no groun's f'r dissolvin' that marredge, Hinnissy. Ye can't say to th' Day's Wurruk: 'Here, take this bunch iv alimony an' go on th' stage.' It turns up at breakfast about th' fourth month afther th' weddin' an' creates a scandal. Th' unforchnit man thries to shoo it off but it fixes him with its eye an' hauls him away fr'm the bacon an' eggs, while the lady opposite weeps and wondhers what he can see in annything so old an' homely. It says, 'Come with me, aroon,' an' he goes. An' afther that he spinds most iv his time an' often a good deal iv his money with th' enchantress. I tell ye what, Hinnissy, th' Day's Wurruk has broke up more happy homes thin comic opry. If th' coorts wud allow it, manny a woman cud get a divorce on th' groun's that her husband cared more f'r his Day's Wurruk thin he did f'r her. 'Hinnissy varsus Hinnissy; corryspondint, th' Day's Wurruk.' They'd be ividince that th' defindant was seen ridin' in a cab with th' corryspondint, that he took it to a picnic, that he wint to th' theaytre with it, that he talked about it in his sleep, an' that, lost to all sinse iv shame, he even escoorted it home with him an' inthrajooced it to his varchoos wife an' innocint childher. So it don't make much diff'rence who a man marries. If he has a job, he's safe. "But with a woman 'tis diff'rent. Th' man puts down on'y part iv th' bet. Whin he's had enough iv th' convarsation that in Union Park undher th' threes med him think he was talkin' with an intellechool joyntess, all he has to do is to put on his coat, grab up his dinner pail an' go down to th' shops, to be happy though marrid. But a woman, I tell ye, bets all she has. A man don't have to marry but a woman does. Ol' maids an' clargymen do th' most good in th' wurruld an' we love thim f'r th' good they do. But people, especially women, don't want to be loved that way. They want to be loved because people can't help lovin' thim no matther how bad they are. Th' story books that ye give ye'er daughter Honoria all tell her 'tis just as good not to be marrid. She reads about how kind Dorothy was to Lulu's childher an' she knows Dorothy was th' betther woman, but she wants to be Lulu. Her heart, an' a cold look in th' eye iv th' wurruld an' her Ma tell her to hurry up. Arly in life she looks f'r th' man iv her choice in th' tennis records; later she reads th' news fr'm th' militia encampmint; thin she studies th' socyal raygisther; further on she makes hersilf familyar with Bradsthreets' rayports, an' fin'lly she watches th' place where life presarvers are hangin'. "Now, what kind iv a man ought a woman to marry? She oughtn't to marry a young man because she'll grow old quicker thin he will; she oughtn't to marry an old man because he'll be much older befure he's younger; she oughtn't to marry a poor man because he may become rich an' lose her; she oughtn't to marry a rich man because if he becomes poor, she can't lose him; she oughtn't to marry a man that knows more thin she does, because he'll niver fail to show it, an' she oughtn't to marry a man that knows less because he may niver catch up. But above all things she mustn't marry a janius. A flure-walker, perhaps; a janius niver. "I tell ye this because I've been r-readin' a book Hogan give me, about th' divvle's own time a janius had with his fam'ly. A cap iv industhry may have throuble in his fam'ly till there isn't a whole piece iv chiny in th' cupboard, an' no wan will be the wiser f'r it but th' hired girl an' th' doctor that paints th' black eye. But ivrybody knows what happens in a janius' house. Th' janius always tells th' bartinder. Besides he has other janiuses callin' on him, an' 'tis th' business iv a janius to write about th' domestic throubles iv other janiuses so posterity'll know what a hard thing it is to be a janius. I've been readin' this book iv Hogan's an' as I tell ye, 'tis about th' misery a wretched woman inflicted on a pote's life. "'Our hayro,' says th' author,' at this peeryod conthracted an unforchnit alliance that was destined to cast a deep gloom over his career. At th' age iv fifty, afther a life devoted to th' pursoot iv such gayety as janiuses have always found niciss'ry to solace their avenin's, he marrid a young an' beautiful girl some thirty-two years his junior. This wretched crather had no appreciation iv lithrachoor or lithry men. She was frivolous an' light-minded an' ividintly considhered that nawthin' was rally lithrachoor that cudden't be thranslated into groceries. Niver shall I f'rget th' expression iv despair on th' face iv this godlike man as he came into Casey's saloon wan starry July avenin' an' staggered into his familyar seat, holdin' in his hand a bit iv soiled paper which he tore into fragmints an' hurled into th' coal scuttle. On that crumpled parchmint findin' a sombre grave among th' disinterred relics iv an age long past, to wit, th' cariboniferious or coal age, was written th' iver-mim'rable pome: "Ode to Gin." Our frind had scribbled it hastily at th' dinner iv th' Betther-thin-Shakespere Club, an' had attimpted to read it to his wife through th' keyhole iv her bedroom dure an' met no response fr'm th' fillystein but a pitcher iv wather through th' thransom. Forchnitly he had presarved a copy on his cuff an' th' gem was not lost to posterity. But such was th' home life iv wan iv th' gr-reatest iv lithry masters, a man indowed be nachure with all that shud make a woman adore him as is proved be his tindher varses: 'To Carrie,' 'To Maude,' 'To Flossie,' 'To Angehel,' 'To Queenie,' an' so foorth. De Bonipoort in his cillybrated 'Mimores,' in which he tells ivrything unpleasant he see or heerd in his frinds' houses, gives a sthrikin' pitcher iv a scene that happened befure his eyes. 'Afther a few basins iv absceenthe in th' reev gosh,' says he, 'Parnassy invited us home to dinner. Sivral iv th' bum vivonts was hard to wake up, but fin'lly we arrived at th' handsome cellar where our gr-reat frind had installed his unworthy fam'ly. Ivrything pinted to th' admirable taste iv th' thrue artist. Th' tub, th' washboard, th' biler singin' on th' fire, th' neighbor's washin' dancin' on the clothes rack, were all in keepin' with th' best ideels iv what a pote's home shud be. Th' wife, a faded but still pretty woman, welcomed us more or less, an' with th' assistance iv sivral bottles iv paint we had brought with us, we was soon launched on a feast iv raison an' a flow iv soul. Unhappily befure th' raypast was con-cluded a mis'rable scene took place. Amid cries iv approval, Parnassy read his mim'rable pome intitled: 'I wisht I nivir got marrid.' Afther finishin' in a perfect roar of applause, he happened to look up an' see his wife callously rockin' th' baby. With th' impetchosity so charackteristic iv th' man, he broke a soup plate over her head an' burst into tears on th' flure, where gentle sleep soon soothed th' pangs iv a weary heart. We left as quitely as we cud, considherin' th' way th' chairs was placed, an' wanst undher th' stars comminted on th' ir'ny iv fate that condimned so great a man to so milancholy a distiny. "'This,' says our author, 'was th' daily life iv th' hayro f'r tin years. In what purgatory will that infamous woman suffer if Hiven thinks as much iv janiuses as we think iv oursilves. Forchnitly th' pote was soon to be marcifully relieved. He left her an' she marrid a boorjawce with whom she led a life iv coarse happiness. It is sad to relate that some years aftherward th' great pote, havin' called to make a short touch on th' woman f'r whom he had sacryficed so much, was unfeelingly kicked out iv th' boorjawce's plumbin' shop.' "So, ye see, Hinnissy, why a woman oughtn't to marry a janius. She can't be cross or peevish or angry or jealous or frivolous or annything else a woman ought to be at times f'r fear it will get into th' ditchn'ry iv bio-graphy, an' she'll go down to histhry as a termygant. A termygant, Hinnissy, is a woman who's heerd talkin' to her husband after they've been marrid a year. Hogan says all janiuses was unhappily marrid. I guess that's thrue iv their wives, too. He says if ye hear iv a pote who got on with his fam'ly, scratch him fr'm ye'er public lib'ry list. An' there ye ar-re." "Ye know a lot about marredge," said Mr. Hennessy. "I do," said Mr. Dooley. "Ye was niver marrid?" "No," said Mr. Dooley. "No, I say, givin' three cheers. I know about marredge th' way an asthronomer knows about th' stars. I'm studyin' it through me glass all th' time." "Ye're an asthronomer," said Mr. Hennessy; "but," he added, tapping himself lightly on the chest, "I'm a star." "Go home," said Mr. Dooley crossly, "befure th' mornin' comes to put ye out." Reform Administration "Why is it," asked Mr. Hennessy, "that a rayform administhration always goes to th' bad?" "I'll tell ye," said Mr. Dooley. "I tell ye ivrything an' I'll tell ye this. In th' first place 'tis a gr-reat mistake to think that annywan ra-aly wants to rayform. Ye niver heerd iv a man rayformin' himsilf. He'll rayform other people gladly. He likes to do it. But a healthy man'll niver rayform while he has th' strenth. A man doesn't rayform till his will has been impaired so he hasn't power to resist what th' pa-apers calls th' blandishments iv th' timpter. An' that's thruer in politics thin annywhere else. "But a rayformer don't see it. A rayformer thinks he was ilicted because he was a rayformer, whin th' thruth iv th' matther is he was ilicted because no wan knew him. Ye can always ilict a man in this counthry on that platform. If I was runnin' f'r office, I'd change me name, an' have printed on me cards: 'Give him a chanst; he can't be worse.' He's ilicted because th' people don't know him an' do know th' other la-ad; because Mrs. Casey's oldest boy was clubbed be a polisman, because we cudden't get wather above th' third story wan day, because th' sthreet car didn't stop f'r us, because th' Flannigans bought a pianny, because we was near run over be a mail wagon, because th' saloons are open Sundah night, because they're not open all day, an' because we're tired seein' th' same face at th' window whin we go down to pay th' wather taxes. Th' rayformer don't know this. He thinks you an' me, Hinnissy, has been watchin' his spotless career f'r twinty years, that we've read all he had to say on th' evils iv pop'lar sufferage befure th' Society f'r the Bewildermint iv th' Poor, an' that we're achin' in ivry joint to have him dhrag us be th' hair iv th' head fr'm th' flowin' bowl an' th' short card game, make good citizens iv us an' sind us to th' pinitinchry. So th' minyit he gets into th' job he begins a furyous attimpt to convart us into what we've been thryin' not to be iver since we come into th' wurruld. "In th' coorse iv th' twinty years that he spint attimptin' to get office, he managed to poke a few warrum laws conthrollin' th' pleasures iv th' poor into th' stachoo book, because no wan cared about thim or because they made business betther f'r th' polis, an' whin he's in office, he calls up th' Cap'n iv the polis an' says he: 'If these laws ar-re bad laws th' way to end thim is to enfoorce thim.' Somebody told him that, Hinnissy. It isn't thrue, d'ye mind. I don't care who said it, not if 'twas Willum Shakespere. It isn't thrue. Laws ar-re made to throuble people an' th' more throuble they make th' longer they stay on th' stachoo book. But th' polis don't ast anny questions. Says they: 'They'll be less money in th' job but we need some recreation,' an' that night a big copper comes down th' sthreet, sees me settin' out on th' front stoop with me countenance dhraped with a tin pail, fans me with his club an' runs me in. Th' woman nex' dure is locked up f'r sthringin' a clothes line on th' roof, Hannigan's boy Tim gets tin days f'r keepin' a goat, th' polis resarves are called out to protict th' vested rights iv property against th' haynyous pushcart man, th' stations is crowded with felons charged with maintainin' a hose conthrary to th' stachoos made an' provided, an' th' tindherline is all over town. A rayformer don't think annything has been accomplished if they'se a vacant bedroom in th' pinitinchry. His motto is 'Arrest that man.' "Whin a rayformer is ilicted he promises ye a business administhration. Some people want that but I don't. Th' American business man is too fly. He's all right, d'ye mind. I don't say annything again' him. He is what Hogan calls th' boolwarks iv pro-gress, an' we cudden't get on without him even if his scales are a little too quick on th' dhrop. But he ought to be left to dale with his akels. 'Tis a shame to give him a place where he can put th' comether on millions iv people that has had no business thrainin' beyond occasionally handin' a piece iv debased money to a car conductor on a cold day. A reg'lar pollytician can't give away an alley without blushin', but a business man who is in pollytics jus' to see that th' civil sarvice law gets thurly enfoorced, will give Lincoln Park an' th' public libr'y to th' beef thrust, charge an admission price to th' lake front an' make it a felony f'r annywan to buy stove polish outside iv his store, an' have it all put down to public improvemints with a pitcher iv him in th' corner stone. "Fortchnitly, Hinnissy, a rayformer is seldom a business man. He thinks he is, but business men know diff'rent. They know what he is. He thinks business an' honesty is th' same thing. He does, indeed. He's got thim mixed because they dhress alike. His idee is that all he has to do to make a business administhration is to have honest men ar-round him. Wrong. I'm not sayin', mind ye, that a man can't do good work an' be honest at th' same time. But whin I'm hirin' a la-ad I find out first whether he is onto his job, an' afther a few years I begin to suspect that he is honest, too. Manny a dishonest man can lay brick sthraight an' manny a man that wudden't steal ye'er spoons will break ye'er furniture. I don't want Father Kelly to hear me, but I'd rather have a competint man who wud steal if I give him a chanst, but I won't, do me plumbin' thin a person that wud scorn to help himsilf but didn't know how to wipe a joint. Ivry man ought to be honest to start with, but to give a man an office jus' because he's honest is like ilictin' him to Congress because he's a pathrite, because he don't bate his wife or because he always wears a right boot on th' right foot. A man ought to be honest to start with an' afther that he ought to be crafty. A pollytician who's on'y honest is jus' th' same as bein' out in a winther storm without anny clothes on. "Another thing about rayform administhrations is they always think th' on'y man that ought to hold a job is a lawyer. Th' raison is that in th' coorse iv his thrainin' a lawyer larns enough about ivrything to make a good front on anny subject to annybody who doesn't know about it. So whin th' rayform administhration comes in th' mayor says: 'Who'll we make chief iv polis in place iv th' misguided ruffyan who has held th' job f'r twinty years?' 'Th' man f'r th' place,' says th' mayor's adviser, 'is Arthur Lightout,' he says. 'He's an ixcillent lawyer, Yale, '95, an' is well up on polis matthers. Las' year he read a paper on "The fine polis foorce iv London" befure th' annyal meetin' iv th' S'ciety f'r Ladin' th' Mulligan Fam'ly to a Betther an' Harder Life. Besides,' he says, 'he's been in th' milishy an' th' foorce needs a man who'll be afraid not to shoot in case iv public disturbance.' So Arthur takes hold iv th' constabulary an' in a year th' polis can all read Emerson an' th' burglars begin puttin' up laddhers an' block an' tackles befure eight A.M. An' so it is on ivry side. A lawyer has charge iv the city horse-shoein', another wan is clanin' th' sthreets, th' author iv 'Gasamagoo on torts' is thryin' to dispose iv th' ashes be throwin' thim in th' air on a windy day, an' th' bright boy that took th' silver ware f'r th' essay on ne exeats an' their relation to life is plannin' a uniform that will be sarviceable an' constitchoochinal f'r th' brave men that wurruks on th' city dumps. An' wan day th' main rayformer goes out expictin' to rayceive th' thanks iv th' community an' th' public that has jus' got out iv jail f'r lettin' th' wather run too long in th' bath tub rises up an' cries: 'Back to th' Univarsity Settlemint.' Th' man with th' di'mon' in his shirt front comes home an' pushes th' honest lawyers down th' steps, an' a dishonest horse shoer shoes th' city's horses well, an' a crooked plumber does th' city's plumbin' securely, an' a rascally polisman that may not be avarse to pickin' up a bet but will always find out whin Pathrolman Scanlan slept on his beat, takes hold iv th' polis foorce, an' we raysume our nachral condition iv illagal merrimint. An' th' rayformer spinds th' rest iv his life tellin' us where we are wrong. He's good at that. On'y he don't undherstand that people wud rather be wrong an' comfortable thin right in jail." "I don't like a rayformer," said Mr. Hennessy. "Or anny other raypublican," said Mr. Dooley. Work and Sport "A hard time th' rich have injyin' life," said Mr. Dooley. "I'd thrade with thim," said Mr. Hennessy. "I wud not," said Mr. Dooley. "'Tis too much like hard wurruk. If I iver got hold iv a little mound iv th' money, divvle th' bit iv hardship wud I inflict on mesilf. I'd set on a large Turkish sofa an' have dancin' girls dancin' an' a mandolin orchesthree playin' to me. I wudden't move a step without bein' carrid. I'd go to bed with th' lark an' get up with th' night watchman. If annywan suggested physical exercise to me, I'd give him forty dollars to go away. I'd hire a prize fighter to do me fightin' f'r me, a pedesthreen to do me walkin', a jockey to do me ridin', an' a colledge pro-fissor to do me thinkin'. Here I'd set with a naygur fannin' me with osterich feathers, lookin' ca'mly out through me stained glass windies on th' rollin' mills, smokin' me good five cint seegar an' rejicin' to know how bad ye mus' be feelin' ivry time ye think iv me hoorded wealth. "But that ain't th' way it comes out, Hinnissy. Higgins, the millyionaire, had th' same idee as me whin he was beginnin' to breed money with a dollar he ownded an' a dollar he took fr'm some wan that wasn't there at th' time. While he was hammerin' hoops on a bar'l or dhrivin' pegs into a shoe, he'd stop wanst in a while to wipe th' sweat off his brow whin th' boss wasn't lookin' an' he'd say to himsilf: 'If I iver get it, I'll have a man wheel me around on a chair.' But as his stable grows an' he herds large dhroves down to th' bank ivry week, he changes his mind, an' whin he's got enough to injye life, as they say, he finds he's up against it. His throubles has just begun. I know in his heart Higgins' ideel iv luxury is enough buckwheat cakes an' a cozy corner in a Turkish bath, but he can't injye it. He mus' be up an' doin'. An' th' on'y things annywan around him is up an' doin' is th' things he used to get paid f'r doin' whin he was a young man. "Arly in th' mornin' Higgins has got to be out exercisin' a horse to keep th' horse in good health. Higgins has no business on a horse an' he knows it. He was built an' idycated f'r a cooper an' th' horse don't fit him. Th' nachral way f'r Higgins to ride a horse is to set well aft an' hang onto th' ears. But he's tol' that's wrong an' he's made to set up sthraight an' be a good fellow an' meet th' horse half way. An' if th' horse don't run away with Higgins an' kill him, he's tol' it's not a good horse an' he ought to sell it. An' mind ye, he pays f'r that though he can't help raymimberin' th' man nex' dure fr'm him used to get tin dollars a week f'r th' same job. "Whin he was a young man, Higgins knowed a fellow that dhruv four horses f'r a brewery. They paid him well, but he hated his job. He used to come in at night an' wish his parents had made him a cooper, an' Higgins pitied him, knowin' he cudden't get out a life insurance policy an' his wife was scared to death all th' time. Now that Higgins has got th' money, he's took th' brewery man's job with worse horses an' him barred fr'm dhrivin' with more thin wan hand. An' does he get annything f'r it? On th' conth'ry, Hinnissy, it sets him back a large forchune. An' he says he's havin' a good time an' if th' brewery man come along an' felt sorry f'r him, Higgins wudden't exactly know why. "Higgins has to sail a yacht raymimberin' how he despised th' Swede sailors that used to loaf in th' saloon near his house dunn' th' winter; he has to run an autymobill, which is th' same thing as dhrivin' a throlley car on a windy day without pay; he has to play golf, which is th' same thing as bein' a letther-carryer without a dacint uniform; he has to play tennis, which is another wurrud f'r batin' a carpet; he has to race horses, which is the same thing as bein' a bookmaker with th' chances again' ye; he has to go abroad, which is th' same thing as bein' an immigrant; he has to set up late, which is th' same thing as bein' a dhrug clerk; an' he has to play cards with a man that knows how, which is th' same thing as bein' a sucker. "He takes his good times hard, Hinnissy. A rich man at spoort is a kind iv non-union laborer. He don't get wages f'r it an' he don't dhrive as well as a milkman, ride as well as a stable-boy, shoot as well as a polisman, or autymobill as well as th' man that runs th' steam-roller. It's a tough life. They'se no rest f'r th' rich an' weary. We'll be readin' in th' pa-apers wan iv these days: 'Alonzo Higgins, th' runner up in las' year's champeenship, showed gr-reat improvement in this year's brick layin' tournymint at Newport, an' won handily with about tin square feet to spare. He was nobly assisted be Regynald Van Stinyvant, who acted as his hod carryer an' displayed all th' agility which won him so much applause arlier in th' year. "'Th' Pickaways carrid off all th' honors in th' sewer-diggin' contest yesterdah, defatin' th' Spadewells be five holes to wan. Th' shovel wurruk iv Cassidy th' banker was spicially noticeable. Th' colors iv th' Pickaways was red flannel undhershirts an' dark brown trousers. "'Raycreations iv rich men: Jawn W. Grates an' J. Pierpont Morgan ar-re to have a five days' shinglin' contest at Narragansett Pier. George Gold is thrainin' f'r th' autumn plumbin' jimkanny. Mitchigan avnoo is tore up fr'm Van Buren sthreet to th' belt line in priparation f'r th' contest in sthreet layin'between mimbers iv th' Assocyation iv More-Thin-Rich Spoorts. Th' sledge teams is completed but a few good tampers an' wather men is needed.' "An' why not, Hinnissy? If 'tis fun to wurruk why not do some rale wurruk? If 'tis spoort to run an autymobill, why not run a locymotive? If dhrivin' a horse in a cart is a game, why not dhrive a delivery wagon an' carry things around? Sure, I s'pose th' raison a rich man can't undherstand why wages shud go higher is because th' rich can't see why annybody shud be paid f'r annything so amusin' as wurruk. I bet ye Higgins is wondherin' at this moment why he was paid so much f'r puttin' rings around a bar'l. "No, sir, what's a rich man's raycreation is a poor man's wurruk. Th' poor ar-re th' on'y people that know how to injye wealth. Me idee iv settin' things sthraight is to have th' rich who wurruk because they like it, do th' wurruk f'r th' poor who wud rather rest. I'll be happy th' day I see wan iv th' Hankerbilts pushin' ye'er little go-cart up th' platform while ye set in th' shade iv a three an' cheer him on his way. I'm sure he'd do it if ye called it a spoort an' tol him th' first man to th' dump wud be entitled to do it over again against sthronger men nex' week. Wud ye give him a tin cup that he cud put his name on? Wud ye, Hinnissy? I'm sure ye wud." "Why do they do it?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "I dinnaw," said Mr. Dooley, "onless it is that th' wan great object iv ivry man's life is to get tired enough to sleep. Ivrything seems to be some kind iv wurruk. Wurruk is wurruk if ye're paid to do it an' it's pleasure if ye pay to be allowed to do it." The Names of a Week "What's goin' on this week in th' papers?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Ivrything," said Mr. Dooley. "It's been a turbylint week. I can hardly sleep iv nights thinkin' iv th' doin's iv people. Th' campinily at Venice has fallen down. 'Twas built in 1604 be th' Beezantiums an' raystored in 1402 be th' Dogs. It fell down because th' foundations was weak, because th' wind blew, because th' beautiful figure iv th' goolden angel on top iv it was fifteen feet high. It will be rebuilt or maybe not. Th' king iv Italy has given thirty-three billion liars to put it up again, an' siv'ral ladin' American archytects have offered to do th' job, makin' an office buildin' iv it. Th' campinily was wan iv th' proudest monymints iv Italy an' was used as a bell-tower at times, an' at other times as a gazabo where anny American cud take a peek at th' gran' canal an' compare it with th' Erie, th' Pannyma an' th' dhrainage iv the same name. "Th' king iv England is betther. He's off in his yacht. So ar-re Laking, Treves, Smith, Barlow, Jones, Casey, Lister, thank Hiven! A hard life is science. Th' Hon'rable Joseph Choate is raycoverin' more slowly. He still sobs occas'nally in his sleep an' has ordhered all th' undher sicreties to have their vermyform appindixes raymoved as a token iv rayspict f'r th' sthricken nation. Th' Hon'rable Whitelaw Reid is havin' a cast iv his knee breeches made, which will be exhibited in New York durin' th' comin' winter. "Me frind, J. Pierpont Morgan, has been takin' dinner with th' Impror Willum. It is undherstud he will presint him to th' Methropolytan Museem iv Art. There are said to be worse things there. "Lord Salisberry has thrun up his job. Lord Salisberry was wan iv th' grandest an' mos' succissful statesmen iv modhren times. He niver did annything. He is succeeded be his nevvew, Misther Balfour, if I get th' name right, who has done less. It is expicted that Misther Balfour will have a good time. On rayceivin' th' congrathylations iv his colleague, Misther Chamberlain, he bought himsilf a rayvolver an' took out a policy on his life. "A lady down east woke her husband up to tell him there was a burglar in th' house. Th' foolish woman. They'se always burglars in th' house. That's what burglars are f'r, an' houses. Instead iv argyin' th' pint in a loud voice, coughin' an' givin' th' burglar a chance to lave with dignity, this man got up an' was kilt. Now th' pa-apers with th' assistance iv th' officers iv th' law has discovered that th' lady took a boat ride with a gintleman frind in th' summer iv sixty-two, that she wanst quarreled with her husband about th' price iv a hat, that wan iv her lower teeth is plugged, that she wears a switch an' that she weeps whin she sees her childher. They'se a moral in this. It's ayether don't wake a man up out iv a sound sleep, or don't get out iv bed till ye have to, or don't bother a burglar whin ye see he's busy, or kill th' iditor. I don't know which it is. "Willum Jennings Bryan is readin' me frind Grover Cleveland out iv th' party. He's usin' the Commoner to read him out. That's a sure way. "Mary MeLane has been in town. I didn't see her, me place not bein' a raysort f'r th' young an' yearnin', an' especially me duckin' all lithry ladies iv whativer sex. Mary McLane is th' author iv a book called: 'Whin I am older I'll know betther.' Ye ought to read it, Hinnissy. "Th' Newport season is opened with gr-reat gayety an' th' aim iv rayturnin' husbands is much more sure. "Gin'ral Bragg fr'm up in Wisconsin has been gettin' into throuble with our haughty allies, th' Cubians, he writin' home to his wife that ye might as well thry to make a whistle out iv a pig's tail as a dacint man out iv a Cubian. Gin'ral Bragg will be bounced an' he ought to be. He don't belong in pollytics. His place is iditor iv a losin' newspaper. "Gov'nor Taft has been in Rome showin' th' wurruld how succissful, sthraightforward, downright, outspoken, manly, frank, fourteen ounces to th' pound American business dalings can be again' th' worn-out di-plomacy iv th' papal coort. Whin last heerd fr'm this astoot an' able man, backed up be th' advice iv Elihoo Root iv York state, was makin' his way tow'rd Manila on foot, an' siv'ral mimbers iv th' colledge iv cardinals was heerd to regret that American statesmen were so thin they cudden't find anything to fit thim in his thrunk. "Cholera is ragin' in th' Ph'lippeens vice Gin'ral Jake Smith, raymoved. "Th' stock market is boomin' an' business has become so dull elsewhere that some iv th' best known outside operators ar-re obliged to increase th' depth iv th' goold coatin' on th' brick to nearly an inch. "Th' capital iv th' nation has raymoved to Eyesther Bay, a city on th' north shore iv Long Island, with a popylation iv three millyion clams, an' a number iv mosquitos with pianola attachments an' steel rams. There day be day th' head iv th' nation thransacts th' nation's business as follows: four A.M., a plunge into th' salt, salt sea an' a swim iv twenty miles; five A.M., horse-back ride, th' prisidint insthructin' his two sons, aged two and four rayspictively, to jump th' first Methodist church without knockin' off th' shingles; six A.M., wrestles with a thrained grizzly bear; sivin A.M., breakfast; eight A.M., Indyan clubs; nine A.M., boxes with Sharkey; tin A.M., bates th' tinnis champeen; iliven A.M., rayceives a band iv rough riders an' person'lly supervises th' sindin' iv th' ambylance to look afther th' injured in th' village; noon, dinner with Sharkey, Oscar Featherstone, th' champeen roller-skater iv Harvard, '98, Pro-fissor McGlue, th' archyologist, Lord Dum de Dum, Mike Kehoe, Immanuel Kant Gumbo, th' naygro pote, Horrible Hank, t' bad lands scout, Sinitor Lodge, Lucy Emerson Tick, th' writer on female sufferage, Mud-in-the-Eye, th' chief iv th' Ogallas, Gin'ral Powell Clayton, th' Mexican mine expert, four rough riders with their spurs on, th' Ambassadure iv France an' th' Cinquovasti fam'ly, jugglers. Th' conversation, we larn fr'm wan iv th' guests who's our spoortin' iditor, was jined in be th' prisidint an' dealt with art, boxin', lithrachoor, horse-breakin', science, shootin', pollytics, how to kill a mountain line, di-plomacy, lobbing, pothry, th' pivot blow, rayform, an' th' campaign in Cubia. Whin our rayporther was dhriven off th' premises be wan iv th' rough riders, th' head iv th' nation was tachin' Lord Dum de Dum an' Sicrety Hay how to do a hand-spring, an' th' other guests was scattered about th' lawn, boxin', rasslin', swingin' on th' thrapeze, ridin' th' buckin' bronco an' shootin' at th' naygro pote f'r th' dhrinks--in short enjyin' an ideel day in th' counthry. "An' that's all th' news," said Mr. Dooley. "There ye ar-re jus' as if ye cud read. That's all that's happened. Ain't I a good newspaper? Not a dull line in me. Sind in ye'er small ads." "Sure, all that's no news," said Mr. Hennessy, discontentedly. "Hasn't there annything happened? Hasn't anny wan been--been kilt?" "There ye ar-re," said Mr. Dooley. "Be news ye mane misfortune. I suppose near ivry wan does. What's wan man's news is another man's throubles. In these hot days, I'd like to see a pa-aper with nawthin' in it but affectionate wives an' loyal husbands an' prosp'rous, smilin' people an' money in th' bank an' three a day. That's what I'm lookin' f'r in th' hot weather." "Th' newspapers have got to print what happens," said Mr. Hennessy. "No," said Mr. Dooley, "they've got to print what's diff'rent. Whiniver they begin to put headlines on happiness, contint, varchoo, an' charity, I'll know things is goin' as wrong with this counthry as I think they ar-re ivry naytional campaign." The End of the War "Why did th' Boers quit fightin'?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Th' supply iv British gin'rals give out," said Mr. Dooley. "They were fin'lly crushed be th' surrindher iv Gin'ral Lord Mechoon. "Up to that time th' British had niver gained anny important advantage. They'd surrindhered ninety or a hundherd thousan' private sojery, thirty or forty colonels, near all th' officers iv th' guards, th' Northumberland Fusileers over an' over again, an' Winston Churchill; they'd hurled gr-reat masses iv th' Impeeryal Yeomanry into th' prison camps iv th' Boers; they'd surrindhered rifles, an' ammunition an' pompons an' mules, but nary a British gin'ral among thim. Although a smaller foorce, Hinnissy, th' Boers had th' advantage iv knowin' ivry foot iv th' ground they were fightin' on. Manny iv thim had just gone there, while th' British had been on th' ground f'r three years with an opporchunity to f'rget something ivry hour. Th' crafty Dutch, marchin' almost as well be bright moonlight as in th' day time, proceedin' without rest f'r hours at a time, always placin' th' catridge in th' gun befure firm', hardy, vigorous an' accustomed to th' veldt, had eluded all attempts to hand thim th' roast beef iv Merry England in th' shape iv a gin'ral. "But whin Gin'ral, me Lord Kitchener, th' Great Coon Conqueror, wint to South Africa, like th' stern an' remorseless warryor that he is, he detarmined to niver rest till he had desthroyed th' inimy. In less thin two years, he had evolved his sthrategy. I will tell ye what it was, because ye're inthrested in military plans. He spread his magnificent army iv gallant Britons out in a long line that sthretched clane acrost th' counthry, wan yeoman deep. Thin, accompanied be his sub-gin'rals, he moved out in th' followin' ordher. I'll dhraw it f'r ye, as I see it in th' pa-aper. Here ye ar-re: "The band, "Gin'ral Lord Kitchener, K.C.B., K.N., K.L.K., G.K.R. (with medals), "The other gin'rals, "Pianos, Pianolas, Cottage Organs, Ping Pong Sets, Tennis Bats, Bridge Scores, Cricket Stumps, War Corryspondints, "Th' Avingin' Line, "Their horses, "Their ammunition, "Their Food, and "Their Rifles. "As th' dhread formation moved off in th' bright sunlight iv that fair day in March, with th' band playin' a quick shtep an' th' colors flyin' in th' air, it was a sight to make ivry Englishman proud iv th' fact that he had to be an Englishman. Detarmination was written in ivry face--th' detarmination to go on at anny risk till tea time. No flinchin', no hisitation, ivry man with his head erect an' th' feelin' in his heart that on him rested th' security iv th' impire if so. On, an' iver on they marched, fr'm Spimfontein, past th' gleamin' spires iv Wa-aberneck, till they saw in th' distance th' long, low line iv purple light that marked th' walls iv Boobenastofein. It was thin four o'clock P.M., an' th' column halted while th' bugles blew th' cheery call to tea. Eager hands unshipped th' marmalade an' opened th' caddies, bread was toasted on th' small stoves carrid be ivry officer's valet, th' pickets an' scouts were dispatched f'r plum cake an' f'rgettin' f'r a moment th' thriles iv th' campaign, th' rough warryors indulged in that repast that has done so much to make Englishmen what they are. At siven, havin' taken all precautions, havin' placed th' powdher in a cool runnin' brook an' tethered th' mules to th' rifles, th' vast army slept. It was breakfast time whin th' God iv Slumber was dhriven off be th' other British God iv Appetite. Such, Hinnissy, is th' brief story iv Gin'ral Kitchener's cillybrated dhrive, as I read it in th' pa-apers. "To some extint it was succissful an' to some other extints not. Th' bands were good. Th' tea was fine, though some prefer Oolong. Rifles, pompons, mules, fusileers, etcethry had been lost. But not wan British gin'ral had been captured. Not wan. They were all at breakfast an' th' great heart iv th' British nation was sad. Th' great heart begun to grumble, which is a way th' great heart iv a nation has. It ast what was th' use iv this costly manoover--if they was as manny gin'rals left afther it as befure. While in this mood, it was ilicthryfied be a piece iv startlin' intilligince. Th' whisper ran round, grew to be a murmur, increased to a roar, mounted to a shriek that Mechoon was captured. "It seemed too good to be thrue. No wan cud believe it at first. But fin'lly it was officially announced in Parlymint be that hot headed ol' pathrite, Lord Salsberry himsilf. In a voice choked be emotion he arose an' give three cheers. Afther which he read Gin'ral Kitchener's dispatch: 'I have th' pleasure to rayport that yisterdah at nine o'clock Lord Mechoon be a superb sthrategy had himsilf surrounded be an infeeryor foorce iv Boers undher Gin'ral Delaney or some such name. Our cust'mary precaution iv dhrawin' in th' pickets afther nightfall an' buryin' our rifles, which had repeatedly failed in th' past owin' to th' caution iv th' Boers, wurruked admirably. Gin'ral Delaney was completely taken be surprise an' befure he cud recover, Lord Mechoon had thrown himsilf around his neck an' given him his cigreet case in token iv submission. Th' command behaved with gr-reat gallantry. In wan case, a whole comp'ny surrindhered to wan Boer. I am sindin' ricommindations f'r th' Victorya cross be freight. Unforchunitly our casulties were very heavy. Mesilf an' nearly all th' other gin'rals escaped capture. But betther luck nex' time. Gin'ral Dewet is about a mile fr'm here, if in Africa at all, or indeed, livin'. Gin'ral Botha is said to be in Ioway, though ye can't believe ivrything ye see in th' pa-apers. Wan or th' other may be enthrapped into kidnapin' me. In th' manetime I am plannin' right along. I sleep constantly in clothes becomin' me station, an' th' impire may rely on me not makin' a show iv mesilf whin I am took. Ye'ers hopefully, Kitchener.' "Th' Boers niver raycovered fr'm th' tur'ble blow. Their spirits was crushed. Their hopes had fled. Th' kindergartens had opened an' manny iv their bravest warryors had been carried off be their mothers. Anny moment they might be surrounded an' surrindhered to. So wan mornin' th' entire mighty army, th' whole thirty-two iv them, histed th' white flag an' presinted their bill." "An' so th' war is over?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "On'y part iv it," said Mr. Dooley. "Th' part that ye see in th' pitcher pa-apers is over, but th' tax collector will continyoo his part iv th' war with relentless fury. Cav'lry charges are not th' on'y wars in a rale war." Newport "About this time ivry year," said Mr. Dooley, "I go to Newport f'r th' summer." "Ye go where?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "I go to Newport," said Mr. Dooley, calmly, "in th' pa-apers. Newport's always there. I may not find annything about th' fire at th' yards or th' war in th' Ph'lippeens, but if Mrs. Rasther opens a can iv salmon or pounds th' top off an egg, it's down in black an' white be th' fearless hands iv th' iditor. 'Tis a gr-reat joy bein' lithry an' knowin' how to read. Th' air is hot in Ar-rchey Road; ye can see it. It looks an' feels like hot soup with people floatin' around in it like viggytables. Th' smoke poors fr'm th' chimbly iv th' rollin' mills an' comes right down on th' sthreet an' jines us. People ar-re lyin' out iv doors with their mouths open. They'se a gr-reat dale iv cholery infantum an' a few deleeryam thremens. If I cudden't read I'd be hot about th' weather an' things. But whin th' day is darkest an' I don't want to see me best cukkin' frind, I takes me yacht at th' top iv page eight an' goes sailin' off to Newport in me shirt sleeves with twelve inches iv malt in th' hook iv me thumb, an' there I stay till I want to come back an' rest. "'Th' autymobill season has opened in deadly earnest. Manny new machines is seen daily an' wan iv th' delights iv th' summer colony is to go out iv an avenin' an' see th' farmers iv th' neighborhood pluckin' their horses fr'm th' top branches iv threes. Th' younger Hankerbilt has atthracted much attintion be his acc'rate ridin'. Th' other day he made a scoor iv eight fr'm a runnin' start in tin minyits an' this in spite iv th' fact that he was obliged to come back to th' last wan, a Swede named Olson, an' bump him over again. "'Misther Graball, th' Muskegon millionaire who got into s'ciety las' year be dyin' his hair green an' givin' a dinner at which all th' guests rayceived a lumber mill as sooveneers, has returned suddenly fr'm th' West an' his house party is over.' "'Little Aigrette Vandycooker has a tooth, her elder sister a markess, an' her mother a siparation.' "'Misther an' Mrs. Roger Smitherson an' frind ar-re spindin' th' summer at frind's house.' "Gin'rally we lade a life iv quite an' iligant luxury. Wud ye like a line on me daily routine? Well, in th' mornin' a little spin in me fifty-horse power 'Suffer-little-childher,' in th' afthernoon a whirl over th' green wathers iv th' bay in me goold-an'-ivory yacht, in th' avenin' dinner with a monkey or something akelly as good, at night a few leads out iv th' wrong hand, some hasty wurruds an' so to bed. Such is th' spoortin' life in Rhode Island, th' home iv Roger Williams an' others not so much. It grows tiresome afther awhile. I confess to ye, Algernon Hinnissy, that befure th' monkey was inthrajooced, I was sufferin' fr'm what Hogan calls onwee, which is th' same thing as ingrowin' money. I had got tired iv puttin' new storeys on me cottage an' ridin' up in th' ilivator fr'm th' settin' room on th' eighth flure to th' dinin' room on th' twinty-ninth, I didn't care about ayether thrap-shootin' or autymobillin', I felt like givin' a cawrnation dinner to th' poor iv th' village an' feedin' thim me polo ponies, I didn't care whether th' champagne bar'ls was kept iced, whether th' yacht was as long as th' wan ownded be th' Ginger Snap king nex' dure, whether I had three or tin millyon dollars in me pants pocket in th' mornin' or whether th' Poles in th' coal mine was sthrikin' f'r wan dollar an' forty-siven or wan dollar an' forty-eight cints a day. I was tired iv ivrything. Life had me be th' throat, th' black dog was on me back. I felt like suicide or wurruk. Thin come th' bright idee iv me young frind an' th' monkey saved me. He give me something to live f'r. Perhaps we too may be monkeys some day an' be amusin'. We don't talk half as loud or look half as foolish or get dhrunk half as quick, but give us a chanst. We're a young people an' th' monkeys is an old, old race. They've been Newportin' f'r cinchries. Sure that ol' la-ad who said man was descinded fr'm monkeys knew what he was talkin' about. Descinded, but how far? "Now, don't go gettin' cross about th' rich, Hinnissy. Put up that dinnymite. Don't excite ye'ersilf about us folks in Newport. It's always been th' same way, Father Kelly tells me. Says he: 'If a man is wise, he gets rich an' if he gets rich, he gets foolish, or his wife does. That's what keeps th' money movin' around. What comes in at th' ticker goes out at th' wine agent. F'river an' iver people have been growin' rich, goin' down to some kind iv a Newport, makin' monkeys iv thimsilves an' goin' back to th' jungle. 'Tis a steady pro-cission. Aisy come, lazy go. In ivry little hamlet in this broad land, there's some man with a broad jaw an' th' encouragement iv a good woman, makin' ready to shove some other man off his steam yacht. At this very minyit whin I speak, me frind Jawn Grates has his eye on Hankerbilk's house. He wud swing a hammock in th' woodshed this year, but nex' he may have his feet up on th' bannister iv th' front stoop. Whin a captain iv industhry stops dhrinkin' at th' bar, he's near his finish. If he ain't caught in his own person, th' constable will get to his fam'ly. Ye read about th' union iv two gr-reat fortunes. A dollar meets another dollar, they are conganial, have sim'lar tastes, an' manny mutual frinds. They are marrid an' bring up a fam'ly iv pennies, dimes, thirty-cintses an' countherfeits. An' afther awhile, th' fam'ly passes out iv circylation. That's th' histhry iv it,' says Father Kelly. 'An',' says he,' I'm glad there is a Newport,' he says. 'It's th' exhaust pipe,' he says. 'Without it we might blow up,' he says. 'It's th' hole in th' top iv th' kettle,' he says. 'I wish it was bigger,' he says." "Oh, well," said Mr. Hennessy, "we are as th' Lord made us." "No," said Mr. Dooley, "lave us be fair. Lave us take some iv th' blame oursilves." Arctic Exploration "This here business iv Artic exploration's th' gran' pursoot," said Mr. Dooley. "A gran', comfortable, fightin', quarrelin' business." "What's it all about?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Why shud annywan want to go to th' North Pole? Ain't it cold enough here?" "I niver cud quite make it out," said Mr. Dooley. "I've heerd tell that years ago, befure th' fire or th' war, some wan had an idee in his foolish head that they was a gran' sea up there with blue wather dimplin' in th' moonlight an' cocynut threes growin' on th' shore an' if a man cud on'y get in with his boat, he cud sail around th' wurruld an' fetch up in Chiny. That idee blew up an' thin some wan said 'twud be a fine thing f'r science if a white man cud get to th' North Pole. What he'd do if he got there no wan has anny thought. Accordin' to what I hear, th' North Pole ain't like a tillygraft pole, a barber pole, a fishin' pole, a clothes pole, a poll-tax, a Maypole, a Russhyan Pole, or annything that ye can see, smell or ate. Whin ye get to it, it is no diff'rent fr'm bein' annywhere on th' ice. Th' on'y way ye know ye're there is be consultin' a pocket arithmetic, a watch an' a compass. Don't get it into ye'er head that if me frind Baldwin or Peary iver wint north iv Milwaukee an' come acrost th' North Pole they'd carve their names on it or hist a flag over it or bring it home with thim on a thruck an' set it up on th' lake front. Th' north pole is a gigantic column iv cold air, some says hot, an' an enthusyastic explorer that wasn't lookin' where he wint might pass right through it without knowin'. "In th' arly days whin an explorer wint off to find th' Pole, he bought himsilf a sheepskin coat, a couple iv dogs, a pair iv skates, an' a bottle iv pickled onions an' set out bravely, an' th' people watched th' fam'ly to see what other form th' lunacy wud take. Afther awhile he ayether come back or he didn't. Sometimes th' Esqueemo lady didn't care to lave her pleasant home in th' land iv perpetchool blubber an' in that case th' hardy mariner remained in th' frozen north. I niver cud see th' advantages iv life in th' Artic regions. 'Tis thrue th' nights is six months long an' sleep is wan iv th' spoorts that age hasn't deprived me iv. It mus' be a gr-reat counthry f'r burglars. But f'r a plain wurrukin' man it's very thryin'. Think iv a six months' wurrukin' day. Ye get ye'er breakfast at sun-up in March an' ye don't set down to dinner till th' first iv June. Thin comes a long afthernoon an' I tell ye whin th' whistle blows at six o'clock October, it's a welcome sound it sinds to ye'er ears. Ye go home an' all th' childher has growed up an' th' news in th' mornin' pa-per is six months' old. Ye lie around readin' an' playin' cards f'r a month or two an' thin ye yawn an' set th' alarm clock f'r March an' says: 'Mah, it's th' fifteenth iv Novimber an' time th' childher was abed,' an' go to sleep. About Christmas th' good woman wakes ye up to look f'r th' burglar an' afther ye've paddled around in th' ice floe f'r a week, ye climb back into bed grumblin' an' go to sleep again. Afther awhile ye snore an' th' wife iv ye'er bosom punches ye. 'What time is it?' says ye. 'It's a quarther past th' fifteenth iv Janooary,' says she, 'an' that siren iv ye'ers has been goin' since New Year's day.' At March ye ar-re aroused be th' alarm clock an' ye go out to feed th' seals an' I tell ye, ye need a shave. It mus' be a quare sinsation to wake up in th' mornin' an' find that th' kid ye tucked into bed th' night befure has grown side-whiskers in his sleep an' his feet has pushed out th' foot iv th' cradle. Not f'r my money, Hinnissy. Th' Artic regions f'r thim that likes thim but give me a land where ye don't tell th' time iv day be th' almynac. "But other people is diff'rent. Th' boldest Artic explorer is a man that's made his money out iv sellin' base-burnin' stoves an' has chillblains in July. Such a man is niver continted till he's started somebody off f'r th' northest north. An' he has no throuble to find a man. Nex' to bein' invited on a private yacht to sail in th' Middyteranyan, th' nicest thing a millyonaire can do f'r ye is to make an Artic explorer iv ye. Th' prelim'naries is great spoort. F'r two years ye go round th' counthry letchrin' on 'What I will see in th' Artic regions whin I get there if at all.' Fin'lly ye set off with th' fleet, consistin' iv a ship f'r ye'ersilf, three f'r th' provisions, two f'r th' clothes an' wan f'r th' diaries. They'se also a convoy. Th' business iv th' convoy is to dhrop in at Thromsoe in Norway an' ast f'r news iv ye. Thromsoe is wan iv th' farthest north places that anny explorer has been. But it well repays a visit, bein' a thrivin', bustlin' Swede city with a good club. Afther th' long sthruggle with th' pitiliss ice machine it is very pleasant to dhrop in on this hospital community an' come back that night be thrain. Well, as I was sayin', wan explorer starts off in a fur suit an' has th' time iv his life an' th' other explorer stays at home an' suffers th' crool hardships an' bitther disapp'intments iv life in Brooklyn. Lashed to his rockin' chair, he shivers ivry time th' wind blows an' he thinks iv his hardy partner facin' th' purls iv that far-off region iv ice an' snow an' funny little Esqueemo women in union garments iv fur. 'He's in Greenland now; he's battlin' with th' deadly ice floe; now he's rasslin' with a Polar bear; he's up; he's away; he's reached th' Pole; he's pullin' it up be th' roots; bravo Baldy!' An' so he goes till his hands is all chapped fr'm thinkin' iv th' cold an' his leg is lame fr'm th' encounther with a Polar bear an' his rockin' chair is in danger iv bein' dashed to pieces again' th' threacherous pianny. An' wan day a message comes fr'm th' other explorer: 'Rio Janeiro. We have rayturned, baffled but not defeated. Th' pickled walnuts give out befure we reached th' West Indies. As far as we've gone we've had excellent raysults. Th' cap'n, th' mate, th' cook, th' stewart an' eighty per cint iv th' crew is in ir'ns an' as soon as I've got this tillygram off I'm goin' in to punch th' surgeon. I congratylate ye. Ye'er name will stand high among th' binnyfactors iv science. We have demonsthrated beyond fear iv conthrydiction that th' gulf sthream is jus' where it was an' that volcanoes ain't what they are cracked up to be. Our motto is: "Niver give up th' ship. It's too comfortable." Who's ye'er banker here?' Whin th' millyionaire dies iv exposure, a victim to science, th' mariner rayturns an' letchers on th' subject: 'Quarrels I have had in th' frozen north.' Talk about th' terrors, iv Artic exploration, Hinnissy! There's where ye get thim. Did ye iver go to an Artic exploration letcher? I did wanst. They was wan down at th' brothers' school las' winther. I've been lame iver since. "None iv it in mine, if ye plaze. It's too hot wurrik in thim clothes. An' aven if ye get up near th' pole, what's it good f'r? Th' climate is disagreeable, an' th' s'ciety is monotonous. Ivrybody dhresses alike. Th' wan tailor makes th' clothes f'r pah, mah, Lucille an' th' Polar bear out iv th' same patthern. If ye go to coort a girl, ye don't know befure she speaks whether 'tis hersilf or her Uncle Mike. I heerd iv an Artic explorer wanst that held hands with a Swede sicond mate f'r over an hour befure he ralized his mistake. "No, sir, no Artic explorations f'r me, ayether pers'nally or be check. But if I did go into it, I know who I'd sind. I'd not fool around with people who begin to cough within sight iv th' car barns. I'd utilize th' folks in th' neighborhood. I'd pathronize home industhries. Th' Pole f'r th' polars, says I. They mus' be hundherds iv la-ads up in that part iv th' wurruld that'd be willin' to earn an honest dollar be discoverin' th' pole. With thim 'twud be like ye goin' down to explore th' stock yards. I bet manny iv thim knows th' pole as well as I know Haley's slough. Ye'd prob'ly find they've hung their washin' on it f'r years an' manny iv th' kids has shinned up it." "Who'd ye sind?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Esqueemos," said Mr. Dooley. Machinery Mr. Dooley was reading from a paper. "'We live,' he says, 'in an age iv wondhers. Niver befure in th' histhry iv th' wurruld has such progress been made.' "Thrue wurruds an' often spoken. Even in me time things has changed. Whin I was a la-ad Long Jawn Wintworth cud lean his elbows on th' highest buildin' in this town. It took two months to come here fr'm Pittsburg on a limited raft an' a stage coach that run fr'm La Salle to Mrs. Murphy's hotel. They wasn't anny tillygraft that I can raymimber an' th' sthreet car was pulled be a mule an' dhruv be an engineer be th' name iv Mulligan. We thought we was a pro-grissive people. Ye bet we did. But look at us today. I go be Casey's house tonight an' there it is a fine storey-an'-a-half frame house with Casey settin' on th' dure shtep dhrinkin' out iv a pail. I go be Casey's house to-morrah an' it's a hole in th' groun'. I rayturn to Casey's house on Thursdah an' it's a fifty-eight storey buildin' with a morgedge onto it an' they're thinkin' iv takin' it down an' replacin' it with a modhren sthructure. Th' shoes that Corrigan th' cobbler wanst wurruked on f'r a week, hammerin' away like a woodpecker, is now tossed out be th' dozens fr'm th' mouth iv a masheen. A cow goes lowin' softly in to Armours an' comes out glue, beef, gelatine, fertylizer, celooloid, joolry, sofy cushions, hair restorer, washin' sody, soap, lithrachoor an' hed springs so quick that while aft she's still cow, for'ard she may be annything fr'm huttons to Pannyma hats. I can go fr'm Chicago to New York in twinty hours, but I don't have to, thank th' Lord. Thirty years ago we thought 'twas marvelous to be able to tillygraft a man in Saint Joe an' get an answer that night. Now, be wireless tillygraft ye can get an answer befure ye sind th' tillygram if they ain't careful. Me friend Macroni has done that. Be manes iv his wondher iv science a man on a ship in mid-ocean can sind a tillygram to a man on shore, if he has a confid'rate on board. That's all he needs. Be mechanical science an' thrust in th' op'rator annywan can set on th' shore iv Noofoundland an' chat with a frind in th' County Kerry. "Yes, sir, mechanical science has made gr-reat sthrides. Whin I was a young man we used to think Hor'ce Greeley was th' gr-reatest livin' American. He was a gran' man, a gran' man with feathers beneath his chin an' specs on his nose like th' windows in a diver's hemlet. His pollyticks an' mine cudden't live in th' same neighborhood but he was a gran' man all th' same. We used to take th' Cleveland Plain Daler in thim days f'r raycreation an' th' New York Thrybune f'r exercise. 'Twas considhered a test iv a good natured dimmycrat if he cud read an article in th' Thrybune without havin' to do th' stations iv th' cross aftherward f'r what he said. I almost did wanst but they was a line at th' end about a frind iv mine be th' name iv Andhrew Jackson an' I wint out an' broke up a Methodist prayer meetin'. He was th' boy that cud put it to ye so that if ye voted th' dimmycrat tickit it was jus' th' same as demandin' a place in purgytory. Th' farmers wud plant annything fr'm a ruty baga to a congressman on his advice. He niver had money enough to buy a hat but he cud go to th' sicrety iv th' threasury an' tell him who's pitcher to put on th' useful valentines we thrade f'r groceries. "But if Hor'ce Greeley was alive today where'd he be? Settin' on three inches iv th' edge iv a chair in th' outside office iv me frind Pierpont Morgan waitin' f'r his turn. In th' line is th' Imp'ror iv Germany, th' new cook, th' prisidint iv a railroad, th' cap'n iv th' yacht, Rimbrandt th' painther, Jawn W. Grates, an' Hor'ce. Afther awhile th' boy at th' dure says: 'Ye're next, ol' party. Shtep lively f'r th' boss has had a Weehawken Peerooginy sawed off on him this mornin' an' he mustn't he kep' waitin'.' An' th' iditor goes in. 'Who ar-re ye?' says th' gr-reat man, givin' him wan iv thim piercin' looks that whin a man gets it he has to be sewed up at wanst. 'I'm ye'er iditor,' says Hor'ce. 'What's ye'er spishilty?' 'Tahriff an' th' improvemint iv th' wurruld,' says Hor'ce. 'See Perkins,' says Pierpont, an' th' intherview is over. Now what's made th' change? Mechanical Science, Hinnissy. Some wan made a masheen that puts steel billets within th' reach iv all. Hince Charlie Schwab. "What's it done f'r th' wurruld? says ye. It's done ivrything. It's give us fast ships an' an autymatic hist f'r th' hod, an' small flats an' a taste iv solder in th' peaches. If annybody says th' wurruld ain't betther off thin it was, tell him that a masheen has been invinted that makes honey out iv pethrolyum. If he asts ye why they ain't anny Shakesperes today, say: 'No, but we no longer make sausages he hand.' "'Tis pro-gress. We live in a cinchry iv pro-gress an' I thank th' Lord I've seen most iv it. Man an' boy I've lived pretty near through this wondherful age. If I was proud I cud say I seen more thin Julyus Caesar iver see or cared to. An' here I am, I'll not say how old, still pushin' th' malt acrost th' counther at me thirsty counthrymen. All around me is th' refinemints iv mechanical janius. Instead iv broachin' th' beer kag with a club an' dhrawin' th' beer through a fassit as me Puritan forefathers done, I have that wondher iv invintive science th' beer pump. I cheat mesilf with a cash raygisther. I cut off th' end iv me good cigar with an injanyous device an' pull th' cork out iv a bottle with a conthrivance that wud've made that frind that Hogan boasts about, that ol' boy Archy Meeds, think they was witchcraft in th' house. Science has been a gr-reat blessin' to me. But amidst all these granjoors here am I th' same ol' antiquated combination iv bellows an' pump I always was. Not so good. Time has worn me out. Th' years like little boys with jackknives has carved their names in me top. Ivry day I have to write off something f'r deprecyation. 'Tis about time f'r whoiver owns me to wurruk me off on a thrust. Mechanical science has done ivrything f'r me but help me. I suppose I ought to feel supeeryor to me father. He niver see a high buildin' but he didn't want to. He cudden't come here in five days but he was a wise man an' if he cud've come in three he'd have stayed in th' County Roscommon. "Th' pa-apers tells me that midical science has kept pace with th' hop-skip-an'-a-jump iv mechanical inginooty. Th' doctors has found th' mickrobe iv ivrything fr'm lumbago to love an' fr'm jandice to jealousy, but if a brick bounces on me head I'm crated up th' same as iv yore an' put away. Rockyfellar can make a pianny out iv a bar'l iv crude ile, but no wan has been able to make a blade iv hair grow on Rockyfellar. They was a doctor over in France that discovered a kind iv a thing that if 'twas pumped into ye wud make ye live till people got so tired iv seein' ye around they cud scream. He died th' nex' year iv premachure ol' age. They was another doctor cud insure whether th' flex' wan wud be a boy or a girl. All ye had to do was to decide wud it be Arthur or Ethel an' lave him know. He left a fam'ly iv unmarredgeable daughters. "I sometimes wondher whether pro-gress is anny more thin a kind iv a shift. It's like a merry-go-round. We get up on a speckled wooden horse an' th' mechanical pianny plays a chune an' away we go, hollerin'. We think we're thravellin' like th' divvle but th' man that doesn't care about merry-go-rounds knows that we will come back where we were. We get out dizzy an' sick an' lay on th' grass an' gasp: 'Where am I? Is this th' meelin-yum?' An' he says: 'No, 'tis Ar-rchey Road.' Father Kelly says th' Agyptians done things we cudden't do an' th' Romans put up sky-scrapers an' aven th' Chinks had tillyphones an' phony-grafts. "I've been up to th' top iv th' very highest buildin' in town, Hinnissy, an' I wasn't anny nearer Hivin thin if I was in th' sthreet. Th' stars was as far away as iver. An' down beneath is a lot iv us runnin' an' lapin' an' jumpin' about, pushin' each other over, haulin' little sthrips iv ir'n to pile up in little buildin's that ar-re called sky-scrapers but not be th' sky; wurrukin' night an' day to make a masheen that'll carry us fr'm wan jack-rabbit colony to another an' yellin', 'Pro-gress! 'Pro-gress, oho! I can see th' stars winkin' at each other an' sayin': 'Ain't they funny! Don't they think they're playin' hell!' "No, sir, masheens ain't done much f'r man. I can't get up anny kind iv fam'ly inthrest f'r a steam dredge or a hydhraulic hist. I want to see sky-scrapin' men. But I won't. We're about th' same hight as we always was, th' same hight an' build, composed iv th' same inflammable an' perishyable mateeryal, an exthra hazardous risk, unimproved an' li'ble to collapse. We do make pro-gress but it's th' same kind Julyus Caesar made an' ivry wan has made befure or since an' in this age iv masheenery we're still burrid be hand." "What d'ye think iv th' man down in Pinnsylvanya who says th' Lord an' him is partners in a coal mine?" asked Mr. Hennessy, who wanted to change the subject. "Has he divided th' profits?" asked Mr. Dooley. Swearing Did ye see what th' prisidint said to th' throlley man that bumped him?" asked Mr. Dooley. "I did not," said Mr. Hennessy. "What was it?" "I can't tell ye till I get mad," said Mr. Dooley. "Lave us go into ixicutive sission. Whisper. That was it. Ha, ha. He give it to him sthraight. A good, honest, American blankety-blank. Rale language like father used to make whin he hit his thumb with th' hammer. No 'With ye'er lave' or 'By ye'er lave,' but a dacint 'Damn ye, sir,' an' a little more f'r th' sake iv imphasis. "What else wud ye have him do? 'Twas nayether th' time nor th' occasion, as th' candydate said whin they ast him where he got his money, 'twas nayether th' time nor th' occasion f'r wurruds that wud be well rayceived at Chatauqua. A throlley car had pushed him an' diplomatic relations was suspinded. He was up on top iv a bus, hurryin' fr'm speech to speech an' thinkin' what to say next. 'Th' thrusts,' says he to himsilf, ' are heejous monsthers built up be th' inlightened intherprise iv th' men that have done so much to advance pro-gress in our beloved counthry,' he says. 'On wan hand I wud stamp thim undher fut; on th' other hand not so fast. What I want more thin th' bustin' iv th' thrusts is to see me fellow counthrymen happy an' continted. I wudden't have thim hate th' thrusts. Th' haggard face, th' droopin' eye, th' pallid complexion that marks th' inimy iv thrusts is not to me taste. Lave us be merry about it an' jovial an' affectionate. Lave us laugh an' sing th' octopus out iv existence. Betther blue but smilin' lips anny time thin a full coal scuttle an' a sour heart. As Hogan says, a happy peasanthry is th' hope iv th' state. So lave us warble ti-lire-a-lay--' Jus' thin Euclid Aristophanes Madden on th' quarther deck iv th' throlley car give a twisht to his brake an' th' chief ixicutive iv th' nation wint up in th' air with th' song on his lips. He wint up forty, some say, fifty feet. Sicrety Cortilloo says three hundherd an' fifty. Annyhow whin he come down he landed nachrally on his feet. "Now, Hinnissy, no matther what a man may've been wan minyit befure he was hit be a throlley car, a minyit afther he's on'y a man. Th' throlley car plays no fav'rites. It bounces th' high an' th' low alike. It tears th' exalted fr'm their throne an' ilivates th' lowly. So whin th' prisidint got back to the earth he wasn't prisidint anny longer but Tiddy Rosenfelt, 180 pounds iv a man. An' he done accordin'ly. If it'd been Willum Jennings Bryan, he'd've ast th' throlley engineer was he a mimber iv th' Union. If he cud show a wurrukin' card he was entitled to bump anny wan. At worst Willum Jennings Bryan wud've written an article about him in th' Commoner, or if he felt unusually vindicative, maybe he'd sind it to him through th' mails. Whin Sicrety Cortilloo come to fr'm a dhream that he'd jus' rayfused a favor to Sinitor Tillman, he hauled out a little note book an' got ready to take down something that cud be put on th' thransparencies two years fr'm now--something like--'No power on earth can stop American business entherprise.' But nawthin' that will iver be printed in th' first reader dhropped fr'm th' lips iv th' chief exicutive. With two jumps he was in th' throlley man's hair an' spoke as follows--No, I won't say it again. But I'll tell ye this much, a barn-boss that was standin' by an' heerd it, said he niver befure regretted his father hadn't sint him to Harvard. "We know what Wash'nton said to his gin'rals an' what Grant said to Lee an' what Cleveland said to himsilf. They're in th' books. But engraved in th' hearth iv his counthrymen is what Rosenfelt said to th' throlley man. 'Twas good because 'twas so nachral. Most iv th' sayin's I've read in books sounds as though they was made be a patent inkybator. They go with a high hat an' a white tie. Ye can hear th' noise iv th' phonygraft. But this here jim of emotion an' thought come sthraight fr'm th' heart an' wint right to th' heart. That's wan reason I think a lot iv us likes Tiddy Rosenfelt that wudden't iver be suspicted iv votin' f'r him. Whin he does anny talkin'--which he sometimes does--he talks at th' man in front iv him. Ye don't hear him hollerin' at posterity. Posterity don't begin to vote till afther th' polls close. So whin he wished to convey to th' throlley man th' sintimints iv his bosom, he done it in wurruds suited to th' crisis, as Hogan wud say. They do say his remarks singed th' hair off th' head iv th' unforchnit man. "I don't believe in profanity, Hinnissy--not as a reg'lar thing. But it has its uses an' its place. F'r instance, it is issintial to some thrades. No man can be a printer without swearin'. 'Tis impossible. I mind wanst I wint to a printin' office where a frind iv mine be th' name iv Donovan held cases an' I heerd th' foreman say: 'What gintleman is setting A thirty?' he says. 'I am,' says a pale aristocrat with black whiskers who was atin' tobacco in th' rear iv th' room. 'Thin,' says th' foreman, 'ye blankety-blank blacksmith, get a move on ye. D'ye think this is a annyooal incyclopejee?' he says. Ivrybody swore at ivrybody else. Th' little boys runnin' around with type prattled innocent pro-fanity an' afther awhile th' iditor come in an' he swore more thin annybody else. But 'twas aisy to see he'd not lamed th' thrade iv printer. He swore with th' enthusyasm an' inacc'racy iv an amachoor, though I mus' say, he had his good pints. I wisht I cud raymimber what it was he called th' Czar iv Rooshya f'r dyin' jus' as th' pa-aper was goin' to press. I cud've often used it since. But it's slipped me mind. "Swearin' belongs to some thrades,--like printin', bricklayin' an' plumbin'. It is no help at all, at all to tailors, shoemakers, hair-dressers, dintists or authors. A surgeon needs it but a doctor niver. It is a great help in unloadin' a ship an' sailor men always swear--th' cap'n an' mate whin wurruk is goin' on an' th' men befure th' mast at meals. Sojers mus' swear. They'se no way out iv it. It's as much th' equipment iv a sojer as catridges. In vigorous spoort it is niciss'ry but niver at checkers or chess an' sildom at dominoes. Cowboys are compelled to use it. No wan cud rope a cow or cinch a pony without swearin'. A sthrick bringin' up is th' same as havin' a wooden leg on th' plains. Profanity shud be used sparingly if at all on childher--especially girls--an' sildom on women, though I've knowed an occasional domestic: 'Damn ye'er eyes' to wurruk wondhers in reg-latin' a fam'ly. Women can't swear. They have th' feelin' but not th' means. Westhern men swear betther thin Eastern men though I mus' say th' mos' lib'ral swearers I iver knew come fr'm Boston. "But it don't do to use pro-fanity th' way ye wud ordin'ry wurruds. No, sir. Ye've got to save it up an' invist it at th' right time or get nawthin' fr'm it. It's betther thin a doctor f'r a stubbed toe but it niver cured a broken leg. It's a kind iv a first aid to th' injured. It seems to deaden th' pain. Women an' childher cry or faint whin they're hurt. That's because they haven't th' gift iv swearin'. But as I tell ye, they'se no good wastin' it. Th' man that swears at ivrything has nawthin' to say when rale throubles come. I hate to hear annywan spillin' out th' valyable wurruds that he ought to save to be used whin th' shtove-pipe comes down. Not that it shocks me. I'm a dimmycrat. But I know th' foolish man is hurtin' himsilf. Put a little pro-fanity by f'r rainy days, says I. Ye won't miss it an' at th' end iv th' year whin ye renew ye'er lease ye'll be surprised to find out how much ye have on hand. But if ye hurl it broadcast, if ivry time ye open ye'er mouth a hot wan lapes out, th' time will come whin ye'll want to say something scorchin' an' ye'll have nawthin' to say that ye haven't said f'r fun. I'd as soon think iv swearin' f'r pleasure as iv lindin' money f'r pleasure. They ain't too much pro-fanity in th' wurruld. A good dale iv it has been used up since th' coal sthrike begun. Th' govermint ought to presarve it an' prevint annywan fr'm swearin' more thin was niciss'ry f'r to support life. "I niver knew Father Kelly to swear but wanst. 'Twas a little wan, Hinnissy. Dhropped fr'm th' lips iv a polisman it wud've sounded like a 'thank ye kindly.' But, be Hivins, whin I heerd it I thought th' roof wud fall down on th' head iv Scanlan that he was thryin' to show th' evil iv his ways. Melia Murdher, but it was gran'! They was more varchue in that wan damn thin in a fastin' prayer. Scanlan wint to wurruk th' nex' day an' he hasn't tasted a dhrop since. "But th' best thing about a little judicyous swearin' is that it keeps th' temper. 'Twas intinded as a compromise between runnin' away an' fightin'. Befure it was invinted they was on'y th' two ways out iv an argymint." "But I've heerd ye say a man was swearin' mad," said Mr. Hennessy. "He wasn't fightin' mad, thin," said Mr. Dooley. The War Game What's this here war game I've been readin' about?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "It's a kind iv a blind man's buff," said Mr. Dooley. "It's a thrile iv cunnin' an' darin' between th' army an' th' navy. Be manes iv it we tarn whether th' inimy cud sneak into Boston afther dark without annywan seein' thim an' anchor in Boston common. Ye an' I know diff'rent, Hinnissy. We know how manny people are in th' sthreets afther dark. But th' navy don't know an' th' army don't know. Their idee is that a German fleet might gum-shoe up th' harbor in th' dark iv th' moon an' whin people turned out f'r their mornin' dhram, there wud be th' Impror Willum atin' his breakfast iv Hungayrian Goolash an' noodle soup on th' steps iv th' State House iv Matsachoosetts. But it's a gran' game. I'd like to play it mesilf. It's as noisy as forty-fives between Connock men an' as harmless as a steeryopticon letcher. If war an' th' war game was th' same thing, I'd be an admiral, at laste, be this time with me face gashed an' seamed be raspberry jam an' me clothes stained with English breakfast tea. "Th' navy chose to be th' inimy an' 'twas th' jooty iv th' navy to divastate th' New England coast. On th' other hand, th' business iv th' army was to catch th' navy at its neefaryous wurruk an' tag it befure it cud get its fingers crost. To play th' game well, th' navy must act as much like an inimy as it can an' th' army must pretind to be jus' as cross at th' navy as it is whin they are both on the same side. Frindship ceases whin they set in. "It's a hard game to follow if ye're lookin' on an' puttin' up th' money as I am. I've been readin' about it in th' pa-apers an' I can't make out now whether th' inimy is lootin' th' breweries iv Conneticut or whether th' definders iv our hearths has blown thim up in th' harbor iv New London. 'I have th' honor to rayport,' says Admiral Higginson, 'that I have this day desthroyed all th' forts on th' New England coast, put th' definders to rout with gr-reat slaughter an' kilt with me own hands Gin'ral McArthur th' Commander iv th' lan' foorces--a brave man but no match f'r ye'ers thruly. His las' wurruds to me was "Higginson, ye done well!" I rayturned him his soord with th' wurruds: "Gin'ral, between two brave men there can be no hard feelin's." Th' battle in which me gallant foe met his fate was th' con-clusion iv wan iv th' mos' successful socyal an' naval campaigns in th' histhry iv our counthry. I have th' honor to inform ye that promptly on th' declaration iv war, I give an afthernoon tea to th' Duchess iv Marlborough. Th' forts at Newport attimpted to reply, but was unable to scoor more thin three or four westhren millyonaires an' soon succumbed to th' inivitable. I thin moved up th' Sound an' fell upon Gin'ral McArthur whin he wasn't lookin'. Befure he cud load his guns, we poored a perfect blankety-blank hell iv blank catridges on him. He made a spirited reply but t'was useless. We outfought him be nearly fifty thousan' dollars worth iv powdher. In th' mist iv th' flame an' smoke, I discerned th' caitiff foe standin' on top iv a fort directin' his wav'rin' foorces. "Hi-spy, Gin'ral McArthur," says I in claryon tones, an' th' battle was over to all intints an' purposes. I have to ispicially commind Cap'n McWhallop who, findin' his boat caught between th' fires an' th' inimy, called out: "Lay me down, boys, an' save th' ship. I'm full iv marmylade." Th' ladies aboord was perfectly delighted with th' valor an' hospitality iv our men. To-night we completed our wurruk be givin' a dinner an' hop on boord th' flagship. Among those presint was--' an' so on. "That's what th' gallant Higginson says. But listen to what th' akelly gallant McArthur says: 'I have th' honor to rayport that mesilf an' me gallant men, but largely if I do say it that shudden't, mesilf, crushed an' annihilated th' inimy's fleet at high noon to-day. Las' night at th' first round iv jacks, or midnight, as civilyans wud say, we rayceived a rayport fr'm our vigylant scouts that th' inimy were not at Bar Harbor, Pookypsie, Keokuk, Johannesboorg or Council Bluffs. But where were they? That was th' question. An idee struck me. War is as much a matther iv ingenooty an' thought as iv fire an' slaughter. I sint out f'r an avenin' paper an' as I suspicted, it announced that th' craven foe was about two blocks away. At that very moment, th' sthrains iv th' "Bloo Danoob" was wafted to me ears an' me suspicions was confirmed. On such occasions there is no sleep f'r th' modhren sojer. Napolyon wud've gone to bed but slumber niver crost me tired eyelids. 'Twas six o'clock whin we cashed in an' each wint to th' mournful jooties iv th' day, silently but with a heart full iv courage. At high noon, we fell upon th' inimy an' poored out about eighty-five thousan' dollars worth iv near-slaughter on him. His guns was choked with cotillyon favors an' he did not reply at wanst, but whin he did, th' scene was thruly awful. Th' sky was blackened be th' smoke iv smokeless powdher an' th' air was full iv cotton waste fr'm th' fell injines iv desthruction. A breeze fr'm shore carried out to me ears th' wails iv th' wounded tax payers. At twelve fifteen, I descried th' bloodthirsty Higginson--an' a good fellow Caleb is at that--on th' roof iv his boat. "Hi-spy," says he. "Hi-spy ye'er gran'mother," says I. "I've had me eye on ye f'r fifteen minyits an' ye're a dead man as I can prove be witnesses," I says. An' he fell off th' roof. I was sorry to take his life but war knows no mercy. He was a brave man but foolhardy. He ought niver to've gone again' me. He might've licked Cervera but he cudden't lick me. We captured all th' men-iv-war, desthroyed most iv th' cruisers an' ar-re now usin' th' flag-ship f'r a run-about. Th' counthry is safe, thanks to a vigylant an' sleepless army. I will go up to New York tomorrah to be measured f'r th' prisintation soord." "There it is, Hinnissy. Who won? I don't know. I can't tell at this minyit whether I ought to be undher th' bed larnin' German f'r th' time whin a Prooshyan sojer'll poke me out with his saber, or down at Finucane's hall callin' a meetin' to thank th' definders iv th' fireside. Nobody knows. It's a quare game, f'r they tell me afther th' battles has been fought an' th' kilt has gone back to holeystonin' th' deck an' th' smoke fr'm th' chafin' dish has cleared away, th' decision is up to a good figurer at Wash'nton. It depinds on him whether we ar-re a free people or whether we wear th' yoke iv sarvichood an' bad German hats f'r all time. He's th' officyal scoorer an' what Higginson thinks was a base hit, he calls a foul an' what McArthur calls an accipted chanst is an error. Afther th' gallant lads in blue an' gold has got through, a wathry-eyed clerk named Perkins H. Something-or-other, sets down an' figures out th' victhry. Th' man behind th' fountain pen is th' boy. It's up to him whether th' stars an' sthripes still floats over an onconquered people or whether five pfennigs is th' price iv a dhrink in New York. He sets on his high stool an' says he: 'Five times eight is twinty-nine, subthract three f'r th' duchess, a quarther to one o'clock an' eighty miles fr'm Narragansett pier is two-an'-a-half, plus th' load-wather-line iv th' saloon companionway, akel to two-fifths iv th' differentyal tangent. Huroo! Misther Sicrety, ye can go home an' tell ye'er wife th' counthry's safe.' He has to be a smart man. A good book-keeper, as th' pote says, is th' counthry's on'y safety. He mus' be careful, too, d'ye mind. Th' honor iv th' army an' the navy is at stake. Wan or th' other iv thim has been careless." "D'ye think a foreign fleet cud capture this counthry?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Not onless it was op'rated be a throlley," said Mr. Dooley. "Supposin' ye an' I had throuble, Hinnissy, an' both iv us was armed with bricks an' ye was on roller skates an' I was on th' top iv a house, how much chanst wud ye have again' me? Ships is good to fight other ships. That's all. I'd sooner be behind a bank iv mud thin in th' finest ship in th' wurruld. A furrin inimy thryin' to get up to New York wud be like a blind burglar attimptin' to walk on th' top iv a hot-house with all th' neighbors an' th' neighbors' dogs waitin' f'r him. Th' war game is all right. It don't do anny harm. But it's like punchin' th' bag an' I'd jus' as soon thrain a man f'r a fight be larnin' him to play th' mandolin, as be insthructin' him in bag punchin'. It's a fine game. I don't know who won, but I know who lost." "Who's that?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "Th' threeasury," said Mr. Dooley. Newspaper Publicity "Was ye iver in th' pa-apers?" asked Mr. Dooley. "Wanst," said Mr. Hennessy. "But it wasn't me. It was another Hinnissy. Was you?" "Manny times," said Mr. Dooley. "Whin I was prom'nent socyally, ye cud hardly pick up a pa-aper without seein' me name in it an' th' amount iv th' fine. Ye must lade a very simple life. Th' newspaper is watchin' most iv us fr'm th' cradle to th' grave, an' befure an' afther. Whin I was a la-ad thrippin' continted over th' bogs iv Roscommon, ne'er an iditor knew iv me existence, nor I iv his. Whin annything was wrote about a man 'twas put this way: 'We undhershtand on good authority that M--l--chi H---y, Esquire, is on thrile before Judge G----n on an accusation iv l--c--ny. But we don't think it's true.' Nowadays th' larceny is discovered be a newspa-aper. Th' lead pipe is dug up in ye'er back yard be a rayporther who knew it was there because he helped ye bury it. A man knocks at ye'er dure arly wan mornin' an' ye answer in ye'er nighty. 'In th' name iv th' law, I arrist ye,' says th' man seizin' ye be th' throat. 'Who ar-re ye?' ye cry. 'I'm a rayporther f'r th' Daily Slooth,' says he. 'Phottygrafter, do ye'er jooty!' Ye're hauled off in th' circylation wagon to th' newspaper office, where a con-fission is ready f'r ye to sign; ye're thried be a jury iv th' staff, sintinced be th' iditor-in-chief an' at tin o'clock Friday th' fatal thrap is sprung be th' fatal thrapper iv th' fam'ly journal. "Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, conthrols th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward. They ain't annything it don't turn its hand to fr'm explaining th' docthrine iv thransubstantiation to composin' saleratus biskit. Ye can get anny kind iv information ye want to in ye'er fav'rite newspaper about ye'ersilf or annywan else. What th' Czar whispered to th' Imp'ror Willum whin they were alone, how to make a silk hat out iv a wire matthress, how to settle th' coal sthrike, who to marry, how to get on with ye'er wife whin ye're married, what to feed th' babies, what doctor to call whin ye've fed thim as directed,--all iv that ye'll find in th' pa-apers. "They used to say a man's life was a closed book. So it is but it's an open newspaper. Th' eye iv th' press is on ye befure ye begin to take notice. Th' iditor obsarves th' stork hoverin' over th' roof iv 2978 1/2 B Ar-rchey Road an' th' article he writes about it has a wink in it. 'Son an' heir arrives f'r th' Hon'rable Malachi Hinnissy,' says th' pa-aper befure ye've finished th' dhrink with th' doctor. An' afther that th' histhry iv th' offspring's life is found in th' press: "'It is undhershtud that there is much excitement in th' Hinnissy fam'ly over namin' th' lates' sign. Misther Hinnissy wishes it called Pathrick McGlue afther an uncle iv his, an' Mrs. Hinnissy is in favor iv namin' it Alfonsonita afther a Pullman car she seen wan day. Th' Avenin Fluff offers a prize iv thirty dollars f'r th' bes' name f'r this projeny. Maiden ladies will limit their letters to three hundherd wurruds.' "'Above is a snap shot iv young Alfonsonita McGlue Hinnissy, taken on his sicond birthday with his nurse, Miss Angybel Blim, th' well-known specyal nurse iv th' Avenin' Fluff. At th' time th' phottygraft was taken, th' infant was about to bite Miss Blim which accounts f'r th' agynized exprission on that gifted writer's face. Th' Avenin Fluff offers a prize iv four dollars to th' best answer to th' question: "What does th' baby think iv Miss Blim?"' "'Young Alf Hinnissy was siven years ol' yisterdah. A rayporther iv th' Fluff sought him out an' indeavored to intherview him on th' Nicaragooan Canal, th' Roomanyan Jews, th' tahriff an' th' thrusts. Th' comin' statesman rayfused to be dhrawn on these questions, his answer bein' a ready, "Go chase ye'ersilf, ye big stiff!" Afther a daylightful convarsation th' rayporther left, bein' followed to th' gate be his janial young host who hit him smartly in th' back with a brick. He is a chip iv th' ol' block.' "'Groton, Conn., April 8. Ye'er rayporther was privileged to see th' oldest son iv th' Hon'rable Malachi Hinnissy started at this siminary f'r th' idjacation iv young Englishmen bor-rn in America. Th' heir iv th' Hinnissys was enthered at th' exclusive school thirty years befure he was bor-rn. Owin' to th' uncertainty iv his ancesthors he was also enthered at Vassar. Th' young fellow took a lively intherest in th' school. Th' above phottygraft riprisints him mathriculatin'. Th' figures at th' foot ar-re Misther an' Mrs. Hinnissy. Those at th' head ar-re Profissor Peabody Plantagenet, prisident iv th' instichoochion an' Officer Michael H. Rafferty. Young Hinnissy will remain here till he has a good cukkin' idjacation.' "'Exthry Red Speshul Midnight Edition. Mumps! Mumps! Mumps! Th' heir iv th' Hinnissy's sthricken with th' turr'ble scoorge. Panic on th' stock exchange. Bereaved father starts f'r th' plague spot to see his afflicted son. Phottygrafts iv Young Hinnissy at wan, two, three, eight an' tin. Phottygrafts iv th' house where his father was born, his mother, his aunt, his uncle, Profissor Plantagenet, Groton School, th' gov'nor iv Connecticut, Chansy Depoo, statue iv Liberty, Thomas Jefferson, Niagara Falls be moonlight. Diagram iv jaw an' head showin' th' prob'ble coorse iv the Mumpococeus. Intherviews with J. Pierpont Morgan, Terry McGovern, Mary MeLain, Jawn Mitchell, Lyman J. Gage, th' Prince iv Wales, Sinitor Bivridge, th' Earl iv Roslyn, an' Chief Divry on Mumps. We offer a prize iv thirty million dollars in advertisin' space f'r a cure f'r th' mumps that will save th' nation's pride. Later, it's croup.' "An' so it goes. We march through life an' behind us marches th' phottygrafter an' th' rayporther. There are no such things as private citizens. No matther how private a man may be, no matther how secretly he steals, some day his pitcher will be in th' pa-aper along with Mark Hanna, Stamboul 2:01 1/2, Fitzsimmons' fightin' face, an' Douglas, Douglas, Tin dollar shoe. He can't get away fr'm it. An' I'll say this f'r him, he don't want to. He wants to see what bad th' neighbors are doin' an' he wants thim to see what good he's doin'. He gets fifty per cint iv his wish; niver more. A man keeps his front window shade up so th' pa-apers can come along an' make a pitcher iv him settin' in his iligant furnished parlor readin' th' life iv Dwight L. Moody to his fam'ly. An' th' lad with th' phottygraft happens along at th' moment whin he is batin' his wife. If we wasn't so anxious to see our names among those prisint at th' ball, we wudden't get into th' pa-apers so often as among those that ought to be prisint in th' dock. A man takes his phottygraft to th' iditor an' says he: 'Me attintion has been called to th' fact that ye'd like to print this mug iv a prom'nent philanthropist;' an' th' iditor don't use it till he's robbed a bank. Ivrybody is inthrested in what ivrybody else is doin' that's wrong. That's what makes th' newspapers. An' as this is a dimmycratic counthry where ivrybody was bor-rn akel to ivrybody else, aven if they soon outgrow it, an' where wan man's as good as another an' as bad, all iv us has a good chanst to have his name get in at laste wanst a year. "Some goes in at Mrs. Rasther's dinner an' some as victims iv a throlley car, but ivrybody lands at last. They'll get ye afther awhile, Hinnissy. They'll print ye'er pitcher. But on'y wanst. A newspaper is to intertain, not to teach a moral lesson." "D'ye think people likes th' newspapers iv th' prisint time?" asked Mr. Hennessy. "D'ye think they're printed f'r fun?" said Mr. Dooley. Adventure "What a life iv advinture I have led, to be sure. I've niver been still a minyit since I cud see an' hear--always on th' go, performin' heeroyc actions on land an' sea. Between th' ages iv eight an' fifteen I bet ye I caught more runaway teams thin all th' park polismen in th' wurruld. I begun with stoppin' th' horses iv a man called Monahan that owned a canal boat an' askin' as a reward that he give me a job dhrivin' th' mule. But I rose rapidly in th' wurruld, an' befure I was fifteen I was dashin' out nearly ivry hour an' nailin' a team iv maddened animals in th' bullyvard an' savin' th' life iv th' pet daughther iv a millyonaire. She usully accepted me young hand in marredge in th' dhrug store. But sometimes whin I needed a top or a kite I took money. I'm ashamed to con-fiss it, but I did. Iv coorse I rayfused th' first offer iv th' pluthycrat. Whin he thried to crowd wan millyon dollar on me, I give him a look iv scorn an' moved away. He was tur-rbly ashamed iv his onmanly action an' followed me up an' be sharp schamin' managed to get two millyons to me in a way that I cuddn't resint. I think it come in th' shape iv an advance payment on th' dowry. "At fifteen I quit stoppin' runaway horses as on'y suited to childher. After that I wint in almost entirely f'r knockin' down arnychists as they was about to shoot. I saved th' life iv th' Impror iv Rooshya, an' he was anxious f'r to have me stay at th' coort, but people begun to talk about me an' wan iv th' rile princesses an' I left. On my way home I seized an arnychist jus' as he had raised his pistol again th' Prince iv Wales, an' as a reward he freed Ireland on th' spot. I rayceived an ovation f'r this in Dublin in 1860 or thereabouts, but I disclaimed anny glory, was always willin' to do annything f'r me counthry, wisht them th' best iv luck: gintlemen, I can on'y say, I thank ye, I thank ye, I thank ye. "Me raycint advintures has been more in th' spoortin' line. I had to give up futball afther winnin' victhry f'r me almy matther f'r four successive years be a suparb run aroun' th' end. F'r a long time I sailed th' cup dayfinder ivry year, an' always won be a sthrategy that no wan but mesilf undherstands. I've killed iliphants an' tigers be th' hundherd, rescooed people fr'm dhrownin' be th' thousan', climbed up th' outside iv a burnin' buildin' an' come down with two or three fine-lookin' ladies in me arms, captured forts, charged armies, knocked out th' wurruld's greatest pugilists with a punch, led revolutions, suppressed thim, an' done it all modestly an' quietly. "Iv coorse I won't say 'twas always th' spirit iv advinture led me into these gallant acts. If I must tell ye th' thruth I've gin'rally took less intherest in th' advinture itself thin in th' reward. I'm always a little hazy about th' details iv how I saved th' girl fr'm th' rapids iv Niagra whin I can't swim, or how I happened to hit th' tiger in th' eye whin I'm so afraid iv firearms, or how I stopped th' runaway team whin I know that th' other day whin th' milkman's horse broke loose th' best I cud do was run to th' edge iv th' sidewalk an' wring me hands an' yell: "Whoa!" But th' grateful millyonaire is always distinct. I can always hear th' cheers iv th' crowd as I come dhrippin' fr'm th' wather. Though th' raison I happened to be ladin' me rig'mint up th' hill iv San Joon is not clear to me now, I can plainly see mesilf returnin' fr'm th' war, bronzed and weather-beaten, settin' erect on me horse an' respondin' to th' frantic cheers iv th' multichood with a slight bow. I always used to lose an arm or part iv an arm, but I've larned that isn't nicess'ry. "An' where have all these advintures occurred, d'ye say? Well, some iv th' most feerocyous iv thim happened in me bedroom, an' some on th' front stoop iv th' house on warm moonlight nights, but most iv thim here in this room in front iv th' fire. Be rights th' walls ought to be dic'rated with moose antlers, tigers' heads, diplomas, soords, votes iv Congress, medals an' autygrafted pitchers iv th' crowned heads iv Europe. Th' best advintures anny iv us has is at home in a comf'rtable room--th' mos' excitin' an' th' asiest. Ye can make ye'ersilf as brave as ye want an' as cool, ye avide mussin' ye'er clothes, ye flavor with danger to suit th' taste, an' ye get a good dale more applause an' get it quicker thin th' other kind iv hayro. F'r manny years I've shot all me tigers fr'm this rockin' chair." Rights and Privileges of Women "Woman's rights? What does a woman want iv rights whin she has priv'leges? Rights is th' last thing we get in this wurruld. They're th' nex' things to wrongs. They're wrongs tur-ned inside out. We have th' right to be sued f'r debt instead iv lettin' the bill run, which is a priv'lege. We have th' right to thrile be a jury iv our peers, a right to pay taxes an' a right to wurruk. None iv these things is anny good to me. They'se no fun in thim. All th' r-rights I injye I don't injye. I injye th' right to get money, but I niver have had anny money to spind. Th' constichooshion guarantees me th' right to life, but I die; to liberty, but if I thry bein' too free I'm locked up; an' to th' pursoot iv happiness, but happiness has th' right to run whin pursood, an' I've niver been able to three her yet. Here I am at iver-so-manny years iv age blown an' exhausted be th' chase, an' happiness is still able to do her hundhred yards in tin minyits flat whin I approach. I'd give all th' rights I read about for wan priv-lege. If I cud go to sleep th' minyit I go to bed I wudden't care who done me votin'. "No, sir, a woman don't need rights. Th' pope, imprors, kings an' women have priv-leges; ordhin'ry men has rights. Ye niver hear iv th' Impror of Rooshya demandin' rights. He don't need thim in his wurruk. He gives thim, such as they ar're, to th' moojiks, or whativer it is ye call thim. D'ye think anny wan wud make a gr-reat success be goin' to th' Czar an' sayin': "Czar (or sire, as th' case may be), ye must be unhappy without th' sufferage. Ye must be achin' all over to go down to th' livry stable an' cast ye'er impeeral ballot f'r Oscaroviski K. Hickinski f'r school thrustee?" I think th' Czar wud reply: 'Gintlemen, ye do me too much honor. I mus' rayfuse. Th' manly art iv sufferage is wan iv th' most potint weepins iv th' freeman, but I'm not used to it, an' I wudden't know what to do with it. It might be loaded. I think I'll have to crawl along with me modest preerogatives iv collectin' th' taxes, dalin' life an' death to me subjicks, atin' free, dhrinkin' th' best an' livin' aisy. But ye shall have ye'er rights. Posieotofski, lade th' gintlemen out into th' coortyard an' give thim their rights as Rooshyan citizens. I think about twinty f'r each iv th' comity an' about a dozen exthry f'r the chairman. F'r wan iv th' rights guaranteed to his subjicks, be me sainted father, was a good latherin' ivry time it was comin' to thim.' "An' so it is with women. They haven't th' right to vote, but they have th' priv'lege iv conthrollin' th' man ye ilict. They haven't th' right to make laws, but they have th' priv'lege iv breakin' thim, which is betther. They haven't th' right iv a fair thrile be a jury iv their peers; but they have th' priv'lege iv an unfair thrile be a jury iv their admirin' infeeryors. If I cud fly d'ye think I'd want to walk?" Avarice and Generosity "I niver blame a man f'r bein' avaricyous in his ol' age. Whin a fellow gits so he has nawthin' else to injye, whin ivrybody calls him 'sir' or 'mister,' an' young people dodge him an' he sleeps afther dinner, an' folks say he's an ol' fool if he wears a buttonhole bokay an' his teeth is only tinants at will an' not permanent fixtures, 'tis no more thin nach'ral that he shud begin to look around him f'r a way iv keepin' a grip on human s'ciety. It don't take him long to see that th' on'y thing that's vin'rable in age is money an' he pro-ceeds to acquire anything that happens to be in sight, takin' it where he can find it, not where he wants it, which is th' way to accumylate a fortune. Money won't prolong life, but a few millyons judicyously placed in good banks an' occas'nally worn on th' person will rayjooce age. Poor ol' men are always older thin poor rich men. In th' almshouse a man is decrepit an' mournful-lookin' at sixty, but a millyonaire at sixty is jus' in th' prime iv life to a frindly eye, an' there are no others. "It's aisier to th' ol' to grow rich thin it is to th' young. At makin' money a man iv sixty is miles ahead iv a la-ad iv twinty-five. Pollytics and bankin' is th' on'y two games where age has th' best iv it. Youth has betther things to attind to, an' more iv thim. I don't blame a man f'r bein' stingy anny more thin I blame him f'r havin' a bad leg. Ye know th' doctors say that if ye don't use wan iv ye'er limbs f'r a year or so ye can niver use it again. So it is with gin'rosity. A man starts arly in life not bein' gin'rous. He says to himsilf: "I wurruked f'r this thing an' if I give it away I lose it." He ties up his gin'rosity in bandages so that th' blood can't circylate in it. It gets to be a superstition with him that he'll have bad luck if he iver does annything f'r annybody. An' so he rakes in an' puts his private mark with his teeth on all th' movable money in th' wurruld. But th' day comes whin he sees people around him gettin' a good dale iv injyemint out iv gin'rosity an' somewan says: 'Why don't ye, too, be gin-rous? Come, ol' green goods, unbelt, loosen up, be gin-rous.' 'Gin'rous?' says he, 'what's that?' 'It's th' best spoort in th' wurruld. It's givin' things to people.' 'But I can't,' he says. 'I haven't annything to do it with,' he says. 'I don't know th' game. I haven't anny gin'rosity,' he says. 'But ye have,' says they. 'Ye have as much gin'rosity as annywan if ye'll only use it,' says they. 'Take it out iv th' plasther cast ye put it in an' 'twill look as good as new,' says they. An' he does it. He thries to use his gin'rosity, but all th' life is out iv it. It gives way undher him an' he falls down. He can't raise it fr'm th' groun'. It's ossyfied an' useless. I've seen manny a fellow that suffered fr'm ossyfied gin'rosity. "Whin a man begins makin' money in his youth at annything but games iv chance, he niver can become gin'rous late in life. He may make a bluff at it. Some men are gin'rous with a crutch. Some men get the use of their gin'rosity back suddenly whin they ar-re in danger. Whin Clancy the miser was caught in a fire in th' Halsted Sthreet Palace hotel he howled fr'm a window: 'I'll give twinty dollars to annywan that'll take me down.' Cap'n Minehan put up a laddher an' climbed to him an' carrid him to the sthreet. Half-way down th' laddher th' brave rayscooer was seen to be chokin' his helpless burdhen. We discovered aftherwards that Clancy had thried to begin negotyations to rayjooce th' reward to five dollars. His gin'rosity had become suddenly par'lyzed again. "So if ye'd stay gin'rous to th' end niver lave ye'er gin'rosity idle too long. Don't run it ivry hour at th' top iv its speed, but fr'm day to day give it a little gintle exercise to keep it supple an' hearty an' in due time ye may injye it." The End of Things "The raison no wan is afraid iv Death, Hinnessy, is that no wan ra-ally undherstands it. If anny wan iver come to undherstand it he'd be scared to death. If they is anny such thing as a cow'rd, which I doubt, he's a man that comes nearer realizin' thin other men, how seeryous a matther it is to die. I talk about it, an' sometimes I think about it. But how do I think about it? It's me lyin' there in a fine shoot iv clothes an' listenin' to all th' nice things people are sayin' about me. I'm dead, mind ye, but I can hear a whisper in the furthest corner iv th' room. Ivry wan is askin' ivry wan else why did I die. 'It's a gr-reat loss to th' counthry,' says Hogan. 'It is,' says Donahue. 'He was a fine man,' says Clancy. 'As honest a man is iver dhrew th' breath iv life,' says Schwartzmeister. 'I hope he forgives us all th' harm we attimpted to do him,' says Donahue. 'I'd give annything to have him back,' says Clancy. 'He was this and that, th' life iv th' party, th' sowl iv honor, th' frind iv th' disthressed, th' boolwark iv th' constichoochion, a pathrite, a gintleman, a Christyan an' a scholard.' 'An' such a roguish way with him,' says th' Widow O'Brien. "That's what I think, but if I judged fr'm expeeryence I'd know it'd be, 'It's a nice day f'r a dhrive to th' cimitry. Did he lave much?' No man is a hayro to his undertaker." Hypocrisy "It must be a good thing to be good or ivrybody wudden't be pretendin' he was. But I don't think they'se anny such thing as hypocrisy in th' wurruld. They can't be. If ye'd turn on th' gas in th' darkest heart ye'd find it had a good raison for th' worst things it done, a good varchous raison, like needin' th' money or punishin' th' wicked or tachin' people a lesson to be more careful, or protectin' th' liberties iv mankind, or needin' the money." History "I know histhry isn't thrue, Hinnessy, because it ain't like what I see ivry day in Halsted Sthreet. If any wan comes along with a histhry iv Greece or Rome that'll show me th' people fightin', gettin' dhrunk, makin' love, gettin' married, owin' th' grocery man an' bein' without hard-coal, I'll believe they was a Greece or Rome, but not befure. Historyans is like doctors. They are always lookin' f'r symptoms. Those iv them that writes about their own times examines th' tongue an' feels th' pulse an' makes a wrong dygnosis. Th' other kind iv histhry is a post-mortem examination. It tells ye what a counthry died iv. But I'd like to know what it lived iv." Enjoyment "I don't think we injye other people's sufferin', Hinnessy. It isn't acshally injyement. But we feel betther f'r it." Gratitude "Wan raison people ar-re not grateful is because they're proud iv thimsilves an' they niver feel they get half what they desarve. Another raison is they know ye've had all th' fun ye're entitled to whin ye do annything f'r annybody. A man who expicts gratichood is a usurer, an' if he's caught at it he loses th' loan an' th' intherest." 
31718	----	[Illustration: "I don't want to fight! I'm glad it's not ladylike to fight, it scares me so!" [Page 12.]] THE ROSIE WORLD BY PARKER FILLMORE Author of "The Hickory Limb," "The Young Idea" With Illustrations by MAGINEL WRIGHT ENRIGHT NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1914 Copyright, 1914. BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY _Published September, 1914_ Parts of _The Rosie World_ have appeared serially in _Everybody's Magazine_ under the titles: "The Chin-Chopper," "A Little Savings Account," copyright, 1912, by The Ridgway Company; "A Little Mother Hen," "The Loan of a Gentleman Friend," "Crazy with the Heat," copyright, 1913, by The Ridgway Company; "The Stenog," "The Watch-Dog," "The Rosie Morrow," copyright, 1914, by The Ridgway Company; and in _Smith's Magazine_ under the title: "What Every Lady Wants," copyright, 1913, by Street & Smith. To Gilman Hall CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE CHIN-CHOPPER 1 II THE SCHNITZER 7 III THE PAPER-GIRL 18 IV A LITTLE SAVINGS ACCOUNT 25 V GEORGE RILEY ON MUCKERS 40 VI JACKIE 47 VII HOW TO KEEP A DUCK OUT OF WATER 59 VIII A LITTLE MOTHER HEN 67 IX JANET'S AUNT KITTY 78 X ROSIE RECEIVES AN INVITATION 87 XI THE TRACTION BOYS' PICNIC 93 XII THE LOAN OF A GENTLEMAN FRIEND 99 XIII JANET EXPLAINS 107 XIV ON SCARS AND BRUISES 113 XV THE BRUTE AT BAY 123 XVI WHAT EVERY LADY WANTS 130 XVII ROSIE PROMISES TO BE GOOD 143 XVIII ON THE CULTURE OF BABIES 147 XIX CRAZY WITH THE HEAT 157 XX A FEVERED WORLD 165 XXI THE STORM 168 XXII A CHANCE FOR GERALDINE 171 XXIII HOME AGAIN 175 XXIV GEORGE TURNS 182 XXV DANNY AGIN ON LOVE 194 XXVI ELLEN 204 XXVII ROSIE URGES COMMON SENSE 213 XXVIII JANET USES STRONG LANGUAGE 224 XXIX THE CASE OF DAVE MCFADDEN 234 XXX JANET TO HER OWN FATHER 242 XXXI DANNY'S SUGGESTION 254 XXXII THE SUBSTITUTE LADY 264 XXXIII ELLEN'S CAREER 273 XXXIV THE KIND-HEARTED GENTLEMAN 285 XXXV ELLEN MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT 292 XXXVI THE HAPPY LOVER 298 XXXVII THE SISTERS 304 XXXVIII ELLEN HAS HER FLING 308 XXXIX THE WATCH-DOG 317 XL MR. HARRY LONG EXPLAINS 322 XLI THE GREATEST TEACHER IN THE WORLD 335 XLII THE ROSIE MORROW 349 ILLUSTRATIONS "I don't want to fight! I'm glad it's not ladylike to fight, it scares me so!" _Frontispiece_ PAGE "Here, baby darlint, go to sister Rosie" 48 Rosie gently lifted off his nightshirt and held the candle close 60 "Because you kiss Janet McFadden, you needn't think you can kiss any girl" 106 Rosie stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and very serious 148 She read it again by the light of the candle 290 To be the confidant of Mrs. O'Brien in this particular disappointment was embarrassing, to say the least 298 They all looked at Rosie, who sat, oblivious of them, staring off into nothing 332 THE ROSIE WORLD CHAPTER I THE CHIN-CHOPPER Mrs. O'Brien raised helpless distracted hands. "Off wid yez to school!" she shouted. "All of yez! Make room for George!" What Mrs. O'Brien really called her boarder is best represented by spelling his name Jarge. "Maybe I didn't have a dandy fight on my last trip down," George announced as he took off his coat and began washing his hands at the sink. The young O'Briens clustered about him eagerly. "Did you lick him, Jarge?" Terry asked. "Tell us about it!" Rosie begged. "Will yez be off to school!" Mrs. O'Brien again shouted. No one heeded her in the least. George by this time was seated at the table and Rosie was hanging over his shoulder. Terence and small Jack stood facing him at the other side of the table and Miss Ellen O'Brien, with the baby in her arms, lingered near the door. "Your cabbage'll be stone cold," Mrs. O'Brien scolded, "and they'll all be late for school if they don't be off wid 'em!" "Was he drunk, Jarge?" Rosie asked. "No, but he'd been taking too much." George spoke through a mouthful of corned beef and cabbage. "Aw, go on," Terry pleaded, "tell us all about it." "They ain't much to tell," George declared, with a complacency that belied his words. "He was nuthin' but a big stiff about nine feet high and built double across the shoulders." George sighed and cocked his eye as though bored at the necessity of recounting his adventure. Then, just to humour them, as it were, he continued: "I see trouble as soon as he got on. They was plenty of empty seats on one side, but the first thing I knew he was hanging on a strap on the crowded side insultin' a poor little lady. He wasn't sayin' nuthin' but he was just hangin' over her face, lookin' at her and grinnin' until she was ready to cry out for shame." "The brute!" snapped Mrs. O'Brien as she slopped down a big cup of coffee. "Did you throw him off?" Terence asked. George took an exasperating time to swallow, then complained: "You mustn't hurry me so. 'Tain't healthy to hurry when you eat." Ellen O'Brien tossed her head disdainfully. "If that's all you've got to say, Mr. Riley, I guess I'll be going." Rosie turned on her big sister scornfully. "Aw, why don't you call him Jarge? Ain't he been boarding with us a whole week now?" To show the degree of intimacy she herself felt, Rosie slipped an arm about George's neck. Ellen sniffed audibly. George had not been looking at the elder Miss O'Brien but, from the haste with which now he finished his story, it was evident that he wished her to hear it. "When I see he was looking for trouble, I went right up to him and says: 'If you can't sit down and act ladylike, just get off this car.' And then he looks down at me and grins like a jackass and says: 'Who do you think you are?' 'Who do I think I am?' I says; 'I'm the conductor of this car and my number's eight-twenty and, if I get any more jawin' from you, I'll throw you off.' He'd make two of me in size but I could see from the look of him he was nuthin' to be afraid of. So, when he grins down at the little lady again and then drops his strap to turn clean around to me and poke out his jaw, I up and gives him a good chin-chopper." George stopped as if this were the end and his auditors grumbled in balked expectancy: "Aw, go on, Jarge, tell us what you did." "Well, if that's the end of your story, Mr. Riley, I'm going." "The brute, insultin' a lady!" It was Rosie who demanded in desperation: "But, Jarge, what is a chin-chopper?" "Chin-chopper? Why, don't you know what a chin-chopper is?" George paused in his eating to explain. "A chin-chopper is when a big stiff pokes out his jaw at you and then, before he knows what you're doing, you up and push him one under the chin with the inside of your hand. It tips him over just like a ninepin." "Oh, Jarge, do you mean you knocked him down on the floor of the car?" By this time Rosie was skipping and hopping in excitement. "Sure that's what I mean." "And then, Jarge, when you had him down, what did you do?" "What did I do? Why, then I danced on him, of course." George jumped up from his chair and, indicating a prostrate form on the kitchen floor, proceeded to execute a series of wild jig steps over limbs and chest. Rosie clapped her hands. "Good, good, good, Jarge! And then what did you do?" "What did I do? Why, then I snatches off the stiff's hat and throws it out the window. As luck went, it landed in a fine big mud-puddle. Then I pulls the bell and says to him, 'Now, you big bully, if you've had enough, get off this car and go home and tell your wife she wants you.'" "And, Jarge, did he get off?" "Did he? I wonder! He couldn't get off quick enough!" George glanced timidly toward Ellen in hopes, apparently, that his prowess would meet the same favour from her as from the others. Ellen caught his look and instantly tightened her lips in disgust. "I think it's perfectly disgraceful to get in fights!" Under the scorn of her words George withered into silence. Terence rallied instantly to his defence. He turned on his older sister angrily. "Aw, go dry up, you old school-teacher!" "I'm not an old school-teacher!" Ellen cried. "And you just stop calling me names! Ma, Terence is calling me an old school-teacher and you don't say a thing!" Mrs. O'Brien looked at her son reprovingly. "Why, Terry lad, I'm surprised at you callin' your poor sister Ellen a thing like that! You know as well as I that she's not an old school-teacher." "Well, anyway," Terence growled, "she talks like one." Rosie's wild spirits, meantime, had vanished. She sighed heavily. "Say, Jarge, wisht I was a boy." George looked at her kindly. "What makes you say that, Rosie?" "Oh, nuthin'. Only I know some stiffs I'd like to try a chin-chopper on." George eyed her a little uneasily. "Aw, now, Rosie, you oughtn't to talk that way. You're a girl and 'tain't ladylike for girls to fight." "I know, Jarge. That's why I say I wisht I was a boy." George grew thoughtful. "Of course, though, Rosie, I wouldn't have blamed the little lady in the car if she had poked her hatpin into that fellow. It's all right for a lady to do anything in self-defence." In Rosie's face a sudden interest gathered. "Ain't it unladylike, Jarge, if it's in self-defence?" George answered emphatically: "Of course not--not if it's in self-defence." He would have said more but Terence interrupted: "What's the matter, Rosie? Any one been teasing you?" Rosie answered quickly, almost too quickly: "Oh, no, no! I was just a-talkin' to Jarge----" "Well, just stop yir talkin' and be off wid yez to school! Do ye hear me now, all o' yez!" Mrs. O'Brien opened the kitchen door and, raising her apron aloft, drove them out with a "Shoo!" as though they were so many chickens. CHAPTER II THE SCHNITZER "Tell me now, Rosie, are you having any trouble with your papers?" Terence asked this as he and Rosie and little Jack started off for school. Terence had a regular newspaper business which kept him busy every day from the close of school until dark. His route had grown so large that recently he had been forced to engage the services of one or two subordinates. Rosie had begged to be given a job as paper-carrier, to deliver the papers in their own immediate neighbourhood, and Terence was at last allowing her a week's trial. If she could be a newsgirl without attracting undue attention, he would be as willing to pay her twenty cents a week as to pay any ordinary small boy a quarter. Twenty cents seemed a princely wage to one handicapped by the limitation of sex, and Rosie was determined to make good. So, when Terence inquired whether she were having any trouble, she declared at once: "No, Terry, honest I'm not. Every one's just as nice and kind to me as they can be. Those two nice Miss Grey ladies always give me a cookie, and nice old Danny Agin nearly always has an apple for me." "Well," said Terence, severely--besides being Rosie's brother, fourteen years old and nearly two years her senior, he was her employer and so simply had to be severe--"Well, just see that you don't eat too many apples!" Terence and Jack turned into the boys' school-yard and Rosie pursued her way down to the girls' gate. Just before she reached it, a boy, biggish and overgrown, with a large flat face and loosely hung joints, ran up behind her and shouted: "Oh, look at the paper-girl, paper-girl, paper-girl! Rosie O'Brien, O'Brien, O'Brien!" He seemed to think there was something funny in the name O'Brien, and his own name, mind you, was Schnitzer! Rosie marched on with unhearing ears, unseeing eyes. Other people, however, heard, for in a moment, one of the little girls clustered about the school-yard gate rushed over to her, jerking her head about like an indignant little hen. "Don't you care what that old Schnitzer says, Rosie! Just treat him like he's beneath your contemp'!" Whereupon she herself turned upon the Schnitzer and, with most withering sarcasm, called out: "Dutch!" Rosie's friend's name was McFadden, Janet McFadden. "Why don't you just tell Terry on him?" Janet said, when they were safe within the crowded school-yard and able to discuss at length the cowardice of the attack. "It wouldn't take Terry two minutes to punch his face into pie-crust!" "I know, Janet, but don't you see if I was to tell Terry, then he'd think I was getting bothered on my paper route and take it away from me. He's not quite sure, anyhow, whether girls ought to carry papers." Janet clucked her tongue in sympathy and understanding. "Does that Schnitzer bother you every afternoon, Rosie?" "Yes, and he's getting worse. Yesterday he tried to grab my papers and he tore one of them. I'm just scared to death when I get near his house, honest, I am." Janet clenched her hands and drew a long shivering breath. "Do you know, Rosie, boys like him--they just make me so mad that I almost--I almost _bust_!" Black care sat behind Rosie O'Brien's desk that afternoon. It was her fifth day as paper-carrier and, but for Otto Schnitzer, she knew that she would be able to complete satisfactorily her week of probation. Was he to cause her failure? Her heart was heavy with fear but, after school, when she met Terry, she smiled as she took her papers and marched off with so brave a show of confidence that Terry, she felt sure, suspected nothing. As usual, she had no trouble whatever on the first part of her route. At sight of her papers a few people smiled but they all greeted her pleasantly enough, so that was all right. One boy called out, "How's business, old gal?" but his tone was so jolly that Rosie was able to sing back, "Fine and dandy, old hoss!" So that was all right, too. The Schnitzer place was toward the end of her route, a few doors before she reached Danny Agin's cottage. As she passed it, no Otto was in sight, and she wondered if for once she was to be allowed to go her way unmolested. A sudden yell from the Schnitzers' garden disclosed Otto's whereabouts and also his disappointment not to be on the sidewalk to meet her. He came pounding out in all haste but she was able to make Danny Agin's gate in safety. Rosie always delivered Danny's paper in the kitchen. "Come in!" said Danny's voice in answer to her knock. Rosie opened the door and Danny received her with a friendly, "Ah now, and is it yourself, Rosie? I've been waiting for you this half-hour." He was a little apple-cheeked old man who wheezed with asthma and was half-crippled with rheumatism. "Mary!" he called to some one in another room. "It's Rosie O'Brien. Have you something for Rosie?" A voice, as serious in tone as Danny's was gay, came back in answer: "Tell Rosie to look on the second shelf of the panthry." Rosie went to the pantry--it was a little game they had been playing every afternoon--and on the second shelf found a shiny red apple. "Thanks, Danny. I do love apples." Danny shook his head lugubriously. "I'm afeared there won't be many more, Rosie. We're gettin' to the bottom of the barrel and summer's comin'. But can't you sit down for a minute and talk to a body?" Rosie sat down. As she had only two more papers to deliver, she had plenty of time. But she had nothing to say. Danny, watching her, drew a long face. "What's the matter, Rosie dear? Somebody dead?" Rosie shook her head and sighed. "That old Otto Schnitzer's waiting for me outside." Danny exploded angrily. "The Schnitzer, indeed! I'd like to give that lad a crack wid me stick!" "Danny," Rosie said solemnly, "do you know what I'd do if I was a boy?" "What?" "I'd try a chin-chopper on Otto Schnitzer. That'd fix him!" "It would that!" said Danny, heartily. He paused and meditated. "But what's a chin-chopper, darlint?" Rosie explained. "And Jarge says," she concluded, "they tumble right over like ninepins." "Who's Jarge?" "Jarge Riley, our boarder. He's little but he's a dandy scrapper. Terry says so, too." Danny wagged his head. "Jarge is right. I've turned the same thrick meself in me younger days, many's the time." "It would just serve that Otto Schnitzer right, don't you think so, Danny?" "I do!" Danny declared. He looked at Rosie with a sudden light in his little blue eyes. "Say, Rosie, why don't you try it on him? He's nuthin' but a bag o' wind anyhow. One good blow and he'll bust." Rosie cried out in protest: "But, Danny, he's so big and I'm so scared! I don't want to fight! I'm glad it's not ladylike to fight, it scares me so!" "Whisht, darlint!" Danny raised a quieting hand. "Mind now what I'm sayin': Almost everybody's got to fight sometime. I don't mean to pick a fight but to fight in plain self-protiction. Now it's me own opinion that young hound of a lad'll never let up on ye, Rosie, till ye larn him a good lesson. I could give him a crack wid me stick if ever he'd come nigh enough, but he'd be at you just the same the next time I wasn't around. Now, Rosie, if you ask me, I'd advise you to farce yirself to give that young bully a good chin-chopper once and for all. And, what's more, I'll take me oath ye'll never be feared of him again.... Come here and I'll show you how to go at him. Palm up now with yir fingers bent making a little cup of the inside of your hand. Do ye see? Now the thrick is here: Run at him hard and catch his chin in the little cup. One good blow and you'll push him over. Oh, you can't miss it, Rosie." Rosie's breath was coming fast and her hand was cold and shaky. "But I don't want to do it, Danny, honest I don't! I can't tell you how scared I am!" Danny wagged his head. "Of course you don't want to do it, Rosie. Because why? Because ye're a little lady. But I know one thing: ye'll make yirself do it! And them that makes theirselves do it, not because they want to do it but because it's the right thing to do, I tell ye, Rosie, them's the best fighters! Come, come, I'll crawl out to the gate wid ye and hold yir apple for you while ye do the business." Fixing his bright little eyes upon her, Danny waited until Rosie had, perforce, to consent. Then, with her help, he stood up and slowly hobbled to the door. "We won't mintion the matther to the ould woman," he whispered with a wink. "She mightn't understand." Rosie almost hoped that old Mary would catch them and haul Danny back, but she could not, of course, give the alarm. As she had expected, the Schnitzer was there waiting for her. At sight of Danny he moved off a little. "Now then, Rosie dear," Danny whispered, after Rosie had propped him securely against the gate-post; "at him and may luck be wid ye! It's high time that young cock crowed his last!" As Danny spoke, the Schnitzer's taunting cry rang out: "Look at the paper-girl, paper-girl, paper-girl!" Rosie started up the street and the Schnitzer cavorted and pranced some little distance in the front of her, making playful pounces at her papers, threatening to clutch her hair, her arms, her dress. Then, suddenly, he stood still, stretching himself across the middle of the walk to bar her passage. Rosie's heart pounded so hard she could scarcely breathe. She wanted to dodge to the side and run, she wanted to turn back, she wanted to do anything rather than go straight on. But she felt Danny's presence behind her, she heard the click-clack he was making with his stick to encourage her, and she pushed herself forward. Then her mood changed. What had she ever done to this great lout of a boy that he should be annoying her thus? He was not only terrorizing her daily with no provocation whatever but, in addition, he was doing his best to beat her out of her job. Yes, if she lost this well-paying job tomorrow, it would be his fault, for he was the one thing on the route that caused her trouble.... Oh, for the fist of a Jarge to give him the chin-chopper he deserved! She was close on to him now, looking him full in the eye. "Otto Schnitzer, you let me go by!" The words came so naturally that she was not conscious of speaking. "I guess I got as much right to this sidewalk as you have!" "You have, have you? Well, who do you think you are, anyway?" The Schnitzer pushed out his jaw at her and grinned mockingly. _Who do you think you are?_ Where had Rosie heard those insulting words before? Ah, she remembered and, as she remembered, all fear seemed instantly to leave her heart and she cried out in ringing tones: "Who do I think I am? I'm the conductor of this car and if you----" Rosie made for the Schnitzer and, with all her strength, sent the cup of her hand straight at his chin. You have seen a ninepin wobble uncertainly for a moment, then go down. The comparison is inevitable. A yell of rage and fright from the sidewalk at her feet brought Rosie to her senses. Glory be, she had chin-choppered him good and proper! But what to do next? What next? In her mind's eye Rosie saw the interior of a street-car with George Riley dancing a jig on the prostrate form of a giant. Thereupon Danny Agin and Mary, his wife, who by this time had joined him, and the woman next door, with a baby in her arms, saw Rosie O'Brien perform a similar jig over the squirming members of the Schnitzer. That trampled creature was sending forth a terrific bellow of, "Murder! Murder! Mommer! Help! I'm gettin' killed!" "And just good for him, too!" the woman with the baby shouted over to Mary and Danny. "I've been watching the way he's been teasing the life out of that little girl!" "Good wur-r-rk, Rosie, good wur-r-rk!" old Danny kept wheezing as he pounded his stick in enthusiastic applause. As the jig ended, Rosie stooped and snatched off the Schnitzer's cap. For a moment she hesitated, for there was no mud-puddle on the street into which to throw it. Then she noticed a tree. Good! That would give him some trouble. She twisted the cap in her hand and tossed it up into a high branch where it lodged securely. Then she leaned over the Schnitzer for the last time. He was moaning and groaning and whimpering with no least little spark of fight left in him. And was this the thing she used to be afraid of? Danny was right: never again would she fear him. She gazed at him long and scornfully. Then she gave him one last stir with her foot and brought the episode to a close. "Now then, you big bully, if you've had enough, get off this car--I mean, _sidewalk_, and go home and tell your--your _mother_, I mean, that she wants you!" And, as Rosie said that evening in relating the adventure to George Riley: "And, oh, Jarge, you just ought ha' seen how that stiff got up and went!" CHAPTER III THE PAPER-GIRL On Saturday night as soon as supper was cleared away, Terence was accustomed to make out his weekly accounts. He had a small account-book with crisscross rulings and two fascinating little canvas money-bags, one for coppers, the other for nickels and silver. After his book accounts were finished, he would gravely open his money-bags and, with banker-like precision, pile up together coins of the same denomination--pennies by themselves, nickels by themselves, dimes, and so on. Though oft repeated, it was an impressive performance and one that Rosie and little Jack surveyed with untiring gravity and respect. With a frown between his eyes and his lips working silently, Terence would estimate the totals of the various piles, then the sum total. He would very deliberately compare this with the amount his book showed and then--it always happened just this way--with a sigh of relief, he would murmur to himself: "All right this time!" On this particular night, instead of sweeping the money piles back into their little bags at once, Terence paused and looked at Rosie with a questioning: "Well?" "Well." Rosie used the same word with a different intonation. "I suppose I owe you twenty cents." "Yes, Terry, you do." "Are you having any trouble?" With a truthfulness that made her own heart glow with happiness, Rosie was able to answer: "No, I'm not having a bit of trouble, honest I'm not. You're going to let me have it now regular, aren't you?" Before Terence could answer, Ellen O'Brien, who was seated on the far side of the table, presumably studying the pothooks of stenography, called out suddenly: "Ma! Ma! Come here! Quick!" Mrs. O'Brien appeared at once. She was still nursing the baby to sleep, but no matter. Whenever her oldest child called, Mrs. O'Brien came. "Say, Ma, I think it's disgraceful the way Terry's letting Rosie sell papers. If I was you I just wouldn't allow it! It's awful for a girl to sell papers!" Rosie's heart sank. Was this comfortable income of twenty cents a week now, at the last moment, to be snatched from her? "Aw now, Mama," she began; "it's only right around here where every one knows me, honest it is! This is the end of Terry's route and he gets here so late that if I don't help him he'll lose his customers, won't you, Terry?" Rosie appealed to Terence, but Terence was busy scowling at his older sister. "Say, Ellen O'Brien, what do you think you are? You mind your own business or I'll give that pompadour of yours a frizzle!" Ellen concentrated on her mother: "I don't care, Ma! You just mustn't let her! How do you think I'd feel going into a swell office some day, hunting a job, and have the man say, no, he didn't want any common newsgirls around!" For a moment every one was silent, overcome by the splendour of that imagined office. Then Terence broke into a jeer: "Aw, forget it! If Rosie was to make her living selling papers, who'd know about it downtown? And if some one from downtown did see her, how would they know she was your sister? Say, Sis, it's time for you to go shine your nails!" "Now, Ma, just listen to that! I wish you'd make Terry stop always making fun of me! Haven't I got to keep my hands nice if ever I'm going to be a stenog?" Mrs. O'Brien tried hard to restore a general peace: "Terry lad, you mustn't be talkin' that way to your sister. P'rhaps what Ellen says is right. I dunno. We'll see what himself says when he comes in." The young O'Briens were used to having their mother refer to their father as one to decide all sorts of vexed questions. When he was out of the house he seemed the person to appeal to. When, however, Jamie O'Brien was at home, no one ever heeded him in the least. He would come in tired and silent from his run and, after sitting about in shirtsleeves and socks long enough to smoke a pipe, would slip quietly off to bed. So no one was deceived by Mrs. O'Brien's manoeuver of begging them to await their father's judgment in the matter. Rosie and Terence would have been willing to let it mark the close of the discussion, but not Ellen. "I tell you, Ma," she insisted, "it's a perfect disgrace if you don't stop it right now!" Terry regarded his sister grimly. "Listen here, Ellen O'Brien, I've got something to say to you: Who's been paying your carfare and your lunch money, too, ever since you been going to this fool business college?" Mrs. O'Brien feebly interposed: "Ah now, Terry lad, Ellen's just borrowin' the money from you. She'll pay you back as soon as she gets a job, won't you, Ellen dear?" Terence grunted impatiently. "Aw, don't go talkin' to me about borrowin'! I guess I know what borrowin' means in this house! But I tell you one thing, Ellen O'Brien: if you don't stop your jawin' about Rosie, it'll be the last cent of carfare and lunch money you ever get out o' me!" More than two-thirds of Terence's weekly earnings went into the family coffers, so what he said carried weight. Ellen tossed her head but was careful not to speak. Terence rumbled on disjointedly: "Business college! Business nuthin'! I bet all you do down there is look at yourself in a glass and fix your hair and shine your nails. Huh!" Ellen shrugged her handsome shoulders and, tilting a scornful nose, returned to her pothooks. Rosie was jubilant. She was sure Terry had intended letting her keep on, but Ellen's opposition had clinched the matter firmly. "So it's all settled," she told her friend, Janet McFadden, the next day. "Just think of it, Janet--twenty cents a week!" Janet sighed. "My, Rosie! What are you going to do with it all?" Rosie hadn't quite decided. Janet was ready with a good suggestion. "Why don't you save it and buy roller skates, Rosie? I don't mean old common sixty-cent ones, but a fine expensive pair with good ball-bearings. Then you could skate on Boulevard Place. Why, Rosie, is there anything in the world you'd rather do than go up to Boulevard Place with a pair of fine skates? And listen here, Rosie: if you lend them to me in the afternoon while you're on your paper route, I'll take good care of them, honest I will." H'm, roller skates. The longer Rosie thought about the idea, the better she liked it. She decided to talk it over with Danny Agin on Monday afternoon when she left him his paper. Danny met her with a sly grin. "Have you been chin-chopperin' some more of them, Rosie?" Rosie looked at her old friend reprovingly. "Aw now, Danny, why do you always talk about that? I don't like to fight boys, you know I don't. It was Otto Schnitzer's own fault. But, Danny, listen here: Bet you can't guess what I'm saving for." Danny couldn't, so Rosie explained. Then she continued: "You see it's this way, Danny: those old cheap skates are no good anyhow. They're always breaking. I'd give anything for a good pair and so would Janet. We just love to skate on Boulevard Place--the cement's so smooth and it's so shady and pretty. But do you know, Danny, last summer when we used to go up there on one old broken skate they called us 'muckers.' We're not muckers just because we're poor, are we, Danny?" Danny Agin snorted with indignation. "As long as ye mind yir manners, ye're not to be called muckers! You don't fight 'em, Rosie, and call 'em names, do you?" "No, Danny, I don't, honest I don't, but sometimes Janet does. She gets awful mad if any one calls her 'Cross-back!' You see, Danny, they're all Protestants and Jews on Boulevard Place." "From their manners, Rosie, I'd know that!" "But it seems to me, Danny, if we had a pair of ball-bearing skates we'd be just as good as they are." "Betther!" said Danny. "So you think I'm right to save for skates, do you, Danny?" "Do I think so? I do. Why, Rosie dear, as soon as people find out that ye're savin' in earnest, they'll be givin' ye many an odd penny here and there. Let me see now.... Go to the panthry, Rosie, and on the third shelf from the top ye'll see a cup turned upside down, and under the cup--well, I dunno what's under the cup." Rosie went to the pantry and under the cup found two nice brown pennies. "Thanks, Danny. But do you think Mis' Agin would want me to take them?" "Mary? Why, Mary'd be givin' ye a nickel--she's that proud of you for chin-chopperin' the young Schnitzer. He stones her cat, but if he does it again she'll be warnin' him that you'll take after him. Ha, ha, that'll stop him if anything will!" CHAPTER IV A LITTLE SAVINGS ACCOUNT What Danny said proved right. As soon as Rosie's immediate family and friends heard of the project, they gave her every encouragement. Little Jack lent her his last Christmas money-box--one of those tin banks whose opening is supposed to be burglarproof against the seducing attractions of all hatpins and buttonhooks except those employed by its rightful owner--and Mrs. O'Brien suggested at once that the old wardrobe upstairs would be the place of greatest safety for the bank. "You can get into it whenever you like, Rosie dear, for you know yourself where the key's to be found." It might be argued that every one else in the family knew where the key was to be found, for it was an open secret that its hiding-place was under the foot of the washstand. Nevertheless, it was an accepted tradition that anything in the wardrobe was under lock and key and therefore safe. So, with unbounded confidence, Rosie slipped her first week's wages into Jack's money-box and carefully locked the old wardrobe. George Riley, the boarder, was the first to make a handsome contribution. "Do you know, Rosie," he said, "here you are carrying my supper up to the cars every night and I've never said anything more than 'Thank you.' I just tell you I'm ashamed of myself! After this I'm going to pay you a nickel a week regular." "Aw now, Jarge, you won't do any such thing!" Rosie shook her head vigorously. "You can't afford it! And besides, Jarge, I just love to carry your supper up to the cars, honest I do!" "Of course you do! And why? 'Cause you're my girl!" George turned Rosie's face up and gave her a hearty kiss. "Now you'll be making twenty-five cents a week regular. Here's a nickel for last week." Twenty-five cents a week and two good sure jobs to one who, but a few days before, was nothing but a penniless creature dependent on any chance windfall! Rosie hugged herself in delighted amazement. She even bragged a little to her friend Janet McFadden. "Why, Janet, once you know how to do it, making money's just as easy as falling off a log! Look at me: My papers don't take me more'n half an hour in the afternoon and carrying Jarge's supper-pail up to the cars is just fun. And every Saturday night twenty-five cents, if you please!" Janet said "Oh!" with a rising inflection and "Oh!" with a falling inflection: "Oh! Oh!" "And besides that, if I hadn't my paper route I'd have to take care of Geraldine all afternoon. Don't you see?" "You would indeed, Rosie, I know you would." Rosie looked at her friend thoughtfully. "Say, Janet, why don't you get a job? Of course, I'll lend you my skates, but if we both had a pair we could go to Boulevard Place together. Wouldn't that be fun?" Janet cleared her throat apologetically. "Do you think Terry would give me a job, Rosie?" Hardly. Though he did employ Rosie, Terence was scarcely in position to employ every needy female that might apply to him. Rosie spoke kindly but firmly: "No, Janet, I don't believe Terry can take on any more girls. When I get my skates, though, I tell you what I'll do: I'll let you 'sub' for me sometimes. Yes. On the afternoons I go to skate on Boulevard Place, I'll let you deliver my papers. I'll pay you three cents a day. Three cents ain't much but, if you save 'em real hard, they count up--really they do. If you 'sub' for me eight different times then you'll have twenty-four cents. I told you, didn't I, that twenty-five cents is what's coming in to me now every week regular?" Yes, Rosie had already specified the amount many times but Janet, being a devoted friend, exclaimed with unabated enthusiasm: "You don't say so, Rosie! Well, I think that's just grand!" Janet was right. It is fine to have an income that permits one to enjoy the good things of life. Without a touch of envy Rosie could now view the rich Jews and Protestants as they skimmed the smooth surface of Boulevard Place. She, too, would soon be rolling along as well skated as the best of them. The time was not far distant when, hearing the soft whirr of the ball-bearings, they would look at her with a new respect and no longer call out "Mucker!" the moment her back was turned. This was the happy side of saving. There was, however, another side, and to ignore it would be to ignore the effect upon character which any effort as conscious as saving must produce. In simple innocence Rosie had started out supposing that all that was necessary toward saving was to have something savable. She soon discovered her mistake. The prime essential in saving was not, after all, the possession of a tidy little sum coming in at regular intervals, so much as the ability to keep that sum intact. That is to say, for the sake of this one Big Thing, that looms up faint but powerfully attractive on the distant horizon, you must do without all the Little Things that make daily life so pleasant. Alas, once you begin saving, you may no longer heedlessly sip the joys of the moment taking no thought for the morrow. Saving involves thought for the morrow first of all! In the old days when she hadn't a penny, Rosie had somehow managed to enjoy an occasional ice-cream cone, or a moving picture show, or a cent's worth of good candy. Now, on the other hand, with money in the bank, these and all like indulgences were forbidden. She was saving! If for a moment she tried to forget the wearisome task to which she had publicly dedicated herself, some one was always at hand to remind her of it and to rescue her, as it were, from her weaker self. For instance, if she even hinted of thirst in the neighbourhood of a root-beer stand, Janet McFadden would turn pale with fright and hurriedly drag her off, imploring her to remember that, once she had her skates, she could have all the root-beer she wanted. Yes, of course, but Rosie sometimes felt that she wanted it when she wanted it and not at some far-off time when she would, no doubt, be too old and decrepit to enjoy it. The experience began to give Rosie a clue to one of those mysteries of conduct which had long puzzled her. She had never stood in front of the glowing posters of a picture show, saying to herself or to any one that chanced to be with her: "I tell you what: If I had a nickel, I bet I know what I'd do with it!" nor paused before a bakery shop or a candy store, that she hadn't seen other people--men, women, and children--with eyes as full of desire as her own. What used to amaze her was that many of these people, she was absolutely sure, had money in their pockets. Heretofore, in her ignorance of life, she had supposed that, to possess yourself of anything you wanted, was a simple enough matter provided you had money in your pocket--or in your bank, which is the same thing. What a mistake she had made! How she had misjudged those poor creatures who, in spite of their jingling pockets, so often turned regretful backs upon the pleasures of life. Rosie understood now. Money in their pockets had nothing to do with it for--they were saving. Unknown even to themselves they were all members of a mystic brotherhood, actuated by the same impulse, undergoing the same sacrifices for some ultimate benefit. Look where she would, she saw them plainly: Miss Hattie Graydon, Ellen's fashionable friend, saving for an outing in Jersey; Janet McFadden's poor mother always saving for a new wash-boiler; George Riley saving to give himself a good start on his father's farm; and now, the newest recruit to their ranks, Rosie herself, saving for ball-bearing roller skates. "I'd just love to go with you! If there's anything I do enjoy, it's a matinée. But I can't. I got to have a new hat this spring." "I'd like to lend it to you, Charley, the worst ever, but I don't see how I can. I got to save every cent this year for payments on the house." "Waffles nuthin'! I ain't goin' a-spend a cent till I got enough money for a new baseball mitt!" They were the things Rosie had been hearing all her life but never until now had she grasped what they meant. Think of it, oh, think of it--the heroic self-denial that masks itself in commonplaces like these! Rosie wondered if the others, too, had their moments of weakness. Weren't there perhaps times when George Riley sighed over the shabbiness of his clothes, realizing that, if only he were a little sportier, Ellen might not scorn him so utterly? Theoretically practice makes easy, but Rosie found that the practice of self-denial, instead of growing easier, became harder as time went by. The week she had a dollar ninety-five in her bank, a Dog and Pony Show pitched its tent in a field which Rosie had to pass every afternoon on her paper route. She thought the sight of that tent would kill her before the week was over. The only things talked about at school were Skippo, the monkey that jumped the rope, Fifi, the dancing poodle, and Don, the pony, who shook hands with people in the front row. Afternoon admission was ten cents but, nevertheless, there were people who attended daily. Even Janet McFadden, valiant soul that she was, grew pale and wan under the strain. "Of course, though, Rosie," she said, "you wouldn't have time to go even if some one was to give you a ticket." This was Friday, so Rosie was able to answer: "I could go tomorrow afternoon, Janet. You know the Saturday matinée begins at two instead of half-past three. That'd get it over by four. I could ask you or somebody to get my papers for me and meet me at the tent at four o'clock. Then I'd be only a few minutes late." Janet made hopeless assent. "Yes, I could get them for you all right. And if some one was to give me a ticket, Tom Sullivan would get them for you--I know he would. Tom would do anything for you, Rosie." Tom was Janet's red-haired cousin and a flame of Rosie's. "Yes, Janet, I suppose Tom would. But there's no use talking about it.... Now if only I could just take----" Rosie broke off and Janet, understanding her thought, murmured hastily: "No, no, Rosie! Of course you can't take any of that!" Janet was right. Rosie could not possibly raid her own bank. Too many eyes were upon her. Yet all she needed was a quarter: ten cents for herself, ten for Janet, and five for her small brother. She couldn't go without Janet and Jack and, as she hadn't a cent anyhow, it was just as easy to plan the expenditure of a quarter as of a dime. She wondered idly if there could by some happy chance be more in her bank than she supposed. She hadn't counted her savings for nearly a week. There wasn't much likelihood that a dime or a quarter or a nickel had escaped her count, but perhaps now--... There was one chance in a thousand, for Rosie was not very strong in addition. At any rate, after supper she would slip up to the wardrobe and, with a bent hairpin, make investigations. A dollar ninety-five was all she was responsible for to the world at large. If her bank contained more, she could appropriate the surplus and no one be the wiser. Supper afforded one excitement. "Oh, lookee!" Jack suddenly cried, pointing an excited finger at Ellen. It was the period of pompadour and false hair and Rosie and Terence, following Jack's finger, saw a new cluster of shiny black curls in Ellen's already elaborate coiffure. "Get on to the curls, Rosie," Terence remarked facetiously. "Lord, ain't we stylish!" Ellen made no remark but seemed a little flurried. "Shame on you, Terry!" Mrs. O'Brien expostulated. "Talkin' so of your own sister! Don't you know if Ellen's to be a stenog, she's got to be careful of her appearance? All the young ladies at the college are wearing curls." Terence answered shortly: "She can wear all the curls she wants as soon as she's able to pay for them. But I tell you one thing, Ma: you needn't think you're going to get me to pay for them, because I won't. She tried to work me for them last week and I told her I wouldn't." Ellen regarded her brother distantly. "You make me tired, Terence O'Brien. When you're asked to pay for these curls it'll be time for you to squeal." "Are they paid for already?" "Of course they're paid for already. Do you think I can get curls on tick?" Terence's incredulity changed to suspicion. Turning to his mother he demanded: "Did you give her the two dollars you begged from me for the baby's food?" Mrs. O'Brien spread out distracted hands. "Why, Terry lad, of course I didn't! Rosie went to the drug-store herself with the money, didn't you, Rosie?" Yes, Rosie had, but even this did not satisfy Terry. "Well, anyhow, I bet she's playing crooked somewhere!" Ellen disdained to answer and Rosie remarked: "I'd rather spend my money on skates than on old curls." Ellen looked at her kindly. "They say skates are going out of style, Rosie." Rosie folded her hands complacently. "I don't care whether they're going out or coming in. I don't like 'em because they're fashionable but because I like 'em. If the Boulevard Placers didn't have one pair I'd want to go up there by myself and skate by myself just the same. I love roller skates! And, what's more, by the time vacation comes I'll have the finest pair of ball-bearing skates in town! And vacation, mind you, comes at the end of next week!" Terence nodded a cautious approval. "You're that close to the finish, are you, Rosie?" "Sure I am. Tomorrow night when I get paid I'll have two twenty and, by the end of next week, if I can manage to scrape up an extra nickel, I'll have two fifty exact." Mrs. O'Brien fluttered her hands nervously. "I dunno about all this skatin', Rosie dear. I dunno if it's healthy to jump around so." Rosie smiled superiorly. "I don't jump around. I know how to skate." A few moments later Ellen excused herself from her usual evening duties on the plea that her friend, Hattie Graydon, had invited her out. So Rosie had to wipe the supper dishes as well as wash them before she could slip upstairs for the purpose of counting her savings. She found the wardrobe key in its usual place and the little bank where she had put it, hidden beneath her mother's Sunday hat. She reached for it and lifted it up and then, with a loud cry, she clutched it hard and shook it with all her might. "Ma! Ma!" she screamed, flying wildly downstairs. "My money! Some one's taken all my money!" "Ssh!" Mrs. O'Brien implored. "Ye'll be wakin' Geraldine!" For once Rosie heeded not the warning. "I tell you my money's gone! Some one stole it! Listen here!" She was weeping distractedly and waving the empty bank aloft. "There's not a cent left! And, Terry, look here how they took it!" The thief had not even had the grace to use a hairpin, but had calmly bent back the opening slit. Terence looked at his mother sternly. "Ma, who took Rosie's money?" Mrs. O'Brien squirmed uncomfortably. "Now, Terry lad, how do I know who took it? But I do know this: whoever it was that took it only borrowed it and Rosie'll get paid back." "Paid back!" wept Rosie. "Don't talk to me about getting paid back in this house! I guess I know!" With a determined eye Terence held his mother's wavering attention. "Now, Ma, you know very well who took that money and I want you to tell me." "Why, Terry lad, how you talk!" Mrs. O'Brien turned her head to listen, in hopes, apparently, that the baby would require her presence. "But I will say one thing, Terry: Ye know yirself a young girl, if she goes out, has to keep up appearances." Terence nodded grimly. "So it was Ellen, was it? I thought so." "Ellen," Rosie repeated in a dazed tone. Then her body grew tense, her eyes blazed. "Terry, I know! Those curls! I bet anything it was those curls!" Mrs. O'Brien made no denial and Rosie, dropping her head on the table, wept her heart out. "Terry, Terry, what do you know about that! And after the way I been working hard and saving every cent for two whole months! Just think of it! And you know yourself the fuss she always made about my selling papers at all! It's disgraceful for me to sell papers because I'm a girl, but it ain't disgraceful for her to go steal all my money and buy curls!... And I can't do nuthin'! If she was a nigger, I could have her arrested but, because she's my own sister, I can't do nuthin'! Oh, how I hate her, how I hate her!..." Mrs. O'Brien sighed unhappily. "But, Rosie dear, Ellen'll be paying you back as soon as she gets a job. She promised me faithfully she would. You see, she'll soon be going around to them offices now and she feels she ought to be lookin' her best. Oh, you'll be gettin' back your money all right! Why, nowadays a good stenog gets ten dollars a week up!" Terence cut his mother off sharply. "Aw, forget it! You can't fool Rosie with guff like that! I tell you, Ellen's nuthin' but a low-down crook and it's your fault, too, for encouraging her!" "But, Terence lad, what could I do? I thried to dissuade her, but ye know yirself how set she is once she gets an idea into her head." Yes, Terence and Rosie both knew and they knew, likewise, their mother's helplessness in her hands. With no further words they could easily imagine just what had taken place. Mrs. O'Brien had, no doubt, tried hard to protect Rosie's interests. She could always be depended on to protect the interests of an absent child. Her present attitude was an evidence of this, for now she was turned about seeking to defend Ellen because Ellen was absent. A wail from upstairs brought her ineffectual excuses to a close and, with a "Whisht! The baby!" she fled. Rosie, crushed and miserable, wept on. Terence put an awkward hand on her shoulder. "Say, Rosie, I'm awful sorry, honest I am. I wish I could give you a quarter, but I can't this week. They've cleaned me out. Here's a nickel, though." Rosie did not want the nickel; at that moment she did not want anything; she took it, however, because Terry wished her to. "Thanks, Terry. It wasn't your fault. You're not a sneak and a thief. I--I'm glad some of my relations are honest." Little Jack, who had been listening gravely, snuggled up with a sudden suggestion: "Say, Rosie, if you want me to, I'll kick her in the shins when she comes in." Rosie wiped her eyes sadly. "No, Jackie, I don't see how that'll do any good." "Do you want me to spit in her eye?" Rosie gave Jack a tight hug, for his sympathy was sweet. Then she shook her head reprovingly. "You mustn't talk like that, Jackie, and you mustn't do things like that, either. You don't want to be a mucker, do you?" For this once Jack thought that perhaps he did, but, when Rosie insisted, he promised to behave. From babyhood he had been Rosie's special charge, so now, when the time came, she took him upstairs and saw him safely to bed. Then she herself slipped down to the front porch and there on the steps, in the dark electric shadow, she waited for her friend, George Riley. CHAPTER V GEORGE RILEY ON MUCKERS Rosie had not long to wait, as George's run ended at nine o'clock. "Sst! Jarge!" she called softly as he bounded up the steps and would have passed her in the dark. "Is that you, Rosie?" "Sit down a minute, Jarge. I want to ask you something." George mopped his head with his handkerchief and drew a long breath. "Whew, but I'm tired, Rosie! I rang up over seventy-five fares three times tonight." Rosie opened with no preliminary remarks. "Say, Jarge, can you lend me twenty-five cents until tomorrow night? You know I get paid tomorrow." "Sure, Rosie. What for?" "I want to go to the Dog Show matinée." George paused a moment. "But, Rosie, you don't need twenty-five cents for that. You told me it was ten cents." "I know, Jarge, but I want to take Jackie and Janet." "Why, Rosie!" "Well, if I don't, poor Janet'll never get there. She never gets anywhere. You know her father boozes every cent. And I just got to take Jackie if I go myself. Besides, he'll only cost me five cents and that will let me use the nickel Terry gave me for peanuts." "But, Rosie,"--George cleared his throat--"I thought you were saving every penny. You know you can't save and spend at the same time." "I'm not saving any more." Rosie spoke quietly, evenly. "Not saving any more! What do you mean, Rosie? What's happened?" She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own. "N-nothing," she quavered. "Rosie! Tell me!" He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him. At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could not control. "I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister." For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence. "I--I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard--you know I have!" She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs. George spoke with an effort: "Why do you think it was Ellen?" "Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us.... And she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge--curls for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for that money, you know I did, and it was my own!" George sighed. "Poor kiddo! Of course it was your own! But Ellen'll pay you back, I--I'm sure she will." "That's what ma says. But, Jarge, even if she does, it won't be the same thing. Just tell me how you'd feel yourself if all your savings were snatched away from you!" George's answer was unexpected. "They have been, Rosie, a good many times." "What!" Rosie sat up in fright and astonishment. "Has she dared to go and break into your trunk?" George laughed weakly. "No, Rosie, it ain't Ellen this time." He paused a moment. "I've told you about my father's farm. It's a good farm and I'd rather live on it and work it than do anything else on earth. But it's got run down, Rosie. The old man's had a mighty long spell of unluck. A few years ago he got a little mortgage piled up on it and for nearly two years now he hasn't kept it up like he ought to. In the country you've got to have ready money to wipe out mortgages and to start things goin' right. That's why I'm here in town railroading and that's why I'm saving every cent until people think I'm a tightwad." "But, Jarge, how did they get it away from you so many times?" "Well, just to show you: Two years ago one of the barns burned down. That cost me two hundred dollars. Last summer we lost a couple of our best cows worth sixty dollars apiece. This winter the old man was laid up with rheumatiz a couple o' months and it cost me a dollar a day to get the chores done, let alone the doctor bill. And each time I was just about ready to blow my job here and hike for home. I thought sure I'd be doing my own plowing this spring." Weariness and discouragement sounded in his voice and Rosie, forgetting her own troubles, slipped her arms about his neck. "I'm awful sorry, Jarge. Maybe if nothing happens this summer you'll be able to go back in the fall." George shook himself doggedly. "Oh, I'll get there some time! I cleaned up the mortgage the first year I was here and now I'm working to pile up five hundred in the bank before I go. I'm getting there, too, but I hope to God I won't have any more setbacks!" "And if you do, Jarge?..." The answer came sharp and quick: "I'll save all the harder!" For a few moments both were silent. Then George spoke: "I'm sorry, Rosie, about this thing. I know how you feel. If you want to, after this you may hide your savings in my trunk. I've got two keys and I'll give you one." "I--I didn't think I was going to save any more, Jarge." "Not save? Of course you're going to save! You've got to save!" "Why?" "So's to have something to show for your work!" "But it takes so awful long, Jarge, and even then maybe you lose it." "I know, Rosie, but even so you got to do it. It's only muckers that never save." "Why, Jarge!" "Sure, Rosie. Only muckers. They blow in every cent they get as soon as they make it or before. That's why they can afford to go off on drunks and holler around and smash things up. They ain't got nuthin' to lose no matter what they do. Oh, I tell you, Rosie, just show me a loud-mouthed mucker and I'll show you a fellow that don't know the first thing about saving!" "Really, Jarge?" "Yes, really. And the same way, take decent hard-working people and what do you find? As sure as you're alive, you'll find them saving every cent to put the children through school, or pay for their home, or take care of the old folks. I tell you, Rosie, you got to save if ever you get anywhere in this world!" "But, Jarge, I--I think I just got to go to that Dog Show now." George laughed and gave her a little hug. "All right, kiddo. Here's the quarter. Have a good time and tell me about it afterwards. Next week, you know, you can begin saving in earnest. My trunk----" "Please, Jarge," Rosie begged, "don't make me promise. Give me a week to think about it." "Of course you can have a week to think about it." They were standing up now, ready to go into the house. "But I know all right what you'll decide." "How do you know?" George stooped and gave her a hearty country kiss, smack on the mouth. "Because I know there's nothing of the mucker about Rosie O'Brien!" And Rosie, as she slipped upstairs, tying the quarter in the corner of her handkerchief, suddenly realized that she was no longer unhappy. How could any one be unhappy who had a friend as good and as kind as George Riley? And, in addition to him, she had nice old Terry--hadn't he given her a nickel and been sorry it wasn't a quarter?--and dear little Jackie and the faithful Janet and poor old Danny Agin, too! Thank goodness, neither Ellen nor any one else could steal them away from her! CHAPTER VI JACKIE In declaring that Ellen would repay the money she had taken from Rosie's bank, Mrs. O'Brien had spoken in all sincerity. She was perfectly convinced in her own mind that every one of her children would always do exactly as he should do. She was willing to acknowledge that the poor dears might occasionally make mistakes, but such mistakes, she was certain, were mistakes of judgment, not of principle. Give them time, she begged, and in the end they would do the right thing. She'd stake her word on that! Ellen's own attitude was one of annoyance, not to say resentment, that she had been forced to raise money for the curls in so troublesome a manner. Rosie's reproachful glances and Terry's revilings irritated but in no way touched her. In fact, she seemed to think that, in appropriating Rosie's savings, she had been acting entirely within her rights. She would never have been guilty of touching anything belonging to an outsider but, like many selfish people, she had as little respect for the property of the members of her own immediate family as she had for their feelings. It was quite as though she conscientiously believed that the rest of the O'Briens had been placed in this world for the sole purpose of adding to her comfort and convenience. It always surprised her, often it bored her, sometimes it even grieved her that they did not share this view. It seemed to her nothing less than stupidity on their part not to. So, despite her mother's promises, despite George Riley's hopes, Rosie knew perfectly well that her savings would never be refunded. They were gone and that was to be the end of them. Thanks to kind George Riley, Rosie had weathered the first storm of disappointment and had learned that, notwithstanding a selfish unscrupulous sister, life was still worth living. Neither then nor later did she definitely forgive Ellen the theft--how could she forgive when Ellen, apparently, was conscious of no guilt?--but she tried resolutely not to spend her time in vain regrets and useless complainings. The days passed and life, like the great river that it is, flowed over the little tragedy and soon covered it from sight. The school year slowly drew to a close and at last Mrs. O'Brien felt free to make a request about which she had been throwing out vague hints for some time. [Illustration: "Here, baby darlint, go to sister Rosie."] "Rosie dear," she began with an imploring smile, "now that vacation's come and you don't have to go back any more to school, won't you, like a good child, help your poor ma and take care of your little sister Geraldine? Here, baby darlint, go to sister Rosie." Mrs. O'Brien held out the baby, but Rosie backed resolutely away. "Now see here, Ma, you just needn't begin on that, because I won't. I guess I do enough in this house without taking care of Geraldine: I wash all the dishes, and that old Ellen O'Brien hardly ever even wipes them; and I do the outside scrubbing; and I go to the grocery for you six times a day; and I help with the cooking, too; and I always carry up Jarge's supper to the cars; and I take care of Jackie. Besides all that, I got my paper route. I guess that's enough for any one person." Mrs. O'Brien conceded this readily enough. "Of course it is, Rosie dear, and I'm not sayin' it ain't. You're a great worker, and a fine little manager, too. I used to be a manager meself, but after ye've been the mother of eight, and three of them dead and gone--God rest their souls!--things kind o' slip away from you, do ye see? What was it I was sayin' now? Ah, yes, this: now that summer's come, if only ye'd help me out with Geraldine, p'rhaps I could catch up with me work. Like a darlint, now." Mrs. O'Brien, shifting Geraldine from one warm arm to the other, smiled ingratiatingly; but Rosie only shook her head more doggedly than before. "No, Ma. The rest of the people in this house don't do things they don't want to do, and for once I'm not going to either. I tell you I'm not going to begin lugging Geraldine around!" "You poor infant!" Mrs. O'Brien crooned tearfully, "and does nobody love you? Ah, now, don't cry! Your poor ma loves you even if your own sister Rosie don't!" Responsive to the pity expressed in her mother's tones, Geraldine raised a fretful wail, but Rosie, though she felt something of a murderess, still held out. "I tell you, Ma, Jackie's my baby. I've taken good care of him, and that's all you can ask." Mrs. O'Brien sighed in patient exasperation. "But, Rosie dear, can't you see that Jackie's a big b'y now, well able to take care of himself?" "Take care of himself! Why, Ma, how you talk! Don't I have to wash him and button his shoes and put him to bed?" "Well, I must say, Rosie, it's high time he did such things for himself--a fine, healthy lad going on six! Why, yourself, Rosie, hadn't turned six when you began mothering Jackie!" It was not a subject Rosie cared to argue, so she retired in dignified silence. But her mother's words troubled her. In her heart she knew that Jackie was a well-grown boy even if in many things he was still a baby. But why shouldn't he still be a baby? The truth was Rosie wanted him to be a baby; it delighted her to feel that he was dependent on her; it was her greatest pleasure in life to do things for him. And if she was willing to serve him, why, pray, should other people object? Unfortunately, though, certain disturbing changes were coming over Jackie himself. Within a few months he had burst, as it were, the chrysalis of his babyhood and come forth a full-fledged small boy with all a small boy's keenness to be exactly like all other small boys. Rosie's interest in his welfare he had begun to resent as interference; her supervision of him he was openly repudiating; and, worst of all, he was showing unmistakable signs of becoming fast friends with Joe Slattery, youngest member of the family and neighbourhood gang of the same name. Rosie had done her best to check the growing intimacy, but in vain. So long as school continued, Jack could meet Joe in the school-yard, and Rosie had been helpless to interfere. But now, for the coming of vacation, she had a project carefully thought out. In her own mind she had already arranged picnics at the zoo, excursions to the woods, jaunts to the park, that would so occupy and divert the attention of Jack that he would soon forget Joe and the lure of the Slattery gang. What time, may one ask, would Rosie have for this work if she burdened herself with Geraldine? None whatever. No. Geraldine was her mother's baby, and if her mother didn't insist on Ellen's relieving her a little, why, then she would have to go on alone as best she could. With her everlasting excuse of business college, Ellen did little enough about the house anyway. Rosie hardened her heart and, as the family gathered for midday meal, was ready with a plan for that very afternoon. She broached the subject at the table. "Say, Jackie, do you want to come with me this afternoon? I'm going somewheres." "Oh, I dunno." Rosie's heart sank. But a short time ago he would have jumped down from his chair and rushed over to her with an eager: "Oh, Rosie, where you going? Where you going?" Now all he had to say was an indifferent, "I dunno." Rosie made one more effort to arouse his old enthusiasm. "Me and Janet are going up to Boulevard Place." She waited expectantly, and Jack finally grunted out in bored politeness: "That so?" A moment later his indifference vanished at a vigorous shout from outside: "Hi, there, Jack! Where are you?" It was Joe Slattery's voice. "I'm th'u," Jack announced, gulping down a last bite. "I got to go." "Where you going, Jackie?" Rosie tried not to show in her voice the anxiety she felt. "Oh, nowheres. Don't you take hold o' me, Rosie, 'cause I'm in a hurry." Rosie went with him to the door, still keeping her hand on his shoulder. "Please tell me where you're going." "You just let go my arm! I'll kick if you don't!" Jack struggled violently, broke away, and, escaping to a safe distance, scowled back at Rosie angrily. "'Tain't none o' your business where I'm going! Guess I can go where I want to!" "Oh, Jackie, Jackie! Is that the way to talk to your poor Rosie?" Joe Slattery, who had, of course, instantly espoused his friend's cause, now spoke: "He's goin' in swimmin'! That's where he's goin' if you want to know it!" "Swimmin'! You mustn't, Jackie, you mustn't! You'll get drownd-ed! Sure he will, Joe! He don't know how to swim one bit!" Joe grinned mockingly. "Guess he can learn, can't he?" Rosie paused distractedly, then clutched at the only straw that floated by. "See here, Jackie, you can go with Joe and you can look on, but listen: if you promise me you won't go in, I'll give you a whole nickel!" Jack looked at Joe and Joe looked at Jack. Then with the eye farthest away from Rosie, Rosie thought she saw Joe screw out a small wink. Thereupon Jack turned to Rosie with a frank, guileless smile. "All right, Rosie. You give me a nickel and I won't--honest I won't." "You promise me faithfully you won't go in?" "Sure I won't, Rosie! Cross my heart!" Rosie drew out one of her hard-earned nickels and gave it to him. He and Joe promptly hurried off. "Now, remember!" Rosie called after them, beseechingly; but they seemed not to hear, for they made her no answer. Rosie went back to the table almost in tears. "Jackie's gone off with that Joe Slattery and they're goin' in swimmin' and I just know he'll get drownd-ed!" "You don't say so!" ejaculated Mrs. O'Brien. "Why didn't you tell me, Rosie dear, before they got started?" "Tell you!" Rosie's tears changed to scorn. "Why'd I tell you? You know very well how much you'd do! You always let every one do just what they want!" Mrs. O'Brien blinked reproachful eyes. "Why, Rosie, how you talk! If you'd ha' told me that Jackie was goin' in swimmin' I'd ha' gone out to him and said: 'Now, Jackie dear, mind the water! Don't go in the deep places first!' I give you me word, Rosie, I'd ha' said it if it were me last breath!" Rosie lost all patience. "I know very well that's exactly what you'd say! That's all the sense you got! That's all the sense that anybody in this house has got! And I suppose by this time Jackie's drownd-ed, and if he is I want to die, too!" Mrs. O'Brien looked at her in amazement. "Why, Rosie dear, what a flutter ye do be puttin' yourself into! Ah, now I see. It's because Jackie's your first chick! Take me word for it, darlint, when ye're the mother of eight ye won't be carryin' on so. Come to think about it, I remember meself over Mickey--God rest his soul!--the first day he went swimmin'. Mickey was just turned seven, and Terry here was toddlin' about on the floor, and yourself was in me arms no bigger than poor wee Geraldine. "'Where's Mickey?' says I to Mrs. Flaherty, who was livin' next door. "'Mickey?' says she. 'Why, didn't I see Mickey start off with the b'ys? They be gone swimmin',' says she. "'Swimmin'!' says I, and with that I lets out a yell. 'He'll be drownd-ed!' says I. 'Me poor Mickey'll be drownd-ed!' "'Be aisy, Mrs. O'Brien,' says she; 'or ye'll be spoilin' yir milk and then what'll ye do?' And she was right, Rosie, was Mrs. Flaherty, for Mickey got back safe and sound, to be carried off two years later with scarlet fever!" Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head complacently and poured herself another cup of tea. Rosie, her face still tragic and woebegone, turned to her brother. "Will you do something for me, Terry?" "What?" "Follow Jackie out and see that he don't get into deep water." Terry looked at her as if she were crazy. "Sorry, Rosie, but I got something more to do than trail Jack around. Besides, he's not going to get hurt. It'll be good for him." Rosie washed the dinner dishes in silence, thinking to herself what a cold-blooded family she had. There was poor wee Jackie out there drowning, for all they knew, and not one of them willing to stretch forth a helping hand. She escaped as soon as she could to seek the sympathy of her friend, Janet McFadden. Another blow was in store for her. Janet heard her out and then said: "But, Rosie, don't all boys go swimming?" Rosie was ready to weep with vexation. "What do I care what all boys do? This is Jack!" "Well," said Janet, with maddening logic, "even if it is Jack, I guess Jack's a boy." Drawing herself up to her greatest height, Rosie looked her friend full in the face. "If that's all you got to say, Janet McFadden, I guess I had better be going. Good-bye." "Don't you want me to help with your papers this afternoon?" Janet called after her. "No!" Rosie spoke brusquely, then added lamely: "I'm in a hurry today." "Oh, very well!" Janet lifted her head and tightened her lips. "I'm sure I don't want to go where I'm not wanted." "So she's mad at me, too!" Rosie told herself as she hurried off, feeling more miserable than before. She got her papers and went about delivering them, nursing her grief in her heart, till she came to old Danny Agin's cottage. Then she talked and Danny, as usual, listened quietly and sympathetically. At first he had nothing to say. He screwed his head about thoughtfully, squinted at his pipe, tapped it several times on the porch rail, blew through the stem, then finally cleared his throat. "It's just this way, Rosie: I know exactly how ye feel. Jack's yir own baby, as it were; but, whist, darlint, he can't be always taggin' after ye, don't ye see? He's a pretty big lump of a b'y now, and if I was you I'd just let him run and play by himself when the mood takes him. Then, when he comes back, just talk to him like nuthin' was the matther, and upon me word, Rosie, he'll love ye all the more for it." "But, Danny," Rosie wailed, "what if he was to get drownd-ed?" Danny reached over and patted her on the arm confidentially. "Ah, now, Rosie, what if we was all to get drownd-ed? You know it happened wance. Noah was the gintleman's name. From all accounts 'twas a fearful experience. But 'twas a long time ago, and since then any number of us have escaped. Why, Rosie dear, I've never yet been drownd-ed meself, and in me young days I was mighty fond of the wather. So cheer up, darlint, for the chances are that Jackie'll come out all right." Rosie dried her eyes listlessly. It seemed to her they were all in conspiracy against her. Yes, she was sure of it. CHAPTER VII HOW TO KEEP A DUCK OUT OF WATER Jack was home in good time for supper. "Ah, now, do you see, Rosie?" Her mother pointed to him in triumph. "It's just as I told you. Here he is safe and sound. But, Jackie dear, mind now: the next time don't ye go into the deep water until ye know how to swim." Ellen glanced at him amusedly. "Been in swimmin', kid?" To Rosie the question seemed both stupid and inane, for Jack's face had a clean, varnished look that was unmistakable, and his hair had dried in stiff, shiny streaks close to his head. He was hungry and ate with zest, but he said little and carefully avoided Rosie's eye. Very soon after supper he slipped off quietly to bed. Rosie did not pursue him. She was waiting for George Riley, upon whom she was pinning her last hope. Presently he came but, before she had time to get his advice, she was hurried upstairs by Jackie himself, who called down in urgent, tearful tones: "Rosie! Oh, Rosie! Come here! Please come! Come quick!" The little front bedroom with its sloping walls and one dormer window was Ellen's room, theoretically. Actually, Rosie shared Ellen's bed, and Jack's little cot stood at the bottom of the bed between the door and the bureau. Rosie felt hurriedly for matches and candle. "Now, Jackie dear, what's the matter? You're not sick, are you? Tell Rosie." "It hurts! It hurts!" Jack was sitting up, wailing dolefully. He reached toward Rosie in a helpless, appealing way that warmed her heart. Whatever was the matter, it was bringing him back to her. "What is it hurts, Jackie?" "My back! It burns! I tell you it's just burnin' up!" Rosie gently lifted off his nightshirt and held the candle close. "Jackie! What's happened to your back and shoulders? They're all red and swollen! What did those Slattery boys do to you?" "They didn't do nuthin', Rosie, honest they didn't. Ouch! Ouch! Can't you do something to make it stop hurting?" "Wait a minute, Jackie, and I'll call Jarge Riley. Jarge'll know what to do." George came at once and as quickly recognized Jack's ailment. "Ha, ha, Jack, old boy, how's your sunburn? Jiminy, you've got a good one this time!... Say, how's the water?" [Illustration: Rosie gently lifted off his nightshirt and held the candle close.] "Ugh-h-h!" moaned Jack. "It hurts!" Then with a change of voice he answered George enthusiastically: "Dandy! Just as warm and nice as anything!" George sighed. "Golly! Wisht I was a kid again! There sure is no place like the old swimmin'-hole in the good old summer-time!" Rosie glared indignantly. "Jarge Riley, ain't you ashamed of yourself! It's dangerous to go in swimming and you know it is! Jackie's never going in again, are you, Jackie?" Jack snuffled tearfully: "My back hurts! Can't some o' you do something for it?" Rosie turned stiffly to George. "What I called you up here for was to ask you what's good for a sunburnt back." "Excuse me," murmured George meekly. "Let's see now: We ought to put on some oil or grease, then some powder or flour." "Will lard do?" Rosie still spoke coldly. "Yes, but vaseline would be better. There's a bottle of vaseline on my bureau. Do you want to get it, Rosie?" Rosie hurried off and returned just in time to hear George say: "Oh, you can go in again in two or three days." Rosie blazed on him furiously. "Jarge Riley, what are you telling Jackie?" "I?" He spoke with an assumption of innocence and that look of guilelessness which Rosie was fast learning to associate with male deceit. "I was just telling him it would take a couple o' days for his back to peel. Then he'll be all right again." Rosie looked at him in scorn, but made no comment. She resolved one thing: George Riley should have no more moments alone with Jack. When the time came, she made him go downstairs for the flour-shaker, then curtly dismissed him. "I guess you can go now, Jarge. Jackie wants to go to sleep. Now, Jackie dear, just lie on your stummick and you'll be asleep in two minutes." George hesitated a moment. "Didn't you say you wanted to see me about something, Rosie?" Rosie looked at him steadily. "If ever I said that it was before I knew you as well as I know you now. Now they isn't anything I want to say to you." George gasped helplessly and departed, and Rosie, after settling Jack comfortably, blew out the candle.... So even George Riley had joined the conspiracy against her! Well, she was not done fighting yet. She insisted upon making an invalid of Jack the next morning, keeping him in bed and carrying up his breakfast to him. All day long, she waited on him, hand and foot, loved, amused, coaxed, threatened, bribed him, until by evening she had him weak and helpless, ready to agree to anything she might suggest. At supper Mrs. O'Brien beamed on him sympathetically and remarked to Ellen, who was just home from business college: "Ellen dear, do you know the awful back o' sunburn poor wee Jack's got on him? Rosie's been nursing him all day." Ellen glanced at Terry and laughed. "Do you remember, Terry, how you used to come home after your first swim every summer?" Jack looked up eagerly. "Oh, Terry, did you used to get sunburned, too?" Terry nodded. "Sure I did. Every fella does." Jack's face took on an expression of heavenly content. "Is it peeling yet?" Terry asked. "No, but it's cracking." Jack's tone was hopeful. Rosie moved uneasily. "Terence O'Brien, I just wish you'd look out what you're saying, and you too, Ellen! It's dangerous to go in swimming, and Jackie's never going again, are you, Jackie?" Jack hesitated a moment, then murmured a weak little "No." Mrs. O'Brien nodded approvingly. "Ah, now, ain't Jack the good b'y to promise sister Rosie never to go in swimmin' again!" Ellen chuckled. "At least until his back's well!" Rosie flew at her sister like an angry little clucking hen. "Ellen O'Brien, you just mind your own business! Come on, Jackie, we're through. We're going out in front by ourselves, aren't we?" Jack, apparently, wanted to remain where he was; but when Rosie whispered, "And I've got another penny for you," he slipped quietly down from his chair. When you know that this was Jack's fifth penny for that day, you have some idea of what the struggle was costing Rosie. A week's wages seemed in a fair way of being eaten up in a few days. It was a fearful drain on her resources, but anything, Rosie told herself, to keep him out of the clutches of the Slattery gang! By the third day his back was dry and peeling. After dinner, as Rosie was coming home from the grocery, she found him at the front gate boasting about it to Joe Slattery. Rosie interrupted politely: "Jackie, will you come into the house a minute? I got something to ask you." Jack looked at her kindly. "All right, Rosie. You go on in and I'll be in in a minute." The dismissal was so friendly that Rosie could not gainsay it. She hurried around to the back door and then rushed through the house to the front door, which she slipped open wide enough to see and to hear what was going on at the gate. Joe Slattery's voice carried distinctly. "Say, Jack, what do you say to goin' down now? Aw, come on! Let's." Rosie did not have to ask herself what Joe Slattery was proposing; she knew only too well. Breathless, she awaited Jack's answer. It came with scarcely an instant's hesitation. "All right. Let's." Jack was out of the gate and off before Rosie could push open the front door. "Jackie! Jackie! Where you going? Wait for Rosie!" "Me and Joe got to go down and see a fella. We'll be back soon, won't we, Joe?" "Sure we will, Rosie. We'll be back in ten minutes." Rosie shook her head reproachfully. "Jackie, Jackie, you're telling Rosie a story, you know you are! You're going swimming and you promised me you wouldn't! Oh, Jackie, how can you, after the nickel I gave you this morning, and the seven cents yesterday, and the nickel the day before, and the nickel of the first day you went with Joe? Oh, Jackie, how can you take poor Rosie's money and then act that way?" Jack had nothing to say, but Joe Slattery was able to answer for him. "Aw, go on, Rosie O'Brien--Jack's goin' in swimmin' if he wants to! I guess you ain't his boss! Come on, Jack!" Joe threw his arm about Jack's shoulder and together they marched off. Rosie put forth one last effort: "Jackie O'Brien, you listen here: If you go swimming with Joe Slattery, I----" She searched about frantically for some threat sufficiently terrifying. She paused a moment, then hit upon something which, a few months earlier, would have worked like magic. "If you do, _I'll never button your shoes again! Never again!_" Jack glanced back insolently over Joe's shoulder. "Aw, go on! What do I care? Anyway, it's summer-time and I'm goin' barefoot!" CHAPTER VIII A LITTLE MOTHER HEN For Rosie this was the end. This was defeat and she accepted it as such. Slowly and tearfully she dragged herself into the house. "Ma, Ma, after all I've done, there he's gone!" Mrs. O'Brien looked up in concern. "Who did you say was gone, Rosie?" "Jackie! He's gone off swimming again with that old Joe Slattery!" "Is that all it is, Rosie?" Mrs. O'Brien seemed much relieved. "You gave me quite a turn." "But, Ma, what am I going to do?" "Well, Rosie dear, what do you want to do?" "I want to save Jackie from those old Slatterys." Mrs. O'Brien sighed sympathetically. "Ah, I'm afeared you can't do that, Rosie. Jack's a b'y and you know how it is: b'ys do like to run around with other b'ys." "But what if he gets all sunburnt again and maybe drownd-ed?" "Ah, now, but maybe he won't." There were times when, to Rosie, her mother's easy-going optimism was maddening. Today it seemed to her the very sort of thing you might expect to find in a hot, untidy kitchen cluttered up with clothes-horses and steaming with fresh ironing. The rickety old baby-carriage, draped in mosquito-netting, stood near the ironing board, and Mrs. O'Brien, as she changed irons, would give it a push or two. Geraldine was whimpering miserably, and little wonder, Rosie felt. Mrs. O'Brien, on the other hand, seemed surprised and grieved that she was not cooing herself comfortably to sleep. "Ah, now, baby, what can be ailin' ye? Can't you see your poor ma is working herself to death to get your nice clean clothes all ready for you? Now stop your cryin', darlint, or your poor ma won't be able to iron right, and then what'll sister Ellen say when she comes in? Ho, ho, Ellen's a Tartar, dear, she is that! Now you wouldn't want your poor ma to be scolded by Ellen, would you? Indeed and you wouldn't! So hush now like a good baby, and don't be always cryin'...." Rosie stood it as long as she could, then her heart overflowed in indignant speech: "Of course she's crying in this horrible hot kitchen! Why wouldn't she? And they's flies in her mosquito-netting, too!" Mrs. O'Brien paused in her ironing to shake her head in mournful reproach. "Why, Rosie, how you talk! Where else can I put the poor child but right here? Upstairs in Ellen's room and in my room it's just like an oven. Jarge's room, downstairs here, is cool enough, but I can't use that, for Jarge pays good money for it and besides lets Terry sleep with him. No, no, Rosie, I can't impose on Jarge." Rosie's blue eyes snapped. "Well, why can't you put her in the front room? That's cool." "Why, Rosie! You know very well why I can't. Ellen won't let me. When a girl's a young lady like Ellen, she's got to have a place for gintlemin callers, and how would she feel, she says, if her gintlemin friends was to smell Geraldine!" "Smell Geraldine! Maggie O'Brien, I'd think you'd be ashamed o' yourself! Geraldine'd be all right if you changed her and washed her often enough! You can bet nobody ever smelled Jackie! It's just your own fault about Geraldine, and you know it is!" "Rosie dear, why do you be so hard on your poor ma? I'm sure I wash her whenever I get the chance. I'm always washin' and ironin' somethin'!" "Yes. You're always washing and ironing Ellen's things!" "Why, Rosie, how you do be talkin'! When a girl's a young lady she's got to have a good supply of fresh skirts and clean shirt-waists. Men like to see their stenogs dressed clean and pretty." "Aw, what do I care how men like their stenogs? All I want to say is this: If you got a baby, you ought to wash it!" "Yes, Rosie dear, but what'd you do if you'd been like your poor ma and had had eight babies? Ah, you don't know how wearyin' it is, Rosie!" Rosie rushed out of the kitchen, unable longer to endure the discussion. But she was back in a few moments, carrying towels and a large white basin. "Why, Rosie dear, are you really goin' to give poor little Geraldine a nice----" "Maggie O'Brien, if you say a single word to me I won't do a thing!" Rosie glared at her mother threateningly. "Mercy on us, Rosie, how you talk! I won't say a word! I promise you on me oath I'll be as quiet as a mouse! You won't hear a sound out o' me, will she, baby darlint? I'll be like the deaf and dumb man at the Museum. He talks with his fingers, Rosie. You'd die laughin' to see him...." At the cooling touch of water, little Geraldine quieted her whimpering and began to smile wanly. The sight of her neglected body made Rosie's anger blaze anew. "Maggie O'Brien, I don't believe you've touched this baby for a week! You ought to be ashamed o' yourself! Just look at how chafed she is, and her body all over prickly heat, too!... Where's the corn-starch?" "Rosie dear, I'm awful sorry, but we're out o' corn-starch. I've been meanin' this two days to have you get some." "Well, I'd like to know what I'm going to put on Geraldine!" "Couldn't you run over to the grocery now?" "No, I can't! It's almost time for my papers. I know what I'll do: I'll borrow Ellen's talcum." "Oh, Rosie, Ellen wouldn't like that!" "I don't care if she wouldn't! I guess she helps herself to other people's things. Besides, if she's so particular about her gentlemen friends, she ought to be glad to have Geraldine all powdered up with violet talc." "Don't tell me, Rosie, that you mean to be puttin' Geraldine in the front room! Ellen'll be awful mad!" "Let her be! When she begins to ramp around, you just _sick_ her on to me! I'll be ready for her! Besides, I guess Geraldine's got some rights in this house!" On the floor of the front room, between two chairs, Rosie made a cool little nest, protected with mosquito-netting. The tired baby sighed and turned and was asleep in two minutes. "You poor little thing!" Rosie murmured as she stood a moment looking down at the dark circles under Geraldine's closed eyes and at the cruel prickly heat that was creeping up her neck. "You poor little thing!" She went back slowly and thoughtfully to the kitchen. Before her mother she paused a moment, then looked up defiantly. "Ma, has Geraldine a clean dress to go out this afternoon in the baby-buggy?" Mrs. O'Brien's face began to beam with delight. "Ah, now, do you mean to say----" Rosie cut her off shortly. "Maggie O'Brien, if you say one word to me I'll drop the whole thing!" Mrs. O'Brien stopped her ironing to stretch out a timid, conciliatory hand. "Rosie dear, why do you always be so sharp to your poor ma? I won't say a word, I promise I won't. Geraldine's things is at the bottom of the basket, and the moment I finish this waist of Ellen's I'll get at them." Rosie felt a sudden pang of shame, but a foolish little pride made her keep on scolding. "Well, I got my papers to attend to now, but see that you have those things ready by the time I get back." "Indeed and I will!" Mrs. O'Brien declared with head-shaken emphasis. All afternoon on her paper route Rosie thought of poor, neglected little Geraldine with her chafed body and sad, tired eyes. It wasn't her fault, poor baby, that she had come eighth in a family when every one was too busy and hard-worked to pay attention to her.... But it was a shame--that's what it was! I just tell you when there's a baby around, some one ought to take proper care of it!... Rosie wanted dreadfully to fasten blame somewhere, and the person naturally responsible would seem to be her mother. For some reason, though, she couldn't work up much of a case against Mrs. O'Brien. That poor soul had enough to do, and more than enough, without ever touching Geraldine. She was not, it is true, the best manager in the world, and she was dreadfully helpless in the hands of unscrupulous people like, say, her own daughter Ellen; but when all was said and done, she was fearfully hard driven, early and late, and never a day off. And yet how cheerful and uncomplaining she was! How loving and kind, too, never remembering the cross words you gave her nor the short, ill-natured answers. No matter how you had been acting, she would call you "dear" again, the moment you let her.... Moreover, even if she did not wash Geraldine as often as she should, Heaven knows it was not to save herself. Maggie O'Brien would have gone through fire and flood for the benefit of any of her children, living or dead, and Rosie knew this. No, no. The things slighted were not slighted because she was lazy and selfish, but because there were not hours in the day for her one pair of hands, willing but not very skilled, to do all there was to do in the crowded little household. But if it was once granted that her mother was unable to give Geraldine proper care, was the child, Rosie asked herself, never to receive such care? In her heart Rosie knew the one way possible and at last forced herself to consider it. Could she take this baby and raise it as she had Jackie?... To have Geraldine for a morning or an afternoon would be a pleasure; but all day and every day--that was another matter. Rosie knew how time-consuming it was to be a mother. She knew what it meant to look after a baby's food and its naps and its baths and its clothes. And such things were worse now than in Jackie's time. It would never do to raise another baby in the haphazard fashion Jackie had been raised. The care of babies was an exact science now. Out of curiosity Rosie and Janet had once attended a few meetings of the Little Mothers' Class at the Settlement, so Rosie knew. She sighed. Among other things, she supposed she would have to become a regular member of that class.... Dear, dear, what time would be left for all those lovely vacation picnics which she had been planning for herself and Janet and Jackie?... Jackie!... She had forgotten: _there wasn't any Jackie now_. Rosie stopped, expecting again to be swallowed up in that ancient grief. But it scarcely touched her. Instead, she found herself looking at Jackie with the critical eyes of an outsider. He was pretty big. Perhaps he did not need her any longer. George Riley and Danny Agin and Janet McFadden and Terry and her mother--hadn't each of them said the same thing? Rosie had wanted to make herself believe that they were all in league against her, but deep down in her heart she knew they were not and had always known it. Now at last she was ready to confess the truth: Jack did not need her any longer.... And poor little Geraldine did. Of course, though, she would never love Geraldine. All the love in her heart she had poured out upon Jackie, and there simply wasn't any left. How could there be? It was merely that, in any case, she must fill up the barren days remaining with something. Why not with Geraldine? It would, however, be rather pleasant to see Geraldine grow plump and happy under her wise care. Ever since hot weather the poor birdie had not had half enough sleep. Rosie would not be long in remedying that. And it would surprise her much if she did not have the little chafed body well within a week.... When you take a baby to raise, it's a satisfaction to get a pretty one. Geraldine promised to be very pretty. Her hair was growing out in loose little ringlets like Rosie's own, and her eyes, too, were like Rosie's, only bluer. Perhaps, when Rosie fattened her, she would have a dimple. Rosie herself had a lovely dimple that was much admired. Let's see: was it in the right cheek or the left? Rosie made sure by smiling and feeling for it. Yes, she really hoped that Geraldine would develop a dimple. Was there anything on earth sweeter than a dimpled baby?... The baby-buggy was a rickety old affair that had done service for Jackie and for little Tim that was gone. Rosie did wish they could afford a nice new up-to-date go-cart. No matter, though. Having any sort of thing to push about, would give her and Janet all the excuse they needed to promenade for hours up and down Boulevard Place. Not that Rosie was looking forward with any pleasure to her new undertaking. Heavens, no! She shook her head emphatically. Henceforth it was duty, not pleasure, to which she would devote her life. You know how it is in this world: though our hearts, alas, are breaking, we must all do our duty. She found Geraldine refreshed and happy after her long nap. She dressed her carefully in the clean clothes that were waiting and settled her comfortably in the old carriage. Then, when they were ready to start, she turned to her mother. "I want to tell you something, Ma: I'm going to take care of Geraldine this summer. Then maybe you won't have to work so hard." Mrs. O'Brien laughed and cried and hugged Rosie to her bosom. "Oh, you darlint, you darlint! What's this ye're tellin' me!... Ah, Rosie, if I do say it, ye're the best child that ever stood in shoes! Geraldine darlint, do ye hear what sister Rosie says?" Mrs. O'Brien paused a moment, then spoke more quietly: "And, Rosie dear, I've been sorry about this Jackie business--I have that. It's a turrible thing when a little mother hen has only one chick, to have that chick turn out a goslin'! But take me word for it, Rosie, Geraldine'll niver disapp'int ye so. Ye'll niver take to water, will ye, baby dear?" Rosie choked a little. "I--I guess we better be going. We got to stop for Janet." They started off, and Mrs. O'Brien, in a fresh ecstasy of delight, called after them: "Ah, look at the blissed infant, as happy as a lamb with two mothers!" CHAPTER IX JANET'S AUNT KITTY Janet McFadden, after one searching look in Rosie's face, rushed forward eagerly. "I'm so glad to see you! Where have you been all this time?" Rosie dimpled with pleasure. Wasn't it sweet of Janet not to refer to the coldness of their last meeting? That was Janet right straight through: always ready to be insulted on the first provocation, but just as ready, once she knew you still loved her, to let bygones be bygones. "Well, you see, Janet, Jackie's been sick. No, not really sick, but sore. His back was all sunburnt. He'd been in swimming for the first time. You know boys always go in swimming and get sunburnt the first day. But he's all right now and I don't have to bother about him any more." Janet blinked in surprise and started to say something when the expression on Rosie's face checked her. She paused, then exclaimed, rather fatuously: "How sweet Geraldine looks!" "Doesn't she!" Rosie spoke enthusiastically. "Say, Janet, don't you think she's a nice baby?" "I do indeed!" Janet wagged her head impressively. "You know yourself I always did think she was a nice baby and I never could make out why you didn't like her more." "Janet McFadden, how you talk! Of course I like Geraldine! I love her!" Rosie bounced the baby-carriage vigorously and made direct appeal to Geraldine herself: "Doesn't sister Rosie love her own baby? Of course she does! And she's going to take care of her all summer, isn't she? because ma's too busy." "Why, Rosie!" Janet began. Rosie faced square about and with one look challenged Janet to show further surprise. "Why--why, isn't that nice!" Janet murmured meekly. "Of course it's nice and we're going to Boulevard Place every afternoon, aren't we, Geraldine? We're going there now and Janet can come with us if she wants to." Janet wanted to, but she had to refuse. "I can't today, Rosie. I've got to help my mother. But tomorrow afternoon--will you stop for me then? I'll expect you." In this way friendship was restored. Not having to bear the strain of an insistent questioning from Janet, its restoration was simple. Something had occurred to change Rosie's attitude in regard to her small brother and sister and upon this something she was not disposed, evidently, to be communicative. Well, Janet was not inquisitive. Besides, even if this subject of conversation was taboo, conversation was not in any danger of early extinction. When together, Janet and Rosie always talked--not perfunctorily, either, but with much emphasis and many headshakings. Goodness me, they never stopped talking! After only a few hours' separation, each had a hundred things to tell the other. By the very next day Janet had a bit of news, that was to furnish them an exciting topic for weeks to come. When Rosie called for Janet the following afternoon, her knock was answered by Tom Sullivan, who instantly blushed a glowing crimson and with difficulty stammered: "Yes, Janet's home. Come on in." Rosie found Janet and her mother entertaining Mrs. Sullivan, who was Dave McFadden's sister and therefore Janet's aunt. At sight of Rosie, Mrs. Sullivan exclaimed gushingly: "If there ain't Rosie O'Brien! You sweet thing! Come right here and kiss me!" Rosie had to submit to the caress although she knew it was intended as a slight to Janet. That was one of Aunt Kitty Sullivan's little ways. Aunt Kitty was a fat, smiling, middle-aged woman who was going through life under the delusion that her face still retained the empty prettiness of its youth. "I was just a-saying to Janet," Aunt Kitty began, "that she ought to be making herself more attractive. As long as she goes about looking like a scarecrow, she never will have a beau! Ain't that right, Rosie?" Aunt Kitty smiled upon Rosie that meaning smile with which one conscious beauty appeals to another. Rosie did not respond to it. From the bottom of her heart she despised Aunt Kitty for the persistence with which she tormented Janet. When Rosie came in her tirade must have been going on for some time, for Janet looked tense and angry and her mother badly flustered. Mrs. McFadden, hard-worked and worn and shabby, could not openly resent her sister-in-law's little pleasantries, for Kitty Sullivan was the prosperous member of the family. The chance that had given her a sober, frugal, industrious husband had also given her a certain moral superiority over all women whose husbands were not sober or frugal or industrious. Mrs. McFadden did not question this superiority; she accepted it humbly. Far be it from her, poor drudge that she was, to dispute the words of a woman who could afford good clothes and a weekly ticket to the matinée. So all she said now in Janet's defence was: "Kitty, I wish you wouldn't be putting such notions into Janet's head. She's too young to have beaux." "Too young!" scoffed Mrs. Sullivan. "I guess I begun havin' beaux when I was a good deal younger than Janet is now! Why, nowadays a girl can't begin too young havin' beaux, or the first thing she knows she's an old maid! Ain't that right, Rosie?" Rosie turned her head away, mumbling some unintelligible answer. Tom, blushing until his freckles were all hidden, came to her rescue. "Aw, now, Ma, why can't you let up on Janet? She ain't done nuthin' to you!" Mrs. Sullivan looked at her son reprovingly. "Tom Sullivan, you just mind your own business! What I'm saying is for Janet's own good. And I must say, Mary McFadden, it's your fault, too. You ought to be dressing Janet better now that she's getting big." Mrs. McFadden sighed apologetically. "I'm sure I dress her as well as I can, Kitty." "Well, then, all I got to say is you must be a mighty poor manager, with Dave making good money and you yourself working every day!" As she finished, Mrs. Sullivan smiled and dimpled with all the malicious triumph of a precocious child. Rosie felt shamed and troubled. To Mrs. Sullivan's taunt there was one answer that everybody present knew, but that neither Mary McFadden nor Janet would ever give, and that Rosie, as an outsider, could not give. But even so, Mrs. Sullivan was not to go unanswered. Tom, blushing with mortification, jumped to his feet. "Ma, you're the limit! You ought to be ashamed o' yourself! Uncle Dave makes good money, does he? Yes, and he boozes every cent of it, and Aunt Mary here has got to work like a nigger to pay the rent and keep herself and Janet, and you know it, too." "Tom Sullivan, you shut up!" Mrs. Sullivan's voice rose to an angry scream. "How dare you interrupt me! You deserve a good thrashing, you do, and you're goin' to get it, too, as soon as your father comes home!... Dave boozes, does he? Well, all I got to say is this: he never boozed before he got married, and if he boozes now it's a mighty queer thing!" Rosie stood up to go. "Say, Janet, you promised to come with me this afternoon. Get your hat." "Yes," advised Mrs. Sullivan; "put on that old black sailor hat that makes you look like a guy. Mary McFadden, if I had a girl I wouldn't let her out on the street in a hat like that!" Rosie and Janet started off and Tom called after them: "Wait a minute! I'll come, too!" "No, you don't!" his mother ordered. "You stay right where you are! You don't get out o' my sight till I hand you over to your dad!" Once safe on the street, Rosie put a sympathetic arm about Janet's shoulder. "Even if she is your aunt, Janet, I think she's low-down and I hate her!" "Pooh!" Janet tossed her head in fine scorn. "In my opinion she ain't worth hating! She ain't nuthin'! I consider her beneath my contemp'! The truth is, Rosie, I don't mind her buzzin' around any more than I do a fly! She'd die if she didn't talk; so I say let her talk. If she couldn't she'd probably do something worse. My mother feels the same way. We get tired of her sometimes, but we stand her because she's my dad's own sister.... Of course, though, some of the things she says is perfectly true. I ain't pretty. You are, Rosie, but I ain't and I know it, and that's all there is about it." Janet spread out her hands in simple candour and glanced at her friend. Then, involuntarily, she gave a little sigh. It was not a sigh of envy. She really did accept as a matter of fact that she herself was not pretty and that Rosie was. Where Rosie was plump and rounded and graceful, Janet knew that she was flat and long and lanky. Her arms were long, her fingers were long, her face was long. Her dark hair, too, was long, but with nothing in texture or colour to recommend it. She wore it pulled straight from her forehead and hanging behind in two stiff plaits. With her old black hat, her colourless face, her faded clothes, she gave the impression of a very shabby, serious little person. And she was both. Rosie, on the other hand, though as poorly dressed, seemed anything but shabby and serious, for she was all life and colour, like some little roadside flower, which, in spite of dusty leaves, raises aloft a bright, fresh bloom. Janet might bravely dismiss her aunt with a wave of the hand, but Rosie insisted upon repeating herself. "I don't care what you say, Janet, I think she's low-down the way she talks to you and your mother! Now Tom's nice. That was fine the way he spoke up. You don't think his father'll lick him, do you?" "Uncle Matt?" Janet laughed. "Nev-er! Uncle Matt's just crazy about Tom. They're like two kids when they're together. And that reminds me, Rosie--goodness me, I was forgetting all about it!" Janet paused to give full flavour to her bit of news. "What Tom came over for this afternoon was to tell me that Uncle Matt has promised to give him and me tickets for the Traction Boys' Picnic--you know it's coming in two weeks now--and Tom says he's going to try to beg another ticket for you!" "Is he really, Janet? Now isn't he just too kind!" "Kind? I should say he is! He's bashful, of course, and people laugh at him because he's got red hair, but he's just as generous as he can be. You remember last year I went with him, too. Why, do you know, last year his father had six customers who bought their tickets and then turned right around and said: 'But we can't go, so you just give these tickets to some one who can.' Uncle Matt had enough tickets for the whole family and two more besides. He sold those two and give us all ice-cream sodas on them." "Did he really, Janet! That just proves what I always say: in some ways I'd much rather have my father be a conductor than a motorman. A motorman never gets a chance at a ticket. I'm glad Jarge Riley's a conductor. I bet he sells a good many, don't you?" "Of course he will, Rosie! I hadn't thought of Jarge. If a customer gives Jarge back a ticket, of course he'll pass it on to you--I know he will. Gee, Rosie, you're lucky to have a fella like Jarge Riley boarding with you. He sure is a dandy." To this last Rosie agreed readily enough but on the priority of her claim to any tickets she set Janet right. "If he gets only a couple, he'll give Ellen first chance." Janet sighed. "Say, Rosie, is he still dead gone on Ellen?" Rosie sighed, too, and nodded. "Ain't it funny with a fella that's got so much sense about other things?" Janet sighed again. "I don't like to say anything against Ellen, because she's your sister, but, as you say yourself, it certainly is funny." CHAPTER X ROSIE RECEIVES AN INVITATION Rosie did not see George that night, but she brought up the subject next day at dinner. It was Sunday, so the whole family was assembled. "Are you selling many tickets, Jarge?" "Yes, a good many, and one of my customers give me back two." "Oh, Jarge, did he really? What are you going to do with them?" George glanced timidly in the direction of Ellen. It was plain at once what he wanted to do with them. It was also plain that Ellen was not going to give him much encouragement. To get the support of the family, George made his invitation public. "I was hoping that Ellen would like to go with me." Ellen glanced up languidly. "Thanks, Mr. Riley, but I don't see how I can." George, swallowing hard, forced out the question: "Why not?" "Well, if you insist on knowing, it's this: I don't care to make a guy o' myself going out with a fella that don't come up much above my shoulder." Mrs. O'Brien threw up astonished hands and cried out: "Fie on you, Ellen, fie, for sayin' such a thing!" Rosie blazed and spluttered with indignation: "Ellen O'Brien, you ought to be ashamed o' yourself to talk like that to a nice fella like Jarge Riley! If you had any sense you'd know that he's worth a whole cart-load of the dudes that you and Hattie Graydon run after!" Rosie got up from her chair and, stepping over to George's place, slipped her arm about his embarrassed neck. Then she put her cheek against his. "Don't you care what that old Ellen says, Jarge. You're not little at all! You're plenty big enough! Besides, little men are much nicer!" Ellen laughed maliciously. "It's a pity George don't ask you." The red again surged up George's neck; he gulped; sent one hurt glance in Ellen's direction, then spoke to Rosie: "Rosie, I've got tickets for the Traction Boys' Picnic and I'd love like anything to take you. Have you got anything else on for Friday night next week?" "Friday night, did you say, Jarge? Why, for Friday night they ain't nuthin' 'd suit me better! Thanks ever so much!" Rosie, still behind George's chair, shot an annihilating glance at Ellen. That young woman, a trifle piqued perhaps but still amused, tossed her head and laughed. "Ma, I don't think it's right the way Rosie's getting a grown-up fella and me not even engaged yet! I don't think you ought to allow it!" "Ellen, Ellen, your tongue's entirely too long!" Mrs. O'Brien looked at her reprovingly, but Ellen, in a sudden change of mood, heeded her not. She was gazing at Rosie with speculative eyes. When she spoke, it was in a tone from which all banter and ill-humour had vanished. "Ma, if Rosie does go with George Riley, there's just one thing: she's got to have a new dress. The poor kid hasn't a stitch to her back. She ought to have a little pink dimity. She's just sweet in pink. Lucky, too, there's a sale on tomorrow at the Big Store. So you needn't say a word--I'm going to get her something. And I'll trim her a hat, too." Mrs. O'Brien protested that she hadn't the price of a ten-cent hat, let alone a dress, but Ellen, as usual, was firm, and Rosie knew that she was now destined to go to the picnic prettily costumed. Rosie would have liked to nurse a while longer her indignation against Ellen but, as Ellen was the only person in the house who knew how to trim a hat out of little or nothing and how to whip together a pretty little dress, Rosie was forced to change her manner of open hostility to one of a more friendly reserve. On the whole Rosie was jubilant. "I'm sure I don't know why it is," she said to Janet McFadden, "but people are pretty nice to me, aren't they?" "Nice?" echoed Janet with long-drawn emphasis. "Well, I should think they are!... Say, Rosie, listen:"--Janet paused a moment--"do you think Tom and me and you and Jarge could all go together? Do you think Jarge'd mind?" Rosie considered the request carefully before answering. Then she spoke as kindly as she could: "I'm sure I don't know, Janet. Perhaps he'd like it all right, but, then again, perhaps he wouldn't. Don't you know, men are so queer nowadays. Anyway, though, I tell you what: I'll ask him." "Will you, Rosie?" Janet's gratitude was almost pathetic. Later, in presenting the case to George himself, Rosie's manner lost its air of Lady Bountiful, and she pleaded Janet's cause with an earnestness for which Janet would have worshipped her. "Aw, now, Jarge, please! Poor Janet won't be in our way and she would love to be with us. Tom Sullivan don't talk much and he's got red hair, but he's awful nice, really he is. I told you he was trying to get me a ticket before you invited me. And besides, Jarge, if we get tired of them we can give them the slip for a little while." As soon as Rosie paused for breath, George said: "Of course we'll let Janet and Tom Sullivan come with us if you want them. This is to be your party and you're to have things your own way." Rosie looked her adoration. "Oh, Jarge, you're just too kind to me, really you are!" The new dress was a great success. It was a little rosebud dimity, pink and pale green, which Ellen designed in pretty summer fashion to make the most of Rosie's well-turned little arms and graceful neck. On a ten-cent bargain counter Ellen had found a hat of yellow straw which was just the thing to shape into a little bonnet and trim with a wreath of pink rosebuds and two soft green streamers which hung down on either side. Ellen planned and worked and was happier than Rosie herself over each new effect. Mrs. O'Brien, hovering about, beamed with approval. "Ellen's an artist with her needle," she declared over and over again. "She is indeed. How she does remind me of me own poor dead sister Birdie! There was a milliner in Dublin would have give her two eyes to get Birdie into her shop." Mrs. O'Brien was right. Ellen was an artist with her needle and took all an artist's joy in her own creation. As she worked on Rosie's costume, she showed none of that impatient, overbearing selfishness which marked her so disagreeably at other times, but was gentle, frank, and affectionate. Once when she pricked Rosie's shoulders by accident she kissed the hurt away, and Rosie, surprised and touched, threw her arms impulsively about her neck. "Why can't you always be like this to me, Ellen? I'd just love you dearly if you were." Ellen laughed a little shamefacedly. "Ain't I nice all the time, Rosie? Well, I'm afraid it's that old business college. It gets on my nerves. I suppose I ought to be studying now, but I'm not going to. I'm not going to stop until I finish this for you." On the afternoon of the picnic, Ellen was so proud of Rosie's appearance that for once she forgot her haughtiness to George Riley. "Now tell the truth, George, aren't you glad it's Rosie instead of me?" George gave Ellen one sick look, gulped, then said bravely: "Rosie sure is mighty pretty!" "Pretty? I should say she is! See her now. Don't she look like a little flower--a sweet-pea or something? And do you know, George, if I was to dress that way, with my size and my height, I'd look like a guy! Yes, I would." CHAPTER XI THE TRACTION BOYS' PICNIC They started off in time to make the half-past-five boat. George was at his dressiest, so close-shaven that he looked almost skinned and resplendent in new tan shoes, green socks, a red tie, and a pink shirt. It was a striking combination of colour and one that made Ellen clutch at her mother in despair. George carried a shoe-box of sandwiches, for Rosie, always a thrifty little housewife, insisted that whatever money they had to spend was not going for the commonplace necessaries of life. Janet McFadden and Tom Sullivan, with a similar shoe-box, were waiting for them at the corner. Janet, in her old black sailor hat, looked dreadfully neat and clean, but for some reason even dingier than usual. It was Janet's first view of Rosie's finery. Shaking her head slowly, she gazed at Rosie several moments before she spoke. Then she said: "Well, Rosie O'Brien, I must say you certainly do look elegant!" Tom Sullivan was so flustered by the close vision of Rosie's loveliness that, when he opened his mouth to say something, he could only splutter unintelligibly and then blush furiously at his own embarrassment. It is surprising, when one stops to think about it, how delightful a mere street-car ride downtown really is. As Rosie sat there with her plain but faithful friend on one side--hereafter she must always try to be especially kind and gentle to Janet--and on the other her sporty, grown-up escort, she had one of those rare moments of perfect content and happiness. Old gentlemen smiled at her absent-mindedly as she brushed aside the green streamers which the wind was forever blowing across her face; young girls examined her critically; a mother across the way distracted the attention of a weeping child by pointing her finger and saying: "Oh, Eddy, look over there at that pretty little girl! She's lookin' straight at you, and what'll she say if she sees you cryin'!"... It was really a lovely, lovely world, and Rosie honestly and truly hoped that everybody in it was happy. They reached the boat at that delightful moment when the bell is ringing and the deckhands are threatening to pull in the gang-plank in spite of the rushing crowds still arriving. By the time they had pushed their way to the upper deck, the gang-plank was in, the band was striking up a gay march, and with a lurch and a turn the _Island Princess_ was off. "O-oh!" murmured Rosie happily, and Janet demanded tensely, of no one in particular: "Isn't this just grand!" Mothers and wives bustled about to get folding chairs and campstools, but the young folk, scorning so soon to sit down, promenaded arm in arm. Tucking Rosie's hand under his elbow, George joined the ranks of the promenaders, and Janet and Tom Sullivan followed his lead at a respectful distance. At the stern, seated off by themselves, was a group of picnickers who hailed George as an old friend and waved at him inviting arms and handkerchiefs. "Let's go over and say 'Howdy,'" George suggested. There were some ten of them, girls and young fellows about George's own age. George took off his hat to them all and, with a flourish, presented Rosie. "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you my lady friend, Miss Rosie O'Brien. Rosie, won't you shake hands with my friend, Mr. Callahan, and Miss Higgins, and Miss McCarthy, and Miss Mahony, ..." Rosie, feeling eighteen years old and perfectly beautiful, went the rounds to an enchanting chorus of, "Pleased to know you, Miss O'Brien," "You sweet little thing!" "Excuse me, Miss Rosie, but I must say George Riley knows how to pick out a pretty girl!..." George then presented Janet, and Janet, too, went the rounds, looking like a sleep-walker with tight-set muscles and staring eyes. "And this," concluded George, giving Tom Sullivan a little push, "is Matt Sullivan's boy. You fellows all know Matt--he's on the East End run." With blinking eyes and a crimson embarrassment that mounted to ears and scalp, Tom passed about a nerveless, sodden hand. After a few more pleasantries, George, gathering together his forces, flourished his hat and said: "Well, so long, friends! See you later." "Weren't they nice!" Rosie remarked enthusiastically, and Janet, in humble gratitude, said: "That was awful kind of you, Mr. Riley, introducing Tom and me." "Kind nuthin'!" George declared. "Aren't you my friends, I'd like to know? Aren't all Rosie's friends my friends?" Unable to express in words how deeply moved she was by the loftiness and nobility of this sentiment, Janet could only look at Rosie, sigh gloomily, and shake her head. They ate their little picnic supper as soon as they landed, topped off with ice-cream, and then, unencumbered with shoe-boxes, sought out the allurements of sideshows, aërial and subterranean thrillers, and dancing pavilion. Rosie insisted that they go into nothing that cost over ten cents. By adopting this principle and making frequent excursions to the dancing pavilion, which was free, they were so well able to husband their resources that George's two dollars and Tom Sullivan's fifty cents carried them through the evening. It seemed to Rosie she had never enjoyed so perfect a picnic. All the thrillers really thrilled. Capitana, the giantess snake-charmer, was actually a giantess, and the snakes she wound about her fat neck were fully as long and as spotted and as green as the posters made out. And so on through everything they tried. "I've never had such a good time in my life!" Rosie declared, as they hurried off to the ten-o'clock boat. "Me, too!" gasped Janet in solemn, sepulchral tones. Looking at the strained expression of happiness on Janet's face, Rosie suddenly thought of something new that would fittingly crown the day's adventures. Out of her own abundance she would give Janet another crumb that would make her eternally grateful. "Say, Jarge," she whispered coaxingly, "will you do something for me?" George looked down at her indulgently. "Of course I will. Anything you want." "Well then, listen, Jarge: Will you take Janet all the way home and be real nice to her and pretend she's your girl and pet her real, real hard. Nobody ever pets Janet, and she never has a good time except when she's with me. And I'll take Tom Sullivan." George laughed a good-natured "All right," and Rosie, turning around, said to Janet: "Jarge don't want me any more, do you, Jarge? He wants you, Janet, don't you, Jarge, want Janet? So will you let Tom Sullivan take me?" "Oh, Rosie!" Janet threw incredulous eyes to heaven and clutched her hands together in a joy that was serious as grief. Rosie pushed her up to George and George, capturing her cold fingers, drew them through his arm. Then Rosie, glowing all over in virtuous self-approval, dropped behind with Tom Sullivan. CHAPTER XII THE LOAN OF A GENTLEMAN FRIEND The wives and mothers, with sleepy, crying children, cluttered up the lower decks. The young people by some common instinct seemed all to be drawn to the quiet and moonlight of the upper deck. There Rosie's party found them, a thousand couples more or less, each couple sitting somewhat apart from its neighbours, but frightfully close to itself. "I suppose they're all engaged," Rosie remarked to Tom Sullivan, and even in the moonlight Tom blushed furiously. George and Janet found the unoccupied half of a deck bench, not too far from the rail, and Rosie and Tom seated themselves on campstools some distance behind. They were pretty far in on deck and so could see very little beyond the backs of the great half circle of couples. But backs, in their way, are very expressive, and Rosie soon found herself deeply interested in the romances of which these various backs were soon giving most unmistakable hints. Every couple that sat down seemed to go through precisely the same emotional experience. A properly equipped statistician could soon have reduced the whole thing to a matter of minutes and seconds. Take what would be an average couple: They seat themselves like ordinary people in their right minds and, for a moment, that is what you suppose they really are. But only for a moment. Although they may be the only couple on the bench, almost immediately you see them crowding against each other as if to make room for a fat lady with a baby. Then to get more room the man drops his arm--the arm next the girl--over the back of the bench, where it lies a few moments lifeless and inert. The position is uncomfortable, evidently, for soon he tries to bring it back. Too late. The invisible fat lady with the baby has, in the meantime, wedged the girl right under the man's shoulder, and his arm and hand, in circling back, circle naturally about her. She, poor little soul, seems not to know what has happened. Her tired head sinks like a weary bird--sinks on his breast. She sleeps. At any rate, she looks like it. Then she wakes. She wakes gradually. Her profile slowly rises and, as it rises, lo! his descends until--until--Well, you know what always occurs when his profile meets her profile full-face. Every time they saw it happen, Rosie held her breath for a moment, then murmured: "They must be engaged, too!" Tom Sullivan stood it as long as he could, then burst out: "Aw, go on! You don't have to be engaged to kiss!" Rosie looked at him, scandalized and shocked. "Why, Tom Sullivan, how you talk! You ought to be ashamed o' yourself!" "Well, you don't!" Tom insisted doggedly. Rosie, drawing herself away from a person of such free-and-easy morals, returned to the backs of the last couple to see whether their little drama had completed itself. As she looked, the final act opened. The man whispered something--from what happened when all the other men had whispered something, Rosie decided he must be asking the girl if she were chilly. She, like all others before her, presumably was, for the man took off half his coat, the half near her, and drew it around her shoulders. What became of his shirt-sleeved arm, or what, in fact, thereafter became of the rest of both of them, no mere onlooker could ever know. The half-coat, raising high its collar, served as an effectual screen against the gaze of a curious world, and the only thing left for a student of human nature was to hunt a new couple. One of the marvels of a picnic boat is that there are always new couples. Rosie found one immediately and was already engrossed in it when Tom Sullivan, clutching her excitedly, cried out: "Look! Look! Didn't I tell you!" Rosie looked, and what she saw seemed for a moment to make her heart stop. George Riley and Janet McFadden--think of it! How long the exhibit had been going on Rosie knew not, but Tom Sullivan had discovered them just as Janet's profile was rising and George's descending. In another instant---- "There!" shouted Tom Sullivan in triumph. "Didn't I tell you so! Now you can't say they're engaged!" Rosie stood up hurriedly. "This is a perfectly horrid boat and I wish I could get off! And I tell you one thing, Tom Sullivan: I'm going downstairs. I won't stay up here any longer. It's disgraceful, that's what it is!" "Aw, don't go down!" Tom begged. "It's fun up here." But Rosie was already started and Tom had to follow. "Say, Rosie," he chuckled confidentially over her shoulder as she climbed down to the next deck, "did you see old Janet? Gee! I bet it was the first time a fella ever kissed her!" Had Rosie seen old Janet? Yes, Rosie had, and the mere thought of the perfidious creature sent Rosie hot and cold by turns. Oh, to think of it! After all she had done for Janet out of the innocent kindness of her heart, to have Janet face about and treat her so! Why, she was nothing but a thief, a brazen thief!... It was true that, in a sense, George did not belong to Rosie: he belonged to Ellen O'Brien if Ellen would once make up her mind to possess him; but as between Rosie and Janet he certainly belonged to Rosie. And Janet knew it, too! And he knew it! Oh, what a weak character his was, thus to be tempted by the first fair face! Fair face, indeed! The first ugly face! Yes, ugly! Not even her own mother could call Janet anything else! Rosie found uncomfortable places for herself and Tom among the wives and mothers who, heavy-eyed and dishevelled, were waiting impatiently to land. Shining over them was no glamour of moonlight. They were plain, homely, hard-worked women--exactly what Janet McFadden would be some day, if George Riley had but sense enough to know it. Rosie picked out the homeliest of them all and wished she had George down beside her so that she could say to him: "Do you see that woman? Well, that's what your dear Janet's going to look like when she grows up!" Rosie had a mental picture of herself at that same future period, with golden hair and lovely clothes and heaps and heaps of beautiful jewels. If she could only give George a glimpse of the great contrast which in a few years there would be between her and Janet, then he'd feel sorry! He'd probably get down on his knees and beg her pardon and she, flipping back some expensive lace from her wrist, would smile at him kindly and drawl out: "Oh, that's all right, Mr. Riley. I never think of you any more. You know how it is when a person has so many wealthy friends. I'm sorry, but I got to go now, for my automobile is waiting. Good-bye...." But meanwhile the moonlight was still shining on the upper deck and Rosie felt perfectly sure that, by this time, Janet was tucked away in George's coat. Rosie stood the suspense as long as she could, then jumped up to investigate. "You wait here for me, Tom," she ordered; "I'll be back in just a minute." She hurried off to the upper deck and, of course, found conditions exactly as she knew they would be. The only thing that showed above George's coat collar was the tilted edge of Janet's old black sailor hat. Rosie stepped up quite close to the guilty pair and cleared her throat, but they heeded her not. "All right!" Rosie warned them in her own mind. "Just keep on and you'll both be sorry some day!" Then she told herself for the fiftieth time what a fool she had been, and she made a mighty vow never again to loan a gentleman friend to any one whomsoever. When she got back to Tom Sullivan, Tom had a bag of peanuts which he offered her at once. "You like peanuts, don't you, Rosie? It's my last nickel, except carfare. Aw, go on, take some." Not to seem unfriendly, Rosie accepted a handful. Crunching the shells between her fingers comforted her a little. It was the sort of treatment she would like to give some people--at any rate, it was the kind they deserved. She didn't exactly name the peanuts, but she gave them initials. To the small ones she gave the initial _J_, to the large ones G. "Do you suppose those two are spoonin' up there yet?" Tom asked finally. "What two?" "Why, George Riley and Janet." And Tom Sullivan, who was supposed to be bashful, looked at Rosie with a meaning smile. Rosie returned the glance with fire and daggers. "Don't you move your old chair any closer to me, Tom Sullivan!" "Aw, now, Rosie----" Tom began, but Rosie cut him short, for the landing-bell was sounding and it was time for them to pick up their disreputable friends. George and Janet were all for acting as if nothing unusual had happened, and Rosie scorned them afresh for the useless hypocrisy. The journey home was stupid and unpleasant. The cars were crowded and people were ill-natured and rude and everything in general was horrid. The wind kept blowing Rosie's streamers into her eyes until she was ready to tear them off.... Would they never get home? Janet McFadden, her dull black eyes fixed in a dream, heeded nothing. But at the corner where their ways parted Rosie saw to it that she heard something. When Janet offered farewells, Rosie called out with unmistakable emphasis: "Good-night, _Tom!_ I've had a very pleasant time with _you!_" Like Janet, George Riley seemed to think that everything was as before. He himself was quiet, with the drowsy languor that follows an evening's excitement, and he seemed to be attributing Rosie's silence to the same cause. When they got home, Rosie tried to show him his mistake. The gas in the little hallway was burning low, and George turned it high to light Rosie upstairs. Rosie started off without a word. "Aren't you going to kiss me good-night, Rosie?" At that Rosie turned slowly about and gazed down upon him with all the hauteur of an offended queen. "There's just one thing I want to tell you, Jarge Riley: because you kiss Janet McFadden, you needn't think you can kiss _any_ girl!" "Why, Rosie!" George began. But Rosie was already gone. [Illustration: "Because you kiss Janet McFadden, you needn't think you can kiss _any_ girl."] CHAPTER XIII JANET EXPLAINS By ten o'clock next morning Janet McFadden was at the door asking for Rosie. Rosie did not, of course, ever care to see Janet again, but as she had come Rosie could scarcely deny herself. She found her one-time friend looking pinched and worried--conscience-stricken, no doubt--and little wonder. "I'm going to the grocery, Janet. Do you want to come with me?" Hardly outside the gate, Janet began: "You're not mad at me, Rosie, are you?" "Mad?" Rosie spoke the word as if it were one with which she was unfamiliar. "I didn't think you'd care, Rosie, honest I didn't. I thought you'd understand." "Understand what?" There was a certain coldness in the tone of Rosie's inquiry, and Janet, feeling it, seemed ready to wring her hands in despair. "Why, Rosie, all we talked about was you--honest it was! Jarge said you were just like his own little sister to him, and I told him I loved you more than I would my own sister if I had one." "Huh!" Rosie grunted, recalling the tilt of Janet's black sailor hat over George's shoulder. It had looked then as if they were talking about her, hadn't it now? "Honest, Rosie!" "Yes, of course. I suppose now you were talking about me when you----" Rosie pursed her lips and Janet, understanding her meaning, blushed guiltily. "Aw, now, Rosie, listen: all I wanted was to have Tom Sullivan see." "Well, he saw all right. So did I. So did everybody. And it was disgraceful, too!" Janet groped helplessly about for words. "I don't exactly mean on account of Tom himself." "Oh!" "Please, Rosie," Janet begged; "don't talk to me that way.... You know Tom's mother, my Aunt Kitty. You know the way she makes fun of me because I'm ugly and lanky. She's always saying that I'm an old maid already and that I'll never get a boy to look at me. So I just wanted her to hear about a nice fella like Jarge Riley hugging me and kissing me." Rosie looked at Janet in astonishment. She had certainly expected Janet to make up a better story than that. "Well, I must say, Janet McFadden, this is news to me! Since when have you got so particular about what your Aunt Kitty thinks or doesn't think? I always supposed she was beneath your contemp'." "No, no, Rosie, it isn't that! I don't care what she thinks or what she says either, if only she wouldn't go blabbing it around everywhere!" With a sudden gust of passion, Janet clenched her hands and breathed hard. "Oh, how I hate her!" Rosie had nothing to say and, after a pause, Janet continued more quietly: "It's this way, Rosie: You know my old man. He's all right except sometimes when he comes home not quite himself. You know what I mean." Yes, Rosie knew. In fact, like the rest of the world, she knew a great deal more than Janet supposed about Dave McFadden's drunken abuse of his wife and child. "He's all right when he's straight, Rosie, honest he is." Never before had Janet confessed in words, even to Rosie, that her father wasn't always sober. It was the fiction of life that she struggled most valiantly to maintain that this same father was the best and noblest of his kind. Poor Janet! In spite of herself Rosie experienced a pang of the old pity which thought of Janet's hard life always excited. But Janet was not striving to appeal to her thus. Slowly and painfully she was forcing herself to lay bare the little tragedy that shadowed her days.... "When he comes home that way he says awful things to me. He says I got a face like a horse and arms as long as a monkey's. He'd never think of things like that if it wasn't for Aunt Kitty. You know he thinks everything Aunt Kitty says is wonderful because she's supposed to be the bright one of the family and used to be pretty. And, Rosie, she ain't got a bit o' sense. All she can do is make people laugh by making fun of somebody. She never cares how much she hurts any one's feelings. I--I know I'm ugly, but--can I help it?..." Janet's face was quivering and her eyes were swimming in tears. "I don't see why Aunt Kitty's got to talk about it, do you? Even if I am ugly, I guess--I guess I got feelings like anybody else.... It's only when dad's full that he starts in on it and begins to yell around until everybody in the building hears him. And I know just as well he'd never think of it if only Aunt Kitty would let up on me a little. So I thought---- Oh, you understand now, don't you, Rosie? That's the reason I did it, honest it is. You believe me, Rosie, don't you?" Believe her? Who wouldn't believe her? Long before she had finished speaking, the citadel of Rosie's affections had been stormed and retaken and Rosie, abject and conquered, was ready to cry for mercy. "And when I told Jarge Riley about it," Janet continued, "he was just as nice. He pretended he wanted to kiss me anyhow, but he didn't, Rosie, honest he didn't. It was only because I was your friend that he wanted to be nice to me...." Of course, of course. At last Rosie was seeing things as they really were, and seeing them thus made her heartsick when she remembered how she had spoken to kind old George Riley. How could she ever put herself right with him?... She would be carrying his supper up to the cars at six o'clock. There would be only an instant of time, but an instant would be enough for her to say: "Oh, Jarge, I've just been happy all day long thinking about the good time you gave me yesterday! Me and Janet have been talking about it. Thanks, thanks so much!" And George Riley, if she knew him at all, instead of recalling her foolish words of last night, would grin all over and gasp out: "Aw, Rosie, that wasn't nuthin' at all!" That was the sort of fellow George was!... "But listen here, Rosie," Janet's voice was continuing in tones of humble entreaty; "if I'd ha' known it would ha' made you mad, I wouldn't have asked Jarge Riley--honest I wouldn't. You believe me, don't you, Rosie?" Tears were in Rosie's throat and self-abasement in her heart. Words, however, came hard. Fortunately she could slip her arm about Janet's neck in the old sweet, intimate fashion and Janet would understand that all was well between them. "And, Janet dear, are you sure that Tom'll tell his mother?" "Yes, I'm sure, because I made him promise not to." "Why, Janet!" "Sure, Rosie. You see Aunt Kitty'll ask him all about things and he'll tell about you and how pretty you looked and about Jarge Riley, and then Aunt Kitty'll begin making fun of me and that'll make Tom mad and he'll tell Aunt Kitty not to be so sure, and then she'll see he's holding back something and she'll tease until she gets it out of him.... Oh, Rosie, I tell you I know her just as well! I can just hear her! And when Tom tells her how mad you are, that'll make her believe the rest.... But honestly, Rosie, I didn't know you was mad till Tom told me." "Tom!" Rosie was indignant at once. "Do you mean to say Tom Sullivan told you I was mad? Well, the next time you see Tom Sullivan you tell him for me to mind his own business!" Rosie paused a moment, then drew Janet closer to her. "Mad? What's eating Tom Sullivan? Friends like you and me, Janet, don't get _mad_!" And Janet McFadden, shaking her head in horror that any one should even suggest such a thing, declared emphatically: "Of course not!" CHAPTER XIV ON SCARS AND BRUISES A few mornings later Rosie was seated on the front steps, shelling peas, when Janet passed the gate. "Aren't you coming in?" Rosie called out. At first Janet was not, but on Rosie's second invitation she changed her mind. As she reached the steps, Rosie discovered the reason of her hesitation. She had a black eye. She carried it consciously, but with such dignity, as it were, that Rosie could not at once decide whether Janet expected her to speak of it, or to accept it without comment. Janet herself, after an introductory remark about the weather, broached the subject. "What do you think about the eye I've got on me? Ain't it a beaut?" It certainly was, and Rosie expressed emphatic appreciation. "And how do you suppose I got it?" Janet pursued. "I couldn't guess if I had to!" Rosie's answer was tactful, rather than truthful. In her own mind she had very little doubt whence the black eye had come. But it would never do to say that she supposed it had been given Janet by her father during one of the drunken rages to which he was subject. With one's dearest friend one may be frank almost to brutality, but not on the subject of that friend's family. There are reserves that even friendship may not penetrate. So, with an exaggeration of guilelessness, Rosie declared: "I couldn't guess if I had to! Honest I couldn't!" Janet had her story ready: "You know how dark the halls in our building are. Well, I was just going downstairs, when a boy sneaked up behind me, and pushed me, and I slipped, and hit my face against the banister. And I think I know who it was, too!" Rosie was by nature too simple and direct to simulate with any great success the kind of surprise that Janet was forever demanding of her. Fortunately this time it did not matter, for, while Janet was speaking, Rosie's mother had appeared with an armful of darning. Unlike Rosie, Mrs. O'Brien was always in a state of what might be termed chronic surprise. She paused now before seating herself, to remark in shocked tones: "Why, Janet McFadden, what's this ye're tellin'? Mercy on us, ain't b'ys just awful sometimes! But I'm thinkin' your da'll soon settle that lad!" Janet shook her head violently. "Mrs. O'Brien, I wouldn't dare tell my father that boy's name for anything! My father'd just murder him--honest he would! It just makes my father crazy when anybody touches me! He ain't responsible, he gets so mad--really he ain't! So you can see yourself I got to be mighty careful what I tell him. Besides, I ain't dead sure it was that boy, but I think it was." Mrs. O'Brien's interest in the situation equalled Janet's own. "I see exactly the place you're in, Janet, and I must say it's wise, the stand you take." Mrs. O'Brien bit off a strand of darning cotton, and carefully stiffened the end. "You see," Janet continued, "it's this way with me. I'm an only child, and you know yourself how men act about their only child." "I do, indeed, Janet, and I feel for you." From her sympathetic understanding of Janet's problem, one would never have supposed that Mrs. O'Brien herself was the mother of a large family, and had been the child of a larger one. She held up a sock impressively. "You're quite right, Janet. Your da might do somethin' awful. There's no holdin' back some men when they take it into their heads that their only child has been mistreated." Rosie sighed inwardly. She had very little of that histrionic sense that prompts people to assume a part and play it out in all seriousness. At first such a performance as the present one wearied her. Why in the world do people pretend a thing when they know perfectly well that they are pretending? Then, as the moments passed, she grew interested in spite of herself, for the acting of her mother and Janet was most convincing. At last she was not quite sure that it was acting. She was brought back to her senses by Janet's turning suddenly to her with the exclamation: "Ain't they all o' them just awful, anyhow!" No need to ask Janet of whom she was speaking. It was an old practice of hers, this glorifying her father in one breath, and in the next vilifying men in general. Rosie protested at once: "Why are they awful? I think they're nice." Janet looked at her in kindly commiseration. "Well, then, Rosie, all I got to say is--you don't know 'em." "I don't know them! Well, I like that!" Rosie was indignant now. "I guess I know them as well as you do!" Rosie paused, then concluded in triumph: "Don't I know my own brother Terry? I guess he's all right!" "Terry," Janet repeated, with a significant headshake. "Now I suppose, Rosie, you think you and Terry are great friends, don't you?" "I don't think so; I know so." Janet laughed cynically. "Yes, I suppose you and him are great friends as long as you run your legs off for him. But listen to me, Rosie O'Brien! Do you know what he'd do to you if you was to lose one of his paper customers? He'd beat the very puddin' out of you! I guess I know!" "Janet, you're crazy!" "Crazy? All right, Rosie, have it your own way. But I leave it to Mis' O'Brien if I ain't right." That lady, being, as it were, pledged to Janet's support, instead of vindicating her own son, made the weak admission: "Well, I must confess there's somethin' in what Janet says." At Janet's departure, Rosie looked at her mother scornfully. "Ma, don't you really know how Janet got that black eye?" Mrs. O'Brien dropped her darning in surprise. At every turn life seemed to hold a fresh surprise for Mrs. O'Brien. "Why, Rosie! What a question to ask your poor ma! Do I look like I was born yesterday?" Mrs. O'Brien did not; but, even so, Rosie insisted upon a direct answer. "Well, then, if you really must know, Rosie dear, I'll be glad to tell you. That brute of a Dave McFadden has been knockin' her down again." Rosie clucked her tongue impatiently. "Maggie O'Brien, there's one thing I'd like to ask you. When Janet knew how she got that black eye, and you knew how she got it, and she knew perfectly well that you knew, why in the world did you both go pretending something else?" Mrs. O'Brien looked at her daughter in patient despair. "My, my, Rosie, what a child ye do be! Wouldn't it be awful of me to go insultin' poor little Janet by saying: 'Ho, ho, Janet, that's a fine black eye yir da has given you!'" Rosie squirmed in exasperation. "But why do you got to say anything? Why do either of you got to say anything?" "Why do I got to say anything?" In Mrs. O'Brien, surprise had now turned to amazement. "Why, Rosie dear, what's this ye're askin' me? Haven't I always got to say somethin'? Wasn't it for talkin' purposes that the Lord put a tongue in me head?" "But couldn't you talk about something else besides that black eye?" "I could not. Take me word for it, Rosie, that black eye was the one thing of all to talk about. Don't you see, dear, 'twas that was taking up Janet's entire attention, for it was on her mind as well as on her face. So not to make it awkward for the poor child, I simply had to talk and let her talk." Rosie still shook her head obstinately. "Even if it was on her mind, I don't see why she had to go make up that silly story that nobody believes, and that she don't believe herself. She always does." Mrs. O'Brien's face broke into a smile of understanding. "Ah, Rosie, I see now what's troublin' you. You don't see why poor Janet wants to cover up that brute of a Dave." This was exactly what was troubling Rosie, as she agreed readily enough. "And, Ma," she continued, "do you suppose if my father beat me, I'd go around pretending he was the best ever? Well, I wouldn't!" "Your poor da, did you say, Rosie? May God forgive you for havin' such a thought! Why, that poor lamb wouldn't hurt a fly--he's that gentle! Ah, Rosie, it's on yir knees ye ought to be every night of yir life, thankin' God for the kind o' father I picked out for you!" "I am thankful, but I wouldn't be if he was like Dave McFadden. And I wouldn't pretend I was, either." "Ah, it's little ye know about that, Rosie, for just let me tell ye--ye'd be exactly like Janet if ye were in Janet's shoes." "I bet I wouldn't!" "Rosie, ye couldn't help yirself. Ye'd have to stand up for him even if he was a brute." "Why would I have to?" "Because he's your da. Is it possible, Rosie dear, that ye don't yet know 'tis a woman's first duty to stand up for a man if he's her da, or her brother, or her husband, or her son? Mercy on us, where would we be if she didn't? Have ye ever heard me, all the years of your life, breathe a whisper against Jamie O'Brien?" "I should think not!" To Rosie this seemed a very poor example of the principle in question. "How could you? Dad never even beats the boys, let alone you and me!" Mrs. O'Brien smacked her lips pensively. "No, he don't beat me." She sighed slowly. "I mean _now_ he don't." Rosie looked at her mother with startled eyes. "Ma, what do you mean?" Mrs. O'Brien sighed again, and took up her darning. "Nuthin' at all, Rosie. I don't know what I'm sayin'. I can't gab another minute, for I must finish this sock. So run off, like a good child, and don't bother me." "But, Ma"--Rosie's voice dropped to a whisper, and a look of horror came into her face--"do you mean he used to--beat you?" "Rosie dear, stop pesterin' me with your questions. Far be it from me to set child against father, and, besides, as you know yourself, he's behavin' now. What's past is past. I've said this much to you, Rosie, so's to give you a hint of the ragin' lions that these here quiet, soft-spoken little lambs of men keep caged up inside o' them. Oh, I tell you, Rosie dear, beware o' that kind of a man, for you never know when the lion in him is goin' to break loose and leap out upon you. Ah, I know what I'm sayin' to me everlastin' sorrow!" "Why, Ma, are you crazy! Dad has never laid a finger on you, or on any one else, and you know he hasn't!" Rosie scanned her mother's face in hope of discovering a little family joke, but Mrs. O'Brien met her gaze with sad, truthful eyes as guileless as a baby's. "All right, Rosie dear, maybe your poor ma is crazy. But I wonder now ye've never noticed the scar on me right shoulder, nor asked the cause of it." "What scar?" "Have you never seen it, Rosie?" Mrs. O'Brien began unbuttoning her waist to exhibit the scarred shoulder. Then she paused, thought a moment, and changed her mind. "No. As ye've never noticed it, Rosie, it wouldn't be right of me to show it to you now. The sight of it might make you bitter. But you surprise me that you've never seen it. It's a foot long at least, and two fingers deep, and itches in rainy weather." "Why, Ma!" Rose's eyes were fixed, and her mouth a round, blank question mark. "Upon me word of honour, Rosie!" For a moment Rosie was too shocked to go on. Then she gasped: "How--how did it happen?" "How did it happen, do you ask? That, Rosie, is a secret that'll go with me to the grave. This much I'll tell you--'twas made with a butcher-knife. But who gave the blow, I wouldn't confess under torture. Now, Rosie dear, don't tempt me to say another word, for I'm done." Mrs. O'Brien lifted her head high, took a long breath, and began a serious attack on the sock. Rosie questioned further, but in vain. CHAPTER XV THE BRUTE AT BAY Her own father!... All afternoon as she went about delivering papers, Rosie's mind kept going over this amazing revelation. Not for an instant did she question the truth of it. An exuberance of imagination very often led her mother to embroider fancifully the details of a story, but surely not this time. This time that scar, that awful scar, was evidence enough of what had taken place. To think that Rosie had never even suspected that side of her father's nature! She shuddered at her own innocence. To her, her father had always seemed all gentleness and meekness. Gentleness and meekness, indeed! Why, with that raging lion ramping and tearing about inside of him he was little better than a wolf in sheep's clothing! At first Rosie dreaded ever seeing him again. She doubted whether, at sight of him, she could conceal sufficiently the abhorrence that she felt. Then she began to want to see him, as one wants to see the animals in the carnivora building at feeding time. It is a racking experience, but one likes to go through it. Rosie's final decision was to take one look at the beast, hear for herself the sound of its roar, then flee it forever. A good time to see Jamie O'Brien was after supper, in the cool of the evening, when he slipped off his shoes, unloosened his suspenders, and sat him down in the peace and quiet of the back yard. He had a broken-down old arm-chair, which he knew how to prop against the ancient little apple-tree and support with a brick at its shortest leg. For one-half hour every summer evening, when the old chair was properly braced, and his sock feet were stretched out at ease on a soap-box, Jamie O'Brien knew comfort, utter and absolute. It was the moment when, like old King Cole, he called for his pipe. "Rosie dear, like a good child, will you bring me me pipe and a few matches?" Rosie, busied in the kitchen over the supper dishes, always knew just when this call was coming, and always had her answer ready: "All right, Dad. Just wait till I dry my hands and I will." Tonight she gave the usual answer in the usual cheerful tone, for she felt that it behooved her to meet deceit with deceit if she was to catch the beast unaware. So she got Jamie his pipe, and later came out again and perched on the arm of his chair. "Say, Dad," she began. She took a peep at him from the corner of her eye. Heaven knows he did not look fierce. He was a plain, lean, little man, of indeterminate colouring, with sparse hair, sparser mustache, and faded blue eyes, that had a patient, far-away look in them. His face was thin and worn, with lines that betokened years of labour borne steadily and without complaint. He was a silent man and passed for thoughtful, though contemplative would better express his cast of mind. He looked at things and people slowly and quietly, as if considering them carefully before committing himself. Then, when he spoke, it would be some slight remark, brief and commonplace. When Rosie began: "Say Dad," he waited patiently. After several seconds had elapsed, he turned his head slightly and said: "Well, Rosie?" He gave her a faint smile, and patted her hand affectionately. Ordinarily, at this place, Rosie would have slipped an arm about his neck, but tonight she held back. "Say, Dad," she opened again, in a coaxing, confidential tone, "did you have a good run today?" The world in general supposes, no doubt, that, to a motorman, one day's run must be much like any other. Rosie knew better. Jamie very deliberately relit his pipe before answering. Then he said: "Yes, it was all right, Rosie." Rosie waited, as she knew from his manner that something more would finally come. Jamie gazed about thoughtfully, then concluded: "They was a flat wheel on the rear truck." Rosie was all sympathy. "Oh, Dad, I'm so sorry! It must ha' been horrid riding all day on a flat wheel." Jamie took a puff or two, then announced: "I didn't mind it." "Well, Dad, did you report it?" Jamie scratched his head, as if in an effort to remember, and at last said: "Sure." After a decent interval, Rosie began again: "Say, Dad, what'd you think of a man who chased his wife with a hatchet?" Rosie thought it would be a little indelicate to come right out with butcher-knife. Hatchet was near enough, anyway. Rosie's idea was that her father would betray himself by defending the husband. When he did, she expected to tell him that she knew all. Her imagination did not carry her beyond this. She was prepared, however, for something horrible. Jamie O'Brien turned his head almost quickly. "With a hatchet, did you say, Rosie?" "Yes, Dad, with a hatchet." "That's bad. And is it some one around here that we know?" "No, it ain't anybody. I was just saying, what would you think of a man who did that?" "And it ain't some one we know?" With a wave of his pipe, Jamie dismissed all hypothetical hatchets, and returned to the more sensible contemplation of the sky line. Rosie felt that she was being trifled with. She gazed at her father meaningly. "Well, what would you say to a man who chased his wife with a butcher-knife?" Again Jamie took an exasperating time to answer, and again his answer took the form of the question: "Is it some one we know, Rosie?" Rosie threw discretion to the winds. "I'm sure you ought to know whether it's some one we know!" Jamie blinked his eyes slowly and thoughtfully. "I don't seem to place him, Rosie." Rosie left him in disgust. Brutality is bad enough, but hypocrisy is worse. She went as far as the kitchen door, then turned back. She would give him one more chance. Again smiling, she put her arms about his neck. "Say, Dad, if you was to get awful mad at me, what would you do?" "At you, do you say, Rosie? Well, now, I don't see how any one could get awful mad at you." Rosie's patience was about exhausted, but she restrained herself. "But, Dad, if I was to do something awful bad--steal ten dollars, or run away from home!" Jamie looked at Rosie, then at the sky line, then at the soap-box, then back at Rosie. Surely now a brutal threat was coming. "Why, Rosie dear, I don't think you'd ever do anything like that!" Huh! What kind of an answer was that for a father to give his child? Rosie straightened her back, and without another word departed. She felt that her worst fears were justified. Any man as difficult to trap as Jamie O'Brien was a dangerous character. She nursed her resentment the rest of the evening. Just before she went to sleep, however, she decided, as a matter of scrupulous justice, to suspend final judgment until she should have seen for herself that damning evidence of his brutality, namely, the scar on her poor mother's right shoulder. Yes, she would find some excuse for seeing it at once. The next morning, while her mother was preparing to go to market, of itself the opportunity came. "Rosie dear," Mrs. O'Brien called down from upstairs, "I need your help. One of me corset strings is busted." Rosie found her mother seated at the bureau, half dressed, fanning herself with a towel. A full expanse of neck and shoulders was exposed, so that Rosie, busied at her mother's back, was able to scan minutely all that there was to scan. She looked and looked again, and by patting her mother affectionately, was able to add the testimony of touch to that of sight. In due time her mother departed, and Rosie, left alone, turned to the mirror and gazed into it several moments without speaking. "Well!" she said at last. "What do you know about that!" She shook her head at the round-eyed person in the mirror, and the round-eyed person nodded back, as deeply impressed with the inexplicability of things as Rosie herself. CHAPTER XVI WHAT EVERY LADY WANTS All morning Rosie moved about the house preoccupied and silent, heaving an occasional sigh, murmuring an occasional "Huh!" At dinner she paid scant attention to her mother's market adventures, and with difficulty heard Terry's orders concerning a new paper customer. Her mind was too fully occupied with a problem of its own to be interested in anything else. On the whole it was a strange problem, and one that, after hours of thought, remained unsolved. By mid-afternoon Rosie was ready to cast it from her in disgust but she found that she could not. Like a bad conscience, it stayed with her, dogging her steps even on her paper route. It had the effect of colouring everything that she saw or heard. When she handed a paper to Mrs. Donovan, the policeman's wife, who exclaimed: "What do you think of the beautiful new hammock that Mr. Donovan has just gave me?" Rosie remarked in a tone that was almost sarcastic: "Oh, ain't you lucky!" and to herself she added cynically: "And I'd like to know who gave you that black-and-blue spot on your arm!" She found one of the Misses Grey pale and haggard under the strain of a hot-weather headache. Rosie forced her unwilling tongue to some expression of sympathy; but, once on her way, she told her disgruntled self that what she had wanted to say was: "Well, Miss Grey, I must say, if I didn't know you was an old maid, I'd ha' taken you for a happy married woman!" Near the end of the route, she found old Danny Agin waiting, as usual, for his paper. His little blue eyes twinkled Rosie a welcome, and his jolly cracked voice called out: "How are you today, Rosie?" For a moment Rosie gazed at him without speaking. Then she shook her head, and sighed. "You look all right, Danny Agin, just as kind and nice as can be, but I guess Mis' Agin knows a few things about you!" Danny blinked his eyes several times in quick succession. "What's this ye're sayin', Rosie?" "Oh, nuthin'. I was only saying what a nice day it was. Good-bye." Rosie started resolutely away, then paused. She really wanted some one with whom to talk out her perplexity, and here was Danny Agin, a man of sound sense and quick sympathy, and her own sworn friend and ally. Rosie turned back and, seating herself on the porch step at Danny's feet, looked up into Danny's face. "What's troublin' you, Rosie dear?" Danny's tone was kind and invited confidence. Rosie shook her head gloomily. "Danny, I'm just so mixed up that I don't know where I'm at. You know Janet McFadden? Well----" Rosie took a long breath and, beginning at the beginning, gave Danny a full account of yesterday's discussion. She brought her story down to that very morning when her mother had called her upstairs to tie the broken corset string. At this point she paused and sighed, then looked at Danny long and searchingly. "And, Danny, listen here: _There wasn't any scar at all!_ I hunted over every scrap of both shoulders and I felt 'em, too, and they were just as round and smooth as a fat baby! And she said: 'A foot long at least and two fingers deep.' And she even said it itched in rainy weather! Now what do you know about that?" Danny slowly shook out the folds of a large red handkerchief, dropped it over his head and face, and bowed himself as though in prayer. No sound came from behind the handkerchief, but Danny's body began to shake convulsively. Either he was sobbing, or---- "Danny Agin, are you laughing?" Danny slowly raised his head and, drawing off the handkerchief, began wiping his eyes. "Laughin', is it? Why, it's weepin' I am! Don't you see the tears?" Rosie looked at him doubtfully. "I don't see what you're weeping about." Danny shook his head mournfully. "It's a way I have, Rosie. A thought came over me while we was talkin' and off I went. And--and here it comes again!" Danny reached for his handkerchief, but too late. The thought seemed to hit him full in the stomach, and back he fell into his chair, rolling and spluttering. "Danny Agin, you are laughing!" Danny wiped his eyes again. "Perhaps I am this time, Rosie. I'm took different at different times." Rosie frowned on him severely. "Well, I think you were laughing the first time and you needn't deny it. And, what's more, I don't see anything to laugh at." "Whisht now, darlint, and I'll tell you. I'll talk to you like man to man. 'Twas thought of the ladies." "What ladies?" "All o' them. They're all the same." "Who are all the same?" "The ladies, Rosie. Janet and your ma, and the rest o' them!" "Danny, I don't see how you can say that. Ma and Janet are not a bit the same. They're exactly different. There's ma who's got a kind husband, and she goes telling that he chases her with a butcher-knife, and there's Janet whose father is a drunken brute, and she goes pretending he's the best ever." "Precisely, Rosie. You couldn't have expressed it better. Now you'll understand me when I tell you that they all want the same thing, which is this: They want to be beat, and they don't want to be beat. Now let me say it to you again, Rosie: They want to be beat, and they don't want to be beat. There!" Rosie put her hands to her head in distraction. "Danny Agin, I don't know what you're talking about!" "I'm talkin' about the ladies." "Well, then, what I want to know is this: How can they want a thing when they don't want it?" It was Danny's turn to look distracted. "Rosie, Rosie, ye'll drive me mad with yir questions! If I could tell you how they do, I would and gladly. But I can't. All I can tell you is they do." "But, Danny, what sense has a thing like that got? 'They want to be beat, and they don't want to be beat.' That's exactly like saying: It's winter and it's summer at the same time. It's not good sense to say a thing like that." "Sense, Rosie?" Danny looked at her reproachfully. "It's not sense I'm talkin' about. It's not the logic of the ladies I'm impressin' on you, mind--it's their feelin's. I'm tellin' you the kind o' man every lady's on the lookout for--a fine brute of a fella that would as soon knock her down as look at her, and yet would never raise a finger against her." Rosie's hands dropped limply into her lap. "Danny Agin, do you know sometimes I get so mixed up that I feel just like I was crazy! That's how I feel now." Danny nodded sympathetically. "Small wonder, Rosie. 'They want to be beat, and they don't want to be beat.' I defy any man to say that over fifty times and not go mad! And what would you say, Rosie, to a poor man havin' to live, day in and day out, for forty years with an everlastin' conthradiction like that? Ah, Mary's a fine woman, but I tell you, Rosie, in all confidence, I've had me own troubles. Many's the time I've seen her just achin' for a good sound beatin', but, if ever I'd laid the tip o' me finger upon her, her heart would ha' broke, and she'd ha' felt the shame of it the longest day of her life. And they're all the same, Rosie; take me word for it, they're all the same. They want their menfolks to be lions, and they want them to be lambs." _Lions and lambs!_ Her mother's very words! Upon Rosie the light began to break. "Why, Danny!" she gasped. "Take yir own case, Rosie dear. There's yir own da, a meek lamb of a man----" "But, Danny, I like my father because he's so kind!" "Whisht, now, darlint, and listen. Wouldn't it be fine if he was the size of that sthrappin' polisman, Pete Donovan, with the lump of a diamond in his shirt front as big as an egg, and a great black mustache coverin' the red lips of him, and a roar in his voice that'd send the b'ys a-scatterin' for blocks around!" The figure evoked was certainly one of heroic proportions, and Rosie, as she gazed at it, involuntarily gave a little sigh. Danny chuckled. "Ha, ha, Rosie! Ye're like the rest o' them!" "No, I'm not, Danny Agin! Honest I'm not! I'm glad my father's kind. I wouldn't love him if he wasn't, and you needn't think I would!" Rosie struggled hard to convince Danny, but in vain. The more she protested, the louder Danny chuckled. "Only think, Rosie dear, the pride in yir heart, if this great brute of a man, rampin' about like a lion, tearin' to pieces everybody that stood in his way, in yir own prisence, wee bit of a woman that ye are, should turn into a tame lamb!" "Oh, Danny!" In spite of herself, Rosie faced the world with something of the conscious air of a lion-tamer. Danny's chuckle recalled her to herself, and she watched him with growing resentment, as he continued: "You see, Rosie, it's this way: The worse brute a man is, the greater glory he brings to the woman that tames him. Rosie, me advice to any young man that is courtin' a girl is to roar--not to roar at her, mind, but at everybody else when she's within hearin'. What a fine feelin' it must give a girl to have a roarin' bull of a young fella come softly up to her and eat out of her hand! And think of the great game it is to keep him tame! Rosie, take me word for it, these here soft-spoken men like yir own poor da and like meself--I take shame to confess it--make a great mistake. Many's the time it had been better for me peace of mind afterward had I let out a roar just for appearances' sake. I see it now." Danny wagged his head and sighed. "It's lucky for you, Rosie, that you have me to tell you all this, for ye'd never hear it from the ladies themselves. They never let out a whisper about it, but carry on just like Janet and yir own ma. Ah, don't tell me! I know them! They's some kind of a mystic sisterhood among them--I dunno just what, and in some few things they never give each other away." "Don't they, Danny?" "They do not." Rosie regarded the old man thoughtfully. One could see the very processes of a new idea slowly working in her mind. Danny watched her curiously. At length he asked: "Well, Rosie, what is it?" Rosie paused impressively before answering: "I was just thinking, Danny Agin, that you're right about yourself, but you're making a great mistake about my father." Rosie nodded significantly. "He's not as quiet as you think he is, in spite of his quiet ways. Sometimes he's just awful." For a moment Danny was taken in. "Why, Rosie, aren't you just afther tellin' me about the scar that wasn't there?" "Yes, and I'm sorry now I told you." There was a gleam in Rosie's eye which declared very emphatically that the sequel to that story would never again be related. "Listen here, Danny Agin! Now I understand--if my mother made up something about that scar, it was just to hide something else that was worse!" "Why, Rosie! Ye don't say so!" For a moment Danny looked at her in astonishment. Then he lay back with a wheezy guffaw. "Rosie, ye'll be the death o' me yet! I suppose if the truth was known, Jamie beats yir ma every night of her life to a black-and-blue jelly! Don't he now?" Rosie covered herself with an air of distant reserve. "I'm not going to tell you what he does. That's a family matter. But I will say one thing: You think Terry's awful nice, don't you? Everybody does. But do you know what he'd do to me if I was to lose one of his paper customers? He'd just beat the puddin' out o' me--yes, he would!" "Why, Rosie!" Danny looked shocked. "What's this ye're sayin'? I thought you and Terry were great friends." "Great friends? Oh, yes, we're great friends all right. You can always be great friends with a fellow like Terry as long as you run your legs off for him. But just let something happen, and then----" Rosie ended with a "Huh!" and shook her head gloomily. Danny gasped. "You don't say so, Rosie!" There was the sound of an opening screen, and Danny, knowing that his wife must be coming, with a wheezy chuckle called out: "Mary, Mary, do ye know who's here? It's Rosie O'Brien, and she's one of ye! She's fallen into line!" Mrs. Agin came out on the porch, and stood for a moment looking from Danny to Rosie. She was a tall, gaunt old woman with thick white hair and thick eyebrows, which were still dark. She gave one the impression of great tidiness and cleanliness, together with the possibility of that caustic speech which so often characterizes the good housekeeper. Rosie appealed to her eagerly: "Mis' Agin, I think Danny's just awful!" Mrs. Agin glanced sharply at Danny, and then, with a seemingly clairvoyant understanding that the subject under discussion related somehow to the eternal war of the sexes, she went over to Rosie's side at once. "What's he been sayin' to you, dear?" "He's making fun of me because I told him if I was to lose one of my paper customers, Terry would beat me. And he would, too!" Mrs. Agin turned on Danny severely. "Take shame to yourself, Dan Agin, to be teasin' Rosie O'Brien!" "And listen here, Mis' Agin," Rosie continued. "He's been sayin' just awful things about us!" "About us, Rosie? Do you mean about both of us?" "About all of us, Mis' Agin--us ladies." Rosie sat up very straight and severe. Danny seemed to think the situation amusing, but he was the only one who did. Mrs. Agin glared at him darkly. "Dan Agin, what's this ye've been sayin' to Rosie?" Danny continued to shake with silent mirth, so Rosie answered for him: "He says what all of us ladies wants is this: We want to be beat, and we don't want to be beat. Now, isn't that the silliest thing you ever heard, Mis' Agin? And he says when we marry a brute of a man, we pretend that he's kind and nice, and when we marry a nice, kind man, we let on he's a brute." "Dan Agin, what do ye mean, puttin' such nonsense into Rosie's head? Answer me that now!" "And listen, Mis' Agin," Rosie went on. "Just because he's that kind of a man himself, he thinks everybody else is. And they're not! Every one thinks my father's so quiet and nice, but I guess I know him! Sometimes he's just awful! And Terry, too! But Danny here, he thinks they're every one of them just as harmless as he is. I guess he's so scared himself that that's the reason he tries to make out that other men are, too!" Mrs. Agin glared at Danny a moment in silence. Then she spoke: "Dan Agin, how dare ye go blastin' the reputation of decent men! There are others like ye, do ye say? There are not! There's not another woman in Ameriky that's stood what I've stood for forty years! Ah, many's the time it was just one black murtherin' look I was cravin' from ye to bear out me story that I had married a man, instead of a joke! And did ever I get it from ye, Dan Agin! I did not--bad cess to ye for a soft-hearted, good-for-nuthin' of a man that'd let a woman thrample ye in the dust if she wanted to! 'Twas yir luck that ye little deserved to marry a decent, quiet woman like meself!" "Ye're right, Mary!" Danny murmured meekly. "Ye're a fine woman!" "Hold yir tongue, Dan Agin, or, cripple that ye are, I'll be givin' you the lickin' that I've wanted to give you these forty years every time ye've let me have me own way when I oughtn't have had it!" Rosie stood up to go. "I have one more paper to deliver, Mis' Agin, so I'll have to say good-bye. If Terry was to know that I stopped to talk before I had delivered all my papers, he'd beat me half to death." Mrs. Agin smiled on her affectionately. "Good-bye, Rosie dear. And mind, now, if ever again Danny goes talkin' such nonsense, ye're to call me, and I'll soon settle him. Now run along, or that brute of a Terry'll be after you." "Good-bye, Rosie," Danny called out, in a tone of hypocritical meekness that made Rosie's blood boil anew. Rosie stopped and turned about to give him the look of scorn that he deserved. "Danny Agin, you just ought to be ashamed o' yourself the way you treat poor Mis' Agin!" "I am, Rosie," Danny gasped in a voice of mock tears exasperating beyond words. CHAPTER XVII ROSIE PROMISES TO BE GOOD Rosie hurried away, furious at Danny, and furious also at her own father. Any man who puts his womenfolk to such shame ought to be choked! In spite of certain drawbacks, Janet McFadden's lot was happier than Mrs. Agin's, or than Rosie's own. At least no one ever called into question Dave McFadden's ability to govern his own household. This was so patent to the world at large that Janet could actually go about pretending that her father was a sentimental weakling. Happy, happy Janet! It made Rosie shudder in self-disgust to think of the many damning admissions that she had made Janet. Well, at any rate, she would never again be caught. She had learned a thing or two since yesterday. Moreover, she would lose no time in setting Janet right. She would stop to see Janet now on her way home. That scar story would make Janet open her eyes! And Rosie would not foolishly situate it on a spot as easy of detection as her mother's right shoulder. Nev-er! A woman who was sweeping the steps in front of the tenement where the McFaddens lived, made the friendly inquiry: "Lookin' for Janet?" Rosie nodded. "Better not go up," the woman advised. "Dave McFadden's just come in soused again." Rosie paused. "Is he beating Janet?" "No, I don't think so. Janet knows pretty well how to take care of herself. Gee, you ought to see her dodge him! She's a wonder! He wouldn't ha' caught her last time if she hadn't slipped." Rosie started on, and the woman called after her: "I tell you, you better not go up! Dave sure is out lookin' for trouble!" The warning was a kindly one, but Rosie saw no reason for accepting it. The truth was that, in her present mood of resentment against the Danny Agins and Jamie O'Briens of life, she felt that it would be a relief to see a man who was confessedly out looking for trouble. The McFaddens lived on the fourth floor back. Their door was open, so Rosie could hear that something was going on as she climbed the third flight of stairs. When she reached the top, her courage faltered. Had the McFadden door been closed, very probably she could not have forced herself to knock; but, as it was open, if she slipped along the dark hall quietly, she could take a peep inside before announcing herself. "Daddy!" she heard cried out suddenly. It was Janet's voice. "My arm! You're hurting me! Please let go! I'll be good!" "Arguin' with your own father, eh?" Dave's thick voice boomed and rumbled. "Well, I'll learn you a lesson!" "But, Daddy," Janet coaxed; "wait a minute! The door's open! Please let me shut it! Some one will hear us! Please let go of me just a minute!" Then, just as Rosie reached the door, there was a scuffle inside, and Janet must have escaped her father's clutches, for instantly the door slammed. It slammed so nearly into Rosie's face that, with a gasp, she turned and fled. Down the three flights of stairs she ran, past the woman on the front steps without a word, and on to the safety of home as fast as her panting heart could carry her. There, spent and breathless, she murmured to herself: "Well, anyhow, I'm mighty glad it ain't me, 'cause I can't dodge worth a cent!" * * * * * That night after supper, while Rosie was washing dishes, when Jamie O'Brien called: "Rosie dear, like a good child, will ye bring me me pipe and a few matches?" Rosie sang out in tones positively vibrating with feeling: "Yes, Daddy darling, I will! I'll bring them this very minute!" Later she perched herself on the side of her father's chair, and put an arm about his neck. "Good old Daddy! Did you have a good run today, dearie?" Jamie sucked his pipe hard and, after thinking a while, answered: "Pretty good." "And, Daddy dear, did they take off that car that had a flat wheel?" This was a question that required considerable deliberation. Rosie waited, and at last had her reward. "Sure they did." "Oh, Daddy!" Rosie hugged him suddenly, and kissed his thin, leathery cheek. "I just love you so much! I wouldn't change you for any other father in the world!" After getting the full purport of this declaration, Jamie remarked: "That's good!" Rosie slipped impulsively from the arm of the chair into Jamie's lap. It was not a comfortable arrangement for Jamie, but he was a patient soul, and made no outcry. Rosie snuggled up to him affectionately. "Say, Daddy," she whispered, "if I was awful bad, what would you do to me? Wouldn't you just beat me?" Jamie relit his pipe, took one puff, examined the sky line, then shook his head knowingly: "I would that! But, Rosie dear, you mustn't be bad, you know." Rosie took a long, shivery breath. "Oh, Daddy, please don't beat me! I'll be good, honest I will!" CHAPTER XVIII ON THE CULTURE OF BABIES Midsummer came and with it a great suffocating blanket of heat which brought prostration to the world at large and to little Rosie O'Brien a new care and a great anxiety. "I don't mind about myself," she murmured one breathless sultry morning as she served George Riley his late breakfast. Even George, who paid scant attention to weather, looked worn and pale. Rosie sat down opposite him as he began eating and stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and very serious. "It's Geraldine, Jarge. I don't know what I'm going to do. The poor birdie was awake nearly all night. I hope you didn't hear us. I don't want to disturb you, too." George shook his head. "Oh, I slept all right. I always do. But it was so blamed hot that when I got up I felt weak as a cat." He bolted a knifeful of fried potatoes, then asked: "What's ailing Geraldine? Ain't her food agreeing with her?" Rosie sighed. It was the sigh of a little mother who had been asking herself that same question over and over. "It's partly that; but I think the food would be all right if only other things were all right. You're a man, Jarge, so you don't understand about babies. It's Geraldine's second summer and she's teething. Her poor little mouth's all swollen and feverish. It would be bad enough in cold weather, but in this heat she hardly gets a wink of sleep.... I tell you, Jarge, if we don't do something for her real quick, she's just going to die!" Rosie dropped her head on the table and wept. "Aw, now, 'tain't that bad, is it, Rosie?" "Yes." The answer came muffled in tears. "It's just awful, Jarge, the way they go down. They'll be perfectly well, and then before you know what's happening they just wilt, and you can't do anything for them. And if Geraldine dies, I--I want to die too!" "Aw, Rosie, cheer up! She ain't going to die!" George's words were brave but his face was troubled. "I suppose, now, if she was only in the country, she'd be all right, wouldn't she?" Rosie wiped her eyes and sighed. "Is it cool in the country, Jarge?" [Illustration: Rosie stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and very serious.] "You bet it is--just as cool and nice! The grass is green and wind's always a-blowin' in the trees and you can hear the gurgle of the creek down at the bottom of the meadow. And at night you can sleep on the big upstairs porch, if you want to, and you always get a breeze up there. And you needn't be afraid of mosquitoes and flies, either, 'cause mother always has things screened in with black mosquito-netting. Oh, I tell you it's just fine in the country!" George paused a moment, then laughed a little apologetically. "Leastways, Rosie, that's how I always think of the country now. Of course we do have sizzling weather out there just as much as we do here; but it's different, somehow. Out there you get a chance to cool off. They ain't them ever-lasting paved streets all around you, sending out heat like a furnace night and day just the same.... Do you know, I ain't felt like myself for three weeks! If I was back home now I tell you what I'd do: I'd go down to the creek and take a dip and then I'd come in and, by gosh, maybe I wouldn't sleep!" Rosie sighed again. "Well, no use talking about the country. It's the city for ours, even if Geraldine does die." Tears again threatened and George hastened to give the comforting assurance: "Aw, now, Rosie, it ain't that bad, I know it ain't. Besides, this weather can't keep up forever. We'll be having a thunderstorm any time now, and that'll cool things off." Then, to change the subject: "What does your mother say about Geraldine?" "Pooh!" Rosie tossed her head in fine scorn. "I'd like to know what my mother knows about babies!" George protested. "She ought to know something. She's had a few herself." "Jarge Riley, you listen to me." Rosie looked at him fixedly. "With some women, having babies don't mean one blessed thing! They just have 'em and have 'em and have 'em, and that's all they know about them. Take me, now, and I'm twelve, and take ma, and I don't know how old she is, but she has had eight children, so you can judge for yourself, and right now she's so ignur'nt about the proper care and feeding of babies that I wouldn't dare trust Geraldine to her alone for twenty-four hours!" Rosie paused impressively, then concluded with the damning statement: "All the time she was taking care of that baby she never once boiled a nipple! Never once!" George blinked his eyes in puzzled thought. "Do you got to boil 'em?" For a moment Rosie glared unspeakable things. Then she answered with crushing emphasis: "You certainly do!" George moved uneasily. "No hard feelings, Rosie. I was just askin'." Rosie was magnanimous. "I'm not blaming you, Jarge. You're a man and not supposed to understand about sterilizing. But I do say it's disgraceful in a mother of eight.... Why, do you know what ma was feeding Geraldine when I took hold of her? Nothing but that old-fashioned baby-food that nobody but ignur'nt people use now. It's the first thing they hand out to you at the drug-store, if you don't know the difference. It makes babies fat but it don't give them one bit of strength, and people like ma suppose if a baby's fat, of course, it's all right. Oh, such ignur'nce!" Rosie sighed wearily and cast long-suffering eyes to heaven. Balancing a conciliatory knife on his finger, George appealed to her as man to man: "Now, Rosie, see here: I'm not saying that you don't know all about babies, 'cause I think you do. I know the way you been finding out things at the Little Mothers' Class and I know the way you study that book. But facts is facts, Rosie, and after all, your ma has raised five kids out of eight, and that ain't so bad." "Go on." Rosie looked at him challengingly. George had no more to say. Rosie had. "Jarge Riley, you know as much about babies as a rabbit! Don't you know that Geraldine is a bottle-baby?" An expression of helpless wonderment spread over George's face. "Why, Rosie, ain't they all bottle-babies? Seems to me I always seen 'em give bottles to all of 'em." "All of them bottle-babies! Jarge, you're more ignur'nt than I supposed. Why, every last baby my mother's had except Geraldine has been a breast-baby!" The pink of an unexpected embarrassment mounted to George's shiny cheekbones. Rosie surveyed him critically. "I suppose, now that you come to think about it, it seems to you they must all be breast-babies, too. Tell me, ain't that so?" "Search me if it ain't!" George spoke in candid bewilderment. "That just shows how much you know and yet you're willing to sit there and argue with me. Now I suppose you think it takes as much brains to raise a breast-baby as a bottle-baby." There was a question in Rosie's tone but George, breathing hard, had no opinion to hazard. After a moment of impressive silence, Rosie continued: "Any ordinary, ignur'nt, healthy woman, with lots of good milk, can raise a baby, but when it comes to bottle-feeding----" Rosie broke off suddenly and her face took on the expression of a listening mother. "Rosie! Rosie!" Mrs. O'Brien's voice called. "Geraldine's awake and is crying for you." Rosie paused long enough to say, in parting: "There's lots more I could tell you, Jarge, if I had time." "Oh, don't mind me, Rosie. Just run along. I'm sure Geraldine needs you." George spoke with a certain relief. The weight of the new knowledge that Rosie had already imposed upon him seemed as much as he could bear for the present. Rosie left him. She felt cheered and comforted, as talking out her troubles with George always cheered and comforted her. Dear old George! Rosie didn't know what she would do without him. It was well that she had the consciousness of his friendly interest to support her, for the day was to prove a trying one. Not a breath of air stirred, and Geraldine, languid and feverish, tossed and fretted unceasingly. Ordinarily Rosie could have given her whole attention to the ailing baby, but today she had to take her mother's place as cook for dinner, since a large family washing required all of Mrs. O'Brien's time and strength. If Geraldine would only have fallen off to sleep, Rosie could have managed simply enough; but the poor child could not sleep. So Rosie spent a frantic morning running back and forth between kitchen and front room. "Why, Rosie, what ails you? You're not eating a bite," her father remarked during dinner. "It's too hot to eat," Rosie murmured. "Give me your meat!" Jack cried out. "Please, Rosie!" Without a word, Rosie passed him her plate. In mid-afternoon, when it was time for Rosie to go about her business of delivering papers, she entrusted the care of Geraldine to Janet McFadden. For several days now she had been employing Janet for this duty. Out of her own earnings she was paying Janet two cents a day, and she did not grudge the money. Janet was the one person to whom she was willing to entrust Geraldine at this critical time. Janet knew as much about babies as Rosie herself, for she had gone to the Little Mother classes with Rosie and had faithfully studied the book. So Rosie started out with the feeling that she need not hurry back. She loitered along slowly; after the rush of home it was good to loiter. Even the blazing sun was restful compared with home and its unending demands. Rosie covered the ground at snail's pace, resting at the least provocation of shade, and stopping to look at the least hint of anything happening or likely to happen. It was five o'clock when she reached home again, and time to give Geraldine her afternoon bath. Mrs. O'Brien was still at the ironing-board and Rosie had to shift clothes-horses to find a place on the floor for the big basin. "Ah, now, and ain't Rosie the kind sister to be giving Geraldine a nice bath!" Mrs. O'Brien began in her usual tone and manner. "Your poor ma wishes there was some one to give her a nice bath!" She rambled on while Rosie splashed Geraldine and then began wrapping her in a towel. "I wouldn't moind it so much if only it cooled off of nights." Mrs. O'Brien wiped her moist face with her apron, and sighed. "It's played out I am, Rosie. I can't stand another minute." She took a long, uncertain breath and dropped heavily into a chair. Rosie, with Geraldine in her arms, paused in the doorway. She, too, wanted to escape from the hot kitchen, but something in her mother's tone held her. Mrs. O'Brien swayed listlessly in her chair. "It's sick at me stomach I'm feelin'. The smell o' the kitchen goes agin' me.... Rosie dear----" Mrs. O'Brien broke off to look at Rosie a moment in silent appeal. "Rosie dear, do ye think just for tonight ye could cook the supper for me? I hate to ask you--I do that, for ye've had a hard day of it with poor wee Geraldine fretting her life away. And I'm not forgetting that ye helped me this noon. I wouldn't be asking another thing of you today if I could help it, but I'm clean tuckered out ironin' them last shirt-waists for Ellen, and I tell ye, Rosie, I feel like I'd faint if I thried to stand up in front of that stove." Tears of self-pity came to Rosie's eyes and she wanted to cry out: "And what about me? Don't you suppose I'm tired, too?" But the sight of her mother's face going suddenly pale and of her hands beginning to shake, checked her, and she said, quietly enough: "All right, Ma, I will. You take Geraldine and go out in front. Maybe it's a little cooler there." Mrs. O'Brien started off, murmuring gratefully: "Ah, Rosie dear, ye're a darlint and I don't know what I'd do without you!" Rosie, left to herself, instead of taking comfort at thought of her own nobility of conduct, leaned miserably against the kitchen door and burst into tears.... "I don't see why I always got to do all the disagreeable things in this house, and I always do got to, too! I--I--I'm tired, I am!" She sobbed on awhile brokenly, then slowly dried her eyes, for it was half-past five and time to set to work for supper. CHAPTER XIX CRAZY WITH THE HEAT Rosie was spoken of in the family as a good cook, but this afternoon there was so little of any housewifely pride left in her that she fried the potatoes as carelessly as Ellen would have fried them, and she scorched the ham. She set the table after some fashion, and then, when all was ready, went through the house calling, "Supper's ready! Supper's ready!" As the family straggled in, Rosie went on to her next duty of putting George Riley's supper into a tin pail. "Better hurry," Terence warned her. "You'll be missing Jarge's car." "I can't hurry any faster," Rosie murmured; but she did, nevertheless, snatch up the pail and start off. It seemed to her the street was even hotter and more breathless than the smoky kitchen. The late afternoon sun was still beating down on pavements and houses and people, fiercely, unceasingly, as it had been since early morning, and all things alike looked worn and dusty and utterly fatigued. Little shop-girls were trailing listlessly home, their hats crooked, their black waists limp with perspiration, their hair hanging about their pale faces in shiny, damp strings. Yet, tired as they were, they were still attempting forlorn, giggly little jokes and friendly greetings. One girl called out in passing: "Gee, Rosie, ain't this the limit?" Another asked facetiously: "Well, kid, how does this weather suit you?" and a third stopped her to exclaim breathlessly: "Say, Rosie, ain't you just crazy with the heat!" Rosie reached the corner in good time for George's car. There was a slight congestion in traffic and George had a moment or two before dashing back to his place on the rear platform. He looked dirty and hot. His collar was in a soft welt, his face streaked with dust and perspiration. His expression, usually good-natured, was gloomy and irritable. "What you got tonight?" he asked, lifting the lid of the pail. "What! Ham again? Ham! What do you think I am? It's ham, ham, ham, every night of the week till I'm sick and tired of it! Here! Take it back--I don't want it! I'll buy me something decent to eat!" "Why, Jarge!" Rosie had never heard him talk that way before. She hadn't supposed he could talk that way to her. The unexpectedness of it was like a blow. For the first time in their acquaintance she shrank from him. Her face quivered, her eyes filled with tears. "Why, Jarge!" she stammered again. The motorman of George's car sounded his gong in warning and George, without another word, dropped the pail at Rosie's feet and jumped aboard. Rosie, dazed and crushed, stood where she was until the car disappeared. At first she was too hurt to cry out; too surprised by the suddenness of the attack to formulate her protest in words. One thing only was clear, namely, that George Riley had failed her. She could never again believe in him blindly, implicitly, as heretofore. There she had been supposing him so much better than any one else, and he wasn't at all. Probably he wasn't as good!... One little corner of her heart pleaded for him, whispering that poor George must have forgotten himself for the moment because, like the rest of the world, he was crazy with the heat. But Rosie silenced the whisper by exclaiming passionately: "Even if he was, I don't see why he had to go and take it out on me! I'm sure I'm not to blame!" After a pause her heart again sought weakly to excuse him by suggesting that perhaps Mrs. O'Brien did serve fried ham with a certain monotonous regularity. Rosie was not to be taken in by that. "Well," she demanded grimly, "what does he expect on a five-dollar-a-week board, with meat the price it is! Lamb chops and porterhouse steak?" After that her heart said nothing more, realizing, apparently, that so long as Rosie cared to nurse her grievance, she could find reasons in plenty. And Rosie did care to nurse it, and by the act of nursing soon changed it from a feeling of bewildered woe to one of mounting indignation.... If George Riley wanted to act that way, very well, let him do so. But he better not think that she, Rosie O'Brien, would stand for any such treatment, for she just wouldn't! At home she was able to explain quietly enough that George hadn't wanted any supper. Jack at once called out: "Give me his ham! Aw, please, now, Rosie, give it to me! Give it to me!" "No, Jackie, you're too little to have meat at supper," Rosie explained. "This is for Terry. Here, Terry." Terence accepted the windfall with a gallant, "Thanks, Rosie." Then he added: "But don't you want a piece of it yourself?" "No, Terry, I'm not hungry. Besides, ma has saved me a little piece." "And here it is, ye poor lamb." Mrs. O'Brien touched her affectionately on the cheek. "Sit right down and eat it before Geraldine wakes. Ye've hardly had a bite all day." Rosie took her place at the table and tried to eat. It was no use; and suddenly, as much to her own surprise as to the others', she burst out crying. "Mercy on us!" Mrs. O'Brien threw up astonished hands. "What's happened now?" "N-nothing," Rosie quavered, pushing her plate away and dropping her head upon the table. "What's ailin' you, Rosie?" her father asked gently. "E-E-Ellen's got to do the dishes tonight. I-I-I'm too tired." "I'm awful sorry," Ellen began, "but tonight, Rosie, I got to go out early. I got to go over to Hattie Graydon's for a note-book." "Note-book nuthin'!" Terence glared at Ellen angrily. "That's the way you get out of everything, with your note-books and your Hattie Graydons and your old business college! Listen here, Ellen O'Brien: you'll do those dishes tonight or I'll know why!" "Huh!" snorted Ellen. "From the way you talk, a person would suppose you were my father." "Wish I was your father for ten minutes--long enough to give you a good beatin'!... Who do you think you are, anyway? A real live lady? Everybody else in the family's got to work, but not you!" "Ah, now, Terry," Mrs. O'Brien expostulated, "you mustn't be talkin' that way to your poor sister Ellen. She's got her own work to do at school and I'm sure it's hard work, ain't it, Ellen dear?" "Say, Ma, you fade away!" Terence waved his hand suggestively. "What you don't know about Ellen's a-plenty! Just look at her, the big lazy lump! There she's been sitting in a comfortable cool room all day long with a fan in one hand and a pencil in the other and her mouth full of chewing-gum, pretending to study, and you and Rosie have been up here in this hot little hole working like niggers. Aw, why do you let her fool you? Why don't you make her do something?" Ellen, her head tossed high, appealed to her mother. "Ma, will you please explain to Mr. Terence O'Brien that I'd be perfectly willing to wash and wipe the dishes every night of my life if it wasn't for my hands. If ever I'm to be a stenog, I've got to take care of my hands." "What about Rosie's hands?" Reaching over, Terence drew one out from beneath Rosie's face and held it up. At that moment it was a pathetic little hand, shaken by sobs and wet with tears, but its roughened skin and short, stubby nails were evidence enough of the work that it did. "Well, what about them?" Ellen, at least, was unmoved by the exhibit. "Rosie's not going to be a stenog, is she?" Terence almost choked in fury, but before he could find an answer sufficiently crushing, his father spoke. "See here, Ellen, we've had talk enough. You'll be doing the dishes tonight before you go after the note-book. That ends it." "Very well!" Ellen flounced out of the room, then flounced back. "But if I don't get my certificate next month, you'll know whose fault it is!" "Ain't she the limit?" Terry addressed his inquiry to the gas-jet, and small Jack, taking up the word, called after her: "Ellen, you're the limit! You're the limit!" "Fie on you, Jackie!" Mrs. O'Brien said reprovingly. "You mustn't be talkin' that way to your sister." But Jack, hopping about the kitchen like mad, kept shouting, "You're the limit! You're the limit!" until there was a sudden wail from the front of the house. "Now see what ye've done, ye naughty b'y! Ye've waked up Geraldine!" Jack subsided abruptly and Rosie, with a sigh, stood up. Her mother looked at her compassionately. "Sit where you are, Rosie dear, and rest, and I'll take care of Geraldine." "No, I'll go." Rosie carried the child outside to the little front porch, where she rocked and crooned in the gathering darkness until Geraldine grew quiet. Then she put her to bed and later, at the proper time, gave her a last bottle. After that Rosie's day was done. To be near Geraldine, Rosie was sleeping downstairs for the present, on the floor of the front room. Just as George Riley got home she was ready to retire. "Good-night, everybody," she said. George, looking a little sheepish, called after her: "Aren't you going to kiss me good-night, Rosie?" Without turning back, Rosie made answer: "It's too hot to kiss." Then she told herself grimly: "There, now! I guess that'll jar him! If he thinks he can treat me like a nigger and then kiss me good-night, he's mightily mistaken." She closed the door of the room with a determined click and stood for a moment with her head high. Then she sank to the floor, a very miserable little heap of a girl who sobbed to herself: "But I wish he wasn't so mean to me!" CHAPTER XX A FEVERED WORLD It was a sultry, oppressive night, hard enough for adults to endure and fearfully weakening to teething babies. The next day the heat continued and Geraldine fretted and drooped until Rosie was frantic with anxiety. "Rosie dear, you're all pale and thin," her mother remarked, and Janet McFadden, looking at her affectionately, said: "Now, Rosie, why don't you let me deliver your papers for a couple of days? You're fagged out." "No," Rosie said. "If you'll keep on coming over in the afternoon while I'm away, that's help enough." "But, Rosie, I could do your papers easy enough. I know all your customers." "'Tain't that, Janet. Of course, you know them. And I thank you for offering, for it sure is the hottest time of the day. But it's my only chance to get away from home for a little while and I think I'd just die if I didn't go." So she went, as usual, though her feet dragged heavily and her eyes throbbed with a dull headache. On the better streets the houses were tight shut to keep out the heat; but the doors and windows of the tenements were open, and Rosie could see the inside of untidy rooms where lackadaisical women lounged about and dirty, whiny children played and wrangled. Hitherto Rosie's thrifty little soul had sat in hard judgment on the inefficient tenement-dwellers, but today she looked at them with a sudden tenderness. Poor souls, perhaps if all were known they would not be altogether to blame. Perhaps they, too, had once longed to give their babies the chance of life that all babies should have. Perhaps it was their failure in this, through poverty and ignorance, that was the real cause of their apathy and indifference. Rosie felt that she was almost going that way herself. Then, too, the husbands of many of these women were selfish and brutal; and surely it was enough to break a woman's spirit to have the man she had loved and trusted turn on her like a fiend. Rosie knew! Not that she herself was angry any longer with George Riley. Goodness, no! It wasn't a question of anger. She simply had no feeling for him one way or another. How could she, when it was as if the part of her heart he had once occupied had been cut out of her with a big, bloody knife! She merely regarded him now as she would any stranger. She would be polite to him--she tried always to be polite to every one--polite, yes; but nothing more. So when she handed him his supper-pail that evening at the corner, she said, "Good-evening." Common politeness required that much, but she did not feel that it required her to hear or to understand his plaintive, "Aw, now, Rosie!" as she turned from him. No! Without doubt all that should ever again pass between them was, "Good-morning" or "Good-evening." And it was all right that it should be so. She wouldn't have it otherwise if she could. She told herself this as she walked home, repeating it so often that she quite persuaded herself of its truth. Yet, when Terry happened upon her unexpectedly a few moments later, he looked at her in surprise. "What's the matter, Rosie? What you cryin' about?" "N-nuthin'," Rosie quavered. "I--I guess I'm worried about Geraldine." "Aw, don't you worry about Geraldine," Terry advised kindly. "This weather's got to break soon and then Geraldine'll be all right." CHAPTER XXI THE STORM Terry was right. The change came the very next afternoon. Rosie had finished her papers and was on her way home when suddenly the wind rose and great masses of black storm-clouds came driving across the sky. Thunder rumbled, lightning crackled, and in a few minutes rain came swishing down in great long, splashy drops. Instead of running for shelter, Rosie obeyed the impulse of the moment and stood where she was. She clutched a lamp-post to keep from being blown away, and then, turning her face to the sky, let the sweet, comforting rain wash down upon her and soak her through and through. It was like a great, cool, refreshing shower-bath: it washed the dusty earth clean once again; it brought back a crispness to the air; it loosened the nervous tension under which all living things had been straining for days. The clouds broke as suddenly, almost, as they had gathered. Watching them, Rosie sighed and shivered. "Oh, but that was nice!" Her hair was plastered over her head in loose, wet little ringlets, and her clothes hung tightly about her body. When she walked, her old shoes oozed and gurgled with water. She hurried home; yes, actually hurried, for it was cool enough to hurry; and besides, her wet clothes were beginning to chill her. Janet McFadden met her with shining eyes. "Oh, Rosie, what do you think? She's asleep! And she's just took her bottle, too--all of it, without waking up! Oh, I'm so happy!" Rosie looked at Janet affectionately. "You've been awful good, Janet, helping me this way." "Good--nuthin'!" Janet scoffed. "Aren't you paying me good money?... But, Rosie, listen here about Geraldine: I wouldn't be a bit surprised if things'd be all right now. Those old teeth are certainly through. I let her bite my finger on both sides, just to see." Perhaps Janet was right. Perhaps things were arranging themselves. Rosie's heart sang a tremulous little song of happiness as she rubbed herself dry and put on fresh clothes. The world wasn't such a bad place after all, and the people in it weren't so bad, either. There was Janet--good, kind Janet--and Terry, and nice old George Riley--Rosie stopped short to scowl at herself in amazement. Then she repeated, defiantly, _nice old George Riley_. For he _was_ nice! And he always had been nice, too! What if he had forgotten himself once? Hadn't other people as well? Hadn't everybody, Rosie herself included, been crazy with the heat? As Rosie looked at things now her only surprise was that George hadn't forgotten himself oftener! Come to think of it, he had kept his temper better than any one else in the family.... Dear old George! Rosie wanted to put her arms about his neck that instant and tell him how much she loved him. Her first way of doing this was by saying to him as she handed him his supper-pail at six o'clock: "Oh, Jarge, what do you think? Geraldine's been asleep all afternoon!" This was a greeting very different from a cold, "Good-evening, Jarge," and George would understand the difference. He did. His face beamed with understanding. "I'm awful glad, Rosie; honest I am!" Then as he ran back to his car he called out: "Rosie, wait up for me tonight. I've got something to tell you--something fine!" "All right, Jarge, I will!" Rosie spoke with all her old-time enthusiasm, and waved him a frantic farewell. CHAPTER XXII A CHANCE FOR GERALDINE After finishing her household duties and preparing Geraldine's last bottle, Rosie had nothing more to do but to enjoy the cool of the evening with the rest of the family. They were seated on the little front porch, Mrs. O'Brien and Jamie on chairs and Terence on the porch steps. Rosie took her place opposite Terence to await the arrival of George Riley. In good time he came, bursting with his bit of news. "Hello, Rosie! Hello, everybody!" he called out before he was inside the gate. He had a letter in his hand which he waved excitedly in Rosie's face. "See this, Rosie? It's from mother; and what do you think? You and Geraldine are to go out to the country for two weeks and maybe three! What do you say to that?" For a moment Rosie had nothing to say. Then she gasped: "Why, Jarge, what do you mean?" "And you're to start tomorrow, Rosie, on the eleven o'clock train, and dad'll be at the station to meet you. You'll know him 'cause he looks just like the farmers in the Sunday papers, with a big straw hat and thin whiskers. And he drives an old white horse--Billy's his name." "Mercy on us, Jarge Riley, how you talk!" Mrs. O'Brien leaned forward in excitement. "What's this ye're sayin'?" George laughed and started over again. "You see, Mis' O'Brien, Rosie and me was talking the other day about babies and the country, and then Geraldine began crying and I thought to myself, 'Well, I'll just write to mother and see.' I wrote that morning, and here's the answer. The postman gave it to me as I was starting out this afternoon." "That's it, is it?" Mrs. O'Brien seemed to understand perfectly. To Rosie, however, the news still sounded too good to be true. "Jarge, do you mean your mother has invited Geraldine and me out to the country for a couple o' weeks?" "Sure, that's what I mean. And you're to start tomorrow----" "Oh, Jarge, and can Geraldine sleep on the upstairs porch where the breeze always blows and they's no mosquitoes or flies?" "O' course she can, and you can, too!" Rosie was laughing and crying together. "Do you hear that, Ma? She's going to have a chance to sleep and get back her strength and then she'll be able to pull over this horrible teething time, and then she won't--she won't have to die!" Rosie put her arms about George's neck and covered his cheek with tears and kisses. Then suddenly she paused. "But, Jarge, I don't know whether I can go! What about my papers?" George laughed. "Aw, let the papers go blow! Anyway, can't Janet McFadden take them?" Rosie appealed to Terry. "Can she, Terry?" Terry nodded. "Sure she can. Don't you worry about those papers. Me and Janet'll get on all right. You take Geraldine and skip off and stay away as long as Mis' Riley wants you." George spread out his hands. "So you see, Rosie, everything's arranged. You're to start tomorrow on the eleven----" "But, Jarge, wait a minute! We can't start tomorrow 'cause our things aren't ready. A whole lot of Geraldine's clothes and mine, too, got to be washed." "Can't you take 'em with you and wash 'em in the country?" "Oh, Jarge!" The suggestion was evidently a horrible one, for Mrs. O'Brien and Rosie spoke together. George looked troubled. "But, Rosie, you got to start tomorrow. Didn't I tell you that dad and Billy are going to drive down to meet you?" Mrs. O'Brien stood up. "Make your mind easy, Jarge. Rosie'll be ready on time. I'll go in this minute and do that washin' now, and the things'll be all dry and ready for ironin' by early mornin'." Rosie gasped. "Why, Ma, it's going on ten o'clock!" "Rosie dear, I don't care what o'clock it's going on. If it's the last mortal thing I ever do for you, I'm going to do that washin' tonight, for, if I do say it, ye're the best child that ever trod shoe-leather." Jamie O'Brien's tilted chair came down on the porch floor with a thud, while Jamie remarked solemnly: "You're right, Maggie; she is!" Mrs. O'Brien moved toward the door. "Come on, Rosie dear, and help me gather the things." Rosie started up, then paused to glance from one to another of them. In the soft glow of the summer night she could see that they were all looking at her with the same expression of love and tenderness. Rosie choked. "I don't see why--everybody's--so kind--to me!" She turned back to George. "And I've been just horrible to you, Jarge! You'll forgive me, won't you? I guess it was the weather." "Aw, go on!" George spoke with a gruffness that deceived nobody. "I guess it's been the weather with all of us!" CHAPTER XXIII HOME AGAIN George Riley protested vigorously: "But I tell you she's only a little girl and she's got a baby and a big basket and I don't know how many other things and some one's just got to help her!" With anxious headshakes Terence and Janet McFadden corroborated all George Riley said, but the gatekeeper was firm. "Only passengers this side the fence," he repeated. So the three friends had to wait while the long train slowly disgorged. Terence stood guard on one side of the gate, George Riley on the other, while Janet pressed a tense searching face through the bars of the high division fence. The first arrivals were the dapper quick young men with new leather bags and walking-sticks who, in their eagerness to arrive, always drop off a train before it stops. After them came more men and the more agile of the women passengers. Then the general rush and crush: the fussy people laden down with parcels; old ladies struggling to protect their small handbags from the assaults of porters; distracted mothers jerking their broods hither and thither; middle-aged men murmuring to wives and daughters, "No rush! No rush! Plenty of time!" "Maybe she missed the train!" Janet McFadden suggested tragically. The crush subsided, the last stragglers passed through the gate, and then, just as Janet remarked gloomily, "Well, I was perfectly sure she wasn't coming!" a little girl with a baby in her arms alighted from a coach far down the track and stood where she was while the conductor piled the ground about her with boxes and parcels and baskets innumerable. "There she is! There she is!" Janet and Terence cried out together. The gatekeeper looked at them a little less sternly. "Well, I guess you can come in now." Janet dashed through the gate with her arms raised high, calling out a joyful "Rosie! Rosie!" George Riley and Terence followed close on her heels, and in a moment Rosie and the baby were enveloped in a cloud of hugs and kisses. "Oh!" Rosie gasped, "but it's nice to be back! And I'm so glad to see you all!... Here, Jarge, you take that heavy box and be awful careful. It has jelly in it and canned fruit and I made them all myself, too! Your mother taught me how.... You take the big basket, Terry. That's our clothes. And I think you can take the basket of vegetables in the other hand. Janet'll take that bundle, won't you, Janet? They's two dressed chickens in it and I plucked them myself, too. Mis' Riley showed me how. And you take the shoe-box, Janet. It's full of cookies. Hold it straight so's not to break them.... I'll take that last basket in my other hand. You can't guess what's in it, can they, Geraldine? It's Geraldine's little pussy cat! We just couldn't leave it, could we, baby? Geraldine named it herself. She named it Jarge." "After me, I suppose," George said, and they all laughed as if this were a mighty fine joke. "Now are we ready?" Rosie asked, making a quick count of bundles and baskets. "I'm not leaving anything, am I?" George groaned. "I should hope not! Tell you one thing: I can't carry any more. Say, Rosie, what have you filled your jelly glasses with? Rocks?" This was another fine joke and it carried them out of the station and all the way to the cars. "Now watch me play the Rube," George whispered with a wink. When the conductor came for their fares, George fumbled in his pocket, counted the change laboriously, then asked for an impossible transfer. The conductor tried patiently to explain, at which George slapped him on the shoulder and roared out: "Aw, go on! I'm a railroad man myself!" At this everybody laughed and the conductor and George became friends on the spot. At the home corner, small Jack was waiting and, before Rosie was fairly off the car, he was calling out excitedly: "Hello, Rosie! Hello! What did you bring me from the country?" "Oh, you darling Jackie! I'm so glad to see you!" Rosie kissed him on both cheeks, then answered his question. "A little turtle! It's in a box at the bottom of the vegetable basket that Terry's carrying." Jack danced up and down in delight. "Oh, Rosie, can't I have it now? Please!" "No, no, Jackie, you must wait till we get home." "Aw, Rosie, all right for you!" Jack looked at her reproachfully, then shouted out: "Come on! Come on! Let's hurry home!" At home Mrs. O'Brien and Jamie were waiting for them with outstretched arms. "Ah, Rosie," her mother exclaimed, with fluttering hands and streaming eyes; "I'm that glad to see you, I'm weepin'! And will ye look at wee Geraldine as fat and smilin' as a suckin' pig! Ah, Geraldine darlint, come to yir own ma!" Jamie O'Brien, less demonstrative than his wife, patted Rosie's head gently. "It's mighty glad I am to have you back. Why, do you know, Rosie, since you've been gone there hasn't been a soul in the house to hand me a pipe of an evening!" "You poor old Dad!" Rosie began sympathetically. She would have said more but small Jack interrupted. "Now, Rosie, give me my turtle! You promised you would!" "Of course I did," Rosie acknowledged, "and I'll get it for you right now. Here, Terry, let me have the vegetable basket." Rosie thrust her hands among the onions and cabbages and drew out a small pasteboard box generously pierced with air holes. "Here it is, Jackie dear." Jack pulled off the string, tore open the box, and gaped in wide-eyed delight. "Oh, Rosie, thanks! thanks! It's a beaut!" For one moment mere possession was enough, on the next came an overpowering desire to exhibit his treasure before an admiring and envious world. "Say, Rosie, I got to run down and see Joe Slattery. I'll be back in a minute." Mrs. O'Brien put out a detaining hand. "No, you won't be going down to see any Joe Slattery! Dinner's ready and you'll be comin' in with the rest of the family this minute. Come along, Rosie dear." Rosie paused. "Can't we keep Janet, Ma? Is there enough?" Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head emphatically. "Sure there's enough and, if there ain't, we'll make it enough." "Thanks, Mis' O'Brien, but I don't believe I better stay." Janet spoke regretfully. "You know my mother ain't very well these days and I don't like to leave her alone too long." "Why, Janet!" Rosie looked at her friend in sudden concern. "Is your mother sick?" Janet shook her head. "I don't know what's the matter with her. It seems like the hot weather and the work and the worry have been too much for her. But I'll be back, Rosie, at three o'clock for our papers. I got two new customers, didn't I, Terry? And, Rosie, what do you think? Terry gave me an extra nickel for each of them." Janet started off and Mrs. O'Brien exclaimed: "Now, then, for dinner! All of yez!" "See you later, Rosie," George Riley remarked, opening the door of his own room. Mrs. O'Brien called after him excitedly: "Why, Jarge lad, where's this you're going? Aren't you sitting down with the rest of us?" "I ain't more than had my breakfast," George explained; "and I think I better get in a little nap before I start out on my next run." He nodded to Rosie, smiled, and shut his door. "Poor Jarge!" Mrs. O'Brien threw sympathetic eyes to heaven and sighed. Rosie looked at her mother quickly. "Is there anything the matter with Jarge?" "Poor fella!" Mrs. O'Brien went on in the same lugubrious tone. "He's as honest as the day and I'm sure I wish him every blessing under heaven. Never in me life have I liked a boarder as much as I like Jarge. He's no trouble at all, at all, and it was mighty kind of his mother inviting you and Geraldine to the country. No, no, Rosie, you must never make the mistake of supposing I'm not fond of Jarge!" "Ma," Rosie begged; "tell me what's the matter!" She stopped suddenly and two little points of steel came into her blue eyes. "Is it Ellen? Has she been doing something to him again?" Mrs. O'Brien looked grieved. "Why, Rosie, I'm surprised at you--I am that, to hear you talk that way about your poor sister Ellen. And such a bit of news as I've got about Ellen, too! Sit down now and, when I serve you, I'll tell you." There was no hurrying Mrs. O'Brien and Rosie, knowing this, said no more. At heart she gave a little sigh. It was as if a shadow were overcasting the bright joy of her home-coming. She had arrived so full of her own happiness that she had failed to see any evidence of the care and worry which, she realized now, had plainly stamped the faces of her two dearest friends. Poor Janet McFadden! For one reason or another it had always been poor Janet. And now, apparently, it was to be poor George Riley as well. CHAPTER XXIV GEORGE TURNS "Now!" Everything was on the table and there was no further excuse for Mrs. O'Brien's not seating herself. She dropped into a chair and beamed upon Rosie triumphantly. "And just to think, Rosie dear, that you don't yet know about Ellen! Ellen's got a job! She's starting in on eight dollars a week and she's to go to ten in a couple of weeks if she's satisfactory. And you know yourself that twenty dollars is nothing for a fine stenographer to be getting nowadays. And twenty a week means eighty a month and eighty a month means close on to a thousand a year! Now I do say that a thousand a year is a pretty big lump of money for a girl like Ellen to be making!" Mrs. O'Brien's enthusiasm was genuine but scarcely infectious. Terence jerked his head toward Rosie with a dry aside: "She started work yesterday on a week's trial." Mrs. O'Brien looked at her son reprovingly. "Why, Terry lad, how you talk! On trial, indeed! As if a trial ain't a sure thing with a girl that's got the fine looks and the fine education that Ellen's got!" "Fine education--rats! I bet she knows as much about stenography as a bunny!" His mother gazed on him offended and hurt. "Since you're such a wise young man, Mister Terence O'Brien, perhaps you'll be telling us how much you know about it, yourself." Terry's answer was prompt: "Not a blamed thing! But I tell you what I do know: I know Ellen, and you can take it from me she's a frost." Rosie sighed plaintively. "But where does Jarge come in? What's the matter with Jarge." Terence answered her shortly: "Oh, nuthin'. Ellen only played him one of her little tricks last week and he's mad." "And I must say," Mrs. O'Brien supplemented, "Jarge does surprise me the way he keeps it up. After all, Ellen's only a young girl and he ought to remember that every young girl makes a mistake now and then." "What mistake did she make this time?" Rosie spoke as quietly as she could. "It's a long story," her mother said. "Since you've been gone she met a fella named Finn, Larry Finn, and we all thought him very nice, he was that polite with his hair always brushed and shiny and smooth. He had a good job downtown----" "You know his kind, Rosie," Terry interposed; "a five dollar a week book-keep--silk socks but no undershirt. Oh, he was a great sport! Ellen was crazy about him." "Terence O'Brien, have ye no manners to be takin' the words out of yir own mother's mouth! Now hold yir tongue while I explain to Rosie." Terence subsided and Mrs. O'Brien started in afresh: "Well, as I was saying, this Finn fella took a great fancy to Ellen and was coming around every night to see her. He took her to the movies and gave her ice-cream sodas and they were getting on fine. Then last week he was going to take her to the Twirler Club's Annual Ball." "The Twirlers' Ball!" Rosie looked at her mother questioningly. That lady waved a reassuring hand. "Oh, the ball was all right this year--perfectly nice and decent. Ellen found out about it beforehand. Not like last year! No drunks was to be allowed on the floor and none of them disgraceful dances. Oh, if it had been like last year, I'd never have consented to Ellen's going! You know that, Rosie!" "Huh!" grunted Terry. His mother paid no heed to him. "As I was saying, Rosie, the night before the ball, Larry had to come excusing himself because they had just told him he would have to stay working till all hours the next night. So there was poor Ellen, who might have had her pick a week or two earlier, left high and dry at the last moment. I tell you, Rosie, it would have wrung your heart to see the poor girl's disappointment. A girl of less spirit would have given up, but not Ellen. Ellen was going to that ball and you know how firm Ellen is once she makes up her mind. So she just asked Jarge Riley to take her." "Ma! Do you mean to say she had the cheek to ask poor Jarge after the way she's been treating him all these months!" "Ah, ah, don't look at me that way, Rosie! Of course I mean it. Why shouldn't she ask him? He's a nice fella and, besides that, he's a friend of the family." "Say, Terry, what do you know about that?" Rosie appealed to her brother sure that he, at least, would understand the humiliation she felt both at Ellen's manoeuvre and at their mother's calm acceptance of it. Terry did understand and gave her the sympathy of a quick nod and a short laugh. "What do you expect? You know Ellen." "Well, all I got to say is: it's a shame!" Tears of indignation stood in Rosie's eyes. "She treats him like a dog and then, when it suits her, she makes use of him. It's an outrage--that's what it is! I suppose he went, of course. Poor Jarge is so easy." Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head. "Sure he went. He didn't want to at first because he didn't like Ellen mixing up with the Twirlers. When she insisted, he said, all right, he'd go." "Is that all?" Rosie asked. "All!" echoed her mother. "Bless your heart, no! It's hardly the beginning!" Rosie sighed. "Aw, Ma," Terry protested, "look at you! You're tiring Rosie all out and it's only her first day home. Why don't you spit it out quick?" "Terry, Terry, that's not a nice way to talk, telling your poor ma to spit it out! Shame on you, lad, for using such a word!" "Well, what happened at the ball?" Rosie begged. "I was coming to that, Rosie dear, when Terry interrupted me. As I was saying, who showed up at the ball quite unexpected-like but Larry Finn. When Ellen saw Larry she turned to Jarge and says to him that, if he wanted to go home early, he needn't wait for her, that Larry would take care of her." "Oh, Ma!" Rosie's eyes grew bright and her cheeks a deeper pink. "Do you mean to say after letting poor Jarge take her and pay her admission she turned around and treated him like that!" Mrs. O'Brien lifted disclaiming hands. "Mind now, I'm not trying to defend Ellen, but I do say she's only a young girl and young girls make mistakes now and then." "Well,"--Rosie tried to speak quietly--"what did Jarge do?" "What did Jarge do? Something awful! Now remember, Rosie dear, I'm not trying to run Jarge down. He's a nice fella and he's a kind fella and I've never had a boarder that was so easy to please and, as I've told you before, it was mighty good of him having his mother invite you and Geraldine to the country. But I must say he did act something scandalous that night." Mrs. O'Brien paused to shake her head impressively and Rosie, in desperation, appealed to Terence. "Tell me, Terry, what did he do?" Terry grinned. "What did he do? Why, he laid for Larry Finn and, when Larry and Ellen came out, he punched Larry's face for him!" "It was something awful!" Mrs. O'Brien again declared. "Every day for a week poor Larry had to carry a black eye with him down to the office. And you know yourself the way other men laugh at a black eye. And he's not been here to see Ellen since and Ellen's awful mad and, besides that, no one else has been coming, for the word has gone out that Jarge'll kill any fella that's fool enough to be showin' his face." "Well, it's just good for her, too!" Ellen's unexpected plight was the one thing in the whole situation that gave Rosie any satisfaction. However, she gloated on it only for a moment. "But about Jarge, Terry--did he get pulled in that night?" Terry shook his head. "No. You see the ball was ending up in a free-for-all, just like the Twirlers always do, and the cops were so busy inside that there was no one left to pay any attention to a little thing like Jarge's scrap." "And I must say," Mrs. O'Brien continued, "I'm sorry for that poor Larry Finn, for it wasn't his fault at all, at all. It was Ellen's own arrangement." "That's so," Rosie agreed. "By rights Ellen's the one that ought to have got beat up." "Why, Rosie, I'm surprised to hear you say such a thing and about your own sister, too!" Mrs. O'Brien's surprise was lost upon Rosie, who was looking intently at her father. "Say, Dad, what do you think of a girl doing a trick like that on two decent fellows?" Jamie O'Brien, who had said nothing up to this, took a drink of tea, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and slowly cleared his throat. "It's me own opinion, Rosie, it's a very risky game that Ellen's playing." "Risky? It's worse than risky: it's dishonest." Rosie started to push back her chair, but her mother stretched out a detaining hand. "Wait a minute, Rosie. You haven't yet heard what I'm trying to tell you." Rosie's eyes opened wide. "Is there any more?" "To be sure there is, Rosie. You've only heard the beginning." Rosie dropped back in her chair a little limply. What more could there be? Mrs. O'Brien breathed hard and long; she sighed; she gazed about at the various members of her family. At last she spoke: "I don't know what's come over Jarge since that night. You know yourself what an easy-going young fella he's always been, never holding a grudge, always ready to let bygones be bygones. Well, he's never forgiven Ellen from that night on. He scowls at her like a storm-cloud every time he sees her and last week, Rosie--why, you'll hardly believe me when I tell you what he said to her last week. We were all sitting here at the table: your poor da over there, and Terry in his place, and Jack beside him, and meself here. Ellen made some thriflin' remark about how silly a girl is to marry herself to one man when she might be going around having a good time with half a dozen--nuthin' at all, you understand, just the way Ellen always runs on, when, before I knew what was happening, Jarge jumped to his feet and pounded the table until every dish on it was rattlin'. 'That's how you feel, is it?' says he, glaring at poor Ellen like a mad bull. 'Well, if that's your little game,' says he, 'I've been a goat long enough. Not another thing will I ever do for you, Ellen O'Brien, not another blessed cent will I ever spend on you until you tell me you'll marry me and set the date. And what's more,' says he, 'I'll give you one month from today to decide,' says he. 'I'll be going back to the farm in September,' says he, 'so it's time I knew pretty straight just where we stand. So no more foolin', me lady,' says he. 'It's to be yes or no to Jarge Riley and that's the end of it.'" "Good for Jarge! Good for Jarge!" Rosie cried, clapping her hands in excitement. "He was able for her that time, wasn't he?" "Able for her, Rosie? Well, I must say it's a mighty strange way for a young fella to talk that's courtin' a girl. Your own poor da never talked that way to me, did you, Jamie dear? I wouldn't have stood it! I give you me word of honour I wouldn't!" Terry chuckled and Rosie, glancing at her meek quiet little father, also smiled for an instant. Then her face again went grave. "How did Ellen take it? Did she tell him once for all she'd never have him?" "Bless your poor innocent heart, no!" Mrs. O'Brien was astonished at the mere suggestion. "That'd be a strange thing for a girl to tell a man! Of course, though, it ain't likely that Ellen ever will have him. Jarge is all right, understand, but take Ellen with her fine looks and her fine education and it's me own opinion that some of these days she'll be making a big match. Especially now that she's going around to them offices downtown where she'll be meeting lots of rich business men." "Of course, Ma, that's the way you look at it and the way Ellen looks at it. Neither of you thinks of poor old Jarge one little bit." "Nonsense, Rosie. I like Jarge and so does Ellen. But you mustn't be blaming a girl like Ellen for not throwing over a good useful beau like Jarge until she's made sure of some one better. It's fine for Ellen to have Jarge to fall back on." "To fall back on!" Rosie echoed. Jamie O'Brien slowly pushed away his chair and cleared his throat. "It's me own opinion," he announced gravely, "that Jarge is too good for Ellen by far." "You bet he is!" Rosie declared fiercely. Mrs. O'Brien looked hurt and grieved. "I don't see how you can all talk that way about poor Ellen. Besides his other virtues, you'll soon be telling me that Jarge is a good-looker!" "A good-looker!" Rosie cried. "Ma, how can you talk that way? His looks are all right and Jarge himself is all right." Mrs. O'Brien fumbled a moment. "It's not that I meself object to his looks, understand, but Ellen, being so fine looking herself, is mighty particular. She likes them big and handsome and stylish and dressy." "Like Larry Finn," snickered Terry. Mrs. O'Brien pretended not to hear. Rosie, with sober quiet face, pushed back her chair and began clearing the table. "No, no, not today, Rosie," her mother insisted. "You're not going to start right off with dish-washing. You're company for one day at least, ain't she, Jamie? So take Terry and Jack out in front and tell them about the country. Jack wants to hear all about the pigs and cows, don't you, Jackie dear?" "Not just now," Jack answered truthfully. "I got to go out and see a fellow. But thanks for that turtle, Rosie." Rosie paused a moment in doubt until her father nodded encouragingly and Terry, putting an arm about her shoulder, drew her away. "I sure am glad to see you home again," he said when they were alone. Rosie looked up at him affectionately. "And I'm glad to be home, Terry. But I'm awful sorry about poor Jarge." "Don't you worry about Jarge," Terry advised. "If Ellen did take him it would be the worst thing that ever happened him." "I know, Terry, but I can't bear to have him so unhappy." "Well, take it from me, he'd be unhappier if he got Ellen." Rosie paused a moment. "Say, Terry, is she worse since she's got a job?" Terry answered shortly: "She's the limit! She's making a bigger fool than ever of ma. Wait till you see her tonight." "I don't want to see her. She always rubs me the wrong way and makes me say things I don't want to say. But I do want to see poor old Jarge.... Say, Terry, don't it beat all the way a good sensible fellow like Jarge goes crazy over a girl like Ellen? How do you account for it?" Terry shook his head. "Search me." "They always do," Rosie continued. "Well, I tell you one thing, Rosie: I be blamed if ever I fall in love with a girl that ain't nice!" Fourteen years old looked out upon the world firmly and resolutely. "Not on your life!" "I wouldn't either, Terry, if I was you! 'Tain't sensible!" And twelve years old shook her head sagely. CHAPTER XXV DANNY AGIN ON LOVE At three o'clock Janet appeared and Rosie and she started out together. Rosie had been gone only three weeks but, in that short time, changes had come about, events had occurred, which had altered irrevocably the face of her little world. Within the limits of her own short paper route the whole cycle of existence had turned. Life had been ushered in, life had passed out, and that closest of human pacts which is the promise of life to succeeding generations had been entered into. Janet McFadden was voluble. "It turned out to be twins at the Flannigans, Rosie, and they just had an awful time. The doctor said that poor Mis' Flannigan was too hard-worked before they came and that's why they're so weak and sickly. Ain't it just tough the way poor little babies have to pay up for things like that?... And you know about Jake Mullane dying last week, don't you? It was sunstroke and I suppose he had been drinking and he just went that quick. They certainly had a swell funeral with six carriages and plumes and tassels on the horses and Lucy and Katie and even the baby dressed in black. But doesn't it kind of scare you, Rosie, to think of a big strong man like Jake being dead and buried before you can turn around?... And, say, Rosie, I do wish you had been here to see the wedding! It was just beautiful! Bessie had a veil and pink roses and smilax and Ed Haskins hired three carriages for the day. There were white ribbons on the whips and little white bows behind the horses' ears. Maybe you think they didn't look swell! They rode around town from ten o'clock in the morning until midnight. Jarge Riley saw them coming home and he says they were lying all over each other fast asleep. I'm not surprised at that, are you? Bessie's in her own little flat now. It isn't any bigger than a soap-box but she's got it all fixed up and pretty. She took me through and showed me her dishes and everything. They furnished on twenty-five dollars down and a dollar a week for a year. I guess Ed Haskins is going to be a good provider all right...." Janet chatted on, pausing only to let people greet Rosie. Rosie's progress that afternoon was something of a reception. Every one who saw her stopped to call out: "Back again, Rosie? Awful glad to see you!" or, "Hello, kid! How's the country?" It gave Rosie the very pleasant feeling that she had been missed during her absence. At the end of the route when they came to Danny Agin's cottage, they found old Mary Agin near the gate, busied over her flowers. At sight of Rosie, she stood up, tall and gaunt, and held out welcoming hands. "Ah, Rosie dear, it's glad I am to see you! And himself will be glad as well when he hears you're back." Mrs. Agin was an undemonstrative old woman but she bent now and kissed Rosie on the forehead. "How is Danny, Mis' Agin?" Rosie asked. "Is he pretty well?" "Pretty well, do ye say? Ah, Rosie--" and Mary Agin paused while her eyes half closed as if in pain. "I forgot to tell you," Janet whispered; "Danny's been awful sick." "And for two weeks," Mary Agin said, "the great fear was on me day and night that he'd be shlippin' away and me left a sad lonely old woman with nobody to talk to but the cat.... Will ye come in and see him, Rosie? The sight of you will do him a world of good, for he's mighty fond of you and he's been askin' for you every day. Just run along in for a minute and say 'Howdy.' Janet'll wait out here with me." Rosie found Danny propped up at the bedroom window. The colour of his round apple cheeks had faded, their plumpness had fallen in, but on sight of Rosie the twinkle returned to his little blue eyes and he raised a knotted rheumatic hand in welcome. "Is it yourself, Rosie O'Brien? Come over and give an old man a kiss and tell him you're glad he's not dead yet." "Oh, Danny, don't talk that way," Rosie pleaded. She kissed his cheek, which was rough with a stubby growth of beard, then stood for a moment with her arms about his neck. "It's the merest chance that ye find me here," Danny said; "but now that I am here I suppose I'll stay on awhile longer. But I almost got off, Rosie. 'Twas Mary that pulled me back. Poor girl, she couldn't stand the thought of not having some one to scold. 'Twould be the death of her." Danny blinked his eyes and chuckled. "Danny, you oughtn't to talk that way about poor Mis' Agin!" Rosie shook her head vigorously. "She loves you, Danny, you know she does!" "To be sure," Danny agreed. "'Whom the Lord loveth, He chases,' and Mary has been chasin' me these forty years. But she's a good woman, Rosie--oh, ho, I never forget that!" Danny paused a moment, then added with a wicked little grin: "And if I was to forget it, she'd be on hand herself to remind me of it!" As always, when they were alone, Danny was a good deal of the naughty small boy saying things he should not say, and Rosie a good deal of the helpless shocked young mother begging him to mind his manners. She looked at him now sadly and yearningly. "Oh, Danny, I don't see how you can talk that way and poor Mis' Agin's just been nursing you night and day." "Pooh!" scoffed Danny. "Take me word for it, Rosie, when ye've been married forty years, ye'll expect to be nursed night and day and no back talk from any one. But, for love of Mike, darlint dear, let's talk of something else! I've had nuthin' but Mary for the last couple of weeks. Not another face have I seen and ye know yourself that Mary's face was niver intinded for such constant use!" Rosie gasped and swallowed and tried hard to find some fitting reproof. Failing in this she sought to distract her friend from further indiscretions by changing the subject. "Hasn't Janet been in to see you, Danny?" "Janet?" Danny spoke as though with an effort to recall the name. "Yes, I suppose Janet has been in. I dunno." "Danny, I don't see how you could forget." "I don't forget but I don't just exactly remember." "Danny, you're always saying things like that and I don't know what you mean. Either you remember or you don't remember and that's all there is to it." Rosie looked at him severely. "I don't think it's a bit nice of you to pretend not to remember Janet. She's my dearest friend and besides that she's a very nice girl." Danny agreed heartily: "Oh, Janet's a fine girl--she is that! In fact"--and Danny paused to make Rosie a knowing wink--"she might very well be Mary's own child. Just look at the solemn face of her that hurts when she laughs!" "Danny, Danny, you mustn't talk that way, and you wouldn't either if you knew the hard time poor Janet has at home!" "Wouldn't I now? Don't I know the hard time poor Mary Agin has at home and don't I say the same of her? Rosie, take me word for it, there are some women are born for a hard time. They like it. Since Mary's been waiting on me, hand and foot, she's been a happy woman. In the old days when I was a spry, jump-about kind of man, making good money and no odds from any one, Mary was a sad complainin' creature, always courtin' disaster and foreseein' trouble. And look at her now: with a penny in her pocket where she used to have a dollar and a cripple in a chair instead of a wage-earnin' husband, and never a word of complaint out of her mouth!" Danny ruminated a moment. "The rheumatiz has been pretty hard on me, Rosie dear, but I tell you it's been the makin' of a happy woman!" Close as they were to each other, Rosie was often in doubt as to the exact meaning of Danny's little quirks of thought. She looked at him now, trying to decide whether his remarks deserved reproof or acceptance. Danny watched her with twinkling amusement. At last he burst out laughing. "Ah, Rosie dear, don't trouble yir pretty little head for ye'll never make it out! And, after all, what does it matter if ye don't? With you, darlint, the only thing that matters is this: that it's yourself that cheers a man's heart with your lovin' ways and your sweet pretty face." How Danny had worked around to this sentiment, Rosie could not for the life of her tell. His words, however, suggested a question that called for discussion. "It seems to me, Danny, you think all men like girls with loving ways." Danny's answer was prompt: "I do that, Rosie! You can take an old man's word for it and no mistake." Rosie shook her head thoughtfully. "I don't see how you make that out. Take Ellen now: she hasn't very loving ways; she snaps your head off if you look at her; but she's got beaux all right--more than any girl on the street, and poor old Jarge Riley's gone daft over her. Now how do you make that out?" "Ah, that's a different matter," Danny explained airily. "You see, Rosie, there be two classes of men, sensible men and fools, and most men belong to both classes. Now a sensible man knows that a sweet loving woman will make him a happy home and a good mother to his children. Any man'll agree to that. So I'm right when I tell you that all men love that kind of a woman, for they do. But let a bold hussy come along with a handsome face on her and a nasty wicked temper, and before you count ten she'll call out all the fool there is in a man and off he goes after her as crazy as a half-witted rooster. Ah, I've seen it time and again. Many a poor lad that ought have known better has put the halter about his own neck! Have you ever thought, Rosie dear, of the queer ch'ices men make when they marry?" "Danny, I don't know what you mean." Danny's eyes took on a far-away look. "Take Mary and me. For forty years now I've been wonderin' what it was that married us." "Why, Danny!" Rosie's expression was reproachful. "Didn't you love Mary?" "Love her, do you say? Why, of course I loved her! Didn't me knees go weak at sight of her and me head dizzy? But the question is: why did I love her or why did she love me? There I was a gay dancing blade of a lad and Mary a serious owl of a girl that had never footed a jig in her life and would have died of shame not to have her washin' out bright and early of a Monda' mornin'. Now what was it, I ask you, that put love between us?" Danny appealed to his young friend as man to man. Rosie, however, was not a person to grant the purely academic side of any question that was perfectly clear and matter-of-fact. "Why, you loved her, Danny, and she loved you and that's all there was to it." For a moment Danny looked blank. Then he chuckled. "Strange I didn't think of that before!" His eyes began to twinkle. "I'll wager, Rosie dear, ye've never lain awake o' nights wondering what it was that made the world go round, have you now?" Rosie's answer was emphatic: "Of course not! I'm not so silly!" Danny laughed. "I thought not." Rosie went back to serious matters. "But, Danny, I can't understand about Jarge Riley and Ellen. Why is he so crazy about Ellen?" Danny drew a long face. "The truth is, I suppose he loves her." "But why does he love her?" Danny's eyes opened wide. "Is it yourself, Rosie O'Brien, that's askin' me why?" "I don't understand it at all," Rosie continued. "I've got a mind to give Jarge a good talking to. He just ought to be told a few things for his own good." "I'm sure he'll listen to you." There was a hint of guile in Danny's voice but Rosie refused to hear it. "He always does listen to me. We're mighty good friends, Jarge and me.... Yes, I'll just talk to him tonight. I'll put it to him quietly. Jarge has got lots of sense if only you talk to him right." "Of course he has," Danny agreed. "And, Rosie dear, I'm consumed with impatience to hear the outcome of your conference. You won't fail to stop in and tell me about it tomorrow--promise me that!" Rosie promised. She bid her old friend good-bye and left him, her mind already full of the things she would say to George Riley. CHAPTER XXVI ELLEN "I don't know what's keepin' poor Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien remarked as the family gathered at supper that evening. "They're awful busy at them down-town offices, I'm thinkin'. Ellen was expectin' to be home at six o'clock sharp but something important must have come in and they need her. Ah, say what you will, a poor girl's got to work mighty hard these days." "Huh!" grunted Terry. There was a slam at the front door, at sound of which Mrs. O'Brien's face lighted up. "Ah, there she is now, the poor dear!" Yes, it was Ellen. She swept at once into the kitchen and stood a moment glowering on the family with all the blackness of a storm-cloud. Then, without a word, she flung herself into a chair. "Why, Ellen dear," her mother gasped, "what's ailin' you?" Beyond twitching her shoulders impatiently, Ellen made no answer. "How do you do, Ellen?" Rosie spoke formally, in the tone of one not at all certain as to how her own civility would be received. Ellen glanced at her sharply. "Huh! So you're back, are you?" "Ellen, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien cried reprovingly, "is that the way you talk to poor little Rosie and her just in from the country? And she brought you two nice dressed chickens and a basket of fine fresh vegetables and a box----" Ellen cut her mother short with an impatient, "Aw, Ma, you dry up!" "What's the matter, Ellen?" Terry drawled out. "Lost your job?" For answer Ellen snatched off her hat and flung it angrily into the corner. "Ellen, Ellen!" Mrs. O'Brien cried. "Your new hat!" She started forward to rescue the hat, then paused as the significance of Terry's question reached her understanding. Her fluttering hands fell limp, her face took on an expression at once scared and appealing. "Oh, Ellen dear, you haven't lost your job, have you? Don't tell me you've lost your job!" Ellen scowled at her mother darkly. "You bet your life I've lost my job! I wouldn't have staid in that office another day for a thousand dollars! They're nothing but a set of old grannies--every one of them!" "Oh, Ellen!" Mrs. O'Brien dropped back helplessly into her chair. A look of overwhelming disappointment settled on her face; her mouth quivered; her eyes overflowed. "Oh, Ellen," she repeated, "how does it come that ye've lost it?" "Well, I guess you'd have lost it, too!" Ellen glared about the table defiantly. "Any one would with that old fogy, old man Harrison, worrying you to death with his old-maidish ways. He thinks people won't read his old letters if every word ain't spelled just so and every comma and period put in just right. The old fool! I'd like to know who cares about spelling nowadays! I did one letter over for him today six times and the sixth copy he tore up right in front of my face for nothing at all--a t-h-e-i-r for a t-h-e-r-e and a couple of little things like that. I tell you it made me hot under the collar and I just up and told him what I thought of him." "Ellen!" Mrs. O'Brien gasped weakly. "Well, I did!" Ellen repeated. "I just says to him, 'Since you're so mighty particular, Mr. Harrison, I don't see why you don't do your own typing!'" Ellen stood up and, indicating an imaginary Mr. Harrison, showed her family the pose she had taken. "Well," asked Terry, "what did he say?" "What did he say? He flew off the handle and shouted out: 'There's one thing sure: I'll never have you type another letter!' Just that way, as if I was nothing but an old errand boy! And after I had just done over his old letter for him six times, too!" Aggrieved and injured, Ellen appealed to her father: "Say, Dad, what do you know about that?" Jamie O'Brien slowly cleared his throat. "Is that the way they teach you at the Business College to talk to your employer?" The reproof in Jamie's words was entirely lost upon Ellen. She tossed her head scornfully. "Oh, us girls are on to his kind all right! We give it to them straight from the shoulder! That's the only way to treat 'em--the fussy old women! Then they respect you!" "Ellen, Ellen, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien wailed forlornly, "what makes you talk that way?" Terence drew Ellen back to her story: "Well, Sis, after that, what did you say and what did he say?" Ellen's ill humour was fast disappearing. Under the magic of her own recital, she was beginning to see herself in a new and flattering light. Instead of the inefficient stenographer who, a few moments before, had sought to hide her discomfiture in a bluster of abuse, she was now a poor deserving working-girl who had been put upon by an unscrupulous employer. Conscious of her own worth and made courageous by that consciousness, she had been able, it now seemed to her, to hold her own in a manner which must excite the admiration of her family. "Well, when he used such language to me, I saw all right what kind of a man he was and I just gave it to him straight. 'I see what you're after,' I says to him. 'You think you're going to bounce me before my week's up and you think I'm so meek that I'll leave without saying a word! But I just won't!' I says to him. 'You hired me for a week and if you think you can throw me out without paying me a week's salary, you're mighty mistaken! I've got a father,' I says to him, 'and he'll make it hot for you!'" Upon Mrs. O'Brien at least the effect of the story was almost terrifying. "Ellen, Ellen," she wailed, "what makes you talk so? You didn't really say that to the gentleman, did you?" "I didn't, eh?" Ellen tossed her head defiantly. "You just bet I did!" "Then what did he say?" It was Terry who again asked the question that would help the narrative on. Ellen smiled triumphantly. "He had nothing more to say to me. He just called the book-keeper over to him and says: 'Pay this young woman a week's wages and let her go.' Yes, that was every word he said. Then, without even looking at me, he turned his back and began sorting the papers on his desk. Fine manners for a gentleman, I say!" Before she finished, every member of the family had looked up in quick surprise. "Do you mean," Mrs. O'Brien quavered, "do you mean, Ellen dear, that he paid you?" Ellen glanced at her mother scornfully. "Of course I mean he paid me! Here!" She opened her handbag and exhibited a wad of bills. "One five and three ones! Pretty good pay for two days' work--what?" Mrs. O'Brien turned devout eyes to heaven. "Thank God, Ellen dear, he paid you! I was a-fearin' all your hard work was going for nuthin'! Thank God, you'll be able to start in this week payin' your board like you intended." Ellen looked at her mother coldly. "Say, Ma, what do you think I am? I told you I'd begin paying three dollars a week as soon as I got a good steady job. Well, have I got a good steady job? No. In fact, I'm out of a job. So you'll just have to wait like everybody else." "But, Ellen dear,"--Mrs. O'Brien stretched out an appealing, indefinite hand--"what's this you're saying when you've got the money right there? It's only Tuesda' now and if you start out bright and early tomorrow hunting a new job, what with your fine looks and your fine education, you'll be sure to land one by the end of the week. And then, don't you see, there won't be any break in your payroll at all." Ellen waved her mother airily aside. "Say, Ma, you don't know anything about it. If you think I'm going to start out again tomorrow morning, you make a mighty big mistake. I'm going to take a couple of days off, I am. I think I deserve them. I guess I've earned my living for this week. Besides, I've got some shopping to do. I need a new hat and a lot of things." "A new hat, Ellen? What's this ye're sayin'? Why, ye've not been wearing this last one a day longer than two weeks. It's a beautiful hat if ye'd not abuse it." Mrs. O'Brien lifted it carefully from the floor where it still lay and held it up for general inspection. "Why, Ellen, ye don't know how becomin' it is to you. Just the other morning, while I was shelling peas, Jarge Riley says to me----" "Just cut out George Riley!" Ellen interrupted sharply. "I don't care what George Riley says! I'm going to get some decent clothes and that's all there is about it!" Terry grunted derisively. "Say, Rosie, ain't we winners?" Ellen flushed, conscious for the first time of Terry's disapproval. She looked at him angrily, then turned to her mother. "Now, Ma, just listen to that! He's always nagging at me and you never say a word!" "Terry, Terry," Mrs. O'Brien murmured wearily, "why do ye be talkin' that way of your own sister? The next time she gets a job, I'm sure she'll begin payin' board the first thing, won't you, Ellen dear?" "Say, Ma, you and Ellen are a team." Terry eyed his mother meditatively. "You take her guff every time. Not a day goes by that she don't pay you dirt, but you keep on trusting her just the same." "Ah, Terry lad, how can you talk so? Perhaps Ellen has made a few mistakes, but you oughtn't to forget she's your own sister." "I don't." Terry spoke shortly and rose from his chair. "Come on, Rosie, no use hanging around here any longer." Rosie hesitated. "I think I'll wait to do the dishes first. Ma's all tired out." "Indeed, and you'll do no such thing!" Mrs. O'Brien declared. "You're company for today, Rosie, so make the most of it." "Ellen will do the dishes, won't you, Ellen dear?" Terry spoke facetiously with his mother's intonation. "Of course Ellen will," Mrs. O'Brien said. "I'm sure she will, for if she's not working tomorrow she'll not be having to save herself." Rosie, willing to accept this assurance, allowed Terry to draw her away from the kitchen and out to the little front porch. "But you know, Terry, of course she won't." Terry laughed a little grimly. "Of course not!" He paused a moment in thought. "Say, Rosie, don't it beat all the way she goes along doing just as she pleases? Hardly any one calls her bluff. I can see just how it was in that office today. She put up such an ugly fight that they were glad to shell out an extra five spot that she hadn't begun to earn just to get rid of her. And look at her here at home. She wouldn't hand out a nickel to the rest of us if we were starving. She'd spend it on an ice-cream soda for herself." Rosie sighed. "I don't mind about us. We can take care of ourselves. But poor old Jarge Riley, Terry. Living right here with us wouldn't you suppose he'd get to know her?" "Well,"--Terry spoke in a tone somewhat didactic--"you forget one thing, Rosie: Jarge is in love." "But why is he in love?" Rosie persisted. Terry shook his head gloomily. "Search me." CHAPTER XXVII ROSIE URGES COMMON SENSE "Why is he in love?" The question kept repeating itself to Rosie as she sat on the porch steps while day slowly faded and twilight deepened into night. Mrs. O'Brien and Jamie came out after a time and Rosie talked to them about the country, telling them of all the marvels of farm and roadside. But through it all her mind kept reverting to the problem which had met her so promptly on her return. "When you know Mis' Riley," she told her mother, "then you understand Jarge from start to finish. She's jolly and kind and she'll do anything in the world for you if she likes you. And, my! how she works! Jarge's father is all right, but all he does is talk. No matter what there is to do, he always wants to stop and talk. In the mornings he just nearly used to drive Mis' Riley and me crazy. I can tell you we were always busy and he ought to have been, too, and he did used to get real tired just talking about all he had to do. Of course Grandpa Riley was awful good to me and Geraldine and I don't like to say anything about him, but I understand now why Jarge has to save so hard and why poor Mis' Riley has to work so hard. And I know one thing: when Jarge does go back to the farm and take hold of things, he and his mother'll make that old farm pay. They're not afraid of hard work, either of them, and they've both got good sense, too.... Say, Dad, what do you think of Ellen the way she treats Jarge?" "Ellen?" Jamie O'Brien's tilted chair came down with a thud and Jamie cleared his throat to answer. "How would you want her to be treating him?" "Well, I don't want her to treat him like a dog! Jarge is too good!" "Don't you be worryin' about Jarge," Jamie advised. "It's just as well for him that Ellen does treat him so." To Rosie this seemed a subject for further discussion, but not to Jamie. He balanced back his chair and relapsed into an abstracted silence from which Rosie's protests were unable to arouse him. It had been a long and exciting day and Rosie was tired. If she had not felt that George would be expecting to see her when he got in from his run, she would have said good-night early and slipped quietly off to bed. But George would be expecting her. In the morning they had had very few words together and Rosie knew that there were a hundred things about the farm and about his mother that George wished to hear. So she stifled her yawns and waited. Talk flickered and went out. At last Jamie O'Brien tapped his pipe on the porch rail and, going in, said: "Good-night, Rosie. It's mighty fine to have you back." In a few moments Mrs. O'Brien followed Jamie and Terry followed her. One by one the street noises grew quiet. Mothers' voices called, "Johnny!" "Katie!" "Jimmie!" and children's voices answered, "All right! I'm a-comin'!"; doors slammed; lights began to twinkle in bedroom windows. Rosie's little world was preparing for sleep. Every detail of that world was familiar to her as her mother's face. Like her mother's face, heretofore she had taken it for granted. Tonight, coming back after a short absence, she saw it anew with all the vividness of fresh sight and all the understanding of lifelong acquaintance. It was her world and, with a sudden rush of feeling, she knew that it was hers and that she loved it. Now that she was back to it, already her weeks in the country seemed far off and vague.... Had she ever been away? George came at last. He looked thin and worn and he seated himself quietly with none of his old-time gaiety. "Well, Rosie," he began, "how does it seem to be back?" Rosie sighed. "I had a beautiful time in the country, Jarge, but I'm glad to be back--honest I am." "But don't you miss the quiet of the country? I don't believe you'll be able to sleep tonight with all the noise." Rosie laughed. "Jarge, you're like all country people. You think the country's quiet and it's not at all. It's fearfully noisy! It's like living on a railroad track! Why, do you know, the first night I was there, I was hours and hours in going to sleep--I was so scared!" "Scared, Rosie? What were you scared about?" "The racket that was going on. I didn't know what it was at first. Then Grandpa Riley came out and told me it was only the locusts and the tree-toads and the frogs. For a long time, though, I didn't see how it could be." George lay back and laughed with something of his old abandon. "If that don't beat all! So they scared you, Rosie?" "And chickens, Jarge! Why, chickens are the noisiest things! If they are not squabbling with each other, they're talking to themselves! And ducks--ducks are even worse! Jarge, do you know, I call a street like this quiet compared to the country!" George's laugh grew heartier. "If that ain't the funniest thing I ever heard!" "It's true, Jarge!" Rosie was very serious but her seriousness only added to George's mirth. "All right, kid, have it your own way. But it's kind of a new idea: the city's quiet and the country's noisy, is that it?" "Oh, I don't say the city's exactly quiet." Rosie picked her words carefully. "All I mean is, you don't notice the noises in the city like you do the noises in the country. The city noises are not such strange noises." "Oh! That's it, is it? I see!" and George slapped his knee in lusty amusement. "Jarge," Rosie began slowly, "there's something I want to talk to you about." "Well, here I am. There'll never be a better time." "It's about Ellen, Jarge." George's laugh stopped abruptly. "I don't like to say anything about her, Jarge, because she's my own sister...." Rosie paused and sighed. "You're in love with her, Jarge, aren't you?" "Yes, Rosie, I'm afraid I am. And I'm afraid I've got it bad, too." "Jarge dear, tell me one thing: why are you in love with her?" George shook his head. "Search me. I don't know." "But, Jarge, she ain't the kind of girl you ought to be in love with." "That so?" George's voice showed very little interest. "Why, you ought to be in love with a nice girl, Jarge--I mean a girl that would love you and pet you and save your money and take good care of you. That's the kind of girl you want, Jarge." "Is it?" George's tone was still apathetic. "Sure it is. Now, Jarge, look at the whole thing sensibly. What do you want with a girl like Ellen? She doesn't think of any one but herself and all she's after is getting beaux and spending money. What would you do with her if you had her? Why, she'd clean out your savings in two weeks, and then where would you be and where would your mother be and where would the farm be?" George sighed heavily. "I suppose you're right, Rosie, but that don't seem to make any difference. I don't know why I want her, but I do. I want her so bad I lay awake nights and I ain't never laid awake before in my life. No use talking, Rosie, it's Ellen or no one for me." "But, Jarge dear, why can't you be sensible? You're sensible in other things." "See here, Rosie, you don't know what you're talking about!" George spoke sharply but not unkindly. "A fellow don't fall in love with a girl because he wants to or because he ought to or because she'd make him a good wife. I don't understand why he does; I don't know a thing about it. He just does and that's all there is to it!" "But, Jarge," Rosie persisted, "if he knows it ain't best for him, I should think he just wouldn't let himself fall in love." "Didn't I just tell you a fellow himself has nothing to do with it!" For a moment George lost his temper, then he laughed a little sheepishly. "I don't blame you, Rosie, for not understanding. It sounds terrible foolish and I guess it is foolish. But it's how we're made and that's all there is about it. Some of these days you'll get caught yourself and then you'll understand." George reached over and gave Rosie's hand a confidential little squeeze. Rosie did not return the pressure. She even drew her own hand away a little coldly. "It's all very well, Jarge Riley, for you to pretend that falling in love is so terribly mysterious, but I want to tell you one thing. I know better! It's as common as onions! Why, everybody does it! I guess I've seen 'em--out in the parks and on the street and in the cars and everywhere! And, besides that, I can tell you something else: if they'd only use a little common sense when they are in love they wouldn't make such fools of themselves. Yes, Jarge Riley, and you're just the very person I mean! There you are, wanting to make love to Ellen and what do you do? The very things that make her laugh at you! If you'd use one grain of common sense you'd get on with her as well as the rest of the fellows. But no, says you, a man can't possibly use common sense in love! Jarge Riley, you're as silly as a chicken and what's more, since I've been in the country, I know exactly how silly chickens are!" "Why, Rosie!" George was too much taken back by Rosie's tirade to do more than gape in helpless astonishment. "I mean just what I say!" Rosie assured him severely. "I was sorry for you at first, but now I don't pity you at all. If you're going to be stubborn, you don't deserve to be pitied." "Well, Rosie, what do you want me to do?" George's tone was so conciliatory that Rosie's manner softened. "All I ask you, Jarge, is to be sensible." George sighed and laughed. "Sounds easy, don't it? Now you think it would be sensible for a farmer like me not to think any more about a girl like Ellen. That's it, ain't it?" Rosie answered promptly: "Yes, Jarge, that would certainly be the most sensible thing you could do." "Rosie, that's the one thing I can't do, whether I'd like to or not. I'm sorry, though, because I don't want you to think I'm only stubborn." It was Rosie's turn to sigh. "You're an awful hard person to help, Jarge. You pretend you're perfectly willing to be sensible, yet the minute I tell you how you draw back." Rosie sighed again. "But at least, Jarge, you might be sensible in other things." She turned on him with sudden energy. "And do you know, Jarge, if you were sensible in other things, I think you might easy enough make Ellen like you! Why not?" "Ain't I sensible in other things?" George spoke a little plaintively. "I should say not! Everything you do gives Ellen another chance to laugh at you and make fun of you. Take the other night at the Twirlers' dance. Now if you had gone about that thing right you could have made Ellen and all the other girls just crazy about you. You needn't think Ellen wouldn't like to have a beau that can lick everybody in sight. She would. Any girl would. But all you did was make her mad." George groaned. His prowess at the Twirlers' was not a pleasant memory. When he spoke, his tone was a little sullen. "What is it you want me to do?" "I only want you to act sensible." "Well, then, tell me this: how's a born fool to act sensible?" "When he don't know how to act sensible himself," Rosie answered, "there's only one thing for him to do and that is to take the advice of some one who does know." George laughed. "Meaning yourself, Rosie?" "Sure I mean myself. I don't mind saying that I consider myself very far from a born fool. I'm not a bit ashamed of being sensible. Janet McFadden always says that I'm not very smart but that I've got lots of common sense. Danny Agin thinks so, too. He often consults me about things." Rosie nodded complacently. George chuckled. "I'm with Janet and Danny all right. I always did swear by you, Rosie!" "Then why don't you do as I tell you?" Rosie faced him squarely. "It would be very much better for you!" For a moment George looked at her in affectionate amusement. Then his face grew serious as her own. "All right, Rosie, I will. You're right: I have made a bad mess of things with Ellen. It couldn't be worse. So here's my promise: for the rest of the time I'm here, I'll do just exactly as you say." Rosie beamed her approval. "And I promise you, Jarge, you won't be sorry!" In all formality they shook hands over the bargain. "Now then," George began briskly, "what's the first thing I'm to do?" Rosie hesitated. "I haven't exactly thought it out yet." "Huh! So it ain't so awful easy even for you to be sensible!" He peeped at her slyly. "I want to think things over carefully," Rosie explained, "and I want to ask Danny Agin's advice." George gave a grunt of protest, so Rosie hastened to add: "Of course I won't use your name. I'll just put the case to Danny in a sort of general way and, before he guesses what I really mean, he'll be telling me what I want to know. Oh, I wouldn't mention your name for anything!" George chuckled. "I'm sure you wouldn't!" He stood up. "Well, good-night, kid. It's time for both of us to get to bed. And say, Rosie, I'm awful glad you're back. I've had a bad time since you've been gone. Everything's went wrong. Now you're back, I feel better already.... Good-night." They were all glad she was back! In the sunshine of so much appreciation, Rosie's heart felt like a little flower bursting into bloom. CHAPTER XXVIII JANET USES STRONG LANGUAGE Night brought back to Mrs. O'Brien her usual serenity. Given a little time she always worked around to serenity, even after blows such as Ellen's lost job. The next morning, while George Riley ate his breakfast, she was able to talk about it without a trace of her first despair. "Have you heard, Jarge, the frightful experience poor Ellen had at that office? Her boss was one of them unreasonable fussy old men that would worry any poor girl to death. Ellen stood it for two days and then she told him she'd just have to give up. They were so awfully sorry to lose her that they paid her a whole week's wages. I tell her she done quite right not trying to stick it out under such conditions. 'Twould make an old woman of her in no time. As I says to her, 'The game ain't worth the candle. And what's more,' says I, 'what with your fine looks and your fine education you won't be any time getting another job.' And she won't. I'm sure of that. She was awfully afraid we'd be blaming her, but 'Make your mind easy,' I says to her. 'You've done just exactly what your poor da and I would have advised you to do.' Oh, I tell you, Jarge, in these days a poor girl has to mind her P's and Q's or they'll impose on her! You know that's so, Jarge." Rosie sighed. Three weeks had made no change in her mother's character. Whatever Ellen or any of her children might be guilty of, within twenty-four hours Mrs. O'Brien would be sure to find them blameless and even praiseworthy. Rosie was glad to see that George Riley, in spite of his infatuation, was not entirely taken in. He smiled to himself a little grimly. "So she's lost her job already, has she?" Mrs. O'Brien demurred: "'Tain't quite fair to the poor girl to say she lost her job. What Ellen done was this: she resigned her position." George glanced at Rosie and she, to make sure he understood, wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "I'll tell you about it sometime," she remarked carelessly. "She's off shopping this morning," Mrs. O'Brien continued. "I told her not to go back to them offices for a couple of days. She needs a little rest and once she gets a good steady job goodness knows when she'll ever again have a moment to herself. So I'm wanting her to get her shopping done while she can." "You see, Jarge," Rosie explained; "she needs a lot of new clothes and now that she's making money she can buy them herself. She's going to get a new hat, too. She doesn't like that last new hat." Rosie tried to use a tone that would sound guileless to her mother and yet tell George all there was to tell. With her mother at least she was successful. "You must remember," Mrs. O'Brien went on, "a girl in her position has got to dress mighty well or they'll be taking advantage of her. So I says to her, 'Now, Ellen dear, just get yourself a nice new hat and anything else you need. Don't mind any board money this week.' You know, Jarge, she's going to begin paying three dollars a week regular. Don't you call that pretty fine for a poor girl who is just starting out in life? You mustn't forget, Jarge, that all you pay yourself is five dollars a week." "Yes, but the difference is he really pays it!" Rosie could not resist stating this fact even at risk of hurting her mother's feelings. The risk was a safe one. Mrs. O'Brien only smiled blandly. "'Tis no difference at all, Rosie dear. Come next week, Ellen'll be really paying it, too. She gave me her word she would." A mother's faith in her offspring is touching and very beautiful. It is even more: it is as it should be. Nevertheless it is usually wearisome to outsiders. In this case, Rosie's point of view was that of an outsider. She stood her mother's eulogy of Ellen as long as she could and then, to avoid an outburst, she fled. She ventured back once or twice but not to stay, as Ellen continued to be the theme of her mother's conversation and George, poor victim, seemed not to realize how bored he was. Rosie began to think that her second day home was in a fair way of being spoiled. As the morning wore away she found another grievance. "Terry," she said, "I don't know what has become of Janet. She promised to be here first thing this morning. I suppose her father's been beating her up again." "Did you know," Terry asked, "that Dave McFadden got pulled in while you were away? He was fined ten dollars." "Wisht he'd been sent up for ten years!" Rosie declared. "Mis' McFadden and Janet would be much better off without him!" Dear, dear! Taken by and large this poor old world is pretty full of trouble! Rosie sighed deeply, wondering how she was going to bear the burden of it all. She waited for Janet until afternoon, when it was time for her to go about her business as paper-carrier. She was sure now that something serious had happened to Janet. To the child of a man like Dave McFadden something serious might happen almost any time. On the first part of her route Rosie gave herself up to all sorts of horrible imaginings. Then, in the excitement of a long talk with Danny Agin on the subject of George Riley, she forgot Janet and did not think of her again until she reached home. Janet was there on the porch awaiting her. "Poor Janet's in trouble," Mrs. O'Brien began at once. This was evident enough from the expression of Janet's face. "What is it, Janet? What's happened?" Rosie put a sympathetic arm about Janet's shoulder and peered anxiously into her somber eyes. "Her poor ma's been took sick," Mrs. O'Brien continued. "Oh, Janet, I'm sorry! Is it serious?" "Horspital," Mrs. O'Brien announced. "Hospital!" Rosie repeated. Then it was serious! "When did it happen, Janet?" "This morning." Janet spoke quietly in a tired colourless voice. "Were you at home, Janet?" "No. On the street." "Did they send for an ambulance?" "Yes." "Did they take you to the hospital, too?" "Yes." "Well, Janet, what did the doctor say?" "He said lots of things." "Didn't he say your mother would be all right soon?" "He said that depends." "What does it depend on, Janet?" Janet laughed, a weak pathetic little laugh that had no mirth in it. "He said she might get well again if she didn't have to work or worry any more. Huh! It's easy to say a thing like that to a poor woman that's got to work or starve, but it would be a good deal more sensible if they'd say right out: 'You better go drown yourself!'" "Why, Janet!" Mrs. O'Brien's hands went up in shocked amazement. "I mean it!" Janet insisted fiercely. "Do you suppose my mother works like she does because she wants to? I'd like to see that doctor married to a drunk and have some one say to him: 'Now don't work or worry and you'll be all right.'" Mrs. O'Brien was much distressed. "Why, Janet dear, you surprise me to be talkin' so about that poor doctor." "The doctor!" Janet turned on Mrs. O'Brien passionately. "I'm not talking about the doctor! I'm talking about my father!" She paused an instant, then flung out a terrible epithet which even in the mouth of a rough man would have been shocking. Instinctively Rosie shrank and Mrs. O'Brien raised a startled, disapproving hand. Janet tossed her head defiantly. "I don't care!" she insisted. "It's all his fault, the drunken brute, and if my mother dies tonight, it'll be him that's murdered her!" She ended with a sob and hid her face on Rosie's shoulder. Mrs. O'Brien, still scandalised, opened her mouth to speak. But the right word which would express both reproof and commiseration was slow in coming, and at last she was forced to meet the difficulty by fleeing it. "I--I think I must be going in. I think I hear Geraldine. Sit still, Rosie dear." And then, her heart getting the better of her, she ended with: "Poor child! She's not herself today! Comfort her, Rosie!" Rosie scarcely needed her mother's admonition. "There now, Janet dear, don't cry! Your mother's going to be all right--I know she is! She's been sick before and got over it." Janet was not a person of tears. She swallowed her sobs now and slowly dried her eyes. "I'm sorry I used such strong language, Rosie, honest I am. And before your mother, too! You've got to excuse me. I know it wasn't ladylike." "That's all right, Janet. You really didn't mean it." "Yes, I did mean it," Janet declared truthfully. "If you only knew it, Rosie, there are lots of times I don't feel a bit ladylike! I often use cuss words inside to myself. Don't you?" No, most emphatically, Rosie did not! She was saved, however, the necessity of having to acknowledge so embarrassing an evidence of feminine weakness by Janet's further pronouncement: "I tell you what, Rosie, when you come to a place where you want to smash things up, a good big cuss word just helps an awful lot! Don't you think so?" Rosie cleared her throat a little nervously. "Yes, Janet, I suppose it does." "You bet it does! And what's more, women have got just as much right to use it as men, haven't they?" Rosie wanted to cry out: "I don't think they want to! I know I don't!" but, under Janet's fiery glance, the words that actually spoke themselves were: "Yes, of--of course they have." With the hearty agreement of every one present, there was no more to be said on that subject. Janet turned to another. "Rosie, will you do something for me? Come and stay all night with me. I'll be so lonely I don't know what I'll do." Rosie's heart sank. If she spent the night with Janet, she'd have no chance to talk to George Riley, for she'd be gone long before he got home. Besides, there was Dave McFadden, and the thought of sleeping near him was almost terrifying. "But, Janet dear, how about your father?" "Oh, I suppose he'll come in soused as usual. But you won't be bothered. I'll get him off to bed before you come and he'll be safe till morning. Please say you'll come, Rosie. I need you, honest I do." That was true: Janet did need her. George Riley would have to wait. "All right, Janet. I'll come." "Thanks, Rosie. I knew you would." Janet paused. "And, Rosie, do you think you could lend me a quarter? I've got to have some money for breakfast. Mother had a dollar in her pocket but I forgot about it at the hospital." "I haven't a cent, Janet, but I'll raise a quarter somewhere, from Terry or from dad, and I'll bring it with me tonight." Janet stood up to go. "Come about eight o'clock, Rosie." Rosie looked at her friend compassionately. "Why don't you stay here for supper?" Janet shook her head. "I'd like to but I don't think I'd better. He probably won't come home, but he might come and I better be on hand." Janet started off slowly and reluctantly. Twice she turned back a face so woebegone and desolate that it went to Rosie's heart and, after a few moments, sent her flying for comfort to her mother's ample bosom. Mrs. O'Brien gathered her in as if were the most natural thing in the world. "What is it, Rosie darlint? What's troublin' you?" "Ma," she sobbed, "you're well, aren't you?" "Me, Rosie dear, am I well, do you say?" Mrs. O'Brien looked into Rosie's tearful eyes in astonishment. "Yes, Ma, you! I want you to be well--always--all the time! You see, Ma, Janet's poor mother----" "Ah, and is it that that's troublin' you?" Mrs. O'Brien crooned, rocking Rosie from side to side as though she were Geraldine. "Don't you be worryin' your little head about your poor ma. I'm fine and well, thank God, and your poor da is well, and Terry's well, and Jackie's well, and poor wee Geraldine is well, and dear Ellen's well, and we're all----" "Ellen!" snorted Rosie, her tears abruptly ceasing to flow and her body drawing itself away from her mother's embrace. "Dear Ellen's well, too," Mrs. O'Brien in all innocence repeated. "Oh, I know she's well all right!" Rosie declared in tones which even her mother recognised as sarcastic. "Why, Rosie," Mrs. O'Brien began, "I'm surprised----" But Rosie, without waiting to hear the end of her mother's reproach, marched resolutely off with all the dignity of a high chin and a stiff military gait. CHAPTER XXIX THE CASE OF DAVE McFADDEN Promptly at eight o'clock Rosie reached the tenement where the McFaddens lived. Janet was on the front steps waiting for her. "Shall we sit out here awhile?" Janet said, making place for Rosie beside herself. Rosie hesitated a moment. "Is your father home?" "Yes. He came in an hour ago. I got him off to bed as soon as I could. He's asleep now." "Are--are you sure he won't wake up and make trouble?" Janet laughed. "Yes, I'm sure. We won't hear anything from him till morning except snorts and groans. I guess I know." On the steps of the neighbouring tenements there were groups of people laughing, talking, wrangling. The electric street lamps cast great patches of quivering jumping light and heavy masses of deep pulsating shadow. Janet and Rosie, seated alone, were near enough their neighbours not to feel cut off from the outside world and yet, in the seclusion of a dark shadow, far enough away to talk freely on the subject uppermost in their thoughts. "You've never heard me say anything about my father before, Rosie, you know you haven't." Janet paused to sigh. "Mother never has, either. We've both always let on that he's all right and we've covered him up and lied about him and done everything we could to keep people from knowing how he really treats us. If this hadn't happened to mother, I wouldn't be talking yet. Say, Rosie, ain't women fools? That's the way they always act about their own men folks. They're willing to shoot any other man for nothing at all, but they let on that their own men are just angels. You know--the way I've always done about dad. But, since today, seems like I don't care any more. And I've made up my mind to one thing: he's going to hear the truth from me tomorrow morning if he kills me for it." "Janet!" Rosie did not relish at all the thought of being present at a family conference of so private a nature. "Yes, and you're going to hear it, too, Rosie. If we were alone, he might pay attention or he might not. But with an outsider hearing things he'll know quick enough that I mean business." "Janet, I don't know how you can talk that way. He's your father, you know." Janet nodded grimly. "Yes, he's my father all right. You know it and I know it, but he seems to have forgotten it. I'll remind him of it tomorrow." Rosie reached out a little timidly. "I don't like to interfere, Janet, but it seems to me you're only making things harder for yourself. Don't you know it makes you kind o' sick inside to let yourself get so mad at any one?" Janet sighed wearily. "Yes, I suppose it does, but I've been that way so long I don't know how it feels to be any other way." Presently Rosie said: "Tell me, Janet, has he always boozed like this?" Janet shook her head. "No, not always. I can remember when things were different. I was a pretty big kid, too. We had a little house like yours and good furniture. You know he's a fine machinist and makes good money. He used to make four dollars a day. He can always get work yet but he don't keep it like he used to." "And didn't he booze then, Janet?" "Yes, a little but not very much. Ma says he'd come home full maybe once a month and smash things around, but after that he'd sober up and be all right for a long time. Oh, we were comfortable then and ma and me had good clothes and if ma didn't feel very well she'd hire some one to do the washing. I remember I had a pretty jumping rope and a big ball. It wasn't more than five or six years ago. And look at us now!" Rosie sighed sympathetically. "I wonder what it was that started him that way?" Janet was able to tell. "You know, Rosie, that's a funny thing. Miss Harris from the Settlement was in here one day asking ma and I heard what ma said. Dad fell and broke a leg and was laid up for a long time. Then they found it hadn't been set right and they broke it over again. So that kept him out of work ever so many more weeks. They had always been spenders, both of them, and they hadn't so very much money put by, so, just to keep things together while dad was idle, ma began going out to work. She's a fine cleaner and laundress, so of course she could always get good places. Then, after dad got well, she kept on working because they were in debt and then--I don't know how it happened--the first thing ma knew dad was drinking up his money and she's been working ever since. He used to pay the rent but he don't even do that any more." Janet talked on as she had never talked before. Not much of what she said was new to Rosie, for the private life of the poor is lived in public, and Mrs. Finnegan has no need to explain to the neighbours the little commotion that took place in her rooms the night before, since the neighbours have all along known as much about it as herself. What Rosie had not known before was Janet's real attitude toward her father. Janet's likes had always seemed to Rosie a little fearsome in their intensity; her hate, as Rosie saw it now, was appalling. Compared to Janet's feelings, Rosie's own appeared childish, almost babyish. If brought to trial, she would, no doubt, have fought for them, but like a kitten rather than a tiger. In Janet the tiger was already well grown. Listening to Janet, Rosie shuddered. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way, Janet. It's kind of murderous!" "Murderous?" Janet repeated. "What if it is? That's just how I feel sometimes. Right now when I think of ma lying there in the hospital, for two cents I'd go upstairs and choke him to death! What would it matter, anyway, if he never woke up? Just one less drunkard in the world--that's all. I guess there'd be plenty enough of them left." Rosie held out imploring hands. "Janet, if you keep on talking like that I'll have to go home! I'll be too scared to sleep with you!" Janet was contrite. "Aw, now, Rosie, don't say that. I'm only talking, and I won't even talk any more tonight. Anyhow, it's time for bed." The McFadden home consisted of two rooms: a front living room and a small back bedroom. The living room was everything its name implied: it had in it sink, wash-tub, stove, eating table, and the bed where Janet and her mother slept. The little back room, lighted and ventilated from a shaft, was where Dave slept. The sound of him and the smell of him filled both rooms and seemed to rush out into the hallway as Janet and Rosie pushed open the door. "Ugh!" Rosie gasped, and Janet, who had struck a match and was reaching for a candle, paused to say, over her shoulder: "If you want me to, I'll shut his door." Rosie would have liked nothing better but a humanitarian consideration restrained her. "Wouldn't he smother in there with the door shut?" "Maybe he would." Janet spoke so indifferently that Rosie felt that she herself must bear the whole burden of responsibility. "Guess you had better leave it as it is, Janet. I suppose I'll be able to stand it once I get used to it." Rosie said this, but in her own mind she was perfectly sure she could never sleep in such an atmosphere. She repeated this to herself many times and very emphatically, while she was undressing and afterwards when she was in bed. "If you're careful," Janet instructed her, "and lie over just a little bit near the edge, you won't hit the broken spring. Now good-night, dear, and sleep tight." Sleep tight, indeed, with that brute in there snorting like an engine and one's back nearly broken in two stretching over sharp peaks and yawning precipices! My! what would Rosie not have given to be at home in her own bed! Not that her own bed was any marvel of comfort. It was not. But it was her own--that was the great thing. People like their own things--their own beds, their own homes, their own families. How Rosie loved hers! There was her father for whom her heart overflowed in a sudden gush of tenderness. Jamie O'Brien was so quiet and unobtrusive that Rosie often forgot him. It needed the contrast of a Dave McFadden to awaken in her a realization of his gentle worth. And, if you only knew it, there wasn't a more generous-hearted soul on earth than Maggie O'Brien. And where was there a prettier or a sweeter baby than Geraldine? And Jackie was a nice kid, too. He was! And Terry---- Terry's nobility of character could only be expressed orally with a sigh, graphically with a dash.... Of course there was Ellen.... I suppose every family has to have at least one disagreeable member.... Wouldn't it be a great idea if all families just bunched together their disagreeable members and sent 'em off somewhere alone where they wouldn't be of any further nuisance? To the Great American Desert, for instance! To such a scheme Rosie would gladly contribute Ellen and Janet might contribute her father. The longer Rosie considered the plan, the more sensible it seemed to her. She was surprised she hadn't thought of it sooner. She would discuss it with Janet in the morning.... Yes, morning--morning. Then dream and waking flowed together and she felt Janet patting her arm and she heard Janet's voice saying, "Morning! It's morning, Rosie! Wake up!" Rosie opened her eyes with a pop. "Why, I've been asleep, haven't I?" "I should think you had!" Janet told her. "You've been laughing and talking to yourself to beat the band. It's time to get up now. I want you to go to the grocery and, while you're out, I'll get him up." CHAPTER XXX JANET TO HER OWN FATHER When Rosie got back from the grocery, Dave McFadden was washing his face at the sink. He paid no attention to Rosie and, in fact, seemed not to see her until he sat down to breakfast. Then he looked at her in surprise. "Why, hello, Rosie! Where did you come from?" He was a large powerfully built man, dark, with sombre cavernous eyes and a gaunt face. His voice was not unkind nor was his glance. Rosie spoke to him politely: "Good-morning, Mr. McFadden." "Rosie's been here all night," Janet announced. "All night!" Dave looked around a little startled. "Where's your mother?" "My mother?" Janet spoke indifferently. "Oh, she's at the hospital. She's been there since yesterday morning. I tried to tell you about her last night." Dave put down his coffee cup heavily. "What's the matter with her?" "The doctor said it was overwork and worry." "Overwork and worry! What are you talking about? They don't put people in the hospital for overwork and worry!" Dave spoke with a rising irritation. "Can't you tell me something that's got some sense to it?" Janet answered casually as though relating an adventure that in no way touched herself. "I can tell you the whole thing if you want to hear it. We were on the street going to Mrs. Lamont's for the washing when suddenly ma jumped and her hands went up and she shook, and I looked where she was looking because I thought there must be a snake or something on the sidewalk. Then, before I knew what was happening, she screamed and fell and her eyes began rolling and she bit with her mouth until her lips were all bloody and her head jerked around and--and--it was awful!" With a sob in which there was left no pretence of indifference, Janet put her hands before her face to shut out the horror of the scene. The details were as new to Rosie as to Dave. Janet had not even hinted that it was _this_ which had happened to her mother. Dave McFadden breathed heavily. "Then what?" Janet took her hands from her face and, with a fresh assumption of indifference, continued: "Oh, a crowd gathered, of course, and after while a policeman came, and then the ambulance. And while we were in the ambulance she--had another. And when we got to the hospital--another. It was awful!" Janet dropped her head on the table and sobbed. "Well?" demanded Dave gruffly. Janet stifled her sobs. "They undressed her and put her to bed and gave her something and she went to sleep. Then the doctor took me into another room and wrote down what he said was a history of ma's case and he asked me questions about everything." Dave McFadden's sombre gaze wandered off unhappily about the room. "What did you tell him?" Janet's answer came a little slowly: "I told him everything." Dave looked at her sharply. "Tell me what you told him!" "All right. I'll tell you." There was a hint of unsteadiness in Janet's voice but no sign of wavering in her manner. Her eyes stared across at her father as sombre almost as his own. "He said from the looks of her he thought ma was all run down from overwork and worry. I told him she was. Then he asked me why and I told him why.... I told him my father made good money but boozed every cent. I told him my mother had to support herself and me and even had to feed my father. I told him that when my father was sober he was cross and grouchy but he didn't hurt us and that, when he came home drunk, he'd kick us or beat us or do anything he could to hurt us." With a roar like the roar of an angry animal, Dave McFadden reached across the table and clutched Janet roughly by the shoulder. "You told him that, you--you little skunk!" His fury, instead of cowing Janet, roused her to like fury. "Yes!" she shouted shrilly. "That's exactly what I told him and it's exactly what I'm going to tell everybody! I'm never going to tell another lie about you, Dave McFadden! Do you hear me? Never!" At the unexpectedness of her attack, Dave's anger and strength seemed to flow from him like water. His clutch relaxed; he fell back weakly into his chair. For a moment confusion covered him utterly. Then he tried to speak and at last succeeded in voicing that ancient reproach with which unworthy parenthood has ever sought to beguile the just reproof of outraged offspring: "And is this the way you talk to your own father? Your--own--father!" Had he been a little drunk, he would have wept. As it was, even to himself, his words seemed not to ring very true. Janet regarded him scornfully. "Yes, that's exactly the way I talk to my own father!" She paused and her eyes blazed anew. "And there's one thing, Dave McFadden, that I want to tell you." She stood up from the table and walked around to her father's place. "When you come in sober, as cross as a bear and without a word in your mouth for any one, ma and me hustle about to make you comfortable and don't even talk to each other for fear of riling you. Yes, we're so thankful you're not drunk that we crawl around like two little dogs just waiting to lick your hand and tell you how good you are. Then, when you come home drunk, wanting to kill some one, we do our best to coax you in here to keep you from getting mixed up with the neighbours. We're terribly careful to save the neighbours, and why? So's you won't get arrested. But do we ever save ourselves? There's never a time when I'm not black and blue all over with the bruises you give me--kicking me and pinching me and knocking me down." In his senses Dave McFadden was not an unkind man, but most of the time he was not in his senses. Janet's tirade now seemed to be affecting him much as cheap whiskey did. He staggered to his feet and raised threatening hands. "You little slut! If you don't shut up, I--I'll choke you!" But Janet was far past any intimidation. She stood her ground calmly. "All right! Go ahead and choke! The thing I've made up my mind to tell you, Dave McFadden, is this: I'll never again lick your boots when you're sober nor run from you when you're drunk. Kill me now if you want to! Go on! You've probably killed ma and if she's lying there in the hospital dead this minute, I wish you would kill me! Then you could go drown yourself and that would be the end of all of us!" Dave McFadden groaned. "For God's sake," he implored, "can't you let up on me?" Janet looked at him steadily. "Have you ever let up on us?" He stared about helplessly and asked, with the querulousness, almost, of a child: "What is it you want me to do? Do you want me to go to the hospital to see her?" Janet laughed drearily. "They wouldn't let you in. I asked the doctor did he want you to come and he said, no, the sight of you would probably give her another attack." Dave shuffled uneasily. "Then I suppose I might as well go to work." "Yes," Janet agreed, "you might as well go to work. But before you go, will you please give me a quarter? I borrowed a quarter from Rosie to buy your breakfast." Dave put his hand in his pocket and found a quarter. He flipped it across the table. "Here's your money, Rosie." "And if you want me to get any supper for you," Janet went on, "you'll have to give me some money, too." Dave hesitated. He was not accustomed to paying the household expenses. Before he realized what he was saying, he asked: "Hasn't your mother any money?" Under the instant fire of Janet's scorn, he saw his mistake and reddened with shame. "Yes," Janet told him grimly, "she's got one dollar and I'll see you starve to death before I touch one cent of it for you! If you want any supper, you pay for it yourself; and you'll pay for mine, too, if I get any. If I don't get any, it won't be the first time." Dave slowly emptied his pocket. He had a two-dollar bill, a fifty-cent piece, and some small change. "Here," he said, offering Janet the bill and the fifty-cent piece. "Will that suit you?" Janet took the money but refused to be placated. "It ain't what will suit me or won't suit me. You know as well as I do what's fair and square, and that's all there is to it. And while we're on money," she continued, "I might as well tell you if you don't pay five dollars on the rent we'll be dispossessed next Monday. On account of ma being sick so much lately we've dropped behind four weeks and the agent won't wait any longer." Dave swallowed hard. "This is all I got till Saturday." "Are you sure you'll have any more on Saturday?" Dave looked hurt. "Won't I have a whole week's wages?" "I don't know." Janet spoke without any feeling as one merely stating a fact. "Most weeks, you know, you're in debt to the saloon, and when you pay up there on Saturday afternoon you haven't much left by night." Dave smothered an oath. It was plain that he thought he had done a very handsome thing in passing over the greater part of his money. It was also plain that he had expected a grateful "Thank you." And what did he feel he was receiving? An insult! He looked at Janet in sullen resentment. "You're a nice one, you are, talking that way to your own father! I tell you one thing, though: you wouldn't talk that way if your mother was around. She's got a heart, she has! All you've got is a turnip!" At mention of her mother, Janet choked a little. "My mother don't think my heart's a turnip and Rosie don't, either. All I've got to say is, if it looks like a turnip to you, it's because you've changed it into one yourself." To this Dave made no answer. Without further words he could better preserve the expression of grieved and unappreciated parenthood. Whatever he may have done or may not have done in the past, just now he had been noble and generous. And would his own child acknowledge this? No! He bore her no grudge; his face very plainly said so; but he was hurt, deeply hurt. Under cover of the hurt, he opened the door quietly and made his escape. In Janet the fires of indignation flickered and went out, leaving her cold and lifeless. She threw herself into a chair and folded her hands. "You certainly did give it to him straight, Janet!" Rosie spoke in tones of deep admiration. Janet laughed scornfully. "Give it to him straight! Oh, yes, I gave it to him straight all right!" She shivered and clenched her hands. "I can talk! That's where we come in strong. Take the women in this tenement and they've all got tongues as sharp as ice-picks. Any one of them can talk a man to death. But what does it all amount to? Nothing! I tell you, Rosie, they've got the bulge on us, for, as soon as we make things hot for them, all they've got to do is clear out!" Janet sighed unhappily. "Then they pay us back by not coming home and when they get injured or pulled in it all comes out that it's our fault because we haven't made home pleasant for them. Huh! They always make it so awful pleasant for us, don't they?" Rosie felt helpless and uncomfortable. Her own life had problems of its own but, compared to Janet's, how trivial they seemed, how inconsequential. And, by a like comparison, how inviting her own home suddenly appeared. She thought of it, ordinarily, as an overcrowded untidy little house where everybody was under every one else's feet. Not so this morning. This morning it was home as home should be, the centre of a very real family life supported by a father's industry and a mother's devotion. They were poor, of course, but not overwhelmingly so, for they had enough to eat and enough to wear. And, best of all, they loved each other. In the past Rosie had not always known this, but she knew it now. They loved each other and, without thinking anything about it, they were ready to stand by each other. Beneath all family discord there was a harmony, a family harmony, the burden of which was: all for one and one for all. A wave of homesickness swept over Rosie. She wanted to be off without the loss of another moment. Her hands reached out eagerly for the many tasks, the dear, the wearying tasks that were awaiting them. "Well, Janet, I'm sorry, but I think I must go. You know Geraldine has to have her bath and I've got to go marketing. If you hurry, though, I'll help with the dishes first." "No," Janet said. "You run along if you have to. I can do the dishes alone." Rosie paused a moment longer. "You know if you want to you can come and have dinner with us, Janet." Janet shook her head. "Thanks, but I won't have time. I've got to go to all of mother's customers and tell them she's sick, and I go to the hospital early in the afternoon." "Then when will I see you?" "I don't know unless you come and sleep with me again tonight." "I don't see how I can, Janet." At that moment the thought of spending another night away from her beloved family was more than Rosie could bear. "You know, Janet, I've got so many things to do at home. Geraldine needs me all the time and so does ma and----" "Yes, yes, Rosie, I understand. And I don't blame you one bit for liking it better at home." "I didn't mean that at all!" Rosie declared; "honest I didn't!" "That's all right," Janet assured her. "I like it better over at your house myself. It was good of you coming last night. I was kind o' scared last night and I didn't want to be alone with him." Rosie was concerned. "You won't be scared tonight, will you?" "Do you mean of him?" Rosie nodded. "No. And what's more, Rosie, I don't believe I'll ever again be scared of him. He's not going to bother me any more. Couldn't you see that this morning?... Funny thing, Rosie: I used to think if only I wasn't afraid of him I'd be perfectly happy and now, when I'm not afraid of him any longer and when he'll probably never touch me again, I don't seem to care much." Rosie shook her head emphatically. "Well, I tell you one thing, Janet McFadden: I care. I couldn't go to sleep tonight if I thought you were here alone getting beaten up." Janet looked at her friend affectionately. "You needn't worry about me. I'll be all right. Good-bye, Rosie dear, and thanks." "Good-bye, Janet, and come when you can." From the speed with which Rosie hurried home, it would never have been guessed that she was merely returning to a round of endless duties and petty worries. Her eyes shone, her little woman face was all aglow with the joyous eagerness of one whose course was leading straight to happiness. CHAPTER XXXI DANNY'S SUGGESTION Mrs. O'Brien received her daughter with open arms. "Ah, Rosie dear, I'm glad to see you! And I can't tell you the fuss they've all been making at your absence.... Yes, Geraldine darlint, sister Rosie's come back at last." Rosie took the baby and hugged and kissed her as though she had not seen her for weeks. "And are you glad to see Rosie?" she crooned. "She is that!" Mrs. O'Brien declared. "And himself, Rosie, was complainin' the whole evening about your not being here. And Terry, too, he kept askin' where you were. And Jarge Riley, Rosie! Why, Jarge is fairly lost without you! He was in early this morning and just now when I was startin' to get him his breakfast, he stopped me. And what for, do you think? He wanted to wait to see if you wouldn't be coming back. Why, Rosie, I do believe that b'y thinks that no one can boil coffee or fry eggs equal to yourself!" Rosie glowed all over. "Ma, is he really waiting for me?... Here, Geraldine dear, you go to ma for a few minutes. Rosie's got to get Jarge Riley's breakfast. I'll be back soon, won't I, Ma?" "And, Rosie dear, before you go, such a bit of news as I have: Ellen's got a new job! They sent for her from the college. Now I do say it's a fine compliment for any girl to be sent for like that. Ah, they know the stuff that's in Ellen! As I says to her last night----" "Tell me the rest some other time," Rosie begged. "You know Jarge is waiting." "To be sure he is," Mrs. O'Brien agreed. "He's in his room. Give him a call as you go by." In answer to her summons George appeared at once, collarless and in shirtsleeves with the drowsiness of an interrupted nap in his eyes. He beamed on Rosie affectionately. "I thought you'd be coming." "It was awful good of you waiting for me, Jarge." "Good--nuthin'! Guess I know who can cook in this house!" Conscious worth need not be offensive. Rosie answered modestly: "Oh, I cook much better than I used to, Jarge. I learned ever so much from your mother. I know how to make pie now. We used to have pie every day in the country." "I know." George sighed pathetically. Rosie was all sympathy. "I'll make you a pie this week, honest I will. Which would you rather have, rhubarb or apple?" George weighed the choice while Rosie set out his breakfast. "Guess you might make it rhubarb this time," he decided at last; "and apple next time." "Now then," Rosie said, pouring his coffee, "you eat and I'll sit down and talk to you. I wanted to talk to you last night, but you know I had to go off with poor Janet." George looked at her seriously. "I don't like your staying over there all night. I don't think it's safe. Dave's all right when he's sober, but they say he ain't sober much nowadays." "It was all right last night, Jarge. Janet had him in bed and asleep before I got there." "Well, even so...." George grumbled on. "H'm," Rosie remarked a little pointedly. "Er--do you remember, Jarge, what I was going to talk to you about last night?" George looked at her inquiringly. "Was it anything special?" "Don't you remember what you asked me to ask Danny Agin?" "I didn't know I asked you to ask him anything." George spoke in candid surprise. "Oh, Jarge, what a poor memory you've got!" Rosie shook her head despairingly. "You told me what a mess you had made of things with Ellen and you asked my advice about what you ought to do and told me to talk it over with Danny Agin. Now do you remember?" George did not seem to remember things in just the order that Rosie gave them, but he was gallant enough not to say so and, furthermore, to show his acceptance of her version by an interested: "Oh, is that what you mean?" Rosie leaned toward him eagerly. "Don't you want to hear what Danny said?" "Sure I do." "Well, Danny and me went over things very carefully and I agree with Danny and Danny agrees with me. So, if you've got any sense, you'll do just exactly what we tell you to." George looked a little dubious. "Don't know as I'm so awful strong on sense. Shoot away, though. I'd like to hear what you want me to do." Rosie began impressively: "Danny says that the mistake you're making is not going out and getting another girl. Ellen's so sure of you that of course she don't take the least interest in you. All she's got to do is crook her little finger and you're Johnny-on-the-spot. Now if you were to get another girl and treat her real nice, Ellen wouldn't be long in taking notice. That's the way girls are." Rosie wagged her head knowingly. George dropped his knife. "Aw, shucks! Is that all you got to say?" Rosie's manner turned severe. "Now, Jarge Riley, you needn't say, 'Aw, shucks!' What's more, I guess Danny Agin and me together have got more sense than you have any day and we don't think it's shucks! Now you listen to what I say and maybe you'll learn something." But George still seemed unwilling to learn. "Aw, what do I want to go chasing girls for? I don't like 'em, and besides, 'tain't nuthin' but a tomfool waste of time and money!" Rosie was scornful. "Is it because you're afraid of spending a cent?" George met the charge calmly. "I wouldn't be afraid to spend all I make on the right girl, but with all the places I got to put money, just tell me, please, what's the sense of my throwing it away on some girl I don't care beans about?" "So's to get a chance at the girl you do care beans about!" Rosie was emphatic. "Now I tell you one thing Jarge Riley: I don't think much of Ellen and I think it would be a good deal better for you if she never would look at you, but you're in love with her and you think you've got to have her, and I've promised you I'd help you. Now: Are you going to be sensible or aren't you?" George refused to commit himself. Instead he asked: "How much do you reckon this fool scheme would cost a fellow?" Rosie was ready with a detailed estimate. "It would come to from five to thirty cents every day." "Every day!" George was fairly outraged at the suggestion. "Do you mean to say you've got the cheek to expect me to go sporting some fool girl every day?" Rosie was firm. "That's exactly what I mean. I suppose you think the way to make love to a girl is to give her an ice-cream soda once a month. Well, it just ain't!" George continued obstinate. "I'm not saying I know how to make love to a girl because I don't and, what's more, I don't care. But I'll be blamed if I'm willing to do more than one ice-cream soda a month for any girl alive!" Rosie caught him up sharply: "Not even for Ellen?" "Ellen! Ellen's different! I'd like to do something for her every day of her life." "H'm! What, for instance?" "Well, I ain't got much money, so I can't do very big things, but I'd like to take her to the movies or on a street-car ride or buy her some peanuts or candy or all kinds o' little things like that. I know they ain't much in themselves, but if a fellow does them all the time, it seems to me a girl ought to know that he's thinking about her a good deal." "Oh, Jarge, you're such a child!" Rosie smiled on him in womanly amusement. "First you say you don't know how to make love and then you tell just exactly how to do it! Now listen to me: The way to make love to any girl is to treat her just like you'd like to treat Ellen. If anything on earth is going to make Ellen wake up, it'll be just that. And the very things you know how to do are the very things I was going to tell you to do! A bag of peanuts is plenty for a walk and that's only five cents. Then a night when you go to the movies would be ten cents and, if it was hot, you'd probably want ten cents more for an ice-cream soda afterwards and that would make twenty cents. If you took a car ride and back, that would be twenty cents and a treat would be another ten cents. And you'd be getting your money's worth while you were doing it and perhaps you'd get Ellen, too." George was not very happy over the prospect. "As you've got everything else fixed up for me," he grumbled, "I suppose you've got the girl picked out, too. But I tell you one thing: I won't take after one of them Slattery girls, no matter what you say! If a fellow was to give one of them an ice-cream soda once, he'd have to marry her!" Rosie put out a quieting hand. "Now, Jarge, don't be silly! You don't have to take one of the Slattery girls or any other girl that you don't want to take. You can just suit yourself and no one's going to say a word to you.... What kind of girl do you think you'd like? Do you want a blonde? Well, there's Aggie Kearney, she's a blonde." "Aw, cut out Aggie Kearney! What do you think I am!" "Well, maybe you want a brunette. What about Polly Russell?" "Aw, cut out Polly Russell, too! You know what I think of that whole Russell bunch!" Rosie looked a little hurt. "I must say, Jarge, even if you don't want Polly, you needn't snap my head off. Make your own choice! I'm sure there are enough girls right in this neighbourhood for any man to pick from. How do you like 'em? Do you like 'em fat or do you like 'em thin? Or maybe you don't want an American girl. Well, there are those Italians around the corner and down further there's that nest of Yiddish. All you've got to do is make up your mind about the kind of girl you want. There's plenty of all kinds." "Aw, get out! I tell you I don't want any of them!" By this time George had grown very red in the face and his voice had risen to a volume better suited to the outdoors than to a small room. Rosie looked distressed. "You needn't talk so loud, Jarge. I'm not deaf.... I must say, though, after all the trouble I've taken, ... And poor old Danny Agin, too, ..." Rosie felt for her handkerchief. "Well," George complained, "I don't see why you go offering me the worst old snags in town! Why don't you pick out a few nice ones?" Rosie swallowed quite pathetically and blinked her eyes toward the ceiling. It has been observed that gazing fixedly at the ceiling very often conduces to inspiration. Apparently it was to be so with Rosie. The expression on her face slowly changed. She turned to George a little shyly. "I was just wondering, Jarge, whether, maybe, _I_ wouldn't do." It must have been an inspiration! To attribute such a suggestion to anything else would be to credit Rosie with a depth of guile which only supreme feminine art could have compassed. George at least saw no guile. His face glowed. He actually shouted in an exuberance of relief. "Would you, Rosie? That'd be fine! We'd have a bully time together!" Then he paused. "But, Rosie, do you think you're big enough? I wouldn't think Ellen would get jealous of a little girl like you." Rosie shook her head reassuringly. "Don't you worry about me. I'm plenty big enough. Besides, I don't count. You're the only one that counts. All you've got to do is make love to almost any one. If it's some one you like, then it'll be all the easier for you." "Well, you know I like you all right, Rosie." The heartiness in George's tone was unmistakable. "I just love to spend money on you, Rosie! That's a great idea! Who thought of it, Danny or you?" "Not Danny," Rosie answered promptly. "I thought of it myself--I mean," she added, "I thought of it just now. And you think it's a good idea, do you, Jarge?" "Good? You bet your life I think it's good! Why, do you know, Rosie, when you began talking about Aggie Kearney and Polly Russell and those Ginneys around the corner, you made me plumb sick! I was ready to throw up the whole thing! I sure am glad you happened to think about yourself on time!" "H'm!" murmured Rosie. "I mean it!" George insisted. "Let's start out tonight! What shall it be, a street-car ride or the movies?" "Just as you say." Rosie, with sweet deference, put the whole thing into George's hands. "They're going to give the 'Two Orphans' at the Gem. Three reels. I saw the posters this morning. But you decide, Jarge. Whatever you say will be all right." With a fine masterfulness George made the decision. "Well, I say movies for tonight." He reached across the table and patted Rosie's face. "Don't forget, kid, you're my girl now. And I tell you what: I'm going to show you a swell time!" "It's just as you say, Jarge," Rosie murmured meekly. CHAPTER XXXII THE SUBSTITUTE LADY Rosie now entered upon a season of unparalleled gaiety. It was as if she were being rewarded for her generosity in thinking not of herself nor of her dislike for the object of George's fancy but only of George and of his happiness. It had been something of a struggle in the first place to advise a course of action which really might awaken in Ellen an appreciation of George's worth. Well, Rosie had advised it in all frankness and sincerity. That the putting into practice of this advice was working out to Rosie's own advantage is neither here nor there. If, in the campaign which she and Danny had planned, there had to be a substitute lady, why, as an after-thought, should not Rosie herself be that lady? With George, Rosie never forgot that the relationship was a substitute one. Whenever he did something particularly lover-like, she would commend him as a teacher commends an apt pupil: "Jarge, you certainly are learning!" or, "I don't care what you say, Jarge, but if you were really making love to me and acted this beautiful, you sure could have me!" In giving him hints about new attentions, she never made the matter personal. She would say, casually: "Now there's one thing a girl just loves, Jarge, and you ought to know it. It's to have her beau do unexpected things for her. I mean if he's used to giving her candy every night, it just tickles her to death to get up some morning and find a little package waiting for her. And if he goes to the trouble of sticking in a little note that says: "'My dearest Sweetheart, I couldn't wait until to-night to give you this....' why, she just goes crazy about him. Whatever you do, Jarge, you mustn't forget that girls love to get notes all the time." This particular instruction Rosie had frequently to repeat before George put it into execution. "Aw, now, Rosie," he used to plead, "you know perfectly well I ain't nuthin' of a letter-writer." But Rosie was firm. "Do as you like," she would say, "but you can take it from me they ain't nuthin' like letters to make a girl sit up. You're practising on me, so you might as well practise right. Besides, it's not hard, really it's not. You don't have to be fancy. Why, I once heard a girl tell about a letter that she thought was great and all it said was, 'Say, kid, maybe I ain't crazy about you!' Now is it so awful hard to tell a girl you're crazy about her if you are? And that's all that any love-letter says anyhow." "Seems to me," George grumbled one day, "for a kid you know an awful lot about love-letters." "Of course I do," Rosie told him. "I know just the kind I'd like to get and that's the kind every girl would like to get." All such discussions took place in the privacy of their pseudo-courtship. Who would have the heart to be censorious if, to the outside world, Rosie began to bear herself with something of the air of a lady who has a knight, of a girl who has a beau? It would have been beyond human nature for Rosie not to remark periodically to Janet McFadden: "What do you suppose it is that makes Jarge Riley treat me so kind? He just seems to lie awake nights to think up nice things to do." Janet, being a true friend, would give a long sigh and murmur: "Don't it beat all, Rosie, the way some girls have beaux from the beginning and some don't. I suppose it runs in your family. You know Tom Sullivan is always asking about you. Whenever I go to Aunt Kitty's or when Tom comes to our house, the first thing he says is, 'How's Rosie O'Brien these days?' If only he wasn't so bashful, he'd invite you to the movies--you know he would. Of course he asks me because we're cousins, but I tell you one thing, Rosie: you're the one he'd like to take." What Janet was always saying about Tom Sullivan's devotion to Rosie was perfectly true but, nevertheless, it was so generous in Janet to acknowledge it that Rosie was always ready to declare: "Aw, now, Janet, you needn't go jollyin' me like that! Tom likes you awful well and you know he does." Rosie never talked to Janet about her own round of pleasure without stopping suddenly with a feeling of compunction and the quick question: "But, Janet dear, how are things going with you? How's your poor mother and is your father still on the water wagon?" News about Mrs. McFadden was slow in changing. For days she lay in the hospital, weak and broken, not wishing to come back to life and without interest in herself or her husband or even her child. A case like this takes a long time, the nurse would tell Janet and Janet had only this to repeat in answer to Rosie's inquiries. With Dave McFadden it was different. There the unexpected was happening. It was a week before Janet risked speaking of it. Then, in awe-struck tones, she confided to her friend. "Say, Rosie, what do you think? He hasn't had a drink since the day you stayed all night with me. I don't know how long he can stand it. He looks awful and he makes me give him about ten cups of tea at night. I don't believe he sleeps more than half an hour." Not relief so much as a new kind of fear showed in Janet's face and sounded in her voice. "And, Rosie, he's just terrible to live with, because he never says a word.... Don't it beat all the way you long and long for a thing and then, when you get it, it turns out entirely different! There I used to suppose I'd be perfectly happy if only he'd stop boozing but now, when I wake up at night and hear him rolling around and groaning, why, do you know, Rosie, it scares me to death. It's just like he's fighting something that I can't see. And the worst is I can't do anything to help him but get up and make him some more tea." Both Rosie and Janet were too familiar with Dave's type to hail as a happy reformation those first days of struggle. They stood back and waited, grateful for each day won but as yet not at all confident of the morrow. "He certainly is trying," Rosie would say, and Janet would repeat, a little dubiously, "Yes, he's trying." A day came when she looked tenser and more breathless than usual. "What do you think, Rosie? He handed me over fifteen dollars this week and ten last week that I didn't tell you about. I didn't want to too soon. All he said was, 'You take care of this till your mother comes home.' I'm paying up the back rent and I've started a savings account at the Settlement." Rosie's eyes opened wide. "Well now, Janet, he certainly does deserve credit!" As Janet made no comment, Rosie demanded: "Don't you think he does?" Janet's answer was disconcerting. "Why does he deserve credit for doing what he ought to do?" Rosie was a little hurt. "When a person does right, I don't see why you're so afraid of giving them a little credit." "Rosie O'Brien, you're just like all the women! Let a good-for-nothing drunk sober up for a day or two, and they all go saying, 'The poor fellow! Ain't he fine! Ain't he noble! He certainly does deserve credit!' But do you ever hear them giving any credit to the decent hard-working men who support their families every day of the year? I've never heard you say that your father deserved credit!" This was rather startling and Rosie could only answer stiffly, though somewhat lamely: "My father's different!" "I should think he was different! And when he hands over money which goes to support his own family, I see you and your mother and the rest of you falling down on your knees and saying: 'Oh, thank you, dear father! You are so noble!' Well, that's what you expect me to do to my old man and that's what he expects, too, because for a week or so he's been paying the bills he ought to pay. And when I don't say it I wish you'd see how injured he looks." Rosie could not meet the logic of Janet's position, but logic is not everything in this life. "I don't care what you say, Janet," she persisted, "I don't think it would hurt you one bit to say 'Thank you' to him." Janet started to answer again, then stopped with a laugh. "Tell you what, Rosie, I promise you this: I'll say 'Thank you' to him as soon as you say 'Thank you' to your father for the three meals you eat every day, for the clothes you wear, for the house you live in." It was Rosie's turn to flare up. "Janet McFadden, you're crazy! Haven't I a right to all those things? Don't I do my share of work in the family?" "Yes, Rosie, you do and I'm not saying that you haven't every right to them. But why don't you see that I've got the same right? Don't I work as hard as you? And hasn't my poor mother worked harder than your mother has ever worked? My father's got out of the way of supporting us, so I'm not surprised that he thinks he's a wonder when he does it for a couple of days, but search me if I see why you should think so, too, when your father has always supported you without saying a word about it." Janet paused, then ended with a rush: "Oh, don't you see, it would choke me to say 'Thank you' to him with ma lying there in the hospital like a dead woman! Why hasn't he always done this? There's nothing he can do now to make up for all those years. It's too late! Even if she does get well, she'll never be the same. The nurse told me." Janet hid her face in her arm and dry gasping sobs began to shake her body. "Aw, now, Janet, don't!" Rosie begged. "I see what you mean and I don't blame you--honest I don't." The issue that Janet had raised was a little beyond Rosie's understanding, but Rosie did realize that Janet was right. Janet's point of view often startled and dismayed her. As on this occasion she would always begin disputing it vehemently and end meekly accepting it. If Rosie did not make Janet her confidante in regard to the attentions she was receiving from George, it was because the true inwardness of that affair was in the nature of a secret between her and Danny Agin. Rosie was tremendously fond of Janet but, after all, Janet was not her only friend. Danny Agin, too, had certain rights that must not be forgotten. Besides, it must be confessed, it was sweet to hear Janet's "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" over what seemed to be each new evidence of George's devotion. Danny Agin was watching as keenly as Janet the little comedy which he himself had set in motion. "So she looked at you like a black thunder-cloud, did she?" he had said, with a chuckle, when Rosie had related Ellen's surprise and involuntary chagrin at George's deflection. "Yes," Rosie told him. "And, do you know, Danny, when she tried to guy Jarge, he was able for her. She called him a craddle-robber and he says: 'I'm not so sure of that. Let's see: I'm about six years older than Rosie. That means when she's eighteen I'll be twenty-four. That ain't so bad.' And oh, Danny," Rosie ended, "I wish you could have seen how mad Ellen was!" Danny laughed. "I do see her this minute!" He mused awhile, his eyes blinking rapidly. "It's this way, Rosie: in any case it's a fine arrangement for Jarge, for it has a sort of double-barrelled action. Maybe it'll bring Ellen around. That would suit him fine. But, by the same token, if it don't bring her around, it won't very much matter, for, before he knows what he's about, Jarge'll be wakin' up to the fact that he's havin' just as good a time with another girl as he'd ever be havin' with Ellen and, once he knows that, good-bye to Ellen and her tantrums!" "Do you really think so, Danny?" Rosie put the question anxiously. "Do I think so? I do. What else could I think with the sight I've had of all the lads I've ever known fallin' in love and most of them fallin' out again?" As usual, Danny's words gave Rosie something to cogitate. "Are you perfectly sure, Danny, they do sometimes fall out again?" Danny raised his right hand to heaven. "I'd be willin' to take me oath they do! In fact, Rosie darlint, it would shame me to tell you how often they do!" CHAPTER XXXIII ELLEN'S CAREER Danny was a wise old bird whose chirpings were well worth listening to. What he prophesied for George seemed likely enough of realization. The new affair, though confessedly pseudo, was cheering from the first. This was to be expected so long as Ellen, notwithstanding her scoffing, was a little miffed. Rosie saw, though, that, in spite of being miffed, Ellen was still perfectly sure that she did not want George for herself. The only feeling she seemed to have in the matter was annoyance that he should no longer be wanting her. At first Ellen was so outspoken in this annoyance that Rosie was able to whisper triumphantly: "You see, Jarge! Didn't I tell you!" There were other things occurring just at this time which served to keep Ellen irritable and sensitive. Her experience in stenography was, throughout, unfortunate and was making her see in almost everything that happened a slight to herself. To Mrs. O'Brien's prolonged amazement, the heads of various firms continued their insulting treatment of Ellen, discharging her on the slightest provocation or no provocation whatever, and never giving the poor girl, so her mother declared, anything like a fair trial. "Now what I would like to know is this:" Mrs. O'Brien would begin in the evening as soon as Jamie, poor man, was quietly settled for his bedtime pipe; "how can they know what Ellen can do or what she can't do, never giving her a decent show? The last six places she's been at they've only kept her a day or two days at most. It's me own opinion they don't want a good stenographer. I believe they're jealous of her! I tell you, Jamie O'Brien, it's fair disgraceful, and if I was a man, which I'm thankful to say I ain't, I'd go down there and give them fellas a piece of my mind!" To Ellen herself, Mrs. O'Brien was, as usual, both sympathetic and voluble. "Don't you mind what them fellas say to you, Ellen dear," she would advise at each fresh disappointment. "You've had as fine a schoolin' as any of them and there'll come a day when they'll all have to acknowledge it. And when they talk to you again about your spelling, you can tell them for me they're mighty smart if they're able to prove what's the right and what's the wrong way to spell a word nowadays. If I was you I wouldn't worry me head one minute about a thrifle like spelling. I'd just go ahead me own way and remember I was a lady and, take me word for it, some of these days you'll hit an office that is an office with fine men at the head of it, able to know good work when they see it and willin' to give credit for it!" Ellen shared to a great extent her mother's belief in her own ability, and she tried to share likewise Mrs. O'Brien's firm conviction that there was a deep-laid plot to keep her down. In her mother's presence it was easy enough to believe this, but Ellen was too quick-witted to deceive herself all the time and, as the days went by and her failure in stenography grew more and more apparent, she began to lose her air of aggressive confidence and to show in a new sullenness of manner the chagrin and the disappointment she was feeling. There was no dearth of trial places, as the supply of offices in need of stenographers seemed to be unlimited. So, in the matter of actual earnings, Ellen was doing pretty well. Indeed, her first experience was repeated more than once and she was overpaid in order to be got rid of more quickly. At such times she took the money greedily in spite of the attendant mortification. Mrs. O'Brien saw no cause for mortification but would declare complacently: "Ha, ha, the villians! 'Tis conscience money, no less, that they're paying you! They know they haven't given you a fair show! But don't you mind them, Ellen dear. The right office is comin' yet--you can depend on that!" Mrs. O'Brien's faith was steadfast and at length had its reward. Ellen came home one evening flushed and triumphant. "Well," she announced, "I've struck it right at last!" Her eyes sparkled with renewed assurance. "No more running around for me, a day here and a day there! I'm fixed! Eight dollars a week to begin on and fifty cents advance every month!" "I'm not one bit surprised!" Mrs. O'Brien cried. "I knew just how it would be! Now tell us all about it!" "It's a real estate office," Ellen explained; "Hawes & Cranch. Mr. Hawes is my man. I'm to take his dictation in the morning and get the work out in the afternoon and attend to his private phone. It's a big office. They've got two other stenographers and a book-keeper. By tomorrow Mr. Hawes is going to have my desk put into his room. He's an awful nice man. He says he never had any one who took his dictation better and he says I certainly do understand all about business punctuation." "I'm sure you do!" Mrs. O'Brien agreed heartily. "And I wasn't there more than a couple of hours when he said he knew I'd suit and the position was mine if I wanted it." "Do you hear that!" Mrs. O'Brien gasped. "I'm not one bit surprised!" "And he apologized for starting me so low. He said it was a rule in their office. He talked like I ought to be getting twenty a week easily." "And so you ought!" Mrs. O'Brien declared. "And I must say, Ellen dear, if I'm any judge of men, this Mr. Hawes is a fine fella! Mind you're always respectful to him!" Ellen laughed. "He's not that kind of man at all! He's just as friendly as he can be." For a moment her mother was anxious. "I hope, Ellen dear, he's not too friendly." Ellen tossed her head. "Even if he was, I guess I know how to take care of myself!" In Mrs. O'Brien confidence was restored. "Of course you do, Ellen dear. I trust you for that." Terry looked at Ellen sharply. "Say, Sis, is this fellow married?" "Er-a-not exactly," Ellen stammered. "I wasn't going to mention it, but since you ask me I might as well tell. They say he's divorced." "Divorced!" That was a word to startle Mrs. O'Brien's soul. "You don't say so, Ellen! I'm sorry to hear it! I'm not so sure you ought to stay with him." Ellen laughed. "Ma, you make me tired! Divorce is so common nowadays, it don't mean a thing! Besides, it wasn't his fault. Miss Kennedy, one of the other stenographers, told me so." Mrs. O'Brien was plainly relieved. "I must say I'm glad to hear that. I suppose now she was one of them dressy, lazy, good-for-nuthin's that nearly drove the poor fella mad with her extravagance. There are such women and a lot of them!" One of the first results of Ellen's new position was an utter indifference to George Riley and Rosie and to their little comedy. It was not so much that she intentionally ignored them as that she did not see them even when she looked at them--at any rate, did not see them any more than she would have seen two chairs that occupy so much space and are not to be stumbled over. There was one subject now and one only that filled her mind to the exclusion of all others. This was her new employer. She talked about him constantly, first as Mr. Hawes, then as Philip Hawes, and soon as Phil. It was "Phil this" and "Phil that" throughout breakfast and supper. In no one but her mother did Ellen arouse any great enthusiasm, but Mrs. O'Brien was a host in herself and in questions and ejaculations more than made up for the indifference of the others. To his kindness to Ellen during office hours, Hawes was soon adding social attentions outside office hours, inviting her to places of amusement in the evening and taking her off on Sunday excursions. "He is certainly a very kind-hearted gentleman," Mrs. O'Brien repeatedly declared; "and it would give me much pleasure to take him by the hand and tell him so." This was a pleasure somewhat doubtful of realization as circumstances kept preventing the kind-hearted gentleman from making an actual appearance at the O'Brien home. He wanted to come; he was very anxious to meet Ellen's family; but he was a busy man and could not always do as he would like to do. Ellen had to explain this at length, for even Mrs. O'Brien, easy-going as she was, protested against an escort who hadn't time either to come for his lady or to bring her home. "I don't see why you can't understand!" Ellen would exclaim petulantly. "Now listen here: wouldn't it take him half an hour to come out here for me, and another half hour for us to get back to town, and another half hour for him to bring me home, and another half hour for him to get back to town himself? That'd be two whole hours. Now I say it would be a shame to make that poor man spend all that time on the cars just coming and going." At first Mrs. O'Brien would insist: "But, Ellen dear, beaux always do that way! For me own part I don't think it's nice for you to be comin' home so late alone. You've never done it before. I don't mind you to be going downtown to meet him if he's a busy man, yet I must say, Ellen dear, ..." But Ellen was expert at making her mother see reason and Mrs. O'Brien was soon explaining to George Riley or to any one who would listen: "I do like to see a girl considerate of a poor tired man, especially if he's a fine hard-workin' fella like this Mr. Hawes. So I says to Ellen, 'Ellen dear,' says I, 'it's all very well to be accepting the attentions of a nice gentleman, but remember,' says I, 'he's a tired man with a load of responsibility on his shoulders and he'd much better be resting than spending all his time on the street cars just coming and going. This is a safe neighborhood,' says I, 'and nowadays girls and women are always coming home alone.' Now I ask you truthfully, ain't that so?" It probably was; nevertheless the attitude of the rest of the family continued to be rather cold and skeptical. "Ain't it a great beau we got now?" Terry would remark facetiously. "Seems like he's afraid to show himself, though. Say, Sis, do you have to pay your own carfare?" To Rosie's surprise, George Riley paid no heed to the newcomer. Rosie herself felt that Ellen's absorption in her employer marked very definitely the failure of Danny Agin's experiment. Ellen never had and never would care two straws about George Riley and now, with something else to occupy her mind, she had forgotten even the slight pique which Rosie's little affair had at first excited. Rosie wondered whether honesty required her to point this out to George. She tried to once or twice, but George was so slow at understanding what she was talking about that at last she desisted. The truth was, George was having so good a time playing his and Rosie's little game that he was in a fair way of forgetting that it was a game. Not that he was falling in love with Rosie. Rosie was only a little girl of whom he was tremendously fond and to his northern mind, as to Rosie's, the idea that a man should fall in love with a little girl was a preposterous one. His affection for her was founded solidly on the approval of reason. It had not in it one bit of the wild unreason which characterized his feeling for Ellen. They were pals, he and Rosie, who understood and appreciated each other and who enjoyed going off on little larks together. Since these larks had become a regular thing, life for George had regained its normal zest, as it does for any man once fresh interests begin to occupy the leisure moments heretofore given up to a fruitless passion. A look, a word, would have awakened the old passion, but for the present no look was being given, no word spoken. So Rosie, seeing George happy, could only sigh, hoping it wasn't cheating on her part not to tell him the truth. Except for this scruple of conscience, she was very happy herself. Her little world was jogging comfortably along: Geraldine was well; for Janet McFadden life seemed to be brightening; and for Janet as well as Rosie the waning summer was affording many treats. Janet's cousin, Tom Sullivan, was making a good deal of money on summer jobs and was squandering his earnings lavishly on his two lady friends. "Just think, Rosie," Janet announced one day, "Tom wants to give us another picnic! You know I've always told you how generous he is." "I know he is," Rosie agreed. "Tom sure is nice. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if he grows up as nice as Jarge Riley. What's this new picnic, and when is it to be?" "For Labour Day. He says he'll pay Jackie to take your papers and that you and me and him will all go downtown to the parade. After the parade we'll eat supper at a restaurant and after that we'll go to the movies." Janet paused, then concluded impressively: "He made two whole dollars last week and he's willing to blow in every cent of it on us!" "You don't say so!" Rosie shook her head and clucked her tongue in amazement as deep as Janet's own. "You'll come, won't you, Rosie?" Rosie hesitated. "I'll come if I can. I mean I will if Jarge Riley hasn't something on. If he's off on Labour Day afternoon, of course he'll want me and I'll have to be with him." "Of course," Janet agreed. "But maybe he won't get off. I wonder how soon he'll know?" "I'll ask him tonight," Rosie promised. "Let's see: today's Thursday and Labour Day's next Monday. I ought to be able to let Tom know early on Saturday." "I think I'm going to be off," George told her that night in answer to her inquiry. "I switch around to a late run tomorrow night, but I won't know until tomorrow whether I'm going to keep it regular. What do you want to do tomorrow night? Ride down with me on my last trip? Then we'd stop and get a soda on the way home." "Thank you, Jarge, I think that would be very nice. And you can write me a little note about Labour Day and hand it to me when I get on the car." George's face fell. "Won't talking be good enough?" "No, Jarge, it'll be better to write. You're doing beautifully in your letters but you must keep them up." George sighed but murmured an obedient: "All right." The next evening Rosie was at the corner in good time and, promptly to the minute, George's car came by. It was an open summer car with seats straight across and an outside running board. Rosie climbed into the last seat, which was so close to the rear platform where George stood that it was almost as good as having George beside her. When there were no other passengers on the same seat, George could lean in and chat sociably. "Here's a letter for you," he announced, as Rosie settled herself. He gave her a little folded paper and at the same time slipped a dime into her hand with which, in all propriety, she was to pay her carfare. "I'll answer your note tomorrow," Rosie said. Duty called George to the front of the car and Rosie peeped hastily into his letter. "_My dear little Sweetheart,_" it ran; "_Say, what do you think? I'm off Labour Day afternoon, so we can go to the Parade. Say, kid, I'm just crazy about you. George._" So that settled the Tom Sullivan business. Rosie felt a little sorry about Tom because Tom did like her. It couldn't be helped, though, for a girl simply can't divide herself up into sections for all the men that want her. She would let Tom down as easily as possible. It might comfort him to take her to the movies. Rosie could easily manage that by suggesting a time when George Riley was busy. The car was pretty well filled on the down trip, so George had little time for chatting. Rosie was patient as she knew that, on the return trip, the car would be empty or nearly so. "All out!" George cried at the end of the route, and everybody but Rosie meekly obeyed. George was about to pull the bell, when Rosie called: "Wait, Jarge! There comes a girl!" The girl was half running, half staggering, and George stepped off the car to help her on. As the light of the car fell on the girl's face, Rosie jumped to her feet, crying out in amazement: "Ellen!" Yes, it was Ellen, but not an Ellen they had ever seen before--an Ellen with hat awry and trembling hands and a face red and swollen with weeping. "George!" she sobbed hysterically, "is that you! I'm so glad! You'll take me home, won't you? I haven't got a cent of carfare!" George helped her into the seat beside Rosie and started the car. Then he leaned in over Rosie and demanded: "What's the matter, Ellen? What's happened?" CHAPTER XXXIV THE KIND-HEARTED GENTLEMAN For several moments Ellen sobbed and shook without trying to speak. Then, instead of answering George's question, she turned solemnly to Rosie. "Oh, kid," she begged, "promise me you'll never have anything to do with a man like Philip Hawes!" There was an unexpected tenderness in her tone but this, far from touching Rosie, stirred up all the antagonism in her nature. Why, forsooth, should Ellen be giving her such advice? Was she the member of the family who was given to chasing men like Philip Hawes? Rosie sat up stiffly and turned her face straight ahead. Upon George the effect of Ellen's words was different. He leaned farther in, his neck surging with blood, his little eyes growing round and fierce. "What do you mean, Ellen? Has that fellow been insulting you?" Ellen was sobbing again and swaying herself back and forth. "Oh, George, I'm so humiliated I feel like I could never hold up my head again!" George's strong fist was clenching and unclenching. "What did that fellow do to you?" "It was my own fault!" Ellen wailed. "He was perfectly right: I knew what he was after all along. Any girl would know. But I was so sure I could hold my own all right. Oh, what fools girls are!" Ellen went off into another doleful wail. "Of course he had given hints before and I had always let on I didn't understand him. But tonight he came right out with it. He put it straight up to me and when I wouldn't, oh, I can't tell you the awful things he said!" George breathed hard. "So he's that kind of a scoundrel, is he?" "And, George," Ellen wept, "I'm not that kind of a girl! Honest I'm not! Am I, Rosie?" Rosie, frozen and miserable, with a sickening realization of how things were going to end, was still looking straight ahead. She wanted to answer Ellen's question with a truthful, "I am sure I don't know what kind of a girl you are!" but something restrained her and she said nothing. Ellen seemed hardly to expect an answer, for she went on immediately: "I've been a fool, George, an awful fool; I see that now; but I've always been straight--honest I have! You can ask everybody that knows me!" George was breathing with difficulty. "I'd like to get at that Hawes fellow for about five minutes! Will he be in his office tomorrow, around noon?" Ellen wrung protesting hands. "No, George, you won't do any such thing! I won't let you! You'll only get pulled in! Besides, he was right! Leastways, he was in some things! Of course I knew what he was always hinting about but honest, George, I didn't know the rest!" "What didn't you know?" "I didn't know my work was so bad that he'd been getting it done over every day! I know I'm pretty poor at it. I know perfectly well why I was never able to keep a job. But he kept saying that I suited him just right and I was such a fool that I thought I did.... And, George, we were having supper at one of those sporty places out on the Island. I knew it wasn't a nice place, but I thought it was all right because I had an escort. And he kept talking louder and louder until the people at the other tables could hear and they began laughing and joking. Then some one shouted, 'Throw her out!' and I got so frightened I could hardly stand up. I don't know how I got away. And, George, I hadn't enough money in my bag for a ticket on the boat and some man gave me a dime...." The car went on with scarcely a stop the whole way out. Occasionally the motorman looked back, inquisitive to know what the matter was but too far away to hear. Some time before they reached the end of the route, Ellen had finished her story. The recital relieved her overwrought feelings; her sobs quieted; her tears ceased. By the time they alighted from the car, her manner had regained its usual composure. She and Rosie waited outside the office until George had made out his accounts and deposited his collections. Then all three started home. For half an hour Rosie had not spoken. Neither of the others knew this, for Ellen, of course, had been too engrossed in herself, and George too engrossed in her, to notice it. Rosie was with them but not of them. She walked beside them now close enough to touch them with her hand but feeling separated from them by worlds of space. Her heart was like a little lump of ice that hurt her every time it beat. She waited in a sort of frozen misery for what she felt sure was coming. At last it came. "George," Ellen began. There was a note of soft pleading in her voice that Rosie had never heard before. "Oh, George, I wonder if you'll ever forgive me for the way I've been treating you?" "Aw, go on!" George's words were gruff but their tone fairly trembled with joy. "I mean it, George," Ellen went on. "I've been as many kinds of a fool as a girl can be and I'm so ashamed of myself that I can hardly talk." "Aw, Ellen," George pleaded. "And I've been horribly selfish, too, and I've imposed on ma and Rosie here until they both must hate me." Ellen paused but Rosie made no denial. "And I've treated you like a dog, George, making fun of you and insulting you and teasing you. And, George, of all the men I've ever known you're the only one that's clean and honest right straight through. I see that now." Ellen began crying softly, making pathetic little noises that irritated Rosie beyond measure but were like to reduce George to a state of utter helplessness. "Aw, Ellen," he begged, "please don't talk that way!" But Ellen wanted to talk that way. She insisted on talking that way. Her pride had been dragged in the dust but, by this time, she was finding that dust, besides being choking, is also warm and friendly and soothing. Enforced humiliation is bitter but, once accepted, how sweet it is, how comforting! Witness the saints and martyrs, and be not surprised that Ellen O'Brien finally acknowledged as true all the charges her late admirer had made. The fact was he had been too gentle with her! She was worse, far worse than even he had supposed. She didn't see how any one could ever again tolerate the mere sight of her! "Oh, George, how you must hate me!" she murmured brokenly. "Hate you!" George protested breathlessly. "Why, kid, I'm just crazy about you!" Rosie, listening, caught her breath sharply. Her phrase, which she had laboured hard to teach him! But where had he got the deep vibrating tone with which he spoke it? Rosie had never heard that before. After a moment, Ellen quavered: "Even--even yet, George?" "Even yet!" George cried in the same wonderful voice that sent little thrills up and down Rosie's back. "Why, Ellen girl, don't you know that ever since the first day I saw you you've been the onliest girl for me!" His arm was around her now, straining her to him, and Rosie knew, but for her own presence, he would be kissing her. "I--I don't see why, George." "But it's so, Ellen, it's so!" They walked on a few moments in silence. Then George began soberly: "Of course, Ellen, you know I'm only a farmer and you know you've always said you'd never live in the country." "George, don't remind me of all the foolish things I've said! Please, don't! Why, if I could go to the country this minute, I'd go and never come back! I hate the city! I wish I'd never have to see it again!" George gasped an incredulous, "Really, Ellen? Do you really mean it?" "Yes, really!" Ellen declared vehemently and George, untroubled to account for this sudden revulsion of feeling, threw up his head with a joyous laugh. When they reached home, George said to Ellen: "Don't you want to sit out here on the porch a little while?" Nobody invited Rosie to stay. She hesitated a moment, then said primly: "Good-night, everybody." [Illustration: She read it again by the light of the candle.] "Good-night," they chorused politely, as they might to any stranger. Rosie started in, then turned back. "And, Jarge, I forgot to tell you about Monday afternoon. I'm sorry I can't go with you but Tom Sullivan invited me first." "That so?" George said, and from his tone, Rosie knew that he didn't understand what she was talking about. Worse still, he wasn't interested enough to find out. Rosie dragged herself slowly upstairs. In the bedroom, when she felt for matches, she discovered that her hand was still clutching the note which George had given her earlier in the evening. She read it again by the light of the candle. "_... Say, kid, I'm just crazy about you!..._" Jackie turned over in his sleep and Rosie hastily blew out the candle for fear he should open his eyes and see her tears. She groped her way to bed in the dark and wept herself miserably to sleep. CHAPTER XXXV ELLEN MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT The next morning at breakfast Ellen declared herself. She addressed her mother, but what she had to say was for the whole family. "I just want to tell you, Ma, I'm done with stenography forever. 'Tain't my line and I know it and I should have known it long ago. Now you needn't argue because that's all there is about it." Mrs. O'Brien looked at Ellen blankly. "Why--why, Ellen dear," she stammered, "what's this I hear you saying?" Ellen repeated her announcement slowly and distinctly. "But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien protested, "how can you talk so and the beautiful way you've been getting on and the beautiful way Mr. Hawes has been treating you? And what will Mr. Hawes say--poor, kind-hearted gentleman that he is! Oh, Ellen dear, with your fine looks and your fine education I beg you not to throw it all away!" Mrs. O'Brien mopped her eyes with her apron and pleaded on. It did not occur to her to ask the reason for Ellen's sudden decision. After all, sudden decisions were merely characteristic of Ellen. Terence, however, peered at his sister sharply. "Huh! Seems to me stenography was all right yesterday! What's happened to make you change your mind? Did that Hawes fellow say something to you last night at the Island?" Ellen had decided that the family were not to know the details of the previous night's adventure and, before they came down in the morning, she had pledged Rosie to secrecy. Yet some sort of explanation had to be offered. She looked at Terry now with a candour that was new to her and that did much to win his support. "Terry," she began slowly, with none of her usual aggressiveness, "you always thought my going to that business college and trying to do office work was foolish. You've said so all along. I didn't use to believe you were right but I do now. I'd never do decent office work in a hundred years. I'm sorry all the money you and dad had to put up and I'll pay you back if I can." "Gee!" murmured Terry in astonishment, "you sure must have got some blowing up to make you feel that way about it!" "Well, that's the way I do feel," Ellen said quietly. "But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien wailed, "you don't mean it--I know you don't! Why, what'll you do if you throw up this fine position with Mr. Hawes? Nowadays a girl can't sit at home and do nothing! She's either got to work or get married." Mrs. O'Brien paused with a new idea which her own words suggested to her. "Is it--is it that you're getting married?" Ellen spoke quickly: "Ma, I expect to work and I'm going to work. But I'm going to do something I can do well." "That you can do well!" echoed Mrs. O'Brien. "I don't rightly catch your meanin', Ellen. Here you've landed a fine position and your boss is a nice friendly gentleman and now you're turning your back on it all to take up something else! I don't understand you at all, at all! And to think," Mrs. O'Brien concluded brokenly, "of the skirts and shirtwaists that I've stayed up all hours of the night to iron for you, just to keep you lookin' sweet and clean down at that office!" "Ma, I'm sorry to disappoint you--honest I am. But, don't you see, it's just this way: I've made a bad mistake and the sooner I get out of it the better it will be for me. What I ought to do is something I can do." "Something you can do, indeed! And will you tell me, me lady, what is it you can do so much better than stenography?" Ellen flushed but answered firmly: "I can trim hats." "Trim hats!" screamed Mrs. O'Brien. "What's this ye're sayin'? Do you mean to tell me that you're willing to be a milliner when you might be a stenographer? Why, anybody at all can go and be a milliner!" "Anybody can't be a fine milliner. And you needn't think there isn't good money in millinery. The head of a big millinery department gets a couple of thousand a year!" Mrs. O'Brien blinked her eyes. "Has some one been offering you that kind of a position?" Her tears ceased to flow. Once again she beamed on Ellen with all her old-time pride. "Ah, Ellen, you rogue, you're keeping something back! Come, tell me what's happened!" Ellen sighed helplessly. "Ma, I'm trying to tell you, but you make it awful hard for me. You go off every minute and don't give me a chance to finish." Mrs. O'Brien folded her hands complacently. "Ellen dear, I won't utter another syllable--I promise you I won't. Now tell me in two words what's happened." "Well, Ma, it's this: I'm through with stenography and I'm going in for millinery, which I think I can do better." "But where, Ellen, where are you going in for it? That's the great p'int!" "I'm going to try Hattie Graydon's aunt first. She always says that not one of the girls in her shop begins to have the taste that I've got, and one time she told me if ever I wanted a job to come to her." The happy look in Mrs. O'Brien's face slowly faded. Tears again filled her eyes. "And is that all you've got to tell me?" "Yes, Ma, that's all. I'm going down to see Miss Graydon this morning." "Oh, Ellen, Ellen, to think of your doing a thing like that without asking the advice of a soul! You're a foolish, headstrong girl!" Ellen dropped her eyes. "George Riley thinks I'm doing right." Mrs. O'Brien looked up sharply. "Jarge Riley indeed! And may I ask what Jarge Riley's got to with it?" "George and me are friends again. I thought I better tell you." In Mrs. O'Brien amazement took the place of grief. "Ellen O'Brien, do you mean to tell me that you've took up with Jarge Riley when you might have had a gentleman like Mr. Hawes?" The flush that her mother's words excited was one of anger as well as embarrassment. "Ma, you listen to me: I've never once told you that I might have Mr. Hawes! You've made that up yourself!" "Made it up myself, indeed! when he's been taking you out night after night and treating you like a real lady!" "And what's more," Ellen went on vehemently, "George Riley's worth twenty Philip Hawses!" Mrs. O'Brien looked at her sharply. "Is it that you're going to marry Jarge Riley?" Ellen, breathing hard, made answer a little unsteadily: "Yes." Mrs. O'Brien dropped back limply into her chair. "Mercy on us!" she wailed, "and is this the end of your fine looks and your fine education--to marry a farmer like Jarge Riley! Why, you could have had him without any business college or nothing!" Ellen stood up and Mrs. O'Brien, her face woe-begone and tragic, made one last appeal: "Ellen O'Brien, I ask you in all seriousness, are you determined to throw yourself away like that?" Ellen was nothing if not determined. "I'm going down to Miss Graydon's now," she said in a casual tone which ended all discussion; "and me and George will probably get married in the spring." CHAPTER XXXVI THE HAPPY LOVER It was several days before Mrs. O'Brien regained her usual complacency. "'Tain't that I've got anything against you, Jarge," she explained many times to her prospective son-in-law. "I'm really fond of you and I treat you like one of me own. But what with her fine looks and her fine education I was expecting something better for Ellen. Why, Jarge, she ought to be marrying a Congressman at least. Now I ask you frankly, don't you think so yourself?" For George the situation was far from a happy one. To be the confidant of Mrs. O'Brien in this particular disappointment was embarrassing, to say the least. Moreover, certain of Mrs. O'Brien's objections were somewhat difficult to meet and yet they had to be met and met often, for Mrs. O'Brien harped on them constantly. "And, Jarge dear, if you do go marry her and carry her off to the country, what will you do with her out there? Tell me that, now! For meself I can't see Ellen milkin' a cow." [Illustration: To be the confidant of Mrs. O'Brien in this particular disappointment was embarrassing, to say the least.] George tried hard to explain that milking cows was not the only activity open to a farmer's wife; that, in all probability, Ellen would never be called on to milk a cow. His protests were vain, for, to Mrs. O'Brien, milking a cow stood not so much for a definite occupation as for a general symbol of country life. George might talk an hour and very often did and, at the end of that time, Mrs. O'Brien would sigh mournfully and remark: "Say what you will, Jarge, I tell you one thing: I can't see Ellen milkin' a cow." Moreover, life with Ellen was not at once the long sweet song that George had expected. Not that she was the old imperious Ellen of biting speech and quick temper. She was not. All that was passed. She was quiet now, and docile, anxious to please and always ready for anything he might suggest. Would she like a street-car ride tonight? Yes, a street-car ride would be very nice. Or the movies or a walk? She would like whatever he wanted. Her gentleness touched him but caused him disquiet, too, because he could not help realizing that a great part of it was apathy. One thing pleased her as much as another, which is pretty nearly the same as saying one thing bored her as much as another. "But, Ellen," he protested more than once, "you don't have to go if you don't want to!" "Oh, I want to," she would insist in tones that were far from convincing. George could not help recalling the eager joy with which Rosie used to greet each new expedition. Why wasn't Ellen the same, he wondered in helpless perplexity. He went through all the little attentions which Rosie had taught him and a thousand more, and Ellen received them with a quiet, "Thanks," or a half-hearted, "You're awful kind, George." "Kind nuthin'!" he shouted once. "I don't believe you care one straw for me or for anything I do for you!" His outburst startled her and, for a moment, she faltered. Then she said: "I don't see how you can say that, George. I think you're just as good and kind as you can be." "Good and kind!" he spluttered. "What do I care about being good and kind? What I want is love!" "Well, don't I love you?" She looked at him beseechingly and put her hand on his shoulder. Her caresses were infrequent and this one, slight as it was, was enough to fire his blood and muddle his understanding. "You do love me, don't you?" he begged, pulling her to him, and she, as usual, submitting without a protest, said, yes, she did. A word, a touch, and Ellen could always silence any misgiving. But such misgivings had a way of returning, once George was alone. Then he would wish that he had Rosie to talk things over with. He was used to talking things over with Rosie. For some reason, though, he never saw Rosie now except for a moment when she handed him his supper-pail each evening at the cars. At other times she seemed always to be out on errands or on jaunts with Janet and Tom Sullivan. George looked upon Tom as a jolly decent youngster and he was pleased that the intimacy between him and Rosie was growing. But at the same time he could not help feeling a little hurt that Rosie should so completely forget him. True, he was bound up heart and soul in Ellen and now he was her accepted lover. That, it seemed to him, ought to be happiness enough and he told himself that it was enough. Then he would sigh and wonder why he wasn't as light-heartedly gay as he used to be when he and Rosie went about together. Rosie, apparently, had entirely forgotten what good chums they once had been. Well, after all, he couldn't blame her, for she was only a child. George did not know and probably never would know that Rosie was watching him and watching over him with all the faithfulness of a little dog and that she knew all there was to know of the situation between him and Ellen. George had set the latter part of September as the time for his return to the country. For four long years he had been working and saving for this very event. Several times before he had been about to leave but always, at the last moment, some untoward circumstance had crippled his finances and he had been forced to stay on in the city another few months. Now for the first time he could go and now he was loath to go. But he had made his announcement and all his little world was standing about, waiting to see him off and to bid him god-speed. He was ashamed to acknowledge even to himself the indecision that was tugging at his heart. "Don't you think, Ellen," he ventured at last, "it might be just as well if I waited till Christmas?" "Oh, George!" Ellen looked at him with a shocked expression. "I don't see how you can say such a thing after the way you've been waiting all these years! Besides, what would your poor mother say if you didn't come now that you could? You've told me yourself how the burden of things has fallen on her more and more and how anxious you are to relieve her." "I know," George acknowledged; "but, Ellen girl, don't you see I can't bear to leave you now I've got you. I've had you for such a little while!" "Won't you have me just the same, even if you are in the country? Besides, you'll be getting things ready for me by spring." George took a sharp breath. "But I want you now!" Ellen looked at him gravely. "See here, George, there's no use talking that way. You've got to work and I've got to work, and if we don't get our work done this winter it'll be all the worse for both of us when spring comes. Your father's expecting to hand over the management of the farm to you this fall and it's up to you to take it. Ain't I right?" George sighed. "I suppose you are." "Then don't be foolish. Besides you can come down and see me at Thanksgiving." George gasped. "Why, Ellen, I expect to see you before that! I could come in and stay over Sunday 'most any week." "No, George, you mustn't do that! I won't let you!" Ellen spoke vehemently. "It would only cost you money and you know perfectly well you need every cent of cash you've got! Once you're back in the country you won't be getting in three dollars a day ready money. No! You'll come to see me Thanksgiving and not before." Ellen was right. It would be necessary for him to hoard like a miser his little stock of money until the farm should once again be on a paying basis. George sighed gloomily and went about his preparations for departure. CHAPTER XXXVII THE SISTERS Ellen and Rosie saw him off. Rosie wept openly. "And, Jarge," she said, kissing him good-bye, "give your mother and your father my love, but especially your mother. Tell her that I love her and that I think of her every day. You won't forget, will you? And tell her that Geraldine is fat and well and has been ever since we got home from the country." "Good-bye, George," Ellen said quietly. Her face was pale and there was a strained expression about eyes and mouth. "Oh, Ellen!" George gave her one last wild kiss and rushed madly through the gate. His coach was far down the train shed and Rosie and Ellen soon lost sight of his hurrying figure. They stood together at the gate and waited until the train started. As it pulled away Ellen sighed deeply. "Thank goodness he's gone!" She leaned against the grating and laughed hysterically. Rosie, who had been dabbing her eyes with a wet handkerchief, looked up blankly. "Ellen O'Brien, what do you mean? Are you glad he's gone?" "You bet I'm glad!" Ellen's silly high-pitched laugh continued until silenced by Rosie's look of scornful fury. "Ellen O'Brien, you're worse than I thought you were!" Ellen faltered a moment, then reached toward Rosie appealingly. "Don't be too hard on me, Rosie. You don't know the awful time I've had. I feel like I've been dead. I haven't been able to breathe. I don't mean it was his fault. I think as much of him as you do--really I do. He's good and he's kind and he's honest and he's everything he ought to be. But if he'd ha' stayed much longer I'd ha' smothered." Rosie, accusing angel and stern judge rolled into one, demanded gravely: "And now that he's gone what are you going to do?" "What am I going to do?" Ellen's laugh was still a little beyond her control, but it had in it a note of happy relief that was unmistakable. "I'm going to live again--at least for the little time that's left me." "What do you mean by 'the little time that's left you'?" "From now till Thanksgiving; from Thanksgiving till spring." For an instant Ellen's face clouded. Then she cried: "But I'm not going to think of spring! I'm going to have my fling now!" Rosie looked at her without speaking and, as she looked, it seemed to her that the Ellen of other days rose before her. It was as though a pale nun-like creature had been going about in Ellen's body, answering to Ellen's name. Now, at George's departure as at the touch of a magic wand, the old Ellen was back with eyes that sparkled once again and cheeks into which the colour was returning in waves. Yes, she was the old Ellen, eager for life and excitement and thirsting for admiration. But the old Ellen with a difference. Now, instead of estranging Rosie utterly with careless bravado, she strove to win her understanding. "You don't know how I feel, Rosie; you can't, because you and me are made differently. You're perfectly happy if you've got some one to love and take care of--you know you are! With me it's different. I don't want to take care of people and work for them and slave for them. I want to have a good time myself! I'm just crazy about it! I know I ought to be ashamed, but can I help it? That's the way I am. Do you think I'm very awful, Rosie?" Rosie answered truthfully: "I'm not thinking of you at all. I'm thinking of poor Jarge." Ellen gave a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness I can give up thinking of him for a while." She began patting her hair and arranging her hat. "Do I look all right, Rosie? I got to hurry back to the shop. A feather salesman is coming today and Miss Graydon wants me to take care of him. He'll probably invite me out to lunch." "And are you going?" Rosie asked slowly. Ellen took a long happy breath. "You bet I'm going!" "Ellen O'Brien, if you do, I'll tell Jarge! I will just as sure!" For an instant Ellen was staggered. Then she recovered. "No, Rosie, you'll do no such thing! What you'll do is this: you'll mind your own business!" Rosie tried to protest but her voice failed her, for the look in Ellen's eye betokened a will as strong as her own and a determination to brook no interference. Ellen started off, then paused to repeat: "You'll mind your own business! Do you understand?" Ellen walked on and Rosie called after her, a little wildly: "I won't! I won't! I tell you I won't!" But she knew she would. CHAPTER XXXVIII ELLEN HAS HER FLING It is hard to be the self-appointed guardian of another's interests, for one's standing is not, as it were, official. In the weeks that followed Rosie felt this keenly. She gave up protesting to Ellen, for Ellen's curt answer to everything she might say was always: "You mind your own business!" Though she would not accept Ellen's dictum that George's business was not hers, yet she was soon forced to give up direct action and to seek her end through the interference of others. She tried her mother. "I don't care what you say, Ma, Ellen's just as crooked as she can be, acting this way with other fellows when she doesn't even deny that she's engaged to Jarge. And you ought to stop it, too! There, the very first week he was gone, she went out three nights hand-running with that feather man from St. Louis. You know she did! And now she's got that new little dude with an off eye and, besides, Larry Finn's come back. I tell you it ain't fair to Jarge and you're to blame, too, if you don't stop it!" Mrs. O'Brien shared with Rosie the conviction that an engaged girl ought not so much as raise her eyes to other men. She was done forever with all men but one. Ellen, for some reason, did not feel this instinctively and, if a girl does not feel it instinctively, how is she to be made to feel it? Mrs. O'Brien sighed. Unknown to Rosie she had tried to speak to Ellen. Ellen had not let her go very far. "Say, Ma, you dry up!" she had told her shortly. "I guess I know what I'm doing." "I'm sure you do," Mrs. O'Brien had murmured in humble apology; "but, Ellen dear, be careful! There's a lot of people know you're engaged to Jarge and I'm afraid they'll be talkin'." "Let 'em talk!" was Ellen's snappish answer. So when Rosie approached her mother on the same subject, Mrs. O'Brien hemmed and hawed and ended by offering a defence of Ellen which sounded hollow even to herself. "As for that feather fella, Rosie dear, you mustn't get excited about him. It's a matter of business to keep him jollied. Miss Graydon wants Ellen to be nice to him. And, as I says to Ellen, 'If that's the case,' says I, 'of course you've got to accept his little attentions. Miss Graydon,' says I, 'is your employer and a girl ought always to please her employer.' As you know yourself, Rosie, Ellen's certainly getting on beautifully in that shop. Miss Graydon told me herself the other night that she had never had a girl so quick and tasty with her needle and when I told her about me own poor dead sister, Birdie, she said that explained it." "But, Ma," Rosie cried, "what about poor Jarge?" "Jarge? Why, Jarge is all right. He's out there in the country and you know yourself he's crazy about the country. And more than that, Ellen writes him a picture postcard every week. She gave me her word she'd do it. I couldn't very well insist on her writing a letter, for you know her long hours at the shop and it wouldn't be right to ask her to use her eyes at night. 'But, Ellen dear,' says I to her, 'promise me faithfully you'll never let a week go by without sending him a picture postcard.' And she gave me her word she wouldn't." Mrs. O'Brien could always be depended on to obscure reason in a dust of words, especially at times when it would be embarrassing to face reason in the open. After three or four attempts to arouse her mother to some sort of action, Rosie had to give up. She felt as keenly as ever that George was being basely betrayed, but she saw no way to protect him. She had not written to him since he left, but she wrote every week to his mother on the pretext that Mrs. Riley was deeply interested in Geraldine and must be kept informed of Geraldine's growth and health. Rosie always put in a sentence about Ellen: "Ellen's very busy but very well," or "Ellen's hours are much longer now than they used to be and she hasn't so very much time to herself, but she likes millinery, so it's all right,"--always something that would assure George of Ellen's well-being and excuse, if necessary, her silence. Rosie hated herself for thus apparently shielding Ellen but, in her anxiety to spare George, she would have gone to almost any length. A sort of family pride kept her from confiding her worries to Janet McFadden. Soon after George's departure she had remarked to Janet: "You oughtn't to be surprised because you know the kind of girl Ellen is. She's just got to amuse herself. Besides, you can't exactly blame her because poor Jarge'd want her to have a good time." This attitude had not in the least deceived Janet, but Janet was too tactful to question it. The reasons for not talking to Janet did not apply to Danny Agin, who, being old and of another generation, was philosophical rather than personal and had long since mastered the art of forgetting confidences when forgetting was more graceful than remembering. So at last Rosie opened her heart to Danny. "Now take an engaged girl, Danny." Rosie paused and Danny, nodding his head, said: "For instance, a girl like Ellen." Rosie was glad enough to be definite. "I don't mind telling you, Danny, that it's Ellen I'm talking about. I just don't know what to do about it and maybe you'll be able to help me." Danny listened carefully while Rosie slowly unfolded her story. "And, Danny," she said, as she reached the present in her narrative, "that St. Louis fellow's just dead gone on her--that's all there is about it. He's sending her picture postcards every day or every other day. I can't help knowing because they come to the house. I suppose he doesn't like to send them to the shop where the other girls would see them. He used to sign the postcards with his full name but now he only signs 'Harry.' Now, Danny, do you think it's nice for a girl that's engaged to let another fella send her postcards and sign 'em 'Harry'?" Danny ruminated a moment. "Well, if you ask me, Rosie, I don't believe that's so awful bad." "But, Danny, that ain't all! Listen here: last week he sent a big box of candy from Cleveland and this morning another box came from Pittsburg. And there was a postcard this morning and what do you think it said? 'I just can't wait till Saturday night!' And it was signed, 'With love, Harry.' Now, Danny, what can that mean? I bet anything he's coming to spend Sunday with her and, if he does come, what in the world am I to do about it?" Danny patted her hand gently. "Rosie dear, I don't see that you're to do anything about it. Why do you want to do anything? Isn't it Ellen's little party?" Rosie shook off his hand impatiently. "I don't care about Ellen's side of it! I'm thinking about Jarge! This kind of thing ain't square to him, and that's all there is about it!" "Of course it ain't," Danny agreed. "But, after all, Rosie, if Ellen prefers Harry to Jarge, I don't see what we can do about it." "But, Danny, she's engaged to Jarge!" "Well, maybe she'll get disengaged." Rosie shook her head. "You don't know Jarge. Jarge is a fighter. And I'll tell you something else: once he gets a thing he never gives it up. Now he's got Ellen or he thinks he's got her and he's going to keep her, too. You just ought to see him when he's around Ellen. He's awful, Danny, honest he is! He's so crazy about her that he forgets everything else. If he thought she was fooling him, I think he might kill her--really, Danny. And she's afraid of him, too. Why, if she wasn't afraid of him, she'd break her engagement in a minute and tell him so. I know that as well as I know anything. She expects to marry him. She's scared not to now. But that don't keep her from letting those other fellows act the fool with her. And if Jarge hears about them, I tell you one thing: there's going to be the deuce to pay. Excuse the language, Danny, but it's true." Danny was impressed but not as impressed as Rosie expected. "That's worse than I thought," he admitted; "but I don't see that there's any great danger. Jarge is in the country and not likely to pop in on her, is he?" "No," Rosie answered, "he's not coming till Thanksgiving." "Thanksgiving, do you say? Well, that's four weeks off. Plenty of things can happen in four weeks." In spite of herself, Rosie began to feel reassured. "But, Danny," she insisted, "even if it's not dangerous, don't you think it's crooked for a girl that's engaged to let other men give her presents and take her out?" "Maybe it is and maybe it ain't. I dunno. It's hard to make a rule about it. You see it's this way, Rosie: When a girl's engaged she's usually in love with the fella she's engaged to, or why is she engaged to him? Now, when she's in love, she don't want presents from any but one man. Presents from other fellas don't interest her. So, you see, there's no need to be makin' a rule, for the thing settles itself. Now if Ellen is getting presents from this new fella, Harry, it looks to me like she ain't very much in love with Jarge." "That's exactly what I'm telling you, Danny. She's not." "So the likelihood is, she's not going to marry Jarge." Danny concluded with a smile that was intended to cheer Rosie. "I wish she wasn't," Rosie murmured. Then she added hastily: "No, I don't mean that, because it would break Jarge's heart!" Danny scoffed: "Break Jarge's heart, indeed! Many a young hothead before Jarge has had a broken heart and got over it!" "But, Danny," Rosie wailed, "you don't know Jarge!" There were such depths of tenderness in Rosie's tone that Danny checked the smile which was on his lips and made the hearty declaration: "He sure is a fine lad, this same Jarge!" "Well, Danny, listen here: if Harry comes on Saturday, shall I tell Jarge?" Danny looked at her kindly. "Mercy on us, Rosie, what a worryin' little hen you are! If you ask me advice, I'd say: Let Saturday take care of itself." Rosie wiped her eyes slowly. "It's all very well for you to talk that way. But I tell you one thing: if Jarge was your dear friend like he's mine, you wouldn't want to stand by and see this Harry fella cut him out." Danny gave a non-committal sigh and looked away. "I don't know about that, Rosie. I think it might be an awful good thing for Jarge if Harry did cut him out." "But, Danny," Rosie cried, "think how it would hurt Jarge!" Danny's answer was unfeeling. "There's worse things can happen to a man than being hurt." Rosie's manner stiffened perceptibly. "Very well, Mr. Agin, if that's how you feel about it, I guess I better be going." "Ah, don't go yet," Danny begged. Rosie, already started, turned back long enough to say, with frigid politeness: "Good-bye, Mr. Agin." At the gate, her heart misgave her. Danny, after all, had spoken according to his lights. It was not his fault so much as his limitation that he should judge George Riley by the standard of other young men. Rosie would be magnanimous. "I got to go anyhow, Danny," she called back sweetly. Danny's chuckle reached her faintly. "But you're coming again, Rosie dear, aren't you? You know I'll be wanting to hear about Saturday." Danny was old and half sick, so Rosie felt she must be patient. "All right," she sang out; "I'll come." CHAPTER XXXIX THE WATCH-DOG That night at supper, Ellen remarked casually: "Harry's coming to town on Saturday, and if he comes up here, I want you all to treat him nice." Mrs. O'Brien glanced at Rosie a little nervously. "But, Ellen dear," she asked, "why does he want to be coming up here?" Ellen smiled on her mother patronisingly. "It looks like he wants to call on me." Mrs. O'Brien lifted hands in vague protest. "But tell me, now, do you think Jarge----" She hadn't courage to finish her sentence. Terence looked over to Rosie with a sudden chuckle. "Say, Rosie, wouldn't it be fun if Jarge happened in? Let's drop him a line. Gee! Maybe he wouldn't do a thing to that St. Louis guy!" "Ma!" Ellen admonished, sharply. "Terry lad," Mrs. O'Brien began, obediently, "I'm surprised at you talkin' this way about the young gentleman that's coming to see your poor sister Ellen on Saturday night." Terence pushed away his plate and began writing an imaginary postcard with a spoon. "Dear Jarge," he read slowly; "Won't you please come in on Saturday night? We're arranging a little surprise for Ellen. Yours truly, Terence O'Brien. Gee!" Terry murmured thoughtfully, "I wish he would come! It sure would be worth seeing!" "Now, Terry," Mrs. O'Brien begged, "promise me you'll do nuthin' so foolish as that! You know yourself the awful temper Jarge has on him, an' if he was to come I'm afeared there'd be something serious. Don't you think, Ellen dear," she went on a little timidly, "that perhaps you'd better tell Mr. Harry not to come this week?" Ellen looked at her mother defiantly. "I don't see why. This week's as good as any other for me." "Well, then, don't you think that perhaps he'd better make you a little call down at the shop? With so many children and things the house is a wee bit untidy." "It's his own idea to come up here." Ellen paused, a trifle embarrassed. "He says he wants to meet the family." "H'm!" murmured Terry. "He's not like your old friend, Mr. Hawes, is he, Ellen?" Ellen flushed. "No, Terry, he's not a bit like Mr. Hawes." Small Jack piped up unexpectedly. "Is he like Jarge, Ellen?" "No, he's not like George, either." "Can he fight?" Ellen tossed her head. "I should hope not! Harry Long is a gentleman!" Seeing that this was not a very strong recommendation to her brothers, she added: "But, unless I'm very much mistaken, he's plenty able to take care of himself. He's a fine swimmer, too." "Is he a sport, Ellen?" Terry asked. "He's certainly an elegant dresser, if that's what you mean. Just you wait and see." Friday's letter put Ellen into something of a flurry. "Ma, Harry thinks it would be awful nice if you would invite him to supper tomorrow night. He's coming to the shop in the morning. Then he'll take me out to lunch and we'll go somewheres in the afternoon, and he wants to know if we can't come back here for supper. He thinks that would be a good way for him to meet the whole family." "Mercy on us!" Mrs. O'Brien wailed. "With all I've got to do, how can I get up a fine supper for a sporty young gent like Mr. Harry? Can't you keep him out, Ellen? I don't see why he's got to meet the family. We're just like any other family: a father, a mother, and five children." "But, Ma, he makes such a point of it. I don't see how we can refuse. Besides, you know he's been pretty nice to me taking me out to dinner and things." "If he was only Jarge Riley now," Mrs. O'Brien mused, "I wouldn't mind him at all, at all, for he wouldn't be a bit of trouble. Poor Jarge was always just like one of the family, wasn't he?" Ellen drew her mother back to the subject of the moment. "So can I tell him to come?" Mrs. O'Brien sighed. "Oh, I suppose so. That is, if Rosie'll help me. I tell you frankly, Ellen, I simply can't manage it alone." Mrs. O'Brien called Rosie to get the promise of her assistance. Rosie listened quietly, then, instead of answering her mother, she turned to her sister. "Ellen, I want to know one thing: Have you told this Harry about Jarge Riley?" Ellen frowned. "I don't see what that's got to do with tomorrow's supper." Rosie took a deep breath. "It's got a lot to do with it if I'm going to help." For a moment the sisters measured each other in silence. Then Ellen broke out petulantly: "Well, then, Miss Busybody, if you've got to know, I haven't! And, what's more, I'm not going to!" "You're not going to, eh? We'll see about that." Rosie turned to her mother. "Ma, I'll help you tomorrow night. We'll have a good supper. But I want to give you both fair warning: if Ellen don't tell this Harry about Jarge Riley, I will! She's trying to make a goat of both of them and I'm not going to stand for it." "Ma!" screamed Ellen, "are you going to let her meddle with my affairs like that? You make her mind her own business!" "Rosie dear," begged Mrs. O'Brien, "don't go excitin' your poor sister Ellen by any such foolish threats. You'd only be causin' trouble, Rosie, and I'm sure you don't want to do that. And, Ellen dear, don't raise your voice. The neighbours will hear you." "I don't care!" Ellen shouted. "She's nothing but George's little watch-dog, and I tell you I'm not going to stand it!" "Perhaps, Ellen dear," Mrs. O'Brien ventured timidly, "it might be just as well if you did tell him about Jarge." Ellen burst into tears. "You're all against me, every one of you--that's what you are! You're so afraid I'll have a good time! Isn't George coming on Thanksgiving and aren't we to be married in the spring? I should think that would suit you! But, no, you've got to spoil my fun now and it's a mean shame--that's what it is!" "Ah, now, Ellen dear, don't you cry!" Mrs. O'Brien implored. "I'm sure Rosie is not going to interfere, are you, Rosie?" Rosie regarded her sister's tears unmoved. "I'm going to do exactly what I say I am, and Ellen knows I am." Ellen straightened herself with a shake. "Very well," she said shortly. "I guess I can be mean, too! You just wait!" CHAPTER XL MR. HARRY LONG EXPLAINS Rosie was more than true to her promise. She prepared a good supper and, in addition, made the kitchen neat and presentable, scrubbed Jack until his skin and hair fairly shone with cleanliness, and, long before supper time, had Mrs. O'Brien and Geraldine, both in holiday attire, seated in state on the front porch to receive Ellen and her admirer. When Jack, who was perched on the front gate as family lookout, saw them coming, he rushed back to the kitchen to give Rosie warning and Rosie had time to slip behind the front door and, through the crack, to witness the arrival. "And, Ellen dear," Mrs. O'Brien exclaimed in greeting, "do you mean to tell me that this is your friend, Mr. Harry Long! If I do say it, Mr. Long, I'm mighty pleased to see you! As I've said to Ellen, many's the time, 'Why don't you bring your friend out to see me? Bring him any time,' says I, 'for the friends of me children are always welcome in this house.' And himself says the same thing, Mr. Long." The florid well-built young man who gave Rosie the impression of bright tan shoes, gray spats, a fancy vest, and massive watchfob, waited, smiling, until Mrs. O'Brien was done and then remarked in friendly, cordial tones: "Just call me Harry, Mrs. O'Brien. I'm plain Harry to my friends." "Well, I'm sure you're among friends when you're here," Mrs. O'Brien said with a downcast look of melting coyness. "But I fear you won't think so if I keep you standing much longer. Won't you sit down, Mr.--I mean, won't you sit down, Harry? You see, Harry," she continued, "I'm taking you at your word. And now I must introduce Jackie to you. Jackie's me second b'y. Now, Jackie dear, shake hands with Mr. Long and tell him you're glad to see him. The baby's name, Harry, is Geraldine. Besides her, I've got Terence who's a fine lad--oh, I know you'll be glad to meet Terry!--and Rosie who's next to Terry and who's helping me with the supper tonight so's to give me a chance to say 'How do you do' to you. Ah, if I do say it, I've a fine brood of children and never a word of bickering among them.... Now, Jackie dear, like a good b'y, will you run upstairs and tell your da to come down this minute, that we're waiting for him, and then run into the kitchen and ask sister Rosie if the supper's ready." Rosie slipped hurriedly back to the kitchen and then, through Jack, summoned the family in. When she was presented to the newcomer, she added to her first impressions the smooth pinkish face of a city-bred man who had never been exposed to the real violence of sun and wind, a cravat pin and seal ring that were fellows to the watchfob, and hands that bore themselves as if a little conscious of a recent visit to the manicure. As Rosie gathered in these details, she saw, in contrast, the figure of George Riley: the roughened weatherbeaten face, the cheap ill-fitting clothes, the big hands coarsened with work, the heavy feet. Ellen, of course, and girls like Ellen would be taken in by the new man's flashy appearance and easy confident manner, but not Rosie. Rosie hated him on sight! She knew the difference between tinsel and solid worth and she longed to cry out to him: "You needn't think you can fool me, because you can't! Any one can dress well who spends all he makes on clothes! But how much money have you got salted away in the bank? Tell me that, now!" She had to shake hands with him, but when he stooped down to kiss her, she jerked away and glared at him like an angry little cat. "Why, Rosie!" Mrs. O'Brien exclaimed in shocked tones, "is that the way you treat a family friend like Mr. Harry?" "Family friend!" stormed Rosie; "I've never laid eyes on him before and neither have you!" Mrs. O'Brien's embarrassment deepened. "Rosie, I'm ashamed of you! Is that the way for you to be treatin' a gentleman who's taking supper with us? I tell you frankly I'm ashamed of you!" Jamie O'Brien cleared his throat. "See here, Maggie, Rosie's perfectly right. There's no call for her to be kissing a stranger. She's too big a girl for that." Mrs. O'Brien looked at her husband blankly. "Jamie O'Brien, how you talk! Do you think it's becoming to call a man a stranger who's sitting down with you at your own table?" Jamie turned to his guest politely. "I'm sure, Mr. Long, I don't know what all this noise is about. I'm like Rosie here. I've never seen you before to me knowledge. But that's neither here nor there. You're here now and you're welcome, and I hope we'll be friends. So let us drop the argument and sit down." It was an awkward beginning, but Jamie refused to be embarrassed and, after a moment of silence, the others tried hard to follow his example. Harry was evidently bent on pleasing. "Ever been in St. Louis, Mr. O'Brien?" He spoke with a proprietorial air as one might of a household pet, pronouncing the name of his city Louie. "Fine place, St. Louie!" "For meself," Jamie answered unexpectedly, "I never much cared for it. It's a hot hole!" Ellen flushed. "Why, Dad!" Jamie looked up impatiently. "What's the matter now?" "Dad, don't you know that St. Louie is where Harry lives?" "I do not!" Jamie answered truthfully. "And, if you ask me, Ellen, I don't see why I should." "Jamie O'Brien!" Mrs. O'Brien gasped, "what's come over you? I haven't heard you talk so much at table in ten years!" She turned to her guest. "Would you believe me, Harry, there are weeks on end when I never get a word out of him! Sometimes I think I'll forget how to talk meself for lack of some one to exchange a word with! And to think," she concluded, "that Jamie's been in St. Louie! I give you me word of honour I never heard that before! Tell me, Jamie, when was it?" Jamie ruminated a moment. "It must have been before we were married." Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head. "That just proves what I always say: little a woman can know about a man before she marries him." She talked on and Harry gave her every encouragement, laughing heartily at her anecdotes, asking further details, and making himself so generally pleasant that, before supper was half done, the opening embarrassment was forgotten and Mrs. O'Brien was exclaiming: "Well, Harry, I must say one thing: I feel like I'd known you forever!" Harry glanced at Ellen. "Shall we tell them?" Ellen drew a quick breath. "We've got to sometime," she murmured. Harry beamed on Mrs. O'Brien. "I'm mighty glad to hear you say that, Mrs. O'Brien. There's nothing would please me better than to have you like me. In fact, I'm hoping you like me well enough to take me for a son-in-law!" Mrs. O'Brien gasped: "What's this you're saying, Harry?" Rosie, pale and tense, stood up. "Ellen," she said, looking straight at her sister, "have you told him about Jarge Riley?" Ellen laughed a little unsteadily. "Yes, Rosie, I told him. And I see now you were right. It wasn't fair to Harry not to tell him. And I want to apologize for getting so mad." "Yes, Rosie was right," Harry repeated, smiling at her kindly. "Rosie must have known I was dead gone on Ellen and meant business." Rosie was not to be taken in by any such palaver as that. "No, Mr. Long, you're mistaken. I was only thinking about Jarge Riley. Ellen's going to marry him in the spring." Harry still smiled at her ingratiatingly. "She's not going to marry him now, Rosie. She can't because, don't you see, she married me this afternoon!" "What!" Rosie, feeling suddenly sick and weak, crumpled down into her chair, a nerveless little mass that gaped and blinked and waited for the world to come to an end. There was a pause broken at last by an hysterical laugh from Ellen. "Don't look at me like that, Rosie! I should think you'd be glad I was married to some one else!" Ellen's words brought Rosie to her senses. "I am glad!" she cried. "You never cared two straws about Jarge, anyhow! But why did you have to be so crooked with him? When he finds out the way you've done this, it'll just break his heart! I guess I know!" Jamie O'Brien cleared his throat. "Rosie, you talk too much! Will you just hold your tongue a minute while I find out what all this clatter's about. Mr. Long, sir, will you be so good as to explain things?" There was no smile on Jamie's face and Harry, looking at him, seemed to realize that it was not a time for pleasantries. "I hope, Mr. O'Brien," he began soberly, "that you'll forgive me for not taking things more slowly. I expected to until this morning when Ellen told me about this Riley fellow. Then I sort of lost my head. I was afraid of delays and misunderstandings. I've been just crazy about Ellen. The first time I saw her I knew she was the girl for me and I came to town today to tell her so. I suppose she knew what I was going to say and down at the shop, the very first thing, she began telling me about Riley. Mighty straight of her, I call it. She had got herself engaged to him but she didn't want to marry him, and it just seemed to me that the easiest way out of things was for us to get married right quick. So we hustled over the river and got to the courthouse just before closing time. It was really my fault, Mr. O'Brien. I made Ellen do it." Jamie looked at Ellen thoughtfully. "I don't believe you'd have made her do it if she hadn't wanted to do it." "You're right, Dad," Ellen said; "I did want to. I didn't know how little I cared about George or any one else until Harry came along. George is good and kind and all that, but we'd never have made a team. I knew it perfectly well and I was wrong not to tell him so." Jamie nodded his head. "You're right, Ellen. You've treated him pretty badly." Her father's apparent blame of Ellen brought Mrs. O'Brien back to life and to speech. "Jamie O'Brien, I don't see how you can talk so about poor Ellen! You know yourself many's the time I've said to you, 'I can't see Ellen milkin' a cow.' For me own part I think she's wise to choose the life she has." "Do you know the life she's chosen?" Jamie asked quietly. "I'm frank to say I don't." He turned to Harry. "Since you're me son-in-law, Mr. Long, perhaps you'll be willing to tell me who you are." "Oh, Dad!" Ellen murmured, and Mrs. O'Brien whispered, "Why, Jamie!" Harry flushed but answered promptly: "I'm twenty-six years old. I'm a St. Louie man. I'm a travelling salesman for the Great Ostrich Feather Company, head office at St. Louie. I'm on a twenty dollar a week salary with commissions that usually run me up to thirty dollars." Harry paused and Jamie remarked: "Plenty for a single man. You might even have saved a bit on it, I'm thinking." Harry hesitated. "No," he said slowly; "I'll tell you the truth. I've been kind of a fool about money. I haven't saved a cent." Rosie sat up suddenly. "I knew it!" she cried. "Rosie!" whispered Mrs. O'Brien. "Shame on you!" "Well, I just did!" Rosie insisted. Her father, paying no heed to her, went on with his catechism: "But even if you didn't save anything, I'm thinking with that salary you're not in debt." "Dad!" murmured Ellen in an agony of embarrassment. "Be quiet, Ellen, and let your husband talk." The flush on Harry's face deepened. "I'm sorry to say I have a few debts--not many. I've been paying them off since I've known Ellen." "There!" cried Mrs. O'Brien in triumph. "Do you hear that, Jamie!" "Since you've known Ellen," Jamie repeated. "How long may that be?" "I think it's nearly a month." "H'm! Nearly a month.... Well, now, Mr. Long, since you've got a wife and a few debts, is it your idea, if I might ask you, to start housekeeping?" "Dad!" Ellen cried; "I don't see why you put it that way! We've got everything planned out." Jamie was imperturbable. "I'd like to hear your plans, Ellen." "We're not going housekeeping. I hate housekeeping, anyway. We're going boarding." "Boarding, do you say?" Jamie ruminated a moment. "If you were to ask me, Mr. Long, I'd tell you that twenty dollars won't go far in supporting a wife in idleness." "Ellen don't want to be idle, Mr. O'Brien. It's her own idea to keep on with millinery, and of course I can get her into a good shop in St. Louie." It was Mrs. O'Brien's turn to feel dismay. "Do you mean to tell me, Ellen, that, as a married woman, you're keeping on working?" Ellen's answer was decided. "I'd rather do millinery than housekeeping. Millinery ain't half as hard for me. I told Harry so this afternoon and he said all right." "But, Ellen dear," wailed Mrs. O'Brien, "people'll be thinking that your husband can't support you!" Ellen laughed. "As long as I know different, that won't matter." Jamie gave Ellen unexpected support. "Maggie, I think Ellen's right. It'll be much better to be a good milliner than a poor housekeeper." Jamie paused and looked at the young people thoughtfully. "Well, you're married now, both of you, and perhaps you're well matched. I dunno. Ellen's been a headstrong girl, never thinking of any one but herself and, from your own account, Harry, you're much the same. You've both jumped into this thing without thinking, but you'll have plenty of time for thinking from now on. Well, it's high time you both had a bit of discipline. It'll make a man and a woman of you. I don't altogether like the way you've started out, but you're started now and there's no more to say. So here's my hand on it, Harry, and may neither of you regret this day!" Jamie reached across the table and the younger man, in grateful humility, grasped his hand. "Thank you, Mr. O'Brien," he said simply. "You've made me see a few things." Ellen got up and went around to her father's chair. "I have been thoughtless and selfish, Dad. I see that now. I hope you'll forgive me." There were tears in her eyes, and her lips, as she put them against her father's cheek, trembled a little. Harry turned himself to the task of winning his mother-in-law. "Is it all right, Mrs. O'Brien?" All right, indeed! Who could resist so handsome a son-in-law? Certainly not Mrs. O'Brien. She broke out in tears and laughter. [Illustration: They all looked at Rosie, who sat, oblivious of them, staring off into nothing.] "Ah, Harry, you rogue, come here and kiss me this minute!... Why," she continued, "do you know, Harry, I had a presintimint the moment you entered the gate! 'What a fine-looking couple!' says I to meself. And the next minute I says, 'I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they made a match of it!' Why, Harry, I've never seen a fella come and turn us all topsy-turvy as you've done! Here I am talkin' me head off and Jamie O'Brien's been doing the same! Do you mind, Ellen, the way your da's been talkin'? You're not sick, are you, Jamie?" Jamie chuckled quietly. "It's just I'm a little excited having a daughter run off and get married." "Oh, Dad!" Ellen begged. "I suppose," Jamie went on, "Rosie'll be at it next." They all looked at Rosie, who sat, oblivious of them, staring off into nothing. "What's the matter, Rosie?" her father asked. Rosie roused herself. "I was just thinking about Jarge. Who's going to tell him?" "Ellen, of course," Jamie said. "Ellen'll have to write him." "But will she do it?" Rosie persisted. A look of annoyance crossed Ellen's face. "Of course I will. I'll have plenty of time because I'm not going to St. Louie for a week. I'll write him tomorrow." Rosie looked at her sister curiously. She wanted to say: "You know perfectly well you won't write him tomorrow or the next day or the day after. You'll put it off from day to day and at last you'll go, and then you'll never think of it again and poor Jarge'll come down here on Thanksgiving expecting to find you, and then we'll have to tell him." This is what Rosie wanted to say. But she restrained herself. When she spoke, it was in a different tone. "All right, Ellen, I won't bother you again. What dad says is true: you and Harry are married and that's all there is about it. I hope you'll both be happy." Rosie hesitated a moment, then walked over to Harry's chair. "And, Harry, I'm sorry I was rude to you when you tried to kiss me. You see, I didn't know you were Ellen's husband." Rosie hadn't intended to be funny, but evidently she was, for a shout of laughter went up and Harry gathered her in with a hug and a kiss. "You're all right, Rosie!" he whispered. "I like you for the way you stand up for George!" _For the way she stood up for George!_... Tears filled Rosie's eyes. She had tried faithfully to guard George's interests like the little watch-dog Ellen had called her. But George would never know. How could he? All he would know now was that he had been betrayed. CHAPTER XLI THE GREATEST TEACHER IN THE WORLD Rosie kept her promise faithfully. During the week that elapsed before Ellen's departure, she was careful not to mention George Riley's name. The time for discussion of any subject that might prove unpleasant to Ellen was past. Ellen was going, never to return--at any rate, never as one of them in the sense that she had been one of them and, for their own sakes as well as for hers, it behooved them all to make those last days as frictionless as possible. The approaching separation did not bring Rosie any closer to Ellen nor Ellen any closer to her, but it made them both strangely considerate of one another and also a little shy. Like Rosie, Terence and Jack regarded Ellen's going with deep interest but with very little feeling. Between them and her there had always been war and there probably always would be if they continued to live under the same roof. They had their mother's word for it that Ellen was their own sister and that they ought to love her, but they did not for that reason love her nor did she love them. Yet they did not question that pretty fallacy which their mother offered them as an axiom, namely, that love is the inevitable bond between brothers and sisters, since boys and girls, like men and women, have a way of keeping separate the truths of experience and the forms of inherited belief. With Rosie they instinctively called a truce. Ellen will soon be gone, their attitude said, so let's not fight any more. To show their sincerity, Terry polished Ellen's shoes and asked if there was anything more he could do, and Jack ran numberless errands without once asking payment. Mrs. O'Brien more than made up for the indifference of the rest of the family. Her grief at Ellen's departure was very genuine and very loud. Ellen had always seemed to her mother a paragon of beauty and talent and now she had made a fine match and was going off to St. Louie, poor girl, where she'd be far away from her own people in case of illness or distress. Mrs. O'Brien was so nearly overcome at the actual moment of farewell that Jamie and Terry had to drag her off to a soda fountain before the train was fairly started. Ellen, too, was affected at the last as Rosie had never seen her affected. She kissed Rosie, then looked at her a moment sadly. "Say, kid," she said, "I'm sorry we haven't been better friends. I'm afraid it was my fault." Rosie gulped. "I was as much to blame as you. I see it now." Ellen touched Rosie's cheek impulsively. "If ever I get a home of my own in St. Louie, will you come and make me a visit?" Rosie's thought was: "If ever you get a home of your own, you'll never remember me." Her spoken answer, though, was all that it should be: "Ellen, I'd love to." Rosie, you see, knew Ellen's character pretty well. What she did not know and could not as yet know was this: that the Ellen of tomorrow might not be quite the Ellen of today; that life probably held experiences for Ellen that would at last make her look back on home and family with a new understanding and a feeling of genuine tenderness. Ellen's train pulled out and Rosie watched it go with a sigh of relief. The chapter of Family Chronicles entitled Ellen was finished. That is, it was finished so far as any new interest was concerned. Yet, like the hand of a dead man touching the living through the clauses of a last will, so Ellen, though gone, continued to touch Rosie on a spot already sensitive beyond endurance. Rosie had not spoken of George Riley during Ellen's last week. She had tried to suppress even the thought of him. Now the time was come when she had again to think of him, and she was so tired and weary of the whole problem that she felt unequal to the task of working out its solution. "Do you know, Danny," she remarked that afternoon to her old friend, "I'd give anything to go off somewheres where I don't know anybody and where nobody knows me. I'm just so tired of this old town that I don't know what to do." Danny nodded sympathetically. "I'm thinking you're in need of a little change, Rosie. Maybe you could go out to the country for a day or two at Thanksgiving." Rosie knew perfectly well what Danny meant but, for conversational reasons, she asked: "Where in the country, Danny?" "Well, I was thinking of the Riley farm. I'm sure Mrs. Riley would be crazy to have you." Rosie shook her head. "I can't go out there because Jarge is coming here." She paused a moment. "He's coming to see Ellen. You know, Danny, he thinks he's engaged to Ellen." "What!" Danny's little eyes blinked rapidly. "Don't he know yet that she's married to the other fella?" "How can he know when no one's told him? Ellen said she would, but of course she didn't." Danny's expression grew serious. "Rosie dear, he ought to be told! He ought t' have been told at once! You don't mean to say, Rosie, you'll let him come down on Thanksgiving without a word of warning?" Rosie shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see that it's any of my business." Danny looked at her sharply. "Why, Rosie dear, what's come over you?" Rosie sighed. "I don't know, Danny. I'm just kind o' tired of things." She made a sudden change of subject. "Wisht I didn't have to go to school! I hate school this year. I don't see why I have to go, anyway. I'm not going to be a teacher." There was no mistaking Rosie's dejection and Danny, instead of scoffing it away, accepted it quietly. "I'm sorry to hear you say that about school, Rosie. I was thinkin' you'd be in High School next year." "I would be, if I passed. Ellen went through High School, and now Terry's in the first year, and of course dad wants me to go, too. But I don't see why I should. You know, Danny, I'm not very bright in school. I'm not a bit like Janet. I've got to work awful hard just barely to pass. I don't think I'd have passed last year if Janet hadn't helped me. But I can cook and do a lot of things that Janet can't do. I know perfectly well I could never be a teacher, so I don't see the use of keeping on at school." "You surprise me, Rosie!" Danny peered at her earnestly. "Do you think that's the only reason for going to school--so's to be a teacher?" Rosie nodded. "I don't see any other." "And what do you want to be, Rosie?" "I don't want to be anything." "Don't you want to do something?" "No." "But, Rosie dear, that's no way to talk. You know you can't sit through life with folded hands, doing nothing." Rosie protested: "But, Danny, I don't expect to do nothing. I know I have to work and I do work, too. You ask ma. I take care of Geraldine night and day, and you needn't think it isn't a big job taking care of a baby, because it is. And I used to take care of Jarge Riley, too. Old Mis' Riley herself told me I took as good care of him as she did. And she meant it, too. Oh, I could just work forever for Geraldine and Jarge." Danny looked at her a few moments in silence. "Rosie dear," he said gently, "pull your chair over close. I want to talk to you." Rosie obeyed and, after a slight pause, Danny continued: "You're troubled about Jarge, aren't you, Rosie?" Rosie's eyes filled with tears. "I suppose I am, Danny." "Rosie," Danny asked slowly, "are you in love with Jarge?" The question startled Rosie. She stared blankly through her tears. "Why, Danny, how can you say a thing like that? I'm only a little girl and Jarge is a grown man!" "But you'd like to take care of him all the time, wouldn't you, Rosie?" Rosie nodded. "You bet I would! If I could have just Jarge and Geraldine, I wouldn't care how hard I'd have to work! I'd do anything for both of them. Don't you know, Danny, I just feel like they're _mine_!" "I thought so, Rosie." Danny sighed and cleared his throat. "Now listen carefully, Rosie, what I've got to say. As you say yourself you're only a little girl now, but in a few years you'll be a big girl, as big as Ellen is today. And then perhaps, Rosie, you'll be marrying some one." "No, Danny, no!" Rosie cried. "I don't want to be marrying some one, honest I don't!" Danny waved aside the interruption. "As I was saying, perhaps you'll be marrying some one, and then after while you'll be having babies of your own." "Oh, Danny!" A look of wonder, almost of ecstasy, spread over Rosie's face. Instinctively her arms reached out for the precious burden of the future. "Do you really mean it, Danny?" she whispered. "My _own_!" "Yes, Rosie, I mean it. And you'll be a wonderful mother, for you'll know how to feed your children properly and take proper care of them. But in one way, Rosie, I fear you'll be a pretty poor mother." The light in Rosie's eyes went out. "Why do you say that, Danny?" "You won't be able to help them in their schoolin' and they'll probably all turn out poor ignur'nt b'ys and girls, with no opportunity to rise in the world. And if they do get on in school, they'll soon be scornin' their poor mother and lookin' down on her because she hasn't had the education she might have had. And when their father sees how they feel, I'm afeared he'll begin feelin' the same and thinkin' he'd made an awful mistake marryin' such an ignur'nt woman." "Oh, Danny, stop! Stop!" Tears of self-pity already filled Rosie's eyes. "So I say to you, Rosie, if I was a little girl, I'd want to keep on going to school even if I didn't expect to be a teacher. And for that matter, darlint, isn't a mother the greatest teacher in the world? Aren't you yourself Geraldine's teacher every day of your life?" Rosie's eyes stretched wide in surprise. "Danny, I believe you're right! A mother is a teacher, isn't she?" "Sure she is, Rosie. And the better her own education is, the better chance she has of being a good teacher. That stands to reason, don't it now?" Rosie nodded slowly. "Do you know, Danny, I never thought of that before." She ruminated a moment. "Really and truly it just seems like every girl in the world ought to have a good education. I always did think that ignorant mothers were awful and they are, too." "You're right, Rosie, they are. They're a hindrance to their children instead of a help." Rosie took a deep breath. "Wouldn't it just be wonderful to have a baby really and truly your own?" She gazed off into space. Then her expression changed. "But, Danny, I'll never marry." "Is that so?" Danny started to laugh, then checked himself. "You see, Danny, it's this way: Maybe you're right. Maybe I am in love with Jarge. Anyway, I know I'll never love anybody else half as much as I love him." "If that's the case," Danny remarked casually, "the only thing for you to do is to marry Jarge." "Danny!" Rosie looked at him reproachfully. "I don't think it's kind of you to make fun of me that way. I know I'm only a kid." "I didn't mean to marry him this minute," Danny explained. "I expected you to take your time about it--after you had finished school and were grown up and all that." "Oh!" Rosie sat up very straight. She spoke a little breathlessly. "But, Danny, won't Jarge be too old then?" Danny drew a long face. "I had forgotten all about that, Rosie. To be sure he will. He must be ten or fifteen years older than you this minute." "No, Danny, no! He's not! He's only six years older--about six and a half. I'm thirteen now. I had a birthday last month. And he's nineteen and a half. I know because he's four months older than Ellen." "Six years, do you say?" Danny mumbled. "Well, now, that's a good many, Rosie. Let's see: when you're eighteen, he'll be twenty-four. H'm. At twenty-four a lad's getting on, ain't he? Of course a lot of them don't marry nowadays till thirty but, if they'd ask me advice, I'd tell them to settle down with the right girl by the time they're twenty-five.... Yes, Rosie, you're right: Jarge'd be pretty old. Six years is a pretty big difference." Rosie tossed her head. "I'm not so sure about that! Let's see now: Harry Long is twenty-six and that makes him seven years older than Ellen, and I'm sure Harry and Ellen look fine together! No one would ever think of calling Harry old! Why, he don't look a bit old!" Danny shrugged his shoulders. "Well, Rosie, have it your own way!" "Danny Agin, how you talk! Have it my own way, indeed! It isn't my way, it's just facts!" Danny looked bored. "Well, anyway, it's all in the future, so why are we arguin' now? You'll be falling in love and probably falling out again with half a dozen lads before you're eighteen, and by the time you're twenty you'll probably be happily married to some one you've never yet laid eyes on. That's how it goes. And in that case, you'll have long since forgotten all about poor old Jarge Riley." "Is that so?" Rosie spoke rather coldly, not to say sarcastically. However, she did not dispute Danny's word. If that was his opinion, he was, of course, welcome to it. By the same token, Rosie claimed a like privilege for herself. The way she pressed her lips together told very plainly that her opinion differed somewhat from Danny's. Presently Danny opened on another subject. "Now about Jarge Riley: If you ask me advice, Rosie, I think you had better write him a letter. It would be a bad thing to have him come down here not knowin' about Ellen." Rosie's face changed. "But, Danny, it would be an awful hard letter to write and, besides, it isn't my business." "That's so," Danny agreed. "Perhaps now you'd better not meddle. When I suggested it, it was only because I was thinkin' that you and Jarge were such good friends that you'd be wantin' to spare him a little. But, after all, he's a man, so he might as well come down and find things out for himself. It'll be an awful shock, but no matter. Besides, maybe Ellen'll write him. In fact, I'm sure she will." "Ellen!" Rosie snorted scornfully. "Ellen never yet has done anything she hasn't wanted to do and I don't see her beginning now!" "We've all got to begin some time," Danny remarked. Rosie pointed her finger impressively. "Danny Agin, I know Ellen O'Brien Long better than you do and, when I say she'll never write a line to Jarge, I guess I know what I'm talking about." "I'm sure you do," Danny murmured meekly. "If you say she won't, she won't. I wouldn't question your word for a hundred dollars. If you tell me that Jarge is not to get a letter, then it's settled. He won't get a letter." Danny sighed. "Poor Jarge! I do feel sorry for him! It'll be an awful shock to him!" Danny sighed again. "But, of course, every one has to take a few shocks in this life. Ah, me!" Rosie sighed, too. "If I was to write him, Danny, what would I say?" Danny wagged his head. "It'd be a pretty hard letter and, as you say yourself, why should you?" "I know it would be hard," Rosie agreed, "but, if I wanted to write it, I guess it wouldn't be too hard for me. Only I'm not quite sure what to say." Danny squinted his little eyes thoughtfully. "Well, Rosie, if I was writing such a letter, to begin with I'd tell me bad news as quickly as I could and have it over with. Then, if it was some one I was real fond of, I'd tell him what I thought of him. It don't hurt any one to be told he has a friend or two. Then I'd fill in with all the family news and talk I could, so's he wouldn't feel lonely. At first he wouldn't have eyes for anything but the bad news, but, after while, he'd begin to take comfort from the rest of the letter and, if it was written with lots of love and feelin', I'm thinkin' there'd come a time when he'd be readin' that part over and over and over again, I dunno how many times, and takin' a little more comfort from it each time." Rosie stood up a little breathlessly. "Good-bye, Danny. I must hurry home. I've got something to do." "Don't be runnin' off," Danny begged. "Besides, I'm not done yet with the letter. As I was sayin', I wouldn't try to finish it in one sitting. I'd write at it as much as I could every day and in a week's time it'd be a good big letter." "But, Danny, Thanksgiving's not more than three weeks off!" "Three weeks, do you say? That's bad. The poor lad ought to be given two weeks' notice at least. So if any one was to write him, they'd better begin at once. They'd have to write every day for a week pretty steadily." "Is that all, Danny?" "It's all I think of just now. If you was to sit awhile longer, Rosie, maybe something more would come to me." "I don't believe I better, Danny. I'm awful busy. I must get home." "But you'll stop awhile tomorrow, darlint, won't you? Promise me you will." Rosie thought a moment. "It's this way, Danny: I'm a little behind in school and I've got to catch up. And, besides that, I'll be very busy for a week on something else. I don't believe I'll have time to stop tomorrow but, if I have, I will. Good-bye." Rosie started off, then turned back a little shyly. She put her arm about old Danny's neck and kissed him on the cheek. "Danny, you're awful good to me. And do you know, Danny, after Jarge and Geraldine and Janet I think I love you best of all!" Danny chuckled. "Well, I suppose fourth ch'ice is better than no ch'ice at all!" CHAPTER XLII THE ROSIE MORROW For a whole week Rosie worked away at her letter. She followed Danny's advice and added new pages each day. As a result her manuscript grew in bulk with startling rapidity. She had to buy a big envelope for it and then spend a large part of a week's wages on postage stamps. Here is what she wrote: DEAR GEORGE, How are you and how is your mother and how is your father? Tell your mother that Geraldine is growing so fast that she would hardly know her. George, I've got some bad news for you. Only it isn't as bad as it sounds, for I know it will be all right in the end. George, Ellen's got married. He's a feather salesman. He wears sporty clothes. He's twenty-six years old. That makes him seven years older than Ellen. He's a good-looker. Him and Ellen are just the same kind. They both like to dress and to gad around. George, I know you're going to feel awful bad about this at first, but listen, George, it would have been an awful thing to plant Ellen out on a farm. She would have hated it. She would have been unhappy and that would have made you unhappy. And I don't think Ellen and your mother would have liked each other either and they would have to live together and then where would you be? George, don't you see, you're a farmer and you ought to pick out the kind of girl that likes farm life and that knows how to work. George, Ellen just loves the city where she can go to the theatre and dances and things and she never would like the country. Don't you see, George? I don't mean that Ellen was right to get married without telling you. She ought to have told you. I know that. But, George, I think she was a little bit scared of you. Really and truly, George, I don't think she would ever have got engaged to you if that Hawes man hadn't insulted her. Then afterwards, George, she didn't know how to get away from you. But she wanted to, honest she did. George, I'm awful sorry to be the one to tell you this. But I thought I better because it wouldn't be fair to have you come down on Thanksgiving without knowing. And I thought it would be better for you to hear it from me than from any one else. You and me, George, are awful good friends and I love you like I love Geraldine and I'd give anything not to have to tell you something that will hurt you and make you feel bad. Honest, George, I'm awful sorry. George, all your friends always ask for you. The other day Danny Agin asked about you. Danny's pretty well but he ain't very strong these days and me and Mrs. Agin are a little bit worried. I don't know what I'd do without Danny. Sometimes he thinks he's funny and then me and Mrs. Agin have to scold him, but I just love him and so does Mrs. Agin even when she pretends she don't. You know, George, you can't help it because really and truly he's always so kind and gentle. And he gives awful good advice when you're worried about something. I always stand up for Danny. I told him once that he is my fourth best friend. I put you first, George, and then Geraldine, and then Janet. And, George, do you know about Janet? Dave McFadden has never once fell off the water wagon! What do you know about that? Mrs. McFadden got home from the hospital just after you left. She's real weak and she'll probably never be able to work again. She just sits around and complains and what do you think? Dave waits on her like she was a baby and don't say a word. Miss Harris from the Settlement House explained about it to Janet and me. She said that time that Dave was laid up with a broken leg and Mrs. McFadden began working out and Dave saw how easy it was for him to get along without supporting Mrs. McFadden and Janet that he lost the sense of family responsibility. And Miss Harris says it just took a thing like this to wake him up. And Miss Harris says it was Mrs. McFadden's big mistake to take Dave's place ever because lots of men are just that way when they see their wives and mothers can earn money by working out they just let them and Miss Harris says a woman has enough to do at home and taking care of her children. I'm sure my mother has, don't you think so, George? The McFaddens are real comfortable now because all Dave's money comes home. They're going to move out of that horrible tenement next week. They've rented a little four-room house in the next block to us. Janet ain't very good friends with her father. She hardly ever talks to him and he hardly ever talks to her. She says how can she when she looks at her mother. But she says now she'll keep on at school. She thought she'd have to go to work. You know Janet's just crazy about school. She wants to go through High School and be a teacher. I want to go through High School, too, but I don't want to be a teacher. I think a girl ought to go through High School, don't you, George? because if she ever has any children of her own she wouldn't want them to grow up and think their mother was an ignorant old thing. And, besides, if she hasn't got a good education herself, how can she teach her children? And really and truly, George, you know a good mother has to be a teacher. Did you ever think of that before? George, I don't suppose I'll ever marry. But if I was to marry, do you know the kind of man I'd pick out? I'd take a farmer every time! I just love the country, George, and I just love the kind of work a farmer's wife has to do. You ask your mother if I don't. There wasn't a thing that Mrs. Riley did last summer that she didn't teach me, and she told me herself I was awful quick about learning. My, my, George, did you ever think how fast time flies? Here I'm thirteen now and it won't be hardly any time before I'm eighteen. When I'm eighteen I'll be grown up and getting ready to graduate from High School. Will you promise me to come down and see the graduation? I'd rather have you come than any one else in the world. Let's see how old you'll be then? You'll be twenty-four. That's not so awful old. Maybe you won't even be married. Lots of men nowadays don't get married until they're thirty. But I think you ought to get married by the time you're twenty-five. And you ought to get a wife that would love your mother and would be willing to take some of the work off her shoulders. That's why I say to you that you ought to pick out a girl that loves the country and isn't afraid of work. And you ought to take a girl that's gone through High School, too, because it's a mistake for a man to marry an ignorant woman that he'd be ashamed of. George, I can't tell you how much I miss you. I miss you every day. We always had such good times together, didn't we? Do you remember all the times you took me to the movies and for street-car rides and things like that? I remember every one of them. And whenever I was bothered about anything you were always so kind to me. Other people are kind to me, too. Danny Agin is. I love Danny Agin, too, but I love you first. George, I don't think I could get on without you if I didn't have Geraldine. Seems like I just got to have some one to love. When I get real lonely for you, I take Geraldine and give her a good scrubbing and then dress her up and take her out for a walk. George, I don't know when I'll see you again, but listen here, George, I want you to remember one thing. It won't make any difference how long it is because I'll love you just the same. And, George, I love your mother, too, and she told me that she loved me. Will you tell her that I hope she's well and that I'll never forget how kind she was to me and Geraldine last summer. And I hope your father's well, too. Terry says to say Hello to you. And he says, how's farming? Jackie's getting awful big and he's real smart in school. He always gets a hundred in problems. Ma and dad are well and I told you all about Janet. So that's all now. With love, Yours truly, ROSIE O'BRIEN. "_THE CHEERIEST, HAPPIEST BOOKS_" By JULIE M. LIPPMANN Martha By-the-Day Thirteenth printing. $1.00 net. The story of a big, kindly Irish char-woman, a marvel of physical strength and shrewd humor, who takes under her wing a well-born but friendless girl whom she finds alone and helpless in New York. "No sweeter humor has been written into a book."--_Hartford Courant._ "Cheeriest, most warm-hearted and humorous character since Mrs. Wiggs."--_Living Age._ "Half an hour with 'Martha' puts one on better terms with the world."--_Washington_ (D. C.) _Star._ Making Over Martha Fifth printing. $1.20 net. This story follows "Martha" and her family to the country, where she again finds a love affair on her hands. 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"Depicts youthful human nature as one who knows and loves it. Her 'Phoebe and Ernest' studies are deservedly popular, and now, in 'Janey,' this clever writer has accomplished an equally charming portrait."--_Chicago Record-Herald._ WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S NOVELS "WHY ALL THIS POPULARITY?" asks E. V. LUCAS, writing in the _Outlook_ of De Morgan's Novels. He answers: De Morgan is "almost the perfect example of the humorist; certainly the completest since Lamb.... Humor, however, is not all.... In the De Morgan world it is hard to find an unattractive figure.... The charm of the young women, all brave and humorous and gay, and all trailing clouds of glory from the fairyland from which they have just come." JOSEPH VANCE The story of a great sacrifice and a life-long love. 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A thirty-two page illustrated leaflet about Mr. De Morgan, with complete reviews of his first four books, sent on request. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Transcriber's Note: Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as they appear in the original publication. Changes have been made as follows: Page 175 on one side the gate _changed to_ on one side of the gate Page 190 Good for Jarge! _changed to_ Good for Jarge!" Page 227 had happened Janet _changed to_ had happened to Janet In the advertisements Louisa Olcott _changed to_ Louisa Alcott 
27925	----	THE ART OF DISAPPEARING _By_ John Talbot Smith _AUTHOR:_ "SARANAC" "HIS HONOR THE MAYOR," "A WOMAN OF CULTURE," "SOLITARY ISLAND," "TRAINING OF A PRIEST," ETC., ETC. NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO: BENZIGER BROTHERS PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE. COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY JOHN TALBOT SMITH _All Rights Reserved_ CONTENTS. DISAPPEARANCE. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Holy Oils 1 II. The Night at the Tavern 7 III. The Abysses of Pain 16 IV. The Road to Nothingness 25 V. The Door is Closed 33 AMONG THE EXILES. VI. Another Man's Shoes 40 VII. The Dillon Clan 55 VIII. The Wearin' o' the Green 68 IX. The Villa at Coney Island 77 X. The Humors of Election 87 XI. An Endicott Heir 100 THE GREEN AGAINST THE RED. XII. The Hate of Hannibal 107 XIII. Anne Dillon's Felicity 119 XIV. Aboard the "Arrow" 128 XV. The Invasion of Ireland 137 XVI. Castle Moyna 147 XVII. The Ambassador 158 AN ESCAPED NUN. XVIII. Judy Visits the Pope 170 XIX. La Belle Colette 177 XX. The Escaped Nun 190 XXI. An Anxious Night 199 XXII. The End of a Melodrama 208 XXIII. The First Blow 218 XXIV. Anne Makes History 227 XXV. The Cathedral 236 XXVI. The Fall of Livingstone 248 THE TEST OF DISAPPEARANCE. XXVII. A Problem of Disappearance 258 XXVIII. A First Test 266 XXIX. The Nerve of Anne 274 XXX. Under the Eyes of Hate 283 XXXI. The Heart of Honora 296 XXXII. The Pauline Privilege 304 XXXIII. Love is Blind 312 XXXIV. A Harpy at the Feast 320 XXXV. Sonia Consults Livingstone 327 XXXVI. Arthur's Appeal 335 XXXVII. The End of Mischief 344 XXXVIII. A Tale Well Told 351 XXXIX. Three Scenes 360 DISAPPEARANCE. THE ART OF DISAPPEARING. CHAPTER I. THE HOLY OILS. Horace Endicott once believed that life began for him the day he married Sonia Westfield. The ten months spent with the young wife were of a hue so roseate as to render discussion of the point foolish. His youth had been a happy one, of the roystering, innocent kind: noisy with yachting, baseball, and a moderate quantity of college beer, but clean, as if his mother had supervised it; yet he had never really lived in his twenty-five years, until the blessed experience of a long honeymoon and a little housekeeping with Sonia had woven into his life the light of sun and moon and stars together. However, as he admitted long afterwards, his mistake was as terrible as convincing. Life began for him that day he sat in the railway carriage across the aisle from distinguished Monsignor O'Donnell, prelate of the Pope's household, doctor in theology, and vicar-general of the New York diocese. The train being on its way to Boston, and the journey dull, Horace whiled away a slow hour watching the Monsignor, and wondering what motives govern the activity of the priests of Rome. The priest was a handsome man of fifty, dark-haired, of an ascetic pallor, but undoubtedly practical, as his quick and business-like movements testified. His dark eyes were of fine color and expression, and his manners showed the gentleman. "Some years ago," thought Horace, "I would have studied his person for indications of hoofs and horns--so strangely was I brought up. He is just a poor fellow like myself--it is as great a mistake to make these men demi-gods as to make them demi-devils--and he denies himself a wife as a Prohibitionist denies himself a drink. He goes through his mummeries as honestly as a parson through his sermons or a dervish through his dances--it's all one, and we must allow for it in the make-up of human nature. One man has his parson, another his priest, a third his dervish--and I have Sonia." This satisfactory conclusion he dwelt upon lovingly, unconscious that the Monsignor was now observing him in turn. "A fine boy," the priest thought, "with _man_ written all over him. Honest face, virtuous expression, daring too, loving-hearted, lovable, clever, I'm sure, and his life has been too easy to develop any marked character. Too young to have been in the war, but you may be sure he wanted to go, and his mother had to exercise her authority to keep him at home. He has been enjoying me for an hour.... I'm as pleasant as a puzzle to him ... he preferred to read me rather than Dickens, and I gather from his expression that he has solved me. By this time I am rated in his mind as an impostor. Oh, the children of the Mayflower, how hard for them to see anything in life except through the portholes of that ship." With a sigh the priest returned to his book, and the two gentlemen, having had their fill of speculation, forgot each other directly and forever. At this point the accident occurred. The slow train ran into a train ahead, which should have been farther on at that moment. All the passengers rose up suddenly, without any ceremony, quite speechless, and flew up the car like sparrows. Then the car turned on its left side, and Horace rolled into the outstretched arms and elevated legs of Monsignor O'Donnell. He was kicked and embraced at the same moment, receiving these attentions in speechless awe, as he could not recall who was to blame for the introduction and the attitude. For a moment he reasoned that they had become the object of most outrageous ridicule from the other passengers; for these latter had suddenly set up a shouting and screeching very scandalous. Horace wondered if the priest would help him to resent this storm of insult, and he raised himself off the Monsignor's face, and removed the rest of his person from the Monsignor's body, in order the more politely to invite him to the battle. Then he discovered the state of things in general. The overthrown car was at a stand-still. That no one was hurt seemed happily clear from the vigorous yells of everybody, and the fine scramble through the car-windows. The priest got up leisurely and felt himself. Next he seized his satchel eagerly. "Now it was more than an accident that I brought the holy oils along," said he to Horace. "I was vexed to find them where they shouldn't be, yet see how soon I find use for them. Someone must be badly hurt in this disaster, and of course it'll be one of my own." "I hope," said the other politely, "that I did you no harm in falling on you. I could not very well help it." "Fortune was kinder to you than if the train rolled over the other way. Don't mention it, my son. I'll forgive you, if you will find me the way out, and learn if any have been injured." The window was too small for a man of the Monsignor's girth, but through the rear door the two crawled out comfortably, Monsignor dragging the satchel and murmuring cheerfully: "How lucky! the holy oils!" It was just sundown, and the wrecked train lay in a meadow, with a pretty stream running by, whose placid ripplings mocked the tumult of the mortals examining their injuries in the field. Yet no one had been seriously injured. Bruises and cuts were plentiful, some fainted from shock, but each was able to do for himself, not so much as a bone having been broken. For a few minutes the Monsignor rejoiced that he would have no use for what he called the holy oils. Then a trainman came running, white and broken-tongued, crying out: "There was a priest on the train--who has seen him?" It turned out that the fireman had been caught in the wrecked locomotive, and crushed to death. "And it's a priest he's cryin' for, sir," groaned the trainman, as he came up to the Monsignor. The dying man lay in the shade of some trees beside the stream, and a lovely woman had his head in her lap, and wept silently while the poor boy gasped every now and then "mother" and "the priest." She wiped the death-dew from his face, from which the soot had been washed with water from the stream, and moistened his lips with a cordial. He was a youth, of the kind that should not die too early, so vigorous was his young body, so manly and true his dear face; but it was only a matter of ten minutes stay beside the little stream for Tim Hurley. The group about him made way for Monsignor, who sank on his knees beside him, and held up the boy's face to the fading light. "The priest is here, Tim," he said gently, and Endicott saw the receding life rush back with joy into the agonized features. With something like a laugh he raised his inert hands, and seized the hands of the priest, which he covered with kisses. "I shall die happy, thanks be to God," he said weakly; "and, father, don't forget to tell my mother. It's her last consolation, poor dear." "And I have the holy oils, Tim," said Monsignor softly. Another rush of light to the darkening face! "Tell her that, too, father dear," said Tim. "With my own lips," answered Monsignor. The bystanders moved away a little distance, and the lady resigned her place, while Tim made his last confession. Endicott stood and wondered at the sight; the priest holding the boy's head with his left arm, close to his bosom and Tim grasping lovingly the hand of his friend, while he whispered in little gasps his sins and his repentance; briefly, for time was pressing. Then Monsignor called Horace and bade him support the lad's head; and also the lovely lady and gave her directions "for his mother's sake." She was woman and mother both, no doubt, by the way she served another woman's son in his fatal distress. The men brought her water from the stream. With her own hands she bared his feet, bathed and wiped them, washed his hands, and cried tenderly all the time. Horace shuddered as he dried the boy's sweating forehead, and felt the chill of that death which had never yet come near him. He saw now what the priest meant by the holy oils. Out of his satchel Monsignor took a golden cylinder, unscrewed the top, dipped his thumb in what appeared to be an oily substance, and applied it to Tim's eyes, to his ears, his nose, his mouth, the palms of his hands, and the soles of his feet, distinctly repeating certain Latin invocations as he worked. Then he read for some time from a little book, and finished by wiping his fingers in cotton and returning all to the satchel again. There was a look of supreme satisfaction on his face. "You are all right now, Tim," he said cheerfully. "All right, father," repeated the lad faintly, "and don't forget to tell mother everything, and say I died happy, praising God, and that she won't be long after me. And let Harry Cutler"--the engineer came forward and knelt by his side--"tell her everything. She knew how he liked me and a word from him was more----" His voice faded away. "I'll tell her," murmured the engineer brokenly, and slipped away in unbearable distress. The priest looked closer into Tim's face. "He's going fast," he said, "and I'll ask you all to kneel and say amen to the last prayers for the boy." The crowd knelt by the stream in profound silence, and the voice of the priest rose like splendid music, touching, sad, yet to Horace unutterably pathetic and grand. "Go forth, O Christian soul," the Monsignor read, "in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who was poured forth upon thee; in the name of the Angels and Archangels; in the name of the Thrones and Dominations; in the name of the Principalities and Powers; in the name of the Cherubim and Seraphim; in the name of the Patriarchs and Prophets; in the name of the holy Apostles and Evangelists; in the name of the holy Martyrs and Confessors; in the name of the holy Monks and Hermits; in the name of the holy Virgins and of all the Saints of God; may thy place be this day in peace, and thy abode in holy Sion. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." Then came a pause and the heavy sigh of the dying one shook all hearts. Endicott did not dare to look down at the mournful face of the fireman, for a terror of death had come upon him, that he should be holding the head of one condemned to the last penalty of nature; at the same moment he could not help thinking that a king might not have been more nobly sent forth on his journey to judgment than humble Tim Hurley. Monsignor took another look at the lad's face, then closed his book, and took off the purple ribbon which had hung about his neck. "It's over. The man's dead," he announced to the silent crowd. There was a general stir, and a movement to get a closer look at the quiet body lying on the grass. Endicott laid the head down and rose to his feet. The woman who had ministered to the dying so sweetly tied up his chin and covered his face, murmuring with tears, "His poor mother." "Ah, there is the heart to be pitied," sighed the Monsignor. "This heart aches no more, but the mother's will ache and not die for many a year perhaps." Endicott heard his voice break, and looking saw that the tears were falling from his eyes, he wiping them away in the same matter-of-fact fashion which had marked his ministrations to the unfortunate fireman. "Death is terrible only to those who love," he added, and the words sent a pang into the heart of Horace. It had never occurred to him that death was love's most dreaded enemy,--that Sonia might die while love was young. CHAPTER II. THE NIGHT AT THE TAVERN. The travelers of the wrecked train spent the night at the nearest village, whither all went on foot before darkness came on. Monsignor took possession of Horace, also of the affections of the tavern-keeper, and of the best things which belonged to that yokel and his hostelry. It was prosperity in the midst of disaster that he and Endicott should have a room on the first floor, and find themselves comfortable in ten minutes after their arrival. By the time they had enjoyed a refreshing meal, and discussed the accident to the roots, Horace Endicott felt that his soul was at ease with the Monsignor, who at no time had displayed any other feeling than might arise from a long acquaintance with the young man. One would have pronounced the two men, as they settled down into the comfort of their room, two collegians who had traveled much together. "It was an excellent thing that I brought the holy oils along," Monsignor said, as if Endicott had no other interest in life than this particular form of excellence. To a polite inquiry he explained the history, nature, and use of the mysterious oils. "I can understand how a ceremony of that kind would soothe the last hours of Tim Hurley," said the pagan Endicott, "but I am curious, if you will pardon me, to know if the holy oils would have a similar effect on Monsignor O'Donnell." "The same old supposition," chuckled the priest, "that there is one law for the crowd, the mob, the diggers, and another for the illuminati. Now, let me tell you, Mr. Endicott, that with all his faith Tim Hurley could not have welcomed priest and oils more than I shall when I need them. The anguish of death is very bitter, which you are too young to know, and it is a blessed thing to have a sovereign ready for that anguish in the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. The Holy Oils are the thing which Macbeth desired when he demanded so bitterly of the physician. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow? That is my conviction. So if you are near when I am going to judgment, come in and see how emphatically I shall demand the holy oils, even before a priest be willing to bring them." "It seems strange," Horace commented, "very strange. I cannot get at your point of view at all." Then he went on to ask questions rapidly, and Monsignor had to explain the meaning of his title, a hundred things connected with his priesthood, and to answer many objections to his explanations; until the night had worn on to bedtime, and the crowd of guests began to depart from the verandahs. It was all so interesting to Horace. In the priest and his conversation he had caught a glimpse of a new world both strange and fascinating. Curious too was the profound indifference of men like himself--college men--to its existence. It did not seem possible that the Roman idea could grow into proportions under the bilious eyes of the omniscient Saxon, and not a soul be aware of its growth! However, Monsignor was a pleasant man, a true college lad, an interesting talker, with music in his voice, and a sincere eye. He was not a controversialist, but a critic, and he did not seem to mind when Horace went off into a dream of Sonia, and asked questions far from the subject. Long afterwards Endicott recalled a peculiarity of this night, which escaped his notice at the time: his sensitiveness to every detail of their surroundings, to the colors of the room, to the shades of meaning in the words of the Monsignor, to his tricks of speech and tone, quite unusual in Horace's habit. Sonia complained that he never could tell her anything clear or significant of places he had seen. The room which had been secured from the landlord was the parlor of the tavern; long and low, colonial in the very smell of the tapestry carpet, with doors and mantel that made one think of John Adams and General Washington. The walls had a certain terror in them, a kind of suspense, as when a jury sits petrified while their foreman announces a verdict of death. A long line of portraits in oil produced this impression. The faces of ancient neighbors, of the Adams, the Endicotts, the Bradburys, severe Puritans, for whom the name of priest meant a momentary stoppage of the heart, looked coldly and precisely straight out from their frames on the Monsignor. Horace fancied that they exchanged glances. What fun it would have been to see the entire party move out from their frames, and put the wearer of the Roman purple to shameful flight. "I'll bet they don't let you sleep to-night," he said to the priest, who laughed at the conceit. A cricket came out on the window-sill, chirped at Horace's elbow, and fled at the sound of near voices. Through the thick foliage of the chestnut trees outside he could see stars at times that made him think of Sonia's eyes. The wind shook the branches gently, and made little moans and whispers in the corners, as if the ghosts of the portraits were discussing the sacrilege of the Monsignor's presence. Horace thought at the time his nerves were strung tight by the incidents of the day, and his interest deeply stirred by the conversation of the priest; since hitherto he had always thought of wind as a thing that blew disagreeably except at sea, noisy insects as public nuisances to be caught and slain, and family portraits the last praiseworthy attempt of ancestors to disturb the sleep of their remote heirs. When he had somewhat tired of asking his companion questions, it occurred to him that the Monsignor had asked none in return, and might waive his right to this privilege of good-fellowship. He mentioned the matter. "Thank you," said Monsignor, "but I know all about you. See now if I give you a good account of your life and descent." He was promenading the room before the picture-jury frowning on him. He looked at them a moment solemnly. "Indeed I know what I would have to expect from you," he said to the portraits, "if you were to sit upon my case to-night. Your descendant here is more merciful." They laughed together. "Well," to Horace, "you asked me many questions, because you know nothing about me or mine, although we have been on the soil this half century. The statesmen of your blood disdain me. This scorn is in the air of New England, and is part of your marrow. Here is an example of it. Once on a vacation I spent a few weeks in the house of a Puritan lady, who learned of my faith and blood only a week before my leaving. She had been very kind, and when I bade her good-by I assured her that I would remember her in my prayers. 'You needn't mind,' she replied, 'my own prayers are much better than any you can say.' This temper explains why you have to ask questions about me, and I have none to ask concerning you." Horace had to admit the contention. "Life began for you near the river that turned the wheel of the old sawmill. Ah, that river! It was the beginning of history, of time, of life! It came from the beyond and it went over the rim of the wonderful horizon, singing and laughing like a child. How often you dreamed of following it to its end, where you were certain a glory, felt only in your dreams, filled the land. The fishes only could do that, for they had no feet to be tired by walking. Your first mystery was that wheel which the water turned: a monstrous thing, a giant, ugly and deadly, whose first movement sent you off in terror. How could it be that the gentle, smiling, yielding water, which took any shape from a baby hand, had power to speed that giant! The time came when you bathed in the stream, mastered it, in spite of the terror which it gave you one day when it swallowed the life of a comrade. Do you remember this?" Monsignor held up his hand with two fingers stretched out beyond the others, and gave a gentle war-whoop. Horace laughed. "I suppose every boy in the country invited his chums to a swim that way," he said. "Just so. The sign language was universal. The old school on the village green succeeded the river and the mill in your history. Miss Primby taught it, dear old soul, gentler than a mother even, and you laughed at her curls, and her funny ways, which hid from child's eyes a noble heart. It was she who bound up your black eye after the battle with Bouncer, the bully, whose face and reputation you wrecked in the same hour for his oppression of the most helpless boy in school. That feat made you the leader of the secret society which met at awful hours in the deserted shanty just below the sawmill. What a creep went up and down your spine as in the chill of the evening the boys came stealing out of the undergrowth one by one, and greeted their chief with the password, known by every parent in town. The stars looked down upon you as they must have looked upon all the great conspirators of time since the world began. You felt that the life of the government hung by a thread, when such desperate characters took the risk of conspiring against it. What a day was July the Fourth--what wretches were the British--what a hero was General Washington! What land was like this country of the West? Its form on the globe was a promontory while all others lay very low on the plane." "In that spirit you went to Harvard and ran full against some great questions of life. The war was on, and your father was at the front. Only your age, your father's orders, and your mother's need held you back from the fight. You were your mother's son. It is written all over you,--and me. And your father loved you doubly that you were his son and owned her nature. He fell in battle, and she was slain by a crueller foe, the grief that, seizing us, will not let us live even for those we love. God rest the faithful dead, give peace to their souls, and complete their love and their labors! My father and mother are living yet--the sweetest of blessings at my time of life. You grieved as youth grieves, but life had its compensations. You are a married man, and you love as your parents loved, with the fire and tenderness of both. Happy man! Fortunate woman!" He stopped before the nearest portrait, and stared at it. "Well, what do you think of my acquaintance with your history?" he asked. "Very clever, Monsignor," answered Horace impressed. "It is like necromancy, though I see how the trick is done." "Precisely. It is my own story. It is the story of thousands of boys whom your set will not regard as American boys, unless when they are looking for fighting material. Everything and anything that could carry a gun in the recent war was American with a vengeance. The Boston Coriolanus kissed such an one and swore that he must have come over in the Mayflower. But enough--I am not holding a brief for anybody. The description I have just given you of your life and mine is also----" "One moment--pardon me," said Horace, "how did you know I was married?" "And happy?" said Monsignor. "Well, that was easy. When we were talking to-night at tea about the hanging of Howard Tims, what disgust in your tone when you cried out, there should be no pity for the wretch that kills his wife." "And there should not." "Of course. But I knew Tims. I met him for an hour, and I did not feel like hanging him." "You are a celibate." "Therefore unprejudiced. But he was condemned by a jury of unmarried men. A clever fellow he is, and yet he made some curious blunders in his attempt to escape the other night. I would like to have helped him. I have a theory of disappearing from the sight of men, which would help the desperate much. This Tims was a lad of your own appearance, disposition, history even. I had a feeling that he ought not to die. What a pity we are too wise to yield always to our feelings." "But about your theory, Monsignor?" said Horace. "A theory of disappearing?" "A few nights ago some friends of mine were discussing the possible methods by which such a man as Tims might make his escape sure. You know that the influences at his command were great, and tremendous efforts were made to spare his family the disgrace of the gallows. The officers of the law were quite determined that he should not escape. If he had escaped, the pursuit would have been relentless and able. He would have been caught. And as I maintained, simply because he would never think of using his slight acquaintance with me. You smile at that. So did my friends. I have been reading up the escapes of famous criminals--it is quite a literature. I learned therein one thing: that they were all caught again because they could not give up connection with their past: with the people, the scenes, the habits to which they had been accustomed. So they left a little path from their hiding-place to the past, and the clever detectives always found it. Thinking over this matter I discovered that there is an art of disappearing, a real art, which many have used to advantage. The principle by which this art may be formulated is simple: the person disappearing must cut himself off from his past as completely as if he had been secretly drowned in mid-ocean." "They all seem to do that," said Horace, "and yet they are caught as easily as rats with traps and cheese." "I see you think this art means running away to Brazil in a wig and blue spectacles, as they do in a play. Let me show some of the consequences a poor devil takes upon himself who follows the art like an artist. He must escape, not only from his pursuers--that's easy--but from his friends--not so easy--and chiefly from himself--there's the rub. He who flies from the relentless pursuit of the law must practically die. He must change his country, never meet friend or relative again, get a new language, a new trade, a new place in society; in fact a new past, peopled with parents and relatives, a new habit of body and life, a new appearance; the color of hair, eyes, skin must be changed; and he must eat and drink, walk, sleep, think, and speak differently. He must become another man almost as if he had changed his nature for another's." "I understand," said Horace, interested; "but the theory is impossible. No one could do that even if they desired." "Tims would have desired it and accomplished it had I thought of suggesting it to him. Here is what would have happened. He escapes from the prison, which is easy enough, and comes straight to me. We never met but once. Therefore not a man in the world would have thought of looking for him at my house. A week later he is transferred to the house of Judy Trainor, who has been expecting a sick son from California, a boy who disappeared ten years previous and is probably dead. I arrange her expectation, and the neighbors are invited to rejoice with her over the finding of her son. He spends a month or two in the house recovering from his illness, and when he appears in public he knows as much about the past of Tommy Trainor as Tommy ever knew. He is welcomed by his old friends. They recognize him from his resemblance to his father, old Micky Trainor. He slips into his position comfortably, and in five years the whole neighborhood would go to court and swear Tims into a lunatic asylum if he ever tried to resume his own personality." The two men set up a shout at this sound conclusion. "After all, there are consequences as dark as the gallows," said Horace. "For instance," said the priest with a wave of his hand, "sleeping under the eyes of these painted ghosts." "Poor Tim Hurley," said Horace, "little he thought he'd be a ghost to-night." "He's not to be regretted," replied the other, "except for the heart that suffers by his absence. He is with God. Death is the one moment of our career when we throw ourselves absolutely into the arms of God." The two were getting ready to slip between the sheets of the pompous colonial bed, when Horace began to laugh softly to himself. He kept up the chuckling until they were lying side by side in the darkened room. "I am sure, I have a share in that chuckle," said Monsignor. "Shades of my ancestors," murmured Horace, "forgive this insult to your pious memory--that I should occupy one bed with an idolatrous priest." "They have got over all that. In eternity there is no bigotry. But what a pity that two fine boys like us should be kept apart by that awful spirit which prompts men to hate one another for the love of God, and to lie like slaves for the pure love of truth." "I am cured," said Horace, placing his hand on the Monsignor's arm. "I shall never again overlook the human in a man. Let me thank you, Monsignor, for this opening of my eyes. I shall never forget it. This night has been Arabian in its enchantment. I don't like the idea of to-morrow." "No more do I. Life is tiresome in a way. For me it is an everlasting job of beating the air with truth, because others beat it with lies. We can't help but rejoice when the time comes to breathe the eternal airs, where nothing but truth can live." Horace sighed, and fell asleep thinking of Sonia rather than the delights of eternity. The priest slept as soundly. No protest against this charming and manly companionship stirred the silence of the room. The ghosts of the portraits did not disturb the bold cricket of the window-sill. He chirped proudly, pausing now and then to catch the breathing of the sleepers, and to interpret their unconscious movings. The trained and spiritual ear might have caught the faint sighs and velvet footsteps of long-departed souls, or interpreted them out of the sighing and whispering of the leaves outside the window, and the tread of nervous mice in the fireplace. The dawn came and lighted up the faces of the men, faces rising out of the heavy dark like a revelation of another world; the veil of melancholy, which Sleep borrows from its brother Death, resting on the head which Sonia loved, and deepening the shadows on the serious countenance of the priest. They lay there like brothers of the same womb, and one might fancy the great mother Eve stealing in between the two lights of dawn and day to kiss and bless her just-united children. When they were parting after breakfast, Monsignor said gayly. "If at any time you wish to disappear, command me." "Thanks, but I would rather you had to do the act, that I might see you carry out your theory. Where do you go now?" "To tell Tim Hurley's mother he's dead, and thus break her heart," he replied sadly, "and then to mend it by telling her how like a saint he died." "Add to that," said Horace, with a sudden rush of tears, which for his life he could not explain, "the comfort of a sure support from me for the rest of her life." They clasped hands with feeling, and their eyes expressed the same thought and resolution to meet again. CHAPTER III. THE ABYSSES OF PAIN. Horace Endicott, though not a youth of deep sentiment, had capacities in that direction. Life so far had been chiefly of the surface for him. Happiness had hidden the deep and dangerous meanings of things. He was a child yet in his unconcern for the future, and the child, alone of mortals, enjoys a foretaste of immortality, in his belief that happiness is everlasting. The shadow of death clouding the pinched face of Tim Hurley was his first glimpse of the real. He had not seen his father and mother die. The thought that followed, Sonia's beloved face lying under that shadow, had terrified him. It was the uplifting of the veil of illusion that enwraps childhood. The thought stayed his foot that night as he turned into the avenue leading up to his own house, and he paused to consider this new dread. The old colonial house greeted his eyes, solemn and sweet in the moonlight, with a few lights of human comfort in its windows. He had never thought so before, but now it came straight to his heart that this was his home, his old friend, steadfast and unchanging, which had welcomed him into the world, and had never changed its look to him, never closed its doors against him; all that remained of the dear, but almost forgotten past; the beautiful stage from which all the ancient actors had made irrevocable exit. What beauty had graced it for a century back! What honors its children had brought to it from councils of state and of war! What true human worth had sanctified it! Last and the least of the splendid throng, he felt his own unworthiness sadly; but he was young yet, only a boy, and he said to himself that Sonia had crowned the glory of the old house with her beauty, her innocence, her devoted love. In making her its mistress he had not wronged its former rulers, nor broken the traditions of beauty. He stood a long time looking at the old place, wondering at the charm which it had so suddenly flung upon him. Then he shook off the new and weird feeling and flew to embrace his Sonia of the starry eyes. Alas, poor boy! He stood for a moment on the threshold. He could hear the faint voices of servants, the shutting of distant doors, and a hundred sweet sounds within; and around him lay the calmness of the night, with a drowsy moon overhead lolling on lazy clouds. Nothing warned him that he stood on the threshold of pain. No instinct hinted at the horror within. The house that sheltered his holy mother and received her last breath, that covered for a few hours the body of his heroic father, the house of so many honorable memories, had become the habitation of sinners, whose shame was to be everlasting. He stole in on tiptoe, with love stirring his young pulses. For thirty minutes there was no break in the silence. Then he came out as he entered, on tiptoe, and no one knew that he had seen with his own eyes into the deeps of hell. For thirty minutes, that seemed to have the power of as many centuries, he had looked on sin, shame, disgrace, with what seemed to be the eyes of God; so did the horror shock eye and heart, yet leave him sight and life to look again and again. In that time he tasted with his own lips the bitterness which makes the most wretched death sweeter by comparison than bread and honey to the hungry. At the end of it, when he stole away a madman, he felt within his own soul the cracking and upheaving of some immensity, and saw or felt the opening of abysses from which rose fearful exhalations of crime, shapes of corruption, things without shape that provoked to rage, pain and madness. He was not without cunning, since he closed the doors softly, stole away in the shadows of the house and the avenue, and escaped to a distant wood unseen. From his withered face all feeling except horror had faded. Once deep in the wood, he fell under the trees like an epileptic, turned on his face, and dug the earth with hands and feet and face in convulsions of pain. The frightened wood-life, sleeping or waking, fled from the great creature in its agony. In the darkness he seemed some monster, which in dreadful silence, writhed and fought down a slow road to death. He was hardly conscious of his own behavior, poor innocent, crushed by the sins of others. He lived, and every moment was a dying. He gasped as with the last breath, yet each breath came back with new torture. He shivered to the root of nature, like one struck fatally, and the convulsion revived life and thought and horror. After long hours a dreadful sleep bound his senses, and he lay still, face downward, arms outstretched, breathing like a child, a pitiful sight. Death must indeed be a binding thing, that father and mother did not leave the grave to soothe and strengthen their wretched son. He lay there on his face till dawn. The crowing of the cock, which once warned Peter of his shame, waked him. He turned over, stared at the branches above, sat up puzzled, and showed his face to the dim light. His arms gathered in his knees, and he made an effort to recollect himself. But no one would have mistaken that sorrowful, questioning face; it was Adam looking toward the lost Eden with his arms about the dead body of his son. A desolate and unconscious face, wretched and vacant as a lone shore strewn with wreckage. He struggled to his feet after a time, wondering at his weakness. The effort roused and steadied him, his mind cleared as he walked to the edge of the wood and stared at the old house, which now in the mist of morning had the fixed, still, reproachful look of the dead. As if a spirit had leaped upon him, memory brought back his personality and his grief together. Men told afterwards, early laborers in the fields, of a cry from the Endicott woods, so strange and woful that their hearts beat fast and their frightened ears strained for its repetition. Sonia heard it in her adulterous dreams. It was not repeated. The very horror of it terrified the man who uttered it. He stood by a tree trembling, for a double terror fell upon him, terror of her no less than of himself. He staggered through the woods, and sought far-away places in the hills, where none might see him. When the sun drifted in through dark boughs he cursed it, the emblem of joy. The singing of the birds sounded to his ears like the shriek of madmen. When he could think and reason somewhat, he called up the vision of Sonia to wonder over it. The childlike eyes, the beautiful, lovable face, the modest glance, the innocent blushes--had nature such masks for her vilest offspring? The mere animal senses should have recognized at the first this deadly thing, as animals recognize their foes; and he had lived with the viper, believing her the peer of his spotless mother. She was his wife! Even at that moment the passionate love of yesterday stirred in his veins and moved him to deeper horror. He doubted that he was Horace Endicott. Every one knew that boy to be the sanest of young men, husband to the loveliest of women, a happy, careless, wealthy fellow, almost beside himself with the joy of life. The madman who ran about the desolate wilds uttering strange and terrible things, who was wrapped within and without in torments of flame, who refrained from crime and death only because vengeance would thus be cheaply satisfied, could hardly be the boy of yesterday. Was sin such a magician that in a day it could evolve out of merry Horace and innocent Sonia two such wretches? The wretch Sonia had proved her capacity for evil; the wretch Horace felt his capabilities for crime and rejoiced in them. He must live to punish. A sudden fear came upon him that his grief and rage might bring death or madness, and leave him incapable of vengeance. _They_ would wish nothing better. No, he must live, and think rationally, and not give way. But the mind worked on in spite of the will. It sat like Penelope over the loom, weaving terrible fancies in blood and flame! the days that had been, the days that were passing; the scenes of love and marriage; the old house and its latest sinners; and the days that were to come, crimson-dyed, shameful; the dreadful loom worked as if by enchantment, scene following scene, the web endless, and the woven stuff flying into the sky like smoke from a flying engine, darkening all the blue. The days and nights passed while he wandered about in the open air. Hunger assailed him, distances wearied him, he did not sleep; but these hardships rather cooled the inward fire, and did not harm him. One day he came to a pool, clear as a spring to its sandy bottom, embowered in trees, except on one side where the sun shone. He took off his clothes and plunged in. The waters closed over him sweet and cool as the embrace of death. The loom ceased its working a while, and the thought rose up, is vengeance worth the trouble? He sank to the sandy bed, and oh, it was restful! A grip on a root held him there, and a song of his boyhood soothed his ears until it died away in heavenly music, far off, enticing, welcoming him to happier shores. He had found all at once forgetfulness and happiness, and he would remain. Then his grip loosened, and he came to the surface, swimming mechanically about, debating with himself another descent into the enchanted region beneath. Some happy change had touched him. He felt the velvety waters grasp his body and rejoiced in it; the little waves which he sent to the reedy bank made him smile with their huddling and back-rushing and laughing; he held up his arm as he swam to see the sun flash through the drops of water from his hand. What a sweet bed of death! No hard-eyed nurses and physicians with their array of bottles, no hypocrites snuffling sympathy while dreaming of fat legacies, no pious mummeries, only the innocent things direct from the hand of God, unstained by human sin and training, trees and bushes and flowers, the tender living things about, the voiceless and passionless music of lonely nature, the hearty sun, and the maternal embrace of the sweet waters. It was dying as the wild animals die, without ceremony; as the flowers die, a gentle weakening of the stem, a rush of perfume to the soft earth, and the caressing winds to do the rest. Yes, down to the bottom again! Who would have looked for so pleasant a door to death in that lonely and lovely pool! He slipped his foot under the root so that it would hold him if he struggled, put his arms under his head like one about to sleep, and yielded his senses to that far-off, divine music, enticing, welcoming.... It ceased, but not until he had forgotten all his sorrows and was speeding toward death. Sorrow rescued sorrow, and gave him back to the torturers. The old woman who passed by the pond that morning gathering flowers, and smiling as if she felt the delight of a child--the smile of a child on the mask of grief-worn age--saw his clothes and then his body floating upward helpless from the bottom. She seized his arm, and pulled him up on the low bank. He gasped a little and was able to thank her. "If I hadn't come along just then," she said placidly, as she covered him decently with his coat, "you'd have been drownded. Took a cramp, I reckon?" "All I remember is taking a swim and sinking, mother. I am very much obliged to you, and can get along very well, I think." "If you want any help, just say so," she answered. "When you get dressed my house is a mile up the road, and the road is a mile from here. I can give you a cup of tea or warm milk, and welcome." "I'll go after a while," said he, "and then I'll be able to thank you still better for a very great service, mother." She smiled at the affectionate title, and went her way. He became weak all at once, and for a while could not dress. The long bath had soothed his mind, and now distressed nature could make her wants known. Hunger, soreness of body, drowsiness, attacked him together. He found it pleasant to lie there and look at the sun, and feel too happy to curse it as before. The loom had done working, Penelope was asleep. The door seemed forever shut on the woman known as Sonia, who had tormented him long ago. The dead should trouble no one living. He was utterly weary, sore in every spot, crushed by torment as poor Tim Hurley had been broken by his engine. This recollection, and his lying beside the pool as Tim lay beside the running river, recalled the Monsignor and the holy oils. As he fell asleep the fancy struck him that his need at that moment was the holy oils; some balm for sick eyes and ears, for tired hands and soiled feet, like his mother's kisses long ago, that would soothe the aching, and steal from the limbs into the heart afterwards; a heavenly dew that would aid sleep in restoring the stiffened sinews and distracted nerves. The old woman came back to him later, and found him in his sleep of exhaustion. Like a mother, she pillowed his head, covered him with his clothes, and her own shawl, and made sure that his rest would be safe and comfortable. She studied the noble young head, and smoothed it tenderly. The pitiful face, a terrible face for those who could read, so bitterly had grief written age on the curved dimpled surface of youth, stirred some convulsion in her, for she threw up her arms in despair as she walked away homeward, and wild sobs choked her for minutes. He sat on the kitchen porch of her poor home that afternoon, quite free from pain. A wonderful relief had come to him. He seemed lifted into an upper region of peace like one just returned from infernal levels. The golden air tasted like old wine. The scenes about him were marvelous to his eyes. His own personality redeemed from recent horror became a delightful thing. "It is terrible to suffer," he said to Martha Willis. "In the last five days I have suffered." "As all men must suffer," said the woman resignedly. "Then you have suffered too? How did you ever get over it, mother?" She did not tell him, after a look at his face, that some sorrows are indelible. "We have to get over everything, son. And it is lucky we can do it, without running into an insane asylum." "Were your troubles very great, mother?" "Lots of people about say I deserved them, so they couldn't be very great," she answered, and he laughed at her queer way of putting it, then checked himself. "Sorrow is sorrow to him who suffers," he said, "no matter what people say about it. And I would not wish a beast to endure what I did. I would help the poor devil who suffered, no matter how much he deserved his pain." "Only those who suffered feel that way. I am alone now, but this house was crowded thirty years ago. There was Lucy, and John, and Oliver, and Henry, and my husband, and we were very happy." "And they are all gone?" "I shall never see them again here. Lucy died when I needed her most, and Henry, such a fine boy, followed her before he was twenty. They are safe in the churchyard, and that makes me happy, for they are mine still, they will always be mine. John was like his father, and both were drunkards. They beat me in turn, and I was glad when they took to tramping. They're tramping yet, as I hear, but I haven't seen them in years. And Oliver, the cleverest boy in the school, and very headstrong, he went to Boston, and from there he went to jail for cheating a bank, and in jail he died. It was best for him and for me. I took him back to lie beside his brother and sister, though some said it was a shame. But what can a mother do? Her children are hers no matter if they turn out wrong." "And you lived through it all, mother?" said the listener with his face working. "Once I thought different, but now I know it was for the best," she answered calmly, and chiefly for his benefit. "I had my days and years even, when I thought some other woman had taken Martha Willis' place, a poor miserable creature, more like the dead than the live. But I often thought, since my own self came back, how lucky it was Lucy had her mother to close her eyes, and the same for poor Henry. And Oliver, he was pretty miserable dying in jail, but I never forgot what he said to me. 'Mother,' he said, 'it's like dying at home to have you with me here.' He was very proud, and it cut him that the cleverest of the family should die in jail. And he said, 'you'll put me beside the others, and take care of the grave, and not be ashamed of me, mother.' It was the money he left me, that kept this house and me ever since. Now just think of the way he'd have died if I had not been about to see to him. And I suppose the two tramps'll come marching in some day to die, or to be buried, and they'll be lucky to find me living. But anyway I've arranged it with the minister to see to them, and give them a place with their own, if I'm not here to look after them." "And you lived through it all!" repeated Horace in wonder. Her story gave him hope. He must put off thinking until grief had loosened its grip on his nerves, and the old self had come uppermost. He was determined that the old self should return, as Martha had proved it could return. He enjoyed its presence at that very moment, though with a dread of its impending departure. The old woman readily accepted him as a boarder for a few days or longer, and treated him like a son. He slept that night in a bed, the bed of Oliver and Henry,--their portraits hanging over the bureau--and slept as deeply as a wearied child. A blessed sleep was followed by a bitter waking. Something gripped him the moment he rose and looked out at the summer sun; a cruel hand seized his breast, and weighted it with vague pain. Deep sighs shook him, and the loom of Penelope began its dreadful weaving of bloody visions, while the restful pool in the woods tempted him to its cool rest. For a moment he gave way to the thought that all had ended for him on earth. Then he braced himself for his fight, went down to chat cheerfully with Martha, and ate her tasty breakfast with relish. He saw that his manner pleased the simple heart, the strong, heroic mother, the guardian of so many graves. CHAPTER IV. THE ROAD TO NOTHINGNESS. "Whatever trouble you're a-sufferin' from," said Martha, as he was going, "I can tell you one sure thing about it. Time changes it so's you wouldn't think it was the same trouble a year afterwards. Now, if you wait, and have patience, and don't do anything one way or another for a month, you'll be real glad you waited. Once I would have been glad to die the minute after sorrow came. Now I'm glad I didn't die, for I've learned to see things different somehow." His heart was being gnawed at that moment by horrible pain, but he caught the force of her words and took his resolve against the seduction of the pool, that lay now in his vision, as beautiful as a window of heaven. "I've come to the same thought," he answered. "I'll not do anything for a month anyway, unless it's something very wise and good. But I'm going now to think the matter over by myself, and I know that you have done me great service in helping me to look at my sorrows rightly." She smiled her thanks and watched him as he struck out for the hills two miles away. Often had her dear sons left the door for the same walk, and she had watched them with such love and pride. Oh, life, life! By the pool which tempted him so strongly Horace sat down to study the problem of his future. "You are one solution of it," he thought, as he smiled on its beautiful waters. "All others failing to please, you are here, sure, definite, soft as a bed, tender as Martha, lovely as a dream. There will be no vulgar outcry when you untie the knot of woe. And because I am sure of you, and have such confidence in you, I can sit here and defy your present charm." He felt indeed that he was strong again in spite of pain. As one in darkness, longing for the light, might see afar the faint glint of the dawn, he had caught a glimpse of hope in the peace which came to him in Martha's cottage. It could come again. In its light he knew that he could look upon the past with calmness, and feel no terror even at the name of Sonia. He would encourage its return. It was necessary for him to fix the present status of the woman whom he had once called his wife. He could reason from that point logically. She had never been his wife except by the forms of law. Her treason had begun with his love, and her uncleanness was part of her nature; so much had he learned on that fearful night which revealed her to him. His wealth and his name were the prizes which made her traitor to lover and husband. What folly is there in man, or what enchantment in beauty, or what madness in love, that he could have taken to his arms the thing that hated him and hated goodness? Should not love, the best of God's gifts, be wisdom too? Or do men ever really love the object of passion? Oh, he had loved her! Not a doubt but that he loved her still! Sonia, Sonia! The pool wrinkled at the sound of her name, as he shrieked it in anguish across the water. There was nothing in the world so beautiful as she. Her figure rose before him more entrancing than this fairy lake with its ever-changing loveliness. Its shadows under the trees were in her eyes, its luster under the sun was the luster of her body! Oh, there was nothing of beauty in it, perfume, grace, color, its singing and murmuring on the shore, that this perfect sinner had not in her body! He steadied himself with the thought of old Martha. A dread caught him that the image of this foul beauty would haunt him thus forever, and be able at any time to drive joy out of him and madness into him. Some part of him clung to her, and wove a thousand fancies about her beauty. When the pain of his desolation gripped him the result was invariable: she rose out of the mist of pain, not like a fury, or the harpy she was, but beautiful as the morning, far above him, with glorious eyes fixed on the heavens. He thought it rather the vision of his lost happiness than of her. If she were present then, he would have held her under the water with his hands squeezing her throat, and so doubly killed her. But what a terror if this vision were to become permanent, and he should never know ease or the joy of living again! And for a thing so worthless and so foul! He steadied himself again with the thought of old Martha, and fixed his mind on the first fact, the starting-point of his reasoning. She had never been his wife. Her own lips had uttered that sentence. The law had bound them, and the law protected her now. But she enjoyed a stronger guard even: his name. It menaced him in each solution of the problem of his future life. He could do little without smirching that honored name. He might take his own life. But that would be to punish the innocent and to reward the guilty. His wealth would become the gilding of adultery, and her joy would become perfect in his death. Imagine him asleep in the grave, while she laughed over his ashes, crying to herself: always a fool. He might kill her, or him, or both; a short punishment for a long treason, and then the trail of viperous blood over the name of Endicott forever; not blood but slime; not a tragedy, but the killing of rats in a cellar; and perhaps a place for himself in a padded cell, legally mad. He might desert her, go away without explanation, and never see her again. That would be putting the burden of shame on his own shoulders, in exile and a branded man for her sake. She would still have his name, his income, her lover, her place in society, her right to explain his absence at her pleasure. He could ruin her ruined life by exposing her. Then would come the divorce court, the publicity, the leer of the mob, the pointed fingers of scorn. Impossible! Why could he not leave the matter untouched and keep up appearances before the world? Least endurable of any scheme. He knew that he could never meet her again without killing her, unless this problem was settled. When he had determined on what he should do, he might get courage to look on her face once more. He wore the day out in vain thought, varying the dulness by stamping about the pond, by swimming across it, by studying its pleasant features. There was magic in it. When he stripped off his clothes and flung them on the bank part of his grief went with them. When he plunged into the lovable water, not only did grief leave him, but Horace Endicott returned; that Horace who once swam a boy in such lakes, and went hilarious with the wild joy of living. He dashed about the pool in a gay frenzy, revelling in the sensation that tragedy had no part in his life, that sorrow and shame had not yet once come nigh him. The shore and the donning of his garments were like clouds pouring themselves out on the sunlit earth. He could hardly bear it, and hung about listlessly before he could persuade himself to dress. "Surely you are my one friend," he said to the quiet water. "Is it that you feel certain of giving me my last sleep, my last kiss as you steal the breath from me? None would do it gentlier. You give me release from pain, you alone. And you promise everlasting release. I will remember you if it comes to that." The pool looked up to him out of deep evening shadows cast upon it by the woods. There was something human in the variety of its expression. As if a chained soul, silenced forever as to speech, condemned to a garment of water, struggled to reach a human heart by infinite shades of beauty, and endless variations of sound. The thought woke his pity, and he looked down at the water as one looks into the face of a suffering friend. Here were two castaways, cut off from the highway of life, imprisoned in circumstances as firmly as if behind prison grills. For him there was hope, for the pool nothing. At this moment its calm face pictured profound sadness. The black shadow of the woods lay deep on the west bank, but its remotest edge showed a brilliant green, where the sun lingered on the top fringes of the foliage. Along the east bank, among the reeds, the sun showed crimson, and all the tender colors of the water plants faded in a glare of blood. This savage brilliance would soon give way to the gray mist of twilight, and then to the darkness of night. Even this poor dumb beauty reflected in its helplessly beautiful way the tragedies of mankind. As before with the evening came peace and release from pain. Again he sat on Martha's porch after supper, and thought nothing so beautiful as life; and as he listened to further details of her life-story, imparted with the wise intention of binding him to life more securely, he felt that all was not yet lost for him. In his little room while the night was still young, he opened an old volume at the play of Hamlet and read the story through. Surely he had never read this play before? He recalled vaguely that it had been studied in college, that some great actor had played it for him, that he had believed it a wonderful thing; memories now less real than dreams. For in reading it this night he entered into the very soul of Hamlet, lived his tortures over again, wept and raved in dumb show with the wretched prince, and flung himself and his book to the floor in grief at the pitiful ending. He was the Hamlet; youth with a problem of the horrible; called to solve that which shook the brains of statesmen; dying in utter failure with that most pathetic dread of a wounded name. Oh, good Horatio, what a wounded name. Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. For a little he had thought there could not be in the world such suffering as his; how clear now that his peculiar sorrow was strange to no hour of unfortunate time; an old story, innocence and virtue--God knew he had no pride in his own virtue--preyed upon by cunning vice. He read Hamlet again. Oh, what depth of anguish! What a portrayal of grief and madness! Horace shook with the sobs that nearly choked him. Like the sleek murderer and his plump queen, the two creatures hatefulest to him lived their meanly prosperous lives on his bounty. What conscience flamed so dimly in the Danish prince that he could hesitate before his opportunity? Long ago, had Horace been in his place, the guilty pair would have paid in blood for their lust and ambition. Hamlet would not kill himself because the Almighty had "fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter;" or because in the sleep of death might rise strange dreams; he would not kill his uncle because he caught him praying; and he was content with preaching to his mother. Conscience! God! The two words had not reached his heart or mind once since that awful night. No scruples of the Lord Hamlet obscured his view or delayed his action. He had been brought up to a vague respect of religious things. He had even wondered where his father and mother might now inhabit, as one might wonder of the sea-drowned where their bodies might be floating; but no nearer than this had heaven come to him. He had never felt any special influence of religion in his life. In what circumstances had Hamlet been brought up, that religious feeling should have so serious an effect upon him? Doubtless the prince had been a Catholic like his recent acquaintance the Monsignor. Ah, he had forgotten that interesting man, who had told him much worth remembrance. In particular his last words ... what were those last words? The effort to remember gave him mixed dreams of Hamlet and the Monsignor that night. In the morning he went off to the pool with the book of Hamlet and the echo of those important but forgotten words. The lonely water seemed to welcome him when he emerged from the path through the woods; the underbrush rustled, living things scurried away into bush and wave, the weeds on the far bank set up a rustling, and little waves leaped on the shore. He smiled as if getting a friend's morning salute, and began to talk aloud. "I have brought you another unfortunate," he said, "and I am going to read his thoughts to you." He opened the book and very tenderly, as if reciting a funeral service, murmured the words of the soliloquy on suicide. How solemnly sounded in that solitude the fateful phrase "but that the dread of something after death!" That was indeed the rub! After death there can be anything; and were it little and slender as a spider's web, it might be too much for the sleep that is supposed to know no waking and no dreams. After all, he thought, how much are men alike; for the quandary of Hamlet is mine; I know not what to do. He laid aside the book and gave himself to idle watching of the pool. A bird dipped his wing into it midway, and set a circle of wavelets tripping to the shore. One by one they died among the sedges, and there was no trace of them more. "That is the thing for which I am looking," he said; "disappearance without consequences ... just to fade away as if into water or air ... to separate on the spot into original elements ... to be no more what I am, either to myself or others ... then no inquest, no search, no funeral, no tears ... nothing. And after such a death, perhaps, something might renew the personality in conditions so far from these, so different, that _now_ and _then_ would never come into contact." He sighed. What a disappearance that would be. And at that moment the words of the Monsignor came back to him: "_If at any time you wish to disappear, command me._" A thrill leaped through his dead veins, as of one rising from the dead, but he lay motionless observing the pool. Before him passed the details of that night at the tavern; the portraits, the chirping cricket, the vines at the window, the strange theory of the priest about disappearing. He reviewed that theory as a judge might review a case, so he thought; but in fact his mind was swinging at headlong speed over the possibilities, and his pulses were bounding. It was possible, even in this world, to disappear more thoroughly behind the veil of life than under the veil of death. If one only had the will! He rose brimming with exultant joy. An intoxication seized him that lifted him at once over all his sorrow, and placed him almost in that very spot wherein he stood ten days ago; gay, debonair, light of heart as a boy, untouched by grief or the dread of grief. It was a divine madness. He threw off his clothes, admired his shapely body for a moment as he poised on the bank, and flung himself in headlong with a shout. He felt as he slipped through the water but he did not utter the thought, that if this intoxication did not last he would never leave the pool. It endured and increased. He swam about like a demented fish. On that far shore where the reeds grew he paddled through the mud and thrust his head among the sedges kissing them with laughter. In another place he reached up to the high bank and pulled out a bunch of ferns which he carried about with him. He roamed about the sandy bottom in one corner, and thrust his nose and his hands into it, laying his cheek on the smooth surface. He swallowed mouthfuls of the cool water, and felt that he tasted joy for the first time. He tired his body with divings, racings, leapings, and shouting. When he leaped ashore and flung himself in the shade of the wood, the intoxication had increased. So, not for nothing had he met the priest. That encounter, the delay in the journey, the stay in the village, the peculiar character of the man, his odd theory, were like elements of an antidote, compounded to meet that venom which the vicious had injected into his life. Wonderful! He looked at the open book beside him, and then rose to his knees, with the water dripping from his limbs. In a loud voice he made a profession of faith. "I believe in God forever." CHAPTER V. THE DOOR IS CLOSED. Even Martha was startled by the change in him. She had hoped and prayed for it, but had not looked for it so soon, and did not expect blithe spirits after such despair. In deep joy he poured out his soul to her all the evening, but never mentioned deeds or names in his tragedy. Martha hardly thought of them. She knew from the first that this man's soul had been nearly wrecked by some shocking deviltry, and that the best medicine for him was complete forgetfulness. Horace felt as a life-prisoner, suddenly set free from the loathsomest dungeon in Turkestan, might feel on greeting again the day and life's sweet activities. The first thought which surged in upon him was the glory of that life which had been his up to the moment when sorrow engulfed him. "My God," he cried to Martha, "is it possible that men can hold such a treasure, and prize it as lightly as I did once." He had thought almost nothing of it, had been glad to get rid of each period as it passed, and of many persons and scenes connected with childhood, youth, and manhood. Now they looked to him, these despised years, persons, and scenes, like jewels set in fine gold, priceless jewels of human love fixed forever in the adamant of God's memory. They were his no more. Happily God would not forget them, but would treasure them, and reward time and place and human love according to their deserving. He was full of scorn for himself, who could take and enjoy so much of happiness with no thought of its value, and no other acknowledgment than the formal and hasty word of thanks, as each soul laid its offering of love and service at his feet. "You're no worse than the rest of us," said Martha, "I didn't know, and very few of my friends ever seemed to know, what good things they had till they lost 'em. It may be that God would not have us put too high a price on 'em at first, fearin' we'd get selfish about 'em. Then when they're gone, it turns our thoughts more to heaven, which is the only place where we have any chance to get 'em back." When he had got over his self-scorn, the abyss of pain and horror out of which God had lifted him--this was his belief--showed itself mighty and terrible to his normal vision. Never would he have believed that a man could fall so far and so awfully, had he not been in those dark depths and mounted to the sun again. He had read of such pits as exaggerations. He had seen sorrow and always thought its expression too fantastic for reality. Looking down now into the noisome tunnel of his own tragedy, he could only wonder that its wretched walls and exit did not carry the red current of blood mingled with its own foul streaks. Nothing that he had done in his grief expressed more than a syllable of the pain he had endured. The only full voice to such grief would have been the wrecking of the world. Strange that he could now look calmly into this abyss, without the temptation to go mad. But its very ghastliness turned his thought into another channel. The woman who had led him into the pit, what of her? Free from the tyranny of her beauty, he saw her with all her loveliness, merely the witch of the abyss, the flower and fruit of that loathsome depth, in whose bosom filthy things took their natural shape of horror, and put on beauty only to entrap the innocent of the upper world. Yes, he was entirely freed from her. Her name sounded to his ears like a name from hell, but it brought no paleness to his cheeks, no shock to his nerves, no stirring of his pulses. The loom of Penelope was broken, and forever, he hoped. "I am free," he said to Martha the next morning, after he had tested himself in various ways. "The one devil that remained with me is gone, and I feel sure she will never trouble me again." "It is good to be free," said Martha, "if the thing is evil. I am free from all that worried me most. I am free from the old fear of death. But sometimes I get sad thinking how little we need those we thought we could not do without." "How true that sounds, mother. There is a pity in it. We are not necessary to one another, though we think so. Every one we love dies, we lose all things as time goes on, and when we come to old age nothing remains of the past; but just the same we enjoy what we have, and forget what we had. There is one thing necessary, and that is true life." "And where can we get that?" said Martha. "Only from God, I think," he replied. She smiled her satisfaction with his thought, and he went off to the pool for the last time, singing in his heart with joy. He would have raised his voice too, but, feeling himself in the presence of a stupendous thing, he refrained out of reverence. If suffering Hamlet had only encountered the idea of disappearing, his whole life would have been set right in a twinkling of the eye. The Dane had an inkling of the solution of his problem when in anguish he cried out, Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! But he had not followed his thought to its natural consequence, seeing only death at the end of reasoning. Horace saw disappearance, and he had now to consider the idea of complete disappearance with all its effects upon him and others. What would be the effect upon himself? He would vanish into thin air as far as others were concerned. Whatever of his past the present held would turn into ashes. There would be no further connection with it. An impassable void would be created across which neither he nor those he loved could go. He went over in his mind what he had to give up, and trembled before his chum and his father's sister, two souls that loved him. Death would not be more terrible. For him, no; but for them? Death would leave them his last word, look, sigh, his ashes, his resting-place; disappearance would rob them of all knowledge, and clothe his exit with everlasting sadness. There was no help for it. Many souls more loving suffered a similar anguish, and survived it. It astonished and even appalled him, if anything could now appal him, that only two out of the group of his close friends and near acquaintances seemed near enough in affection and intimacy to mourn his loss. Not one of twenty others would lose a dinner or a fraction of appetite because he had vanished so pitifully. How rarer than diamonds is that jewel of friendship! He had thought once that a hundred friends would have wept bitter tears over his sorrow; of the number there were left only two! It was easy for him to leave the old life, now become so hateful; but there was terror in putting on the new, to which he must ally himself as if born into it, like a tree uprooted from its native soil and planted far from its congenial elements in the secret, dark, sympathetic places of the earth. He must cut himself off more thoroughly than by death. The disappearance must be eternal, unless death removed Sonia Westfield before circumstances made return practically impossible; his experience of life showed that disagreeable people rarely die while the microbe of disagreeableness thrives in them. What would be the effect of his disappearance on Sonia and her lover? The question brought a smile to his wan face. She had married his name and his money, and would lose both advantages. He would take his property into exile to the last penny. His name without his income would be a burden to her. His disappearance would cast upon her a reproach, unspoken, unseen, a mere mist enwrapping her fatally, but not to be dispelled. Her mouth would be shut tight; no chance for innuendoes, lest hint might add suspicion to mystery. She would be forced to observe the proprieties to the letter, and the law would not grant her a divorce for years. In time she would learn that her only income was the modest revenue from her own small estate; that he had taken all with him into darkness; and still she would not dare to tell the damaging fact to her friends. She would be forced to keep up appearances, to spend money in a vain search for him, or his wealth; suspecting much yet knowing nothing, miserably certain that he was living somewhere in luxury, and enjoying his vengeance. He no longer thought of vengeance. He did not desire it. The mills of the gods grind out vengeance enough to glut any appetite. By the mere exercise of his right to disappear he gave the gods many lashes with which to arm the furies against her. He was satisfied with being beyond her reach forever. Now that he knew just what to do, now that with his plan had come release from depression, now that he was himself again almost, he felt that he could meet Sonia Westfield and act the part of a busy husband without being tempted to strangle her. In her very presence he would put in motion the machinery which would strip her of luxury and himself of his present place in the world. The process took about two months. The first step was a visit to Monsignor O'Donnell, a single visit, and the first result was a single letter, promptly committed to the flames. Then he went home with a story of illness, of a business enterprise which had won his fancy, of necessary visits to the far west; which were all true, but not in the sense in which Sonia took these details. They not only explained his absence, but also excused the oddity of his present behavior. He hardly knew how he behaved with her. He did not act, nor lose self-confidence. He had no desire to harm her. He was simply indifferent, as if from sickness. As the circumstances fell in with her inclinations, though she could not help noticing his new habits and peculiarities, she made no protest and very little comment. He saw her rarely, and in time carried himself with a sardonic good humor as surprising to him as inexplicable to her. She seemed as far from him as if she had suddenly turned Eskimo. Once or twice a sense of loathing invaded him, a flame of hatred blazed up, soon suppressed. He was complete master of himself, and his reward was that he could be her judge, with the indifference of a dignitary of the law. The disposal of his property was accomplished with perfect secrecy, his wife consenting on the plea of a better investment. So the two months came to an end in peace, and he stood at last before that door which he himself had opened into the new future. Once closed no other hand but his could open it. A time might come when even to his hand the hinge would not respond. Two persons knew his secret in part, the Monsignor and a woman; but they knew nothing more than that he did not belong to them from the beginning, and more than that they would never know, if he carried out his plan of disappearance perfectly. Whatever the result, he felt now that the crisis of his life had come. At the last moment, however, doubts worried him about thus cutting himself off from his past so utterly, and adopting another personality. Some deep-lying repugnance stirred him against the double process. Would it not be better to live under his own name in remote countries, and thus be ready, if fate allowed, to return home at the proper time? Perhaps. In that case he must be prepared for her pursuit, her letters, her chicanery, which he could not bear. Her safety and his own, if the stain of blood was to be kept off the name of Endicott, demanded the absolute cessation of all relationship between them. Yet that did not contain the whole reason. Lurking somewhere in those dark depths of the soul, where the lead never penetrates, he found the thought of vengeance. After all he did wish to punish her and to see her punishment. He had thought to leave all to the gods, but feared the gods would not do all their duty. If they needed spurring, he would be near to provide new whips and fresher scorpions. He shook off hesitation when the last day of his old life came, and made his farewells with decision. A letter to his aunt and to his friend, bidding each find no wonder and no worry about him in the events of the next month, and lose no time in searching for him; a quiet talk with old Martha on her little verandah; a visit to the pool on a soft August night; and an evening spent alone in his father's house; these were his leave-takings. They would never find a place in his life again, and he would never dare to return to them; since the return of the criminal over the path by which he escaped into secrecy gave him into the hands of his pursuers. The old house had become the property of strangers. The offset to this grief was the fact that Sonia would never dishonor it again with her presence. Just now dabbling in her sins down by the summer sea, she was probably reading the letter which he had sent her about business in Wisconsin. Later a second letter would bear her the sentence of a living death. The upright judge had made her the executioner. What a long tragedy that would be! He thought of it as he wandered about the lovely rooms of his old home; what long days of doubt before certainty would come; what horror when bit by bit the scheme of his vengeance unfolded: what vain, bitter, furious struggling to find and devour him; and then the miserable ending when time had proved his disappearance absolute and perfect! At midnight, after a pilgrimage to every loved spot in the household shrine, he slipped away unseen and struck out on foot over the fields for a distant railway station. For two months he lived here and there in California, while his beard grew and his thoughts devoured him. Then one evening he stepped somewhat feebly from the train in New York, crawled into a cab, and drove to No. 127 Mulberry Street. The cabman helped him up the steps and handed him in the door to a brisk old woman, who must have been an actress in her day; for she gave a screech at the sight of him, and threw her arms about him crying out, so that the cabman heard, "Artie, alanna, back from the dead, back from the dead, acushla machree." Then the door closed, and Arthur Dillon was alone with his mother; Arthur Dillon who had run away to California ten years before, and died there, it was supposed; but he had not died, for behold him returned to his mother miraculously. She knew him in spite of the changes, in spite of thin face, wild eyes, and strong beard. The mother-love is not to be deceived by the disguise of time. So Anne Dillon hugged her Arthur with a fervor that surprised him, and wept copious tears; thinking more of the boy that might have come back to her than of this stranger. He lay in his lonely, unknown grave, and the caresses meant for him had been bought by another. RESURRECTION. CHAPTER VI. ANOTHER MAN'S SHOES. As he laid aside his outer garments, Horace felt the joy of the exhausted sailor, entering port after a dangerous voyage. He was in another man's shoes; would they fit him? He accepted the new house and the new mother with scarcely a comment. Mrs. Anne Dillon knew him only as a respectable young man of wealth, whom misfortune had driven into hiding. His name and his history she might never learn. So Monsignor had arranged it. In return for a mother's care and name she was to receive a handsome income. A slim and well-fashioned woman, dignified, severe of feature, her light hair and fair complexion took away ten from her fifty years; a brisk manner and a low voice matched her sharp blue eyes and calm face; her speech had a slight brogue; fate had ordained that an Endicott should be Irish in his new environment. As she flew about getting ready a little supper, he dozed in the rocker, thinking of that dear mother who had illumined his youth like a vision, beautiful, refined, ever delightful; then of old Martha, rough, plain, and sad, but with the spirit and wit of the true mother, to cherish the sorrowful. In love for the child these mothers were all alike. He felt at home, and admired the quickness and skill with which Anne Dillon took up her new office. He noted everything, even his own shifting emotions. This was one phase of the melancholy change in him: the man he had cast off rarely saw more than pleased him, but the new Arthur Dillon had an alert eye for trifles. "Son dear," said his mother, when they sat down to tea, "we'll have the evenin' to ourselves, because I didn't tell a soul what time you were comin', though of course they all knew it, for I couldn't keep back such good news; that after all of us thinkin' you dead, you should turn out to be alive an' well, thank God. So we can spend the evenin' decidin' jist what to do an' say to-morrow. The first thing in the mornin' Louis Everard will be over to see you. Since he heard of your comin', he's been jist wild, for he was your favorite; you taught him to swim, an' to play ball, an' to skate, an' carried him around with you, though he's six years younger than you. He's goin' to be a priest in time with the blessin' o' God. Then his mother an' sister, perhaps Sister Mary Magdalen, too; an' your uncle Dan Dillon, on your father's side, he's the only relative you have. My folks are all dead. He's a senator, an' a leader in Tammany Hall, an' he'll be proud of you. You were very fond of him, because he was a prize-fighter in his day, though I never thought much of that, an' was glad when he left the business for politics." "And how am I to know all these people, mother?" "You've come home sick," she said placidly, "an' you'll stay in bed for the next week, or a month if you like. As each one comes I'll let you know jist who they are. You needn't talk any more than you like, an' any mistakes will be excused, you've been away so long, an' come home so sick." They smiled frankly at each other, and after tea she showed him his room, a plain chamber with sacred pictures on the walls and a photograph of Arthur Dillon over the bureau. "Jist as you left it ten years ago," she said with a sob. "An' your picture as you looked a month before you went away." The portrait showed a good-looking and pugnacious boy of sixteen, dark-haired and large-eyed like himself; but the likeness between the new and the old Arthur was not striking; yet any one who wished or thought to find a resemblance might have succeeded. As to disposition, Horace Endicott would not have deserted his mother under any temptation. "What sort of a boy was--was I at that age, mother?" "The best in the world," she answered mildly but promptly, feeling the doubt in the question. "An' no one was able to understan' why you ran away as you did. I wonder now my heart didn't break over it. The neighbors jist adored you: the best dancer an' singer, the gayest boy in the parish, an' the Monsignor thought there was no other like you." "I have forgotten how to sing an' dance, mother. I think these accomplishments can be easily learned again. Does the Monsignor still hold his interest in me?" "More than ever, I think, but he's a quiet man that says little when he means a good deal." At nine o'clock an old woman came in with an evening paper, and gave a cry of joy at sight of him. Having been instructed between the opening of the outer door and the woman's appearance, Arthur took the old lady in his arms and kissed her. She was the servant of the house, more companion than servant, wrinkled like an autumn leaf that has felt the heat, but blithe and active. "So you knew me, Judy, in spite of the whiskers and the long absence?" "Knew you, is it?" cried Judy, laughing, and crying, and talking at once, in a way quite wonderful to one who had never witnessed this feat. "An' why shouldn't I know you? Didn't I hould ye in me own two arrums the night you were born? An' was there a day afther that I didn't have something to do wid ye? Oh, ye little spalpeen, to give us all the fright ye did, runnin' away to Californy. Now if ye had run away to Ireland, there'd be some sinse in it. Musha thin, but it was fond o' goold ye wor, an' ye hardly sixteen. I hope ye brought a pile of it back wid ye." She rattled on in her joy until weariness took them all at the same moment, and they withdrew to bed. He was awakened in the morning by a cautious whispering in the room outside his door. "Pon me sowl," Judy was saying angrily, "ye take it like anny ould Yankee. Ye're as dull as if 'twas his body on'y, an' not body an' sowl together, that kem home to ye. Jist like ould Mrs. Wilcox the night her son died, sittin' in her room, an' crowshayin' away, whin a dacint woman 'ud be howlin' wid sorra like a banshee." "To tell the truth," Anne replied, "I can't quite forgive him for the way he left me, an' it's so long since I saw him, Judy, an' he's so thin an' miserable lookin', that I feel as if he was only a fairy child." "Mother, you're talking too loud to your neighbors," he cried out then in a cheery and familiar voice, for he saw at once the necessity of removing the very natural constraint indicated by his mother's words; and there was a sudden cry from the women, Judy flying to the kitchen while Anne came to his door. "It's true the walls have ears," she said with a kindly smile. "But you and I, son, will have to make many's the explanation of that kind before you are well settled in your old home." He arose for breakfast with the satisfaction of having enjoyed a perfect sleep, and with a delightful interest in what the day had in store for him. Judy bantered and petted him. His mother carried him over difficult allusions in her speech. The sun looked in on him pleasantly, he took a sniff of air from a brickish garden, saw the brown walls of the cathedral not far away, and then went back to bed. A sudden and overpowering weakness came upon him which made the bed agreeable. Here he was to receive such friends as would call upon him that day. Anne Dillon looked somewhat anxious over the ordeal, and his own interest grew sharper each moment, until the street-door at last opened with decision, and his mother whispered quickly: "Louis Everard! Make much of him." She went out to check the brisk and excited student who wished to enter with a shout, warning him that the returned wanderer was a sick man. There was silence for a moment, and then the young fellow appeared in the doorway. "Will you have a fit if I come any nearer?" he said roguishly. In the soft, clear light from the window Arthur saw a slim, manly figure, a lovable face lighted by keen blue eyes, a white and frank forehead crowned by light hair, and an expression of face that won him on the instant. This was his chum, whom he had loved, and trained, and tyrannized over long ago. For the first time since his sorrow he felt the inrushing need of love's sympathy, and with tear-dimmed eyes he mutely held out his arms. Louis flew into the proffered embrace, and kissed him twice with the ardor of a boy. The affectionate touch of his lips quite unmanned Arthur, who was silent while the young fellow sat on the side of the bed with one arm about him, and began to ply him with questions. "Tell me first of all," he said, "how you had the heart to do it, to run away from so many that loved the ground you walked on. I cried my eyes out night after night ... and your poor mother ... and indeed all of us ... how could you do it? What had we done?" "Drop it," said Arthur. "At that time I could have done anything. It was pure thoughtlessness, regretted many a time since. I did it, and there's the end of it, except that I am suffering now and must suffer more for the folly." "One thing, remember," said Louis, "you must let them all see that your heart is in the right place. I'm not going to tell you all that was said about you. But you must let every one see that you are as good as when you left us." "That would be too little, dear heart. Any man that has been through my experiences and did not show himself ten times better than ever he was before, ought to stay in the desert." "That sounds like you," said Louis, gently pulling his beard. "Tell me, partner," said Arthur lightly, "would you recognize me with whiskers?" "Never. There is nothing about you that reminds me of that boy who ran away. Just think, it's ten years, and how we all change in ten years. But say, what adventures you must have had! I've got to hear the whole story, mind, from the first chapter to the last. You are to come over to the house two nights in a week, to the old room, you remember, and unfold the secrets of ten years. Haven't you had a lot of them?" "A car-load, and of every kind. In the mines and forests, on the desert, lost in the mountains, hunting and fishing and prospecting; not to mention love adventures of the tenderest sort. I feel pleasant to think of telling you my latest adventures in the old room, where I used to curl you up with fright----" "Over stories of witches and fairies," cried Louis, "when I would crawl up your back as we lay in bed, and shiver while I begged you to go on. And the room is just the same, for all the new things have the old pattern. I felt you would come back some day with a bag of real stories to be told in the same dear old place." "Real enough surely," said Arthur with a deep sigh, "and I hope they may not tire you in the telling. Mother ... tells me that you are going to be a priest. Is that true?" "As far as I can see now, yes. But one is never certain." "Then I hope you will be one of the Monsignor's stamp. That man is surely a man of God." "Not a doubt of it," said Louis, taking his hat to go. "One thing," said Arthur as he took his hand and detained him. He was hungry for loving intimacy with this fine lad, and stammered in his words. "We are to be the same ... brothers ... that we were long ago!" "That's for you to say, old man," replied Louis, who was pleased and even flattered, and petted Arthur's hands. "I always had to do as you said, and was glad to be your slave. I have been the faithful one all these years. It is your turn now." After that Arthur cared little who came to see him. He was no longer alone. This youth loved him with the love of fidelity and gratitude, to which he had no claim except by adoption from Mrs. Anne Dillon; but it warmed his heart and cheered his spirit so much that he did not discuss with himself the propriety of owning and enjoying it. He looked with delight on Louis' mother when she came later in the day, and welcomed him as a mother would a dear son. A nun accompanied her, whose costume gave him great surprise and some irritation. She was a frank-faced but homely woman, who wore her religious habit with distinction. Arthur felt as if he were in a chapel while she sat by him and studied his face. His mother did the talking for him, compared his features with the portrait on the wall, and recalled the mischievous pranks of his wild boyhood, indirectly giving him much information as to his former relationships with the visitors. Mrs. Everard had been fond of him, and Sister Mary Magdalen had prepared him for his first communion. This fact the nun emphasized by whispering to him as she was about to leave: "I hope you have not neglected your religious duties?" "Monsignor will tell you," he said with an amused smile. He found no great difficulty in dealing with the visitors that came and went during the first week. Thanks to his mother's tactful management no hitches occurred more serious than the real Arthur Dillon might have encountered after a long absence. The sick man learned very speedily how high his uncle stood in the city, for the last polite inquiry of each visitor was whether the Senator had called to welcome his nephew. In the narrow world of the Endicotts the average mind had not strength enough to conceive of a personality which embraced in itself a prize-fighter and a state senator. The terms were contradictory. True, Nero had been actor and gladiator, and the inference was just that an American might achieve equal distinction; but the Endicott mind refused to consider such an inference. Arthur Dillon no longer found anything absurd or impossible. The surprises of his new position charmed him. Three months earlier and the wildest libeller could not have accused him of an uncle lower in rank than a governor of the state. Sonorous names, senator and gladiator, brimful of the ferocity and dignity of old Rome! near as they had been in the days of Cæsar, one would have thought the march of civilization might have widened the interval. Here was a rogue's march indeed! Judy gave the Senator a remarkable character. "The Senator, is it?" said she when asked for an opinion. "Divil a finer man from here to himself! There isn't a sowl in the city that doesn't bless his name. He's a great man bekase he was born so. He began life with his two fishts, thumpin' other boys wid the gloves, as they call 'em. Thin he wint to the war, an' began fightin' wid powdher an' guns, so they med him a colonel. Thin he kem home an' wint fightin' the boss o' the town, so they med him a senator. It was all fightin' wid him, an' they say he's at it yet, though he luks so pleasant all the time, he must find it healthy. I don't suppose thim he's fightin' wid finds it as agreeable. Somewan must git the batin', ye know. There's jist the differ betune men. I've been usin' me fists all me life, beltin' the washboord, an' I'm nowhere yet. An' Tommy Kilbride the baker, he's been poundin' at the dough for thirty years, an' he's no better off than I am. But me noble Dan Dillon that began wid punchin' the heads of his neighbors, see where he is to-day. But he's worthy of it, an' I'd be the last to begrudge him his luck." In the Endicott circle the appearance of a senator as great as Sumner had not been an event to flutter the heart, though the honor was unquestioned; but never in his life had the young man felt a keener interest than in the visit of his new uncle. He came at last, a splendid figure, too ample in outline and too rich in color for the simple room. The first impression he made was that of the man. The powerful and subtle essence of the man breathed from him. His face and figure had that boldness of line and depth of color which rightly belong to the well-bred peasant. He was well dressed, and handsome, with eyes as soft and bright as a Spaniard's. Arthur was overcome with delight. In Louis he had found sympathy and love, and in the Senator he felt sure that he would find ideal strength and ideal manhood, things for the weak to lean upon. The young patrician seized his uncle's hand and pressed it hard between his own. At this affectionate greeting the Senator's voice failed him, and he had difficulty in keeping back his tears. "If your father were only here now, God rest his soul this day," he said. "How he loved you. Often an' often he said to me that his happiness would be complete if he lived to see you a man. He died, but I live to see it, an' to welcome you back to your own. The Dillons are dying out. You're the only one of our family with the family name. What's the use o' tellin' you how glad we are that Californy didn't swallow you up forever." Arthur thanked him fervently, and complimented him on his political honors. The Senator beamed with the delight of a man who finds the value of honors in the joy which they give his friends. "Yes, I've mounted, Artie, an' I came by everything I have honest. You'll not be ashamed of me, boy, when you see where I stand outside. But there's one thing about politics very hard, the enemy don't spare you. If you were to believe all that's said of me by opponents I'm afraid you wouldn't shake hands with me in public." "I suppose they bring up the prize-fighting," said Arthur. "You ought to have told them that no one need be ashamed to do what many a Roman emperor did." "Ah," cried the Senator, "there's where a man feels the loss of an education. I never knew the emperors did any ring business. What a sockdologer it would have been to compare myself with the Roman emperors." "Then you've done with fighting, uncle?" There was regret in his tone, for he felt the situation would have been improved if the Senator were still before the public as a gladiator. "I see you ain't lost none o' your old time deviltry, Artie," he replied good-naturedly. "I gave that up long ago, an' lots o' things with it. But givin' up has nothin' to do with politics, an' regular all my sins are retailed in the papers. But one thing they can never say: that I was a liar or a thief. An' they can't say that I ever broke my word, or broke faith with the people that elected me, or did anything that was not becoming in a senator. I respect that position an' the honor for all they're worth." "And they can never say," added Arthur, "that you were afraid of any man on earth, or that you ever hurt the helpless, or ever deserted a friend or a soul that was in need." The Senator flushed at the unexpected praise and the sincerity of the tone. He was anxious to justify himself even before this sinner, because his dead brother and his sister-in-law had been too severe on his former occupations to recognize the virtues which Arthur complimented. "Whatever I have been," said the Senator, pressing the hand which still held his, "I was never less than a square man." "That's easy to believe, uncle, and I'll willingly punch the head of the first man that denies it." "Same old spirit," said the delighted Senator. "Why, you little rogue, d'ye remember when you used to go round gettin' all the pictures o' me in me fightin' days, an' makin' your dear mother mad by threatenin' to go into the ring yourself? Why; you had your own fightin' gear, gloves an' clubs an' all that, an' you trained young Everard in the business, till his old ... his father put a head ... put a stop to it." "Fine boy, that Louis, but I never thought he'd turn to the Church." "He never had any thin' else in him," said the Senator earnestly. "It was born in him as fightin' an' general wildness was born in you an' me. Look into his face an' you'll see it. Fine? The boy hasn't his like in the city or the land. I'll back him for any sum--I'll stand to it that he'll be archbishop some day." "Which I'll never be," said Arthur with a grin. "Every man in his place, Artie. I've brought you yours, if you want to take it. How would politics in New York suit you?" "I'm ripe for anything with fun in it." "Then you won't find fault, Artie, if I ask how things stood with you--you see it's this way, Artie----" "Now, hold on, old man," said Arthur. "If you are going to get embarrassed in trying to do something for me, then I withdraw. Speak right out what you have to say, and leave me to make any reply that suits me." "Then, if you'll pardon me, did you leave things in Californy straight an' square, so that nothin' could be said about you in the papers as to your record?" "Straight as a die, uncle." "An' would you take the position of secretary to the chief an' so get acquainted with everything an' everybody?" "On the spot, and thank you, if you can wait till I am able to move about decently." "Then it's done, an' I'm the proudest man in the state to see another Dillon enterin'----" "The ring," said Arthur. "No, the arena of politics," corrected the Senator. "An' I can tell from your talk that you have education an' sand. In time we'll make you mayor of the town." When he was going after a most affectionate conversation with his nephew the Senator made a polite suggestion to Mrs. Dillon. "His friends an' my friends an' the friends of his father, an' the rank an' file generally want to see an' to hear this young man, just as the matter stands. Still more will they wish to give him the right hand of fellowship when they learn that he is about to enter on a political career. Now, why not save time and trouble by just giving a reception some day about the end of the month, invite the whole ga--the whole multitude, do the thing handsome, an' wind it up forever?" The Senator had an evident dread of his sister-in-law, and spoke to her with senatorial dignity. She meekly accepted his suggestion, and humbly attended him to the door. His good sense had cleared the situation. Preparation for a reception would set a current going in the quiet house, and relieve the awkwardness of the new relationships; and it would save time in the business of renewing old acquaintance. They took up the work eagerly. The old house had to be refitted for the occasion, his mother had to replenish a scanty wardrobe, and he had to dress himself in the fashion proper to Arthur Dillon. Anne's taste was good, inclined to rich but simple coloring, and he helped her in the selection of materials, insisting on expenditures which awed and delighted her. Judy Haskell came in for her share of raiment, and carried out some dread designs on her own person with conviction. It was pure pleasure to help these simple souls who loved him. After a three weeks' stay in the house he went about the city at his ease, and busied himself with the study and practise of his new personality. In secret, even from Louis who spent much of his leisure with him, he began to acquire the well-known accomplishments of the real Arthur Dillon, who had sung and danced his way into the hearts of his friends, who had been a wit for a boy, bubbling over with good spirits, an athlete, a manager of amateur minstrels, a precocious gallant among the girls, a fighter ever ready to defend the weak, a tireless leader in any enterprise, and of a bright mind, but indifferent to study. The part was difficult for him to play, since his nature was staidness itself beside the spontaneity and variety of Arthur Dillon: but his spirits rose in the effort, some feeling within responded to the dash and daring of this lost boy, so much loved and so deeply mourned. Louis helped him in preparing his wardrobe, very unlike anything an Endicott had ever worn. Lacking the elegance and correctness of earlier days, and of a different character, it was in itself a disguise. He wore his hair long and thick in the Byronic fashion, and a curly beard shadowed his lower face. Standing at the glass on the afternoon of the reception he felt confident that Horace Endicott had fairly disappeared beneath the new man Dillon. His figure had filled out slightly, and had lost its mournful stoop; his face was no longer wolfish in its leanness, and his color had returned, though melancholy eyes marked by deep circles still betrayed the sick heart. Yet the figure in the glass looked as unlike Horace Endicott as Louis Everard. He compared it with the accurate portrait sent out by his pursuers through the press. Only the day before had the story of his mysterious disappearance been made public. For months they had sought him quietly but vainly. It was a sign of their despair that the journals should have his story, his portrait, and a reward for his discovery. No man sees his face as others see it, but the difference between the printed portrait and the reflection of Arthur Dillon in the mirror was so startling that he felt humbled and pained, and had to remind himself that this was the unlikeness he so desired. The plump and muscular figure of Horace Endicott, dressed perfectly, posed affectively, expressed the self-confidence of the aristocrat. His smooth face was insolent with happiness and prosperity, with that spirit called the pride of life. But for what he knew of this man, he could have laughed at his self-sufficiency. The mirror gave back a shrunken, sickly figure, somewhat concealed by new garments, and the eyes betrayed a poor soul, cracked and seamed by grief and wrong; no longer Horace Endicott, broken by sickness of mind and heart, and disguised by circumstance, but another man entirely. What a mill is sorrow, thus to grind up an Endicott and from the dust remold a Dillon! The young aristocrat, plump, insolent, shallow, and self-poised, looked commonplace in his pride beside this broken man, who had walked through the abyss of hell, and nevertheless saved his soul. He discovered as he gazed alternately on portrait and mirror that a singular feeling had taken hold of him. Horace Endicott all at once seemed remote, like a close friend swallowed and obliterated years ago by the sea; while within himself, whoever he might be, some one seemed struggling for release, or expression, or dominion. He interpreted it promptly. Outwardly, he was living the life of Arthur Dillon, and inwardly that Arthur was making war on Horace Endicott, taking possession as an enemy seizes a stubborn land, reaching out for those remote citadels wherein the essence of personality resides. He did not object. He was rather pleased, though he shivered with a not unwelcome dread. The reception turned out a marvelous affair for him who had always been bored by such ceremonies. His mother, resplendent in a silk dress of changeable hue, seemed to walk on air. Mrs. Everard and her daughter Mona assisted Anne in receiving the guests. The elder women he knew were Irish peasants, who in childhood had run barefoot to school on a breakfast of oatmeal porridge, and had since done their own washing and baking for a time. Only a practised eye could have distinguished them from their sisters born in the purple. Mona was a beauty, who earned her own living as a teacher, and had the little virtues of the profession well marked; truly a daughter of the gods, tall for a woman, with a mocking face all sparkle and bloom, small eyes that flashed like gems, a sharp tongue, and a head of silken hair, now known as the Titian red, but at that time despised by all except artists and herself. She was a witch, an enchantress, who thought no man as good as her brother, and showed other men only the regard which irritates them. And Arthur loved her and her mother because they belonged to Louis. "I don't know how you'll like the arrangements," Louis said to him, when all things were ready. "This is not a society affair. It's an affair of the clan. The Dillons and their friends have a right to attend. So you must be prepared for hodcarriers as well as aristocrats." At three o'clock the house and the garden were thrown open to the stream of guests. Arthur gazed in wonder. First came old men and women of all conditions, laborers, servants, small shopkeepers, who had known his father and been neighbors and clients for years. Dressed in their best, and joyful over his return to life and home and friends, they wrung his hands, wept over him, and blessed him until their warm delight and sincerity nearly overcame him, who had never known the deep love of the humble for the head of the clan. The Senator was their benefactor, their bulwark and their glory; but Arthur was the heir, the hope of the promising future. They went through the ceremony of felicitation and congratulation, chatted for a while, and then took their leave as calmly and properly as the dames and gallants of a court; and one and all bowed to the earth with moist and delighted eyes before the Everards. "How like a queen she looks," they said of the mother. "The blessin' o' God on him," they said of Louis, "for priest is written all over him, an' how could he help it wid such a mother." "She's fit for a king," they said of Mona. "Wirra, an' to think she'd look at a plain man like Doyle Grahame." But of Anne Dillon and her son they said nothing, so much were they overcome by surprise at the splendor of the mother and the son, and the beauty of the old house made over new. After dark the Senator arrived, which was the signal for a change in the character of the guests. "You'll get the aristocracy now, the high Irish," said Louis. Arthur recognized it by its airs, its superciliousness, and several other bad qualities. It was a budding aristocracy at the ugliest moment of its development; city officials and their families, lawyers, merchants, physicians, journalists, clever and green and bibulous, who ran in with a grin and ran out with a witticism, out of respect for the chief, and who were abashed and surprised at the superior insolence of the returned Dillon. Reminded of the story that he had returned a wealthy man, many of them lingered. With these visitors however came the pillars of Irish society, solid men and dignified women, whom the Senator introduced as they passed. There were three emphatic moments which impressed Arthur Dillon. A hush fell upon the chattering crowd one instant, and people made way for Monsignor O'Donnell, who looked very gorgeous to Arthur in his purple-trimmed soutane, and purple cloak falling over his broad shoulders. The politicians bent low, the flippant grew serious, the faithful few became reverent. A successful leader was passing, and they struggled to touch his garments. Arthur's heart swelled at the silent tribute, for he loved this man. "His little finger," said the Senator in a whisper, "is worth more to them than my whole body." A second time this wave of feeling invaded the crowd, when a strong-faced, quiet-mannered man entered the room, and paid his respects to the Dillons. Again the lane was made, and hearts fluttered and many hands were outstretched in greeting to the political leader, Hon. John Sullivan, the head of Tammany, the passing idol of the hour, to whom Arthur was soon to be private secretary. He would have left at once but that the Senator whispered something in his ear; and presently the two went into the hall to receive the third personage of the evening, and came back with him, deeply impressed by the honor of his presence. He was a short, stocky man, of a military bearing, with a face so strongly marked as to indicate a certain ferocity of temperament; his deep and sparkling eyes had eyebrows aslant after the fashion of Mephisto; the expression a little cynical, all determination, but at that moment good-natured. The assembly fell into an ecstasy at the sight and the touch of their hero, for no one failed to recognize the dashing General Sheridan. They needed only a slight excuse to fall at his feet and adore him. Arthur was impressed indeed, but his mother had fallen into a state of heavenly trance over the greatness which had honored their festival. She recovered only when the celebrities had departed and the stream of guests had come to an end. Then came a dance in the garden for the young people, and the school-friends of Arthur Dillon made demands upon him for the entertainment of which his boyhood had given such promise; so he sang his songs with nerve and success, and danced strange dances with graceful foot, until the common voice declared that he had changed only in appearance, which was natural, and had kept the promise of his boyhood for gayety of spirits, sweet singing, and fine dancing. "I feel more than ever to-night," said Louis at parting, "that all of you has come home." Reviewing the events of the day in his own room after midnight, he felt like an actor whose first appearance has been a success. None of the guests seemed to have any doubt of his personality, or to feel any surprise at his appearance. For them Arthur Dillon had come home again after an adventurous life, and changes were accepted as the natural result of growth. They took him to their heart without question. He was loved. What Horace Endicott could not command with all his wealth, the love of his own kin, a poor, broken adventurer, Arthur Dillon, enjoyed in plenty. Well, thank God for the good fortune which followed so unexpectedly his exit from the past. He had a secure place in tender hearts for the first time since father and mother died. What is life without love and loving? What are love and loving without God? He could say again, as on the shore of the little pool, I believe in God forever. CHAPTER VII. THE DILLON CLAN. After the reception Arthur Dillon fell easily into the good graces of the clan, and found his place quite naturally; but like the suspicious intruder his ears and eyes remained wide open to catch the general sentiment about himself, and the varying opinions as to his manners and character. He began to perceive by degrees the magnitude of the task which he had imposed upon himself; the act of disappearing was but a trifle compared with the relationships crowding upon him in his new environment. He would be forced to maintain them all with some likeness to the method which would have come naturally to the real Dillon. The clan made it easy for him. Since allowance had to be conceded to his sickly condition, they formed no decisive opinions about him, accepting pleasantly, until health and humor would urge him to speak of his own accord, Anne's cloudy story of his adventures, of luck in the mines, and of excuses for his long silence. All observed the new element in his disposition; the boy who had been too heedless and headlong to notice anything but what pleased him, now saw everything; and kept at the same time a careful reserve about his past and present experiences, which impressed his friends and filled Judy Haskell with dread. "Tommy Higgins," she said, to Anne in an interval of housework, "kem home from Texas pritty much the same, with a face an him as long as yer arm, an' his mouth shut up like an old door. Even himself cudn't open it. He spint money free, an' av coorse that talked for him. But wan day, whin his mother was thryin' an a velvet sack he bought for her, an' fightin' him bekase there was no fur collar to id, in walked his wife an' three childher to him an' her, an' shtayed wid her ever afther. Begob, she never said another word about fur collars, an' she never got another velvet sack till she died. Tommy had money, enough to kape them all decent, bud not enough for velvet and silk an' joolry. From that minnit he got back his tongue, an' he talked himself almost to death about what he didn't do, an' what he did do in Californy. So they med him a tax-collecthor an' a shtump-speaker right away, an' that saved his neighbors from dyin' o' fatague lishtenin' to his lies. Take care, Anne Dillon, that this b'y o' yours hastn't a wife somewhere." Anne was in the precise attitude of old Mrs. Higgins when her son's wife arrived, fitting a winter cloak to her trim figure. At the sudden suggestion she sat down overcome. "Oh, God forgive you, Judy," said she, "even to mention such a thing. I forbid you ever to speak of it again. I don't care what woman came in the door, I'd turn her out like a thramp. He's mine, I've been widout him ten years, and I'm going to hold him now against every schemin' woman in the world." "Faith," said Judy, "I don't want to see another woman in the house anny more than yerself. I'm on'y warnin' yez. It 'ud jist break my heart to lose the grandher he's afther puttin' on yez." The two women looked about them with mournful admiration. The house, perfect in its furnishings, delighted the womanly taste. In Anne's wardrobe hung such a collection of millinery, dresses, ornaments, that the mere thought of losing it saddened their hearts. And the loss of that future which Anne Dillon had seen in her own day-dreams ... she turned savagely on Judy. "You were born wid an evil eye, Judy Haskell," cried she, "to see things no wan but you would ever think of. Never mention them again." "Lemme tell ye thin that there's others who have somethin' to say besides meself. If they're in a wondher over Artie, they're in a greater wondher over Artie's mother, buyin' silks, an' satins, an' jools like an acthress, an' dhressin' as gay as a greenhorn jist over from Ireland." "They're jealous, an' I'm goin' to make them more so," said Anne with a gleeful laugh, as she flung away care and turned to the mirror. For the first time since her youth she had become a scandal to her friends. Judy kept Arthur well informed of the general feeling and the common opinion, and he took pains not only to soothe his mother's fright but also to explain the little matters which irritated her friends. Mrs. Everard did not regard the change in Anne with complacency. "Arthur is changed for the better, but his mother for the worse," she said to Judy, certain that the old lady would retail it to her mistress. "A woman of fifty, that always dressed in dark colors, sensibly, to take all at once to red, and yellow, and blue, and to order bonnets like the Empress Eugenie's ... well, one can't call her crazy, but she's on the way." "She has the money," sighed Mona, who had none. "Sure she always had that kind of taste," said Judy in defence, "an' whin her eyes was blue an' her hair yalla, I dunno but high colors wint well enough. Her father always dhressed her well. Anyhow she's goin' to make up for all the years she had to dhress like an undertaker. Yistherday it was a gran' opery-cloak, as soon as Artie tould her he had taken four opery sates for the season." The ladies gasped, and Mona clapped her hands at the prospect of unlimited opera, for Anne had always been kind to her in such matters. "But all that's nawthin'," Judy went on demurely, "to what's comin' next week. It's a secret o' coorse, an' I wudn't have yez mintion it for the world, though yez'll hear it soon enough. Micksheen has a new cage all silver an' goold, an' Artie says he has a piddygree, which manes that they kep' thrack of him as far back as Adam an' Eve, as they do for lords an' ladies; though how anny of 'em can get beyant Noah an' the ark bates me. Now they're puttin' Micksheen in condition, which manes all sorts of nonsense, an' plenty o' throuble for the poor cat, that does be bawlin' all over the house night an' day wid the dhread of it, an' lukkin' up at me pitiful to save him from what's comin'. Artie has enthered his name at the polis headquarthers somewhere, that he's a prize cat, an' he's to be sint in the cage to the cat show to win a prize over fifty thousand other cats wid piddygrees. They wanted me to attind on Micksheen, but I sed no, an' so they've hired a darky in a uniform to luk after him. An' wanst a day Anne is goin' to march up to the show in a different dhress, an' luk in at Micksheen." At this point Judy's demureness gave way and she laughed till the tears came. The others could not but join. "Well, that's the top of the hill," said Mrs. Everard. "Surely Arthur ought to know enough to stop that tomfoolery. If he doesn't I will, I declare." Arthur however gave the affair a very different complexion when she mentioned it. "Micksheen is a blooded cat," said he, "for Vandervelt presented it to the Senator, who gave it to mother. And I suggested the cat-show for two reasons: mother's life has not been any too bright, and I had a big share in darkening it; so I'm going to crowd as much fun into it as she is willing to stand. Then I want to see how Micksheen stands in the community. His looks are finer than his pedigree, which is very good. And I want every one to know that there's nothing too good in New York for mother, and that she's going to have a share in all the fun that's going." "That's just like you, and I wish you luck," said Mary Everard. Not only did he go about explaining, and mollifying public sentiment himself, he also secured the services of Sister Mary Magdalen for the same useful end. The nun was a puzzle to him. Encased in her religious habit like a knight in armor, her face framed in the white gamp and black veil, her hands hidden in her long sleeves, she seemed to him a fine automaton, with a sweet voice and some surprising movements; for he could not measure her, nor form any impression of her, nor see a line of her natural disposition. Her human side appeared very clearly in her influence with the clan, her sincere and affectionate interest in himself, and her appetite for news in detail. Had she not made him live over again the late reception by her questions as to what was done, what everybody said, and what the ladies wore? Unwearied in aiding the needy, she brought him people of all sorts and conditions, in whom he took not the slightest interest, and besought his charity for them. He gave it in exchange for her good will, making her clearly understand that the change in his mother's habits must not lead to anything like annoyance from her old friends and neighbors. "Oh, dear, no," she exclaimed, "for annoyance would only remove you from our midst, and deprive us of a great benefactor, for I am sure you will prove to be that. May I introduce to you my friend, Miss Edith Conyngham?" He bowed to the apparition which came forward, seized his hands, held them and patted them affectionately, despite his efforts to release them. "We all seem to have known you since childhood," was her apology. The small, dark woman, pale as a dying nun, irritated him. Blue glasses concealed her eyes, and an ugly costume concealed her figure; she came out of an obscure corner behind the nun, and fell back into it noiselessly, but her voice and manner had the smoothness of velvet. He looked at her hands patting his own, and found them very soft, white, untouched by age, and a curious contrast to her gray hair. Interest touching him faintly he responded to her warmth, and looked closely into the blue glasses with a smile. Immediately the little woman sank back into her corner. Long after he settled the doubt which assailed him at that moment, if there were not significance in her look and words and manner. Sister Magdalen bored him ten minutes with her history. He must surely take an interest in her ... great friend of his father's ... and indeed of his friends ... her whole life devoted to religion and the poor ... the recklessness of others had driven her from a convent where she had been highly esteemed ... she had to be vindicated ... her case was well on the way to trial ... nothing should be left undone to make it a triumph. Rather dryly he promised his aid, wondering if he had really caught the true meaning of the little woman's behavior. He gave up suspicion when Judy provided Miss Conyngham with a character. "This is the way of it," said Judy, "an' it's aisy to undhershtan' ... thin agin I dinno as it's so aisy ... but annyway she was a sisther in a convent out west, an' widout lave or license they put her out, bekase she wudn't do what the head wan ordhered her to do. So now she's in New York, an' Sisther Mary Mag Dillon is lukkin afther her, an' says she must be righted if the Pope himself has to do it. We all have pity an her, knowin' her people as we did. A smarter girl never opened a book in Ameriky. An' I'm her godmother." "Then we must do something for her," said the master kindly in compliment to Judy. After his mother and Judy none appealed to him like the women of the Everard home. The motherly grace of Mary and the youthful charm of beautiful Mona attracted him naturally; from them he picked up stray features of Arthur Dillon's character; but that which drew him to them utterly was his love for Louis. Never had any boy, he believed, so profoundly the love of mother and sister. The sun rose and set with him for the Everards, and beautiful eyes deepened in beauty and flashed with joy when they rested on him. Arthur found no difficulty in learning from them the simple story of the lad's childhood and youth. "How did it happen," he inquired of Mary, "that he took up the idea of being a priest? It was not in his mind ten years back?" "He was the priest from his birth," she answered proudly. "Just seven months old he was when a first cousin of mine paid us a visit. He was a young man, ordained about a week, ... we had waited and prayed for that sight ten years ... he sang the Mass for us and blessed us all. It was beautiful to see, the boy we had known all his life, to come among us a priest, and to say Mass in front of Father O'Donnell--I never can call him Monsignor--with the sweetest voice you ever heard. Well, the first thing he did when he came to my house and Louis was a fat, hearty baby in the cradle, was to take him in his arms, look into his face a little while, and then kiss him. And I'll never forget the words he said." Her dark eyes were moist, but a smile lighted up her calm face. "Mary," he said to me, "this boy should be the first priest of the next generation. I'll bless him to that end, and do you offer him to God. And I did. He was the roughest child of all mine, and showed very little of the spirit of piety as he grew up. But he was always the best boy to his own. He had the heart for us all, and never took his play till he was sure the house was well served. Nothing was said to him about being a priest. That was left to God. One winter he began to keep a little diary, and I saw in it that he was going often to Mass on week days, and often to confession. He was working then with his father in the office, since he did not care much for school. Then the next thing I knew he came to me one night and put his arms about me to say that he wished to be a priest, to go to college, and that this very cousin who had blessed him in the cradle had urged him to make known the wish that was in him, for it seems he discovered what we only hoped for. And so he has been coming and going ever since, a blessing to the house, and sure I don't know how I shall get along without him when he goes to the seminary next year." "Nor I," said Arthur with a start. "How can you ever think of giving him up?" "That's the first thing we have to learn," she replied with a smile at his passion. "The children all leave the house in time one way or another. It's only a question of giving him to God's service or to the service of another woman. I could never be jealous of God." He laughed at this suggestion of jealousy in a mother. Of course she must hate the woman who robs her of her son, and secures a greater love than a mother ever knew. The ways of nature, or God, are indeed hard to the flesh. He thought of this as he sat in the attic room with his light-hearted chum. He envied him the love and reverence of these good women, envied him that he had been offered to God in his infancy; and in his envy felt a satisfaction that very soon these affectionate souls would soon have to give Louis up to Another. To him this small room was like a shrine, sacred, undefiled, the enclosure of a young creature specially called to the service of man, perfumed by innocence, cared for by angels, let down from heaven into a house on Cherry Street. Louis had no such fancies, but flung aside his books, shoved his chum into a chair, placed his feet on a stool, put a cigar in his mouth and lighted it for him, pulled his whiskers, and ordered the latest instalment of Dillon's Dark Doings in Dugout. Then the legends of life in California began. Sometimes, after supper, a knock was heard at the door, and there entered two little sisters, who must hear a bear-story from Arthur, and kiss the big brother good-night; two delicate flowers on the rough stem of life, that filled Horace Endicott with bitterness and joy when he gathered them into his embrace; the bitterness of hate, the joy of escape from paternity. What softness, what beauty, what fragrance in the cherubs! _Trumps_, their big brother called them, but the world knew them as Marguerite and Constance, and they shared the human repugnance to an early bed. "You ought to be glad to go to bed," Arthur said, "when you go to sleep so fast, and dream beautiful dreams about angels." "But I don't dream of angels," said Marguerite sadly. "Night before last I dreamed a big black man came out of a cellar, and took baby away," casting a look of love at Constance in her brother's arms. "And I dreamed," said Constance, with a queer little pucker of her mouth, "that she was all on fire, in her dress, and----" This was the limit of her language, for the thought of her sister on fire overwhelmed the words at her command. "And baby woke up," the elder continued--for she was a second mother to Constance, and pieced out all her deficiencies and did penance for her sins--"and she said to mother, 'throw water on Marguerite to put her out.'" "What sad dreams," Arthur said. "Tell Father O'Donnell about them." "She has other things to tell him," Louis said with a grin. "I have no doubt you could help her, Artie. She must go to confession sometime, and she has no sins to tell. The other day when I was setting out for confession she asked me not to tell all my sins to the priest, but to hold back a few and give them to her for her confession. Now you have enough to spare for that honest use, I think." "Oh, please, dear cousin Artie," said the child, thrilling his heart with the touch of her tender lips on his cheek. "There's no doubt I have enough," he cried with a secret groan. "When you are ready to go, Marguerite, I will give you all you want." The history of Arthur's stay in California was drawn entirely from his travels on the Pacific slope, tedious to the narrator, but interesting because of the lad's interest, and because of the picture which the rapt listener made. His study-desk near by, strewn with papers and books, the white bed and bookcase farther off, pictures and mottoes of his own selection on the white walls, a little altar in the depths of the dormer-window; and the lord of the little domain in the foreground, hands on knees, lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed and dreamy, seeing the rich colors and varied action as soon as words conveyed the story to the ear; a perfect picture of the listening boy, to whom experience like a wandering minstrel sings the glory of the future in the happenings of the past. Arthur invariably closed his story with a fit of sighing. That happy past made his present fate heavy indeed. Horace Endicott rose strong in him then and protested bitterly against Arthur Dillon as a usurper; but sure there never was a gentler usurper, for he surrendered so willingly and promptly that Endicott fled again into his voluntary obscurity. Louis comforted those heavy moments with soft word and gentle touch, pulling his beard lovingly, smoothing his hair, lighting for him a fresh cigar, asking no questions, and, when the dark humor deepened, exorcising the evil spirit with a sprinkling of holy water. Prayers were said together--an overpowering moment for the man who rarely prayed to see this faith and its devotion in the boy--and then to bed, where Louis invariably woke to the incidents of the day and retailed them for an hour to his amused ear; and with the last word fell into instant and balmy sleep. Oh, this wonder of unconscious boyhood! Had this sad-hearted man ever known that blissful state? He lay there listening to the soft and regular breathing of the child, who knew so little of life and evil. At last he fell asleep moaning. It was Louis who woke with a sense of fright, felt that his bedfellow was gone, and heard his voice at the other side of the room, an agonized voice that chilled him. "To go back would be to kill her ... but I must go back ... and then the trail of blood over all...." Louis leaped out of bed, and lit the night-candle. Arthur stood beside the altar in the dormer-window, motionless, with pallid face and open eyes that saw nothing. "Why should such a wretch live and I be suffering?--she suffers too ... but not enough ... the child ... oh, that was the worst ... the child ... my child...." The low voice gave out the words distinctly and without passion, as of one repeating what was told to him. Rid of fear Louis slapped him on the shoulder and shook him, laughing into his astonished face when sense came back to him. "It's like a scene, or a skene from Macbeth," he said. "Say, Artie, you had better make open confession of your sins. Why should you want to kill her, and put the trail of blood over it all?" "I said that, did I?" He thought a moment, then put his arms about Louis. They were sitting on the side of the bed. "You must know it sometime, Louis. It is only for your ear now. I had a wife ... she was worthless ... she lives ... that is all." "And your child? you spoke of a child?" Arthur shook with a chill and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "No," he groaned, "no ... thank God for that ... I had no child." After a little they went back to bed, and Louis made light of everything with stories of his own sleep-walking until he fell asleep again. The candle was left burning. Misfortune rose and sat looking at the boy curiously. With the luck of the average man, he might have been father to a boy like this, a girl like Mona with beautiful hair and a golden heart, soft sweet babies like the Trumps. He leaned over and studied the sleeping face, so sweetly mournful, so like death, yet more spiritual, for the soul was there still. In this face the senses had lost their daylight influence, had withdrawn into the shadows; and now the light of innocence, the light of a beautiful soul, the light that never was on land or sea, shone out of the still features. A feeling which had never touched his nature before took fierce possession of him, and shook him as a tiger shakes his prey. He had to writhe in silence, to beat his head with his hands, to stifle words of rage and hate and despair. At last exhausted he resigned himself, he took the boy's hand in his, remembering that this innocent heart loved him, and fell into a dreamless sleep. The charm and the pain of mystery hung about the new life, attracting him, yet baffling him at every step. He could not fathom or grasp the people with whom he lived intimately, they seemed beyond him, and yet he dared ask no questions, dared not go even to Monsignor for explanations. With the prelate his relations had to take that character which suited their individual standing. When etiquette allowed him to visit the rector, Monsignor provided him with the philosophy of the environment, explained the difficulties, and soothed him with the sympathy of a generous heart acquainted with his calamities. "It would have been better to have launched you elsewhere," he said, "but I knew no other place well enough to get the right people. And then I have the hope that the necessity for this episode will not continue." "Death only will end it, Monsignor. Death for one or the other. It should come soon, for the charm of this life is overpowering me. I shall never wish to go back if the charm holds me. My uncle, the Senator, is about to place me in politics." "I knew he would launch you on that stormy sea," Monsignor answered reflectively, "but you are not bound to accept the enterprise." "It will give me distraction, and I need distraction from this intolerable pain," tapping his breast with a gesture of anguish. "It will surely counter-irritate. It has entranced men like the Senator, and your chief; even men like Birmingham. They have the ambition which runs with great ability. It's a pity that the great prizes are beyond them." "Why beyond them?" "High office is closed to Catholics in this country." "Here I run up against the mysterious again," he complained. "Go down into your memory," Monsignor said after a little reflection, "and recall the first feeling which obscurely stirred your heart when the ideas of _Irish_ and _Catholic_ were presented to you. See if it was not distrust, dislike, irritation, or even hate; something different from the feeling aroused by such ideas as _Turk_ and _atheist_." "Dislike, irritation, perhaps contempt, with a hint of amusement," Arthur replied thoughtfully. "How came that feeling there touching people of whom you knew next to nothing?" "Another mystery." "Let me tell you. Hatred and contempt of the Irish Catholic has been the mark of English history for four centuries, and the same feelings have become a part of English character. It is in the English blood, and therefore it is in yours. It keeps such men as Sullivan and Birmingham out of high office, and now it will act against you, strangely enough." "I understand. Queer things, rum things in this world. I am such a mystery to myself, however, that I ought not be surprised at outside mysteries." "I often regret that I helped you to your present enterprise," said the priest, "on that very account. Life is harsh enough without adding to its harshness." "Never regret that you saved a poor fellow's life, reason, fortune, family name from shame and blood," Arthur answered hotly. "I told you the consequences that were coming--you averted them--there's no use to talk of gratitude--and through you I came to believe in God again, as my mother taught me. No regret, for God's sake." His voice broke for a moment, and he walked to the window. Outside he saw the gray-white walls which would some day be the grand cathedral. The space about it looked like the studio of a giant artist; piles of marble scattered here and there gave the half-formed temple the air of a frowsy, ill-dressed child; and the mass rising to the sky resembled a cloud that might suddenly melt into the ether. He had seen the great temples of the world, yet found in this humbler, but still magnificent structure an element of wonder. From the old world, ancient, rich in tradition, one expected all things; centaurs might spring from its soil unnoticed. That the prosaic rocks of Manhattan should heave for this sublimity stirred the sense of admiring wonder. "This is your child?" said Arthur abruptly. "I saw the foundation laid when I was a youth, great boulders of half-hewn rock, imbedded in cement, to endure with the ages, able to support whatever man may pile upon them. This building is part of my life--you may call it my child--for it seems to have sprung from me, although a greater planned it." "What a people to attempt this miracle," said Arthur. "Now you have said it," cried the priest proudly. "The poor people to whom you now belong, moved by the spirit which raised the great shrines of Europe, are building out of their poverty and their faith the first really great temple on this continent. The country waited for them. This temple will express more than a desire to have protection from bad weather, and to cover the preacher's pulpit. Here you will have in stone faith, hope, love, sacrifice. What blessings it will pour out upon the city, and upon the people who built it. For them it will be a great glory many centuries perhaps." "I shall have my share in the work," Arthur said with feeling. "I feel that I am here to stay, and I shall be a stranger to no work in which my friends are engaged. I'll not let the mysteries trouble me. I begin to see what you are, and a little of what you mean. Command me, for no other in this world to-day has any right to command me--none with a right like yours, father and friend." "Thanks and amen, Arthur. Having no claim upon you we shall be all the more grateful. But in good time. For the present look to yourself, closely, mind; and draw upon me, upon Louis, upon your mother, they have the warmest hearts, for sympathy and consolation." Not long before and Arthur Dillon would have received with the polite indifference of proud and prosperous youth this generous offer of sympathy and love; but now it shook him to the center, for he had learned, at what a fearful price! how precious, how necessary, how rare is the jewel of human love. CHAPTER VIII. THE WEARIN' O' THE GREEN. By degrees the effervescence of little Ireland, in which strange land his fortune had been cast, began to steal into his blood. Mirth ruled the East side, working in each soul according to his limitations. It was a wink, a smile, a drink, a passing gossoon, a sly girl, a light trick, among the unspoken things; or a biting epigram, the phrase felicitous, a story gilt with humor, a witticism swift and fatal as lightning; in addition varied activity, a dance informal, a ceremonious ball, a party, a wake, a political meeting, the visit of the district leader; and with all, as Judy expressed it, "lashins an' lavins, an' divil a thought of to-morrow." Indeed this gay clan kept Yesterday so deeply and tenderly in mind that To-day's house had no room for the uncertain morrow. He abandoned himself to the spirit of the place. The demon of reckless fun caught him by the heels and sharpened his tongue, so that his wit and his dancing became tonics for eyes and ears dusty with commonplace. His mother and his chum had to admonish him, and it was very sweet to get this sign of their love for him. Reproof from our beloved is sweeter than praise from an enemy. They all watched over him as if he were heir to a throne. The Senator, busy with his approaching entrance into local politics, had already introduced him to the leaders, who formed a rather mixed circle of intelligence and power. He had met its kind before on the frontier, where the common denominator in politics was manhood, not blue blood, previous good character, wealth, nor the stamp of Harvard. A member held his place by virtue of courage, popularity, and ability. Arthur made no inquiries, but took everything as it came. All was novelty, all surprise, and to his decorous and orderly disposition, all ferment. The clan seemed to him to be rushing onward like a torrent night and day, from the dance to the ward-meeting, from business to church, interested and yet careless. The Senator informed him with pride that his début would take place at the banquet on St. Patrick's Day, when he should make a speech. "Do you think you can do it, me boy?" said the Senator. "If you think you can, why you can." "I know I can," said the reckless Dillon, who had never made a speech in his life. "An' lemme give you a subject," said Judy. They were all together in the sitting-room, where the Senator had surprised them in a game of cards. "Give a bastin' to Mare Livingstone," said Judy seriously. "I read in the _Sun_ how he won't inspect the parade on St. Patrick's Day, nor let the green flag fly on the city hall. There must be an Orange dhrop in his blood, for no dacint Yankee 'ud have anny hathred for the blessed green. Sure two years ago Mare Jones dressed himself up in a lovely green uniform, like an Irish prince, an' lukked at the parade from a platform. It brought the tears to me eyes, he lukked so lovely. They ought to have kep' him Mare for the rest of his life. An' for Mare Livingstone, may never a blade o' grass or a green leaf grow on his grave." The Senator beamed with secret pleasure, while the others began to talk together with a bitterness beyond Arthur's comprehension. "He ought to have kept his feelings to himself," said quiet Anne. "If he didn't like the green, there was no need of insultin' us." "And that wasn't the worst," Louis hotly added. "He gave a talk to the papers the next day, and told how many Irish paupers were in the poorhouse, and said how there must be an end to favoring the Irish." "I saw that too," said Judy, "an' I sez to meself, sez I, he's wan o' the snakes St. Pathrick dhruv out of Ireland." "No need for surprise," Mona remarked, studying her cards, "for the man has only one thought: to keep the Irish in the gutter. Do you suppose I would have been a teacher to-day if he could have kept me out of it, with all his pretended friendship for papa." "If you baste the Mayor like this now, there won't be much left for me to do at the banquet," said Arthur with a laugh for their fierceness. "Ay, there it is," said Judy. "Yez young Americans have no love for the green, except for the fun yez get out of it; barrin' dacint Louis here, who read the history of Ireland whin he was tin years old, an' niver got over it. Oh, yez may laugh away! Ye are all for the red, white, an' blue, till the Mare belts yez wid the red, white, an' blue, for he says he does everythin' in honor o' thim colors, though I don't see how it honors thim to insult the green. He may be a Livingshtone in name, but he's a dead wan for me." The Senator grew more cheerful as this talk grew warmer, and then, seeing Arthur's wonderment, he made an explanation. "Livingstone is a good fellow, but he's not a politician, Artie. He thinks he can ru--manage the affairs of this vil--metropolis without the Irish and especially without the Catholics. Oh, he's death on them, except as boot-blacks, cooks, and ditch-diggers. He'd let them ru--manage all the saloons. He's as mad--as indignant as a hornet that he could not boo--get rid of them entirely during his term of office, and he had to speak out his feelings or bu--die. And he has put his foot in it artistically. He has challenged the Irish and their friends, and he goes out of office forever next fall. No party wants a man that lets go of his mouth at critical moments. It might be a neat thing for you to touch him up in your speech at the banquet." The Senator spoke with unctuousness and delight, and Arthur saw that the politicians rejoiced at the loquacity and bad temper of the Honorable Quincy Livingstone, whom the Endicotts included among their distant relatives. "I'll take your subject, Judy," said he. "Then rade up the histhory of Ireland," replied the old lady flattered. Close observation of the present proved more interesting and amusing than the study of the past. Quincy Livingstone's strictures on the exiles of Erin stirred them to the depths, and his refusal to float the green flag from the city hall brought a blossoming of green ribbon on St. Patrick's Day which only Spring could surpass in her decorations of the hills. The merchants blessed the sour spirit which had provoked this display to the benefit of their treasuries. The hard streets seemed to be sprouting as the crowds moved about, and even the steps and corridors of the mayor's office glistened with the proscribed color. The cathedral on Mott Street was the center of attraction, and a regiment which had done duty in the late war the center of interest. Arthur wondered at the enthusiasm of the crowd as the veterans carrying their torn battle-flags marched down the street and under the arched entrance of the church to take their places for the solemn Mass. All eyes grew moist, and sobs burst forth at sight of them. "If they were only marching for Ireland!" one man cried hoarsely. "They'll do it yet," said another more hopeful. Within the cathedral a multitude sat in order, reverently quiet, but charged with emotion. With burning eyes they watched the soldiers in front and the priests in the sanctuary, and some beat their breasts in pain, or writhed with sudden stress of feeling. Arthur felt thrilled by the power of an emotion but vaguely understood. These exiles were living over in this moment the scenes which had attended their expulsion from home and country, as he often repeated the horrid scenes of his own tragedy. Under the reverence and decorum due to the temple hearts were bursting with passion and grief. In a little while resignation would bring them relief and peace. It was like enchantment for Arthur Dillon. He knew the vested priest for his faithful friend; but on the altar, in his mystic robes, uplifted, holding the reverent gaze of these thousands, in an atmosphere clouded by incense and vocal with pathetic harmonies, the priest seemed as far away as heaven; he knew in his strength and his weakness the boy beside him, but this enwrapped attitude, this eloquent, still, unconscious face, which spoke of thoughts and feelings familiar only to the eye of God, seemed to lift Louis into another sphere; he knew the people kneeling about, the headlong, improvident, roystering crowd, but knew them not in this outpouring of deeper emotions than spring from the daily chase for bread and pleasure. A single incident fixed this scene in his mind and heart forever. Just in front of him sat a young woman with her father, whom she covertly watched with some anxiety. He was a man of big frame and wasted body, too nervous to remain quiet a moment, and deeply moved by the pageant, for he twisted his hands and beat his breast as if in anguish. Once she touched his arm caressingly. And the face which he turned towards her was stained with the unwiped tears; but when he stood up at the close of the Mass to see the regiment march down the grand aisle, his pale face showed so bitter an agony that Arthur recalled with horror his own sufferings. The young woman clung to her father until the last soldier had passed, and the man had sunk into his seat with a half-uttered groan. No one noticed them, and Arthur as he left with the ladies saw her patting the father's hand and whispering to him softly. Outside the cathedral a joyous uproar attended the beginning of that parade which the Mayor had declined to review. As his party was to enjoy it at some point of Fifth Avenue he did not tarry to witness the surprising scenes about the church, but with Louis took a car uptown. Everywhere they heard hearty denunciations of the Mayor. At one street, their car being detained by the passing of a single division of the parade, the passengers crowded about the front door and the driver, and an anxious traveler asked the cause of the delay, and the probable length of it. The driver looked at him curiously. "About five minutes," he said. "Don't you know who's paradin' to-day?" "No." "See the green plumes an' ribbons?" "I do," vacantly. "Know what day o' the month it is?" "March seventeenth, of course." "Live near New York?" "About twenty miles out." "Gee whiz!" exclaimed the driver with a gasp. "I've bin a-drivin' o' this car for twenty years, an' I never met anythin' quite so innercent. Well, it's St. Patrick's Day, an' them's the wild Irish." The traveler seemed but little enlightened. An emphatic man in black, with a mouth so wide that its opening suggested the wonderful, seized the hand of the innocent and shook it cordially. "I'm glad to meet one uncontaminated American citizen in this city," he said. "I hope there are millions like you in the land." The uncontaminated looked puzzled, and might have spoken but for a violent interruption. A man had entered the car with an orange ribbon in his buttonhole. "You'll have to take that off," said the conductor in alarm, pointing to the ribbon, "or leave the car." "I won't do either," said the man. "And I stand by you in that refusal," said the emphatic gentleman. "It's an outrage that we must submit to the domination of foreigners." "It's the order of the company," said the conductor. "First thing we know a wild Irishman comes along, he goes for that orange ribbon, there's a fight, the women are frightened, and perhaps the car is smashed." "An' besides," said the deliberate driver as he tied up his reins and took off his gloves, "it's a darn sight easier an' cheaper for us to put you off than to keep an Irishman from tryin' to murder you." The uncontaminated citizen and two ladies fled to the street, while the driver and the conductor stood over the offending passenger. "Goin' to take off the ribbon?" asked the conductor. "You will be guilty of a cowardly surrender of principle if you do," said the emphatic gentleman. "May I suggest," said Arthur blandly, "that you wear it in his stead?" "I am not interested either way," returned the emphatic one, with a snap of the terrible jaws, "but maintain that for the sake of principle----" A long speech was cut off at that moment by a war-cry from a simple lad who had just entered the car, spied the ribbon, and launched himself like a catapult upon the Orange champion. A lively scramble followed, but the scene speedily resolved itself into its proper elements. The procession had passed, the car moved on its way, and the passengers through the rear door saw the simple lad grinding the ribbon in the dust with triumphant heel, while its late wearer flew toward the horizon pursued by an imaginary mob. Louis sat down and glared at the emphatic man. "Who is he?" said Arthur with interest, drawing his breath with joy over the delights of this day. "He's a child-stealer," said Louis with distinctness. "He kidnaps Catholic children and finds them Protestant homes where their faith is stolen from them. He's the most hated man in the city." The man accepted this scornful description of himself in silence. Except for the emphasis which nature had given to his features, he was a presentable person. Flying side-whiskers made his mouth appear grotesquely wide, and the play of strong feelings had produced vicious wrinkles on his spare face. He appeared to be a man of energy, vivacity and vulgarity, reminding one of a dinner of pork and cabbage. He was soon forgotten in the excitement of a delightful day, whose glories came to a brilliant end in that banquet which introduced the nephew of Senator Dillon into political life. Standing before the guests, he found himself no longer that silent and disdainful Horace Endicott, who on such an occasion would have cooly stuttered and stammered through fifty sentences of dull congratulation and platitude. Feeling aroused him, illumined him, on the instant, almost without wish of his own, at the contrast between two pictures which traced themselves on his imagination as he rose in his place: the wrecked man who had fled from Sonia Westfield, what would he have been to-night but for the friendly hands outstretched to save him? Behold him in honor, in health, in hope, sure of love and some kind of happiness, standing before the people who had rescued him. The thousand impressions of the past six months sparkled into life; the sublime, pathetic, and amusing scenes of that day rose up like stars in his fancy; and against his lips, like water against a dam, rushed vigorous sentences from the great deeps opened in his soul by grief and change, and then leaped over in a beautiful, glittering flood. He wondered vaguely at his vehemence and fluency, at the silence in the hall, that these great people should listen to him at all. They heard him with astonishment, the leaders with interest, the Senator with tears; and Monsignor looked once towards the gallery where Anne Dillon sat literally frozen with terror and pride. The long and sincere applause which followed the speech warned him that he had impressed a rather callous crowd of notables, and an exaltation seized him. The guests lost no time in congratulating him, and every tongue wagged in his favor. "You have the gift of eloquence," said Sullivan. "It will be a pleasure to hear you again," said Vandervelt, the literary and social light of the Tammany circle. "You have cleared your own road," Birmingham the financier remarked, and he stayed long to praise the young orator. "There's nothin' too good for you after to-night," cried the Senator brokenly. "I simply can't--cannot talk about it." "Your uncle," said Doyle Grahame, the young journalist who was bent on marrying Mona Everard, "as usual closes the delicate sparring of his peers with a knockdown blow; there's nothing too good for you." "It's embarrassing." "I wish I had your embarrassment. Shall I translate the praises of these great men for you? Sullivan meant, I must have the use of your eloquence; the lion Vandervelt, when you speak in my favor; Birmingham, please stump for me when I run for office; and the Senator, I will make you governor. You may use your uncle; the others hope to use you." "I am willing to be of service," said Arthur severely. "A good-nature thrown away, unless you are asked to serve. They have all congratulated you on your speech. Let me congratulate you on your uncle. They marvel at your eloquence; I, at your luck. Give me such an uncle rather than the gift of poesy. Do not neglect oratory, but cultivate thy uncle, boy." Arthur laughed, Monsignor came up then, and heaped him with praise. "Were you blessed with fluency in--your earlier years?" he said. "Therein lies the surprise, and the joke. I never had an accomplishment except for making an uproar in a crowd. It seems ridiculous to show signs of the orator now, without desire, ambition, study, or preparation." "Your California experiences," said the priest casually, "may have something to do with it. But let me warn you," and he looked about to make sure no one heard, "that early distinction in your case may attract the attention you wish to escape." "I feel that it will help me," Arthur answered. "Who that knew Horace Endicott would look for him in a popular Tammany orator? The mantle of an Irish Cicero would disguise even a Livingstone." The surprise and pleasure of the leaders were cold beside the wild delight of the Dillon clan when the news went around that Arthur had overshadowed the great speakers of the banquet. His speech was read in every gathering, its sarcastic description of the offensive Livingstone filled the Celts with joy, and threw Anne and Judy into an ecstasy. "Faith, Mare Livingstone'll see green on St. Patrick's Day for the rest of his life," said Judy. "It' ud be a proper punishment if the bread he ate, an' everythin' he touched on that day, shud turn greener than ould Ireland, the land he insulted." "There's curse enough on him," Anne replied sharply, ever careful to take Arthur's side, as she thought, "and I won't have you spoiling Arthur's luck be cursing any wan. I'm too glad to have an orator in the family. I can now put my orator against Mary Everard's priest, and be as proud as she is." "The pride was born in ye," said Judy. "You won't have to earn it. Indade, ye'll have a new flirt to yer tail, an' a new toss to yer head, every day from now to his next speech." "Why shouldn't I? I'm his mother," with emphasis. CHAPTER IX. THE VILLA AT CONEY ISLAND. The awkwardness of his relations with Anne Dillon wore away speedily, until he began to think as well as speak of her as his mother; for she proved with time to be a humorous and delightful mother. Her love for rich colors and gay scenes, her ability to play gracefully the awkward part which he had chosen for her, her affectionate and discreet reserve, her delicate tact and fine wit, and her half-humorous determination to invade society, showed her as a woman of parts. He indulged her fancies, in particular her dream of entering the charmed circle of New York society. How this success should be won, and what was the circle, he did not know, nor care. The pleasure for him lay in her bliss as she exhausted one pleasure after another, and ever sought for higher things: Micksheen at the cat show attended by the liveried mulatto; the opera and the dog show, with bonnets and costumes to match the occasion; then her own carriage, used so discreetly as not to lose the respect of the parish; and finally the renting of the third pew from the front in the middle aisle of the cathedral, a step forward in the social world. How he had enjoyed these events in her upward progress! As a closing event for the first year of his new life, he suggested a villa by the sea for the summer, with Mona and Louis as guests for the season, with as many others as pleased her convenience. The light which broke over her face at this suggestion came not from within, but direct from heaven! She sent him modestly to a country of the Philistines known as Coney Island, where he found the common herd enjoying a dish called chowder amid much spontaneity and dirt, and mingling their uproarious bathing with foaming beer; a picture framed in white sand and sounding sea, more than pleasant to the jaded taste of an Endicott. The roar of the surf drowned the mean uproar of discordant man. The details of life there were too cheap to be looked at closely; but at a distance the surface had sufficient color and movement. He found an exception to this judgment. La Belle Colette danced with artistic power, though in surroundings unsuited to her skill. He called it genius. In an open pavilion, whose roughness the white sand and the white-green surf helped to condone, on a tawdry stage, she appeared, a slight, pale, winsome beauty, clad in green and white gauze, looking like a sprite of the near-by sea. The witchery of her dancing showed rare art, which was lost altogether on the simple crowd. She danced carelessly, as if mocking the rustics, and made her exit without applause. "Where did you get your artiste, August?" he said to a waiter. "You saw how well she dances, hey? Poor Colette! The best creature in the world ... opens more wine than five, and gives too much away. But for the drink she might dance at the opera." Arthur went often to see her dance, with pity for the talent thrown away, and brought his mother under protest from that cautious lady, who would have nothing to do with so common a place. The villa stood in respectable, even aristocratic, quiet at the far end of the island, and Anne regarded it almost with reverence, moving about as if in a temple. He found, however, that she had made it a stage for a continuous drama, in which she played the leading part, and the Dillon clan with all its ramifications played minor characters and the audience. Her motives and her methods he could not fathom and did not try; the house filled rapidly, that was enough; the round of dinners, suppers, receptions, dances, and whatnots had the regularity of the tides. Everybody came down from Judy's remotest cousin up to His Grace the archbishop. Even Edith Conyngham, apparently too timid to leave the shadow of Sister Magdalen, stole into a back room with Judy, and haunted the beach for a few days. For Judy's sake he turned aside to entertain her, and with the perversity which seems to follow certain actions he told her the pathetic incident of the dancer. Why he should have chosen this poor nun to hear this tale, embellished as if to torture her, he could never make out. Often in after years, when events had given the story significance, he sought for his own motives in vain. It might have been the gray hair, the rusty dress, the depressed manner, so painful a contrast to the sea-green sprite, all youth, and grace, and beauty, which provoked him. "I shall pray for the poor thing," said rusty Edith, fingering her beads, and then she made to grasp his hand, which he thrust into his pockets. "Not a second time," he told Louis. "I'd rather get the claw of a boiled lobster." The young men did not like Miss Conyngham, but Louis pitied her sad state. The leading characters on Anne's stage, at least the persons whom she permitted occasionally to fill its center, were the anxious lovers Mona and Doyle Grahame. He was a poet to his finger-tips, dark-haired, ruddy, manly, with clear wit, and the tenderest and bravest of dark eyes; and she, red-tressed, lovely, candid, simple, loved him with her whole heart while submitting to the decree of a sour father who forbade the banns. Friends like Anne gave them the opportunity to woo, and the Dillon clan stood as one to blind the father as to what was going on. The sight of this beauty and faith and love feeding on mutual confidence beside the sunlit surf and the moonlight waters gave Arthur profound sadness, steeped his heart in bitterness. Such scenes had been the prelude to his tragedy. Despair looked out of his eyes and frightened Louis. "Why should you mind it so, after a year?" the lad pleaded. "Time was when I minded nothing. I thought love and friendship, goodness and happiness, grew on every bush, and that When we were far from the lips that we loved, We had but to make love to the lips that were near. I am wiser now." "Away with that look," Louis protested. "You have love in plenty with us, and you must not let yourself go like that. It's frightful." "It's gone," Arthur answered rousing himself. "The feeling will never go farther than a look. She was not worth it--but the sight of these two--I suppose Adam must have grieved looking back at paradise." "They have their troubles also," Louis said to distract his mind. "Father is unkind and harsh with Irish patriots, and because Grahame went through the mill, conspiracy, arrest, jail, prison, escape, and all the rest of it, he won't hear of marriage for Mona with him. Of course he'll have to come down in time. Grahame is the best fellow, and clever too." One day seemed much the same as another to Arthur, but his mother's calendar had the dates marked in various colors, according to the rank of her visitors. The visit of the archbishop shone in figures of gold, but the day and hour which saw Lord Constantine cross her threshold and sit at her table stood out on the calendar in letters of flame. The Ledwiths who brought him were of little account, except as the friends of His Lordship. Anne informed the household the day before of the honor which heaven was sending them, and gave minute instructions as to the etiquette to be observed; and if Arthur wished to laugh the blissful light in her face forbade. The rules of etiquette did not include the Ledwiths, who could put up with ordinary politeness and be grateful. "I can see from the expression of Mona," Arthur observed to the other gentlemen, "that the etiquette of to-morrow puts us out of her sight. And who is Lord Constantine? I ought to know, so I did not dare ask." "A young English noble, son and heir of a Marquis," said Grahame with mock solemnity, "who is devoted to the cause of bringing London and Washington closer together in brotherly love and financial, that is rogues' sympathy--no, roguish sympathy--that's better. He would like an alliance between England and us. Therefore he cultivates the Irish. And he'd marry Honora Ledwith to-morrow if she'd have him. That's part of the scheme." "And who are the Ledwiths?" said Arthur incautiously, but no one noticed the slip at the moment. "People with ideas, strange weird ideas," Louis made answer. "Oh, perfectly sane, of course, but so devoted to each other, and the cause of Ireland, that they can get along with none, and few can get along with them. That's why Pop thinks so much of 'em. They are forever running about the world, deep in conspiracies for freedom, and so on, but they never get anywhere to stay. Outside of that they're the loveliest souls the sun ever shone on, and I adore Honora." "And if Mona takes to His Lordship," said Grahame, "I'll worship Miss Ledwith." "Very confusing," Arthur muttered. "English noble,--alliance between two countries--cultivates Irish--wants to marry Irish girl--conspirators and all that--why, there's no head or tail to the thing." "Well, you keep your eye on Honora Ledwith and me, and you'll get the key. She's the sun of the system. And, by the way, don't you remember old Ledwith, the red-hot lecturer on the woes of Ireland? Didn't you play on her doorstep in Madison street, and treat her to Washington pie?" When the party arrived next day Arthur saw a handsome, vigorous, blond young man, hearty in his manner, and hesitating in his speech, whom he forgot directly in his surprise over the Ledwiths; for he recognized in them the father and daughter whom he had observed in so passionate a scene in the cathedral on St. Patrick's Day. He had their history by heart, the father being a journalist and the daughter a singer; they had traveled half the world; and while every one loved them none favored their roseate schemes for the freedom of Ireland. Perhaps this had made them peculiar. At the first glance one would have detected oddity as well as distinction in them. Tall, lean, vivacious, Owen Ledwith moved about restlessly, talked much, and with considerable temper. The daughter sat placid and watchful, quite used to playing audience to his entertainments; though her eyes never seemed to look at him, Arthur saw that she missed none of his movements, never failed to catch his words and to smile her approval. The whiteness of her face was like cream, and her dark blue eyes were pencilled by lashes so black that at the first glance they seemed of a lighter shade. Impressed to a degree by what at that instant could not be put into words, he named her in his own mind the White Lady. No trace of disdain spoiled her lofty manner, yet he thought she looked at people as if they were minor instruments in her own scheme. She made herself at home like one accustomed to quick changes of scene. A woman of that sort travels round the globe with a satchel, and dresses for the play with a ribbon and a comb, never finding the horizon too large for personal comfort. Clearly she was beloved in the Dillon circle, for they made much of her; but of course that day not even the master of the house was a good second to Lord Constantine. Anne moved about like herself in a dream. She was heavenly, and Arthur enjoyed it, offering incense to His Lordship, and provoking him into very English utterances. The young man's fault was that he rode his hobby too hard. "It's a shame, doncheknow," he cried as soon as he could decently get at his favorite theme, "that the English-speaking peoples should be so hopelessly divided just now----" "Hold on, Lord Conny," interrupted Grahame, "you're talking Greek to Dillon. Arthur, m'lud has a theory that the English-speaking peoples should do something together, doncheknow, and the devil of it is to get 'em together, doncheknow." They all laughed save Anne, who looked awful at this scandalous mimicry of a personage, until His Lordship laughed too. "You are only a journalist," said he gayly, "and talk like your journal. As I was saying, we are divided at home, and here it is much worse. The Irish here hate us worse than their brethren at home hate us, doncheknow--thank you, Miss Ledwith, I really will not use that word again--and all the races settled with you seem to dislike one another extremely. In Canada it's no better, and sometimes I would despair altogether, only a beginning must be made sometime; and I am really doing very well among the Irish." He looked towards Honora who smiled and turned again to Arthur with those gracious eyes. "I knew you would not forget it," she said. "The Washington pie in itself would keep it in your mind. How I loved that pie, and every one who gave me some. Your coming home must have been very wonderful to your dear mother." "More wonderful than I could make you understand," murmured Arthur. "Do you know the old house is still in Madison street, where we played and ate the pie?" Louis put his head between them slyly and whispered: "I can run over to the baker's if you wish and get a chunk of that identical pie, if you're so in love with it, and we'll have the whole scene over again." No persuasion could induce the party to remain over night at the villa, because of important engagements in the city touching the alliance and the freedom of Erin; and the same tremendous interests would take them far away the next morning to be absent for months; but the winter would find them in the city and, when they would be fairly settled, Arthur was bid to come and dine with them often. On the last boat the White Lady sailed away with her lord and father, and Anne watched the boat out of sight, sighing like one who has been ravished to the third heaven, and finds it a distressing job to get a grip on earth again. Arthur noticed that his mother dressed particularly well for the visits of the politicians, and entertained them sumptuously. Was she planning for his career? Delicious thought! But no, the web was weaving for the Senator. When the last knot was tied, she threw it over his head in perfect style. He complimented her on her latest costume. She swung about the room with mock airs and graces to display it more perfectly, and the men applauded. Good fortune had brought her back a likeness of her former beauty, angles and wrinkles had vanished, there was luster in her hair, and her melting eyes shone clear blue, a trifle faded. In her old age the coquette of twenty years back was returning with a charm which caught brother and son. "I shall wear one like it at your inauguration, Senator," said she brightly. "For President? Thank you. But the dress reminds me, Anne," the Senator added with feeling, "of what you were twenty years ago: the sweetest and prettiest girl in the city." "Oh, you always have the golden word," said she, "and thank you. But you'll not be elected president, only mayor of our own city." "It might come--in time," the Senator thought. "And now is the time," cried she so emphatically that he jumped. "Vandervelt told me that no man could be elected unless you said the word. Why shouldn't you say it for yourself? He told me in the same breath he'd like to see you in the place afore any friend he had, because you were a man o' your word, and no wan could lose be your election." "Did he say all that?" "Every word, and twice as much," she declared with eagerness. "Now think it over with all your clever brains, Senator dear, and lift up the Dillon name to the first place in the city. Oh, I'd give me life to see that glory." "And to win it," Arthur added under his breath. The Senator was impressed, and Arthur had a feeling akin to awe. Who can follow the way of the world? The thread of destiny for the great city up the bay lay between the fingers of this sweet, ambitious house-mother, and of the popular gladiator. Even though she should lead the Senator by the nose to humiliation, the scene was wonderfully picturesque, and her thought daring. He did not know enough history to be aware that this same scene had happened several hundred times in past centuries; but he went out to take another look at the house which sheltered a woman of pluck and genius. The secret of the villa was known. Anne had used it to help in the selection of the next Mayor. He laughed from the depths of his being as he walked along the shore. The Everard children returned home early in September to enjoy the preparations for the entrance of Louis into the seminary. The time had arrived for him to take up the special studies of the priesthood, and this meant his separation from the home circle forever. He would come and go for years perhaps, but alas! only as a visitor. The soul of Arthur was knit with the lad's as Jonathan with David. He had never known a youth so gracious and so strange, whose heart was like a sanctuary where Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chants resound between. It was with him as with Sir Galahad. But all my heart is drawn above. My knees are bowed in crypt and shrine I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden's hand in mine. Parting with him was a calamity. "How can you let him go?" he said to Mary Everard, busy with the preparations. "I am a happy woman that God calls my boy to His service," she answered cheerfully. "The children go anyway ... it's nature. I left father and mother for my own home. How good it is to think he is going to the sanctuary. I know that he is going forever ... he is mine no more ... he will come back often, but he is mine no more. I am heart-broken ... I am keeping a gay face while he is here, for the child must not be worried with our grief ... time enough for that when he is gone ... and he is so happy. My heart is leaving me to go with him. Twenty years since he was born, and in all that time not a moment's pain on his account ... all his life has been ours ... as if he were the father of the family. What shall I be for the rest of my life, listening for his step and his voice, and never a sight or sound of him for months at a time. God give me strength to bear it. If I live to see him on the altar, I shall thank God and die...." Twenty years she had served him, yet here came the inevitable end, as if such love had never been. "Oh, you people of faith! I believe you never suffer, nor know what suffering is!" "Not your kind of suffering, surely, or we would die. Our hope is always with us, and fortunately does not depend on our moods for its power." Mona teased him into good humor. That was a great moment when in presence of the family the lad put on the dress of the seminary, Arthur's gift. Feeling like a prince who clothes his favorite knight in his new armor, Arthur helped him to don the black cassock, tied the ribbons of the surplice, and fixed the three-cornered cap properly on the brown, curly head. A pallor spread over the mother's face. Mona talked much to keep back her tears, and the father declared it a shame to make a priest of so fine a fellow, since there were too many priests in the world for its good. The boy walked about as proud as a young soldier dressed for his first parade. The Trumps, enraptured at the sight, clapped their hands with joy. "Why, he's a priest," cried Constance, with a twist of her pretty mouth. "Louis is a priest." "No, Baby," corrected Marguerite, the little mother, "but he is going to be one sometime." The wonderful garments enchanted them, they feared to touch him, and protested when he swung them high and kissed them on the return flight. The boy's departure for the seminary stirred the region of Cherry Hill. The old neighbors came and went in a steady procession for two days to take their leave of him, to bless his parents, and to wish them the joy of seeing him one day at the altar as a priest of God. They bowed to him with that reverence which belonged to Monsignor, only more familiar and loquacious, and each brought his gift of respect or affection. Even the Senator and the Boss appeared to say a parting word. "I wish you luck, Louis," the Senator said in his resonant voice, and with the speaker's chair before his eyes, "and I know you'll get it, because you have deserved it, sir. I've seen you grow up, and I've always been proud to know you, and I want to know you as long as I live. If ever you should need a hand like mine in the ga ... I mean, if ever my assistance is of any use to you, you know where to call." "You have a hard road to travel," the genial Sullivan said at the close of his visit, "but your training has prepared you for it, and we all hope you will walk it honorably to the end. Remember we all take an interest in you, and what happens to you for good or ill will be felt in this parish." Then the moment of parting came, and Arthur thought less of his own grief than of the revelation it contained for him. Was this the feeling which prompted the tears of his mother, and the tender, speechless embrace of his dear father in the far-off days when he set out for school? Was this the grief which made the parting moment terrible? Then he had thought it nothing that for months of the year they should be without his beloved presence! He shivered at the last embraces of Mary and Mona, at the tears of the children; he saw behind the father's mask of calmness; he wondered no more at himself as he stood looking after the train which bore the boy away. The city seemed as vacant all at once as if turned into a desert. The room in the attic, with its bed, its desk, and its altar, suddenly became a terrible place, like a body from which the soul has fled. Every feature of it gave him pain, and he hurried back with Mona to the frivolity of Anne in her villa by the sea. CHAPTER X. THE HUMORS OF ELECTION. When the villa closed the Senator was hopelessly enmeshed in the golden net which had been so skilfully and genially woven by Anne during the summer. He believed himself to be the coming man, all his natural shrewdness and rich experience going for naught before the witchery of his sister's imagination. In her mind the climax of the drama was a Dillon at the top of the heap in the City Hall. Alas, the very first orders of the chief to his secretary swept away the fine-spun dreams of the Dillons, as the broom brushes into obscure dirt the wondrous cobweb. The Hon. John Sullivan spoke in short sentences, used each man according to that man's nature, stood above and ahead of his cleverest lieutenants, had few prejudices, and these noble, and was truly a hero on the battle-ground of social forces, where no artillery roars, no uniforms glare, and no trumpets sound for the poets. The time having come for action he gave Arthur his orders on the supposition that he understood the political situation, which he did in some degree, but not seriously. The Endicotts looked upon elections as the concern of the rabble, and this Endicott thought it perhaps an occasion for uproarious fun. His orders partly sobered him. "Go to your uncle," said Sullivan, "and tell him he's not in the race. I don't know where he got that bee in his bonnet. Then arrange with Everard to call on Livingstone. Do what you can to straighten the Mayor out. He ought to be the candidate." This dealing with men inspired him. Hitherto he had been playing with children in the garden of life; now he stood with the fighters in the terrible arena. And his first task was to extinguish the roseate dreams of Anne and her gladiator, to destroy that exquisite fabric woven of moonlit seas, enchanting dinners, and Parisian millinery. Never! Let the chief commit that sacrilege! He would not say the word whose utterance might wound the hearts that loved him. The Senator and Anne should have a clear field. High time for the very respectable citizens of the metropolis to secure a novelty for mayor, to get a taste of Roman liberty, when a distinguished member of the arena could wear the purple if he had the mind. Birmingham forced him to change his attitude. The man of money was both good-hearted and large-minded, and had departed from the ways of commerce to seek distinction in politics. Stolid, without enthusiasm or dash, he could be stubbornly great in defence of principle. Success and a few millions had not changed his early theories of life. Pride in his race, delight in his religion, devotion to his party, increased in him as he rose to honor and fame. Arthur Dillon felt still more the seriousness of the position when this man came to ask his aid in securing the nomination. "There never was a time in the history of the city," said Birmingham, "when a Catholic had such a chance to become mayor as now. Protestants would not have him, if he were a saint. But prejudice has abated, and confidence in us has increased since the war. Sullivan can have the position if he wants it. So can many others. All of them can afford to wait, while I cannot. I am not a politician, only a candidate. At any moment, by the merest accident, I may become one of the impossibles. I am anxious, therefore, to secure the nomination this year. I would like to get your influence. Where the balance is often turned by the weight of a hair one cannot be too alert." "Do you think I have influence?" said Arthur humbly. "You are the secretary," Birmingham answered, surprised. "I shall have to use it in behalf of my uncle then." "And if your uncle should not run?" "I should be happy to give you my support." Birmingham looked as blank as one before whom a door opens unexpectedly. "You understand," continued Arthur, "that I have been absent too long to grasp the situation clearly. I think my uncle aspires...." "A very worthy man," murmured Birmingham. "You seem to think he has not much of a chance...." "I know something of Sullivan's mind," Birmingham ventured, "and you know it still better. The exploits of the Senator in his youth--really it would be well for him not to expose himself to public ridicule...." "I had not thought of that," said Arthur, when the other paused delicately. "You are quite right. He should not expose himself. As no other has done me the honor to ask my help, I am free to help you." "You are more than kind. This nomination means election, and election means the opening of a fine career for me. Beyond lie the governorship, the senate, and perhaps higher things. To us these high offices have been closed as firmly as if they were in Sweden. I want the honor of breaking down the barriers." "It is time. I hope you will get the honor," said Arthur gravely. He felt sadly about the Senator, and the shining ambition of his mother. How could he shatter their dreams? Yet in very pity the task had to be done, and when next he heard them vaporing on the glory of the future, he said casually: "I know what your enemies will say if you come into contrast with Livingstone." "I've heard it often enough," answered the Senator gayly. "If I'd listened to them I'd be still in the ring." Then a suspicion overcame him, and he cried out bitterly: "Do you say the same, Artie?" "Rot. There isn't another like you in the whole world, uncle. If my vote could do it you'd go into the White House to-morrow. If you're in earnest in this business of the nomination, then I'm with you to the last ditch. Now when you become mayor of the first city in the land"--Oh, the smile which flashed on the faces of Anne and the Senator at this phrase!--"you become also the target of every journal in the country, of every comic paper, of every cartoonist. All your little faults, your blunders, past and present, are magnified. They sing of you in the music-halls. Oh, there would be no end to it! Ridicule is worse than abuse. It would hurt your friends more than you. You could not escape it, and no one could answer it. Is the prize worth the pain?" Then he looked out of the window to escape seeing the pain in his mother's face, and the bitterness in the Senator's. He did not illustrate his contention with examples, for with these the Senator and his friends were familiar. A light arose on the poor man's horizon. Looking timidly at Anne, after a moment's pause, he said: "I never thought of all that. You've put me on the right track, Artie. I thank you." "What can I do," he whispered to Anne, "since it's plain he wants me to give in--no, to avoid the comic papers?" "Whatever he wishes must be done," she replied with a gesture of despair. "The boy is a wonder," thought the Senator. "He has us all under that little California thumb." "I was a fool to think of the nomination," he said aloud as Arthur turned from the window. "Of course there'd be no end to the ridicule. Didn't the chap on Harper's, when I was elected for the Senate, rig me out as a gladiator, without a stitch on me, actually, Artie, not a stitch--most indecent thing--and show old Cicero in the same picture looking at me like John Everard, with a sneer, and singing to himself: a senator! No, I couldn't stand it. I give up. I've got as high as my kind can go. But there's one thing, if I can't be mayor myself, I can say who's goin' to be." "Then make it Birmingham, uncle," Arthur suggested. "I would like to see him in that place next to you." "And Birmingham it is, unless"--he looked at Anne limp with disappointment--"unless I take it into my head to name you for the place." She gave a little cry of joy and sat up straight. "Now God bless you for that word, Senator. It'll be a Dillon anyway." "In that case I make Birmingham second choice," Arthur said seriously, accepting the hint as a happy ending to a rather painful scene. The second part of the Chief's order proved more entertaining. To visit the Mayor and sound him on the question of his own renomination appeared to Arthur amusing rather than important; because of his own rawness for such a mission, and also because of their relationship. Livingstone was his kinsman. Of course John Everard gave the embassy character, but his reputation reflected on its usefulness. Nature had not yet provided a key to the character of Louis' father. Arthur endured him because Louis loved him, quoted him admiringly, and seemed to understand him most of the time; but he could not understand an Irishman who maintained, as a principle of history, the inferiority of his race to the English, traced its miseries to its silly pride, opposed all schemes of progress until his principle was accepted, and placed the salvation of his people in that moment when they should have admitted the inferiority imposed by nature, and laid aside their wretched conceit. This perverse nature had a sociable, even humorous side, and in a sardonic way loved its own. "I have often wondered," Arthur said, when they were discussing the details of the mission to Livingstone, "how your tough fiber ever generated beings so tender and beautiful as Mona, and Louis, and the Trumps. And now I'm wondering why Sullivan associates you and me in this business. Is it his plan to sink the Mayor deeper in his own mud?" "Whatever his plan I'd like to know what he means in sending with me to the noblest official in the city and the land, for that matter, the notorious orator of a cheap banquet." "I think it means that Quincy must apologize to the Irish, or nominate himself," said Arthur slowly. A lively emotion touched him when he first entered the room where the Mayor sat stately and gracious. In him the Endicott features were emphatic and beautiful. Tall, ruddy, perfectly dressed, with white hair and moustache shining like silver, and dark blue eyes full of fire, the aristocrat breathed from him like a perfume. His greeting both for Everard and Dillon had a graciousness tinged with contempt; a contempt never yet perceived by Everard, but perceived and promptly answered on Arthur's part with equal scorn. "Mr. Dillon comes from Sullivan," said Everard, "to ask you, as a condition of renomination, that you take back your remarks on the Irish last winter. You did them good. They are so soaked in flattery, the flattery of budding orators, that your talk wakes them to the truth." "I take nothing back," said the Mayor in a calm, sweet voice to which feeling gave an edge. "Then you do not desire the nomination of Tammany Hall?" Arthur said with a placid drawl, which usually exasperated Everard and other people. "But I do," the Mayor answered quickly, comprehending on the instant the quality of this antagonist, feeling his own insolence in the tone. "I merely decline the conditions." "Then you must nominate yourself, for the Irish won't vote for you," cried Everard. "The leaders would like to give you the nomination, Mr. Livingstone. You may have it, if you can find the means to placate offended voters for your behavior and your utterances on St. Patrick's Day." "Go down on your knees at once, Mayor," sneered Everard. "I hope Your Honor does not pay too much attention to the opinions of this gentleman," said Arthur with a gesture for his companion. "He's a Crusoe in politics. There's no one else on his island. You have a history, sir, which is often told in the Irish colony here. I have heard it often since my return home----" "This is the gentleman who spoke of your policy at the Donnybrook banquet," Everard interrupted. Livingstone made a sign for silence, and took a closer look at Arthur. "The Irish do not like you, they have no faith in you as a fair man, they say that you are always planning against them, that you are responsible for the deviltries practised upon them through gospel missions, soup kitchens, kidnapping industries, and political intrigues. Whether these things be true, it seems to me that a candidate ought to go far out of his way to destroy such fancies." "A very good word, fancies! Are you going to make your famous speech over again?" said Everard with the ready sneer. "Can you deny that what I have spoken is the truth?" "It is not necessary that he should," Livingstone answered quietly. "I am not interested in what some people say of me. Tell Mr. Sullivan I am ready to accept the nomination, but that I never retract, never desert a position." This young man nettled and irritated the Mayor. His insolence, the insolence of his own class, was so subtly and politely expressed, that no fault could be found; and, though his inexperience was evident, he handled a ready blade and made no secret of his disdain. Arthur did not know to what point of the compass the short conversation had carried them, but he took a boy's foolish delight in teasing the irritated men. "It all comes to this: you must nominate yourself," said Everard. "And divide the party?" "I am not sure it would divide the party," Livingstone condescended to say, for he was amused at the simple horror of Dillon. "It might unite it under different circumstances." "That's the remark of a statesman. And it would rid us, Arthur Dillon, of Sullivan and his kind, who should be running a gin-mill in Hester street." "If he didn't have a finer experience in politics, and a bigger brain for managing men than any three in the city," retorted Arthur icily. "He is too wise to bring the prejudices of race and creed into city politics. If Your Honor runs on an independent ticket, the Irish will vote against you to a man. One would think that far-seeing men, interested in the city and careful of the future, would hesitate to make dangerous rivalries of this sort. Is there not enough bigotry now?" "Not that I know," said the Mayor with a pretence of indifference. "We are all eager to keep the races in good humor, but at the same time to prevent the ascendancy of a particular race, except the native. It is the Irish to-day. It will be the Germans to-morrow. Once checked thoroughly, there will be no trouble in the future." The interview ended with these words. By that time Arthur had gone beyond his political depth, and was glad to make his adieu to the great man. He retained one honest conclusion from the interview. "Birmingham can thank this pig-headed gentleman," said he to Everard, "for making him mayor of New York." John snorted his contempt of the statement and its abettors. The report of Arthur disquieted the Chief and his counselors, who assembled to hear and discuss it. "It's regrettable," was Sullivan's opinion. "Livingstone makes a fine figure in a campaign. He has an attractive name. His independence is popular, and does no harm. He hasn't the interests of the party at heart though. The question now is, can we persuade the Irish to overlook his peculiarities about the green and St. Patrick's Day?" "A more pertinent question," Vandervelt said after a respectful silence, "would be as to the next available man. I favor Birmingham." "And I," echoed the Senator. Arthur listened to the amicable discussion that followed with thoughts not for the candidate, but for the three men who thus determined the history of the city for the next two years. The triumvirs! Cloudy scenes of half-forgotten history rose before him, strange names uttered themselves. Mark Antony and young Octavius and weak Lepidus! He felt suddenly the seriousness of life, and wonder at the ways of men; for he had never stood so near the little gods that harness society to their policies, never till now had he seen with his own eyes how the world is steered. The upshot of endless talk and trickery was the nomination of Birmingham, and the placing of an independent ticket in the field with the Mayor at its head. "Now for the fun," said Grahame. "It's going to be a big fight. If you want to see the working out of principles keep close to me while the fight is on, and I'll explain things." The explanation was intricate and long. What did not matter he forgot, but the picturesque things, which touched his own life afterwards very closely, he kept in mind. Trotting about with the journalist they encountered one day a cleric of distinguished appearance. "Take a good look at him. He's the man that steers Livingstone." "I thought it was John Everard." "John doesn't even steer himself," said Grahame savagely. "But take a view of the bishop." Arthur saw a face whose fine features were shaded by melancholy, tinged with jaundice, gloomy in expression; the mouth drooped at the corners, and the eyes were heavy; one could hardly picture that face lighted by humor or fancy. "We refuse to discuss certain things in political circles here," Grahame continued. "One of them is the muddle made of politics every little while by dragging in religion. The bishop, Bishop Bradford is his name, never loses a chance to make a mud pie. The independent ticket is his pie this year. He secured Livingstone to bake it, for he's no baker himself. He believes in God, but still more does he believe that the Catholics of this city should be kept in the backyard of society. If they eat his pie, their only ambition will be to live in an American backyard. No word of this ever finds its way into the journals, but it is the secret element in New York politics." "I thought everything got into the newspapers," Arthur complained. "Blamed if I can get hold of the thing." "You're right, everything goes into the sewers, but not in a formal way. What's the reason for the independent ticket? Printed: revolt against a domineering boss. Private: to shake the Irish in politics. Do you see? Now, here is a campaign going on. It began last week. It ends in November. But the other campaign has neither beginning nor end. I'll give you object-lessons. There's where the fun comes in." The first object-lesson brought Arthur to the gospel-hall managed by a gentleman whom he had not seen or thought of since the pleasant celebration of St. Patrick's day. Rev. Mr. McMeeter, evangelist of the expansive countenance, was warming up his gathering of sinners that night with a twofold theme: hell for sinners, and the same, embroidered intensely, for Rome. "He handles it as Laocoon did the serpents," whispered Grahame. In a very clerical costume, on a small platform, the earnest man writhed, twisted, and sweated, with every muscle in strain, his face working in convulsions, his lungs beating heaven with sound. He outdid the Trojan hero in the leaps across the platform, the sinuous gestures, the rendings of the enemy; until that moment when he drew the bars of hell for the unrepentant, and flung Rome into the abyss. This effective performance, inartistic and almost grotesque, never fell to the level of the ridiculous, for native power was strong in the man. The peroration raised Livingstone to the skies, chained Sullivan in the lowest depths of the Inferno, and introduced as a terrible example a brand just rescued from the burning. "Study her, observe her," said Grahame. "These brands have had curious burnings." She spoke with ease, a little woman in widow's weeds, coquettishly displaying silken brown hair under the ruching of a demure bonnet. Taking her own account--"Which some reporter wrote for her no doubt," Grahame commented--she had been a sinner, a slave of Rome, a castaway bound hand and foot to degrading superstition, until rescued by the noblest of men and led by spirit into the great work of rescuing others from the grinding slavery of the Church of Rome. Very tenderly she appealed to the audience to help her. The prayers of the saints were about to be answered. God had raised up a leader who would strike the shackles off the limbs of the children. The leader, of course, was Mayor Livingstone. "You see how the spirit works," said Grahame. Then came an interruption. The Brand introduced a girl of twelve as an illustration of her work of rescue among the dreadful hirelings of Rome. A feeble and ragged woman in the audience rose and cried out that the child was her lost Ellen. The little girl made a leap from the platform but was caught dexterously by the Brand and flung behind the scenes. A stout woman shook her fist in the Brand's face and called her out of her name; and also gave the evangelist a slap in the stomach which taught him a new kind of convulsion. His aids fell upon the stout woman, the tough men of the audience fell upon the aids, the mother of Ellen began shrieking, and some respectable people ran to the door to call the police. A single policeman entered cooly, and laid about him with his stick so as to hit the evangelists with frequency. For a few minutes all things turned to dust, confusion, and bad language. The policeman restored order, dismissed Ellen with her mother, calmed the stout woman, and cautioned the host. The Brand had watched the scene calmly and probably enjoyed it. When Arthur left with Grahame Mr. McMeeter had just begun an address which described the policeman as a satellite, a janizary, and a pretorian of Rome. "They're doing a very neat job for Livingstone," said Grahame. "Maybe there are fifty such places about the town. Little Ellen was lucky to see her mother again. Most of these stolen children are shipped off to the west, and turned into very good Protestants, while their mothers grieve to death." "Livingstone ought to be above such work." "He is. He has nothing in common with a kidnapper like McMeeter. He just accepts what is thrown at him. McMeeter throws his support at him. Only high-class methods attract a man like Livingstone. Sister Claire, the Escaped Nun, is one of his methods. We'll go and see her too. She lectures at Chickering Hall to-night ... comes on about half after nine--tells all about her escape from a prison in a convent ... how she was enslaved ... How sin thrives in convents ... and appeals for help for other nuns not yet escaped ... with reference to the coming election and the great deliverer, Livingstone ... makes a pile of money." "You seem envious," Arthur hinted. "Who wouldn't? I can't make a superfluous cent being virtuous, and Sister Claire clears thousands by lying about her neighbors." They took a seat among the reporters, in front of a decorous, severe, even godly audience, who awaited the coming of the Escaped Nun with religious interest. Amid a profound stillness, she came upon the stage from a rear door, ushered in by an impressive clergyman; and walked forward, a startling figure, to the speaker's place, where she stood with the dignity and modesty of her profession, and a self-possession all her own. "Stunning," Grahame whispered. "Costume incorrect, but dramatic." Her dress and veil were of pale yellow, some woolen stuff, the coif and gamp were of white linen, and a red cross marked the entire front of her dress, the arms of the cross resting on her bosom. Arthur stared. Her face of a sickly pallor had deep circles under the eyes, but seemed plump enough for her years. For a moment she stood quietly, with drooping head and uplifted eyes, her hands clasped, a picture of beauty. After a gasp and a pause the audience broke into warm applause long continued. In a sweet and sonorous voice she made her speech, and told her story. It sounded like the _Lady of the Lake_ at times. Grahame yawned--he had heard it so often. Arthur gathered that she had somewhere suffered the tortures of the Inquisition, that innocent girls were enjoying the same experience in the convents of the country, that they were deserted both of God and man, and that she alone had taken up their cause. She was a devoted Catholic, and could never change her faith; if she appealed to her audience, it was only to interest them in behalf of her suffering sisters. "That's the artistic touch," Grahame whispered again. "But it won't pay. Her revelations must get more salaciousness after election." Arthur hardly heard him. Where had he seen and heard this woman before? Though he could not recall a feature of her face, form, dress, manner, yet he had the puzzling sense of having met her long ago, that her personality was not unfamiliar. Still her features baffled the sense. He studied her in vain. When her lecture ended, with drooping head and clasped hands, she modestly withdrew amid fervid acclamations. Strange and bewildering were the currents of intrigue that made up a campaign in the great city; not to mention the hidden forces whose current no human could discern. Arthur went about exercising his talent for oratory in behalf of Birmingham, and found consolation in the sincere applause of humble men, and of boys subdued by the charm of his manner. He learned that the true orator expresses not only his own convictions and emotions, but also the unspoken thoughts, the mute feelings, the cloudy convictions of the simple multitude. He is their interpreter to themselves. The thought gave him reverence for that power which had lain long dormant in him until sorrow waked its noble harmonies. The ferment in the city astonished him. The very boys fought in the vacant lots, and reveled in the strategy of crooked streets and blind alleys. Kindly women, suddenly reminded that the Irish were a race of slaves, banged their doors, and flirted their skirts in scorn. Workmen lost their job here and there, mates fought at the workbench, the bully found his excuse to beat the weak, all in the name of Livingstone. The small business men, whose profits came from both sides, did severe penance for their sins of sanded sugar and deficient weight. The police found their nerves overstrained. To him the entire drama of the campaign had the interest of an impossible romance. It was a struggle between a poor people, cast out by one nation, fighting for a footing on new soil, and a successful few, who had forgotten the sufferings, the similar struggle of their fathers. He rejoiced when Birmingham won. He had not a single regret for the defeat of Livingstone, though it hurt him that a bad cause should have found its leader in his kinsman. CHAPTER XI. AN ENDICOTT HEIR. Meanwhile what of the world and the woman he had left behind? A year had passed, his new personality had begun to fit, and no word or sign direct from the Endicott circle had reached him. Time seemed to have created a profound silence between him and them. Indirectly, however, through the journals, he caught fleeting glimpses of that rage which had filled Sonia with hatred and despair. A description of his person appeared as an advertisement, with a reward of five thousand dollars for information that would lead to the discovery of his whereabouts, or to a certainty of his death. At another time the journals which printed both reward and notice, had a carefully worded plea from his Aunt Lois for letter or visit to soothe the anxieties of her last days. He shook over this reminder of her faithful love until he analyzed the circumstances which had probably led to this burst of publicity. Early in July a letter had informed Sonia of his visit to Wisconsin; two months later a second letter described, in one word, her character, and in six her sentence: adulteress, you shall never see me again. A week's work by her lawyers would have laid bare the fact that the Endicott estate had vanished, and that her own small income was her sole possession. A careful study of his motives would have revealed in part his plans, and a detective had probably spent a month in a vain pursuit. The detective's report must have startled even the lawyers. All clues led to nothing. Sonia had no money to throw away, nor would she dare to appeal too strongly to Aunt Lois and Horace Endicott's friends, who might learn too much, if she were too candid. The two who loved him were not yet really worried by his disappearance, since they had his significant letter. In time their confidence would give place to anxiety, and heaven and earth would be moved to uncover his hiding-place. This loving notice was a trap set by Sonia. On the road which led from Mulberry Street to Cambridge, from the home of Anne Dillon to the home of Lois Endicott, Sonia's detective lay in wait for the returning steps of the lost husband, and Sonia's eyes devoured the shadows, her ears drank in every sound. He laughed, he grew warm with the feeling of triumph. She would watch and listen in vain. The judgment-seat of God was the appointment he had made for her. He began now to wonder at the completeness of his own disappearance. His former self seemed utterly beyond the reach of men. The detectives had not only failed to find him, they had not even fallen upon his track by accident. How singular that an Irish colony in the metropolis should be so far in fact and sympathy from the aristocracy. Sonia and her detectives would have thought of Greenland and the Eskimos, Ashanti, Alaska, the court of China, as possible refuges, but never of Cherry Street and the children of Erin, who were farther off from the Endicotts and the Livingstones than the head-hunters of Borneo. Had her detectives by any chance met him on the road, prepared for any disguise, how dumb and deaf and sightless would they become when his position as the nephew of Senator Dillon, the secretary of Sullivan, the orator of Tammany Hall, and the pride of Cherry Hill, shone upon them. This triumph he would have enjoyed the more could he have seen the effect which the gradual change in his personality had produced on Monsignor O'Donnell, for whom the Endicott episode proved the most curious experience of his career. Its interest was discounted by the responsibility imposed upon him. His only comfort lay in the thought that at any moment he could wash his hands of the affair, before annoying or dangerous consequences began to threaten. He suffered from constant misgivings. The drama of a change in personality went on daily under his eyes, and almost frightened him by its climaxes, which were more distinct to him than to Endicott. First, the pale, worn, savage, and blood-haunted boy who came to him in his first agony; then the melancholy, bearded, yet serene invalid who lay in Anne Dillon's house and was welcomed as her son; next, the young citizen of the Irish colony, known as a wealthy and lucky Californian, bidding for honors as the nephew of Senator Dillon; and last the surprising orator, the idol of the Irish people, their devoted friend, who spared neither labor nor money in serving them. The awesome things in this process were the fading away of the Endicott and the growing distinctness of the Dillon. At first the old personality lay concealed under the new as under a mask; but something like absorption by degrees obliterated the outlines of Endicott and developed the Dillon. Daily he noticed the new features which sprang into sight between sunrise and sunrise. It was not only the fashion of dress, of body, and of speech, which mimics may adopt; but also a change of countenance, a turn of mind which remained permanent, change of gesture, a deeper color of skin, greater decision in movement; in fact, so many and so minute mutations that he could not recall one-tenth the number. Endicott for instance had possessed an eloquent, lustrous, round eye, with an expression delightfully indolent; in Dillon the roundness and indolence gave way to a malicious wrinkle at the outside corners, which gave his glance a touch of bitterness. Endicott had been gracefully slow in his movement; Dillon was nervous and alert. A fascination of terror held Monsignor as Arthur Dillon grew like his namesake more and more. Out of what depths had this new personality been conjured up? What would be the end of it? He said to himself that a single incident, the death of Sonia, would be enough to destroy on the instant this Dillon and resurrect the Endicott. Still he was not sure, and the longer this terrible process continued the less likely a change back to the normal. Morbid introspection had become a part of the young man's pain. The study of the changes in himself proved more pleasant than painful. His mind swung between bitter depression, and warm, natural joy. His moments of deepest joy were coincident with an interesting condition of mind. On certain days he completely forgot the Endicott and became the Dillon almost perfectly. Then he no longer acted a part, but was absorbed in it. Most of the time he was Endicott playing the rôle of Dillon, without effort and with much pleasure, indeed, but still an actor. When memory and grief fled from him together, as on St. Patrick's Day, his new personality dominated each instant of consciousness, and banished thought of the old. Then a new spirit rose in him; not merely a feeling of relief from pain, but a positive influence which led him to do surprising and audacious things, like the speech at the banquet. It was a divine forgetfulness, which he prayed might be continuous. He loved to think that some years of his life would see the new personality in full possession of him, while the old would be but a feeble memory, a mere dream of an impossible past. Wonderful, if the little things of the day, small but innumerable, should wipe out in the end an entire youth that took twenty years in building. What is the past after all but a vague horizon made emphatic by the peaks of memory? What is the future but a bare plain with no emphasis at all? Man lives only in the present, like the God whose spirit breathes in him. Sonia was bent on his not forgetting, however. His heart died within him when he read in the journals the prominent announcement of the birth of a son to the lost Horace Endicott, whose woful fate still troubled the short memory of editors. A son! He crushed the paper in his anguish and fell again into the old depression. Oh, how thoroughly had God punished the hidden crimes of this lost woman! A child would have saved her, and in her hatred of him she had ... he always refused to utter to himself the thought which here rose before his mind. His head bent in agony. This child was not his, perhaps not even hers. She had invented it as a trap for him. Were it really his little one, his flesh and blood, how eagerly he would have thrown off his present life and flown to its rescue from such a mother! Sonia did not hope for such a result. It was her fraudulent mortgage on the future and its possibilities. The child would be heir to his property; would have the sympathy and inherit the possessions of his Aunt Lois; would lull the suspicions concerning its mother, and conciliate the gossips; and might win him back from hiding, if only to expose the fraud and take shame from the Endicotts. What a clever and daring criminal was this woman! With a cleverness always at fault because of her rare unscrupulousness. Even wickedness has its delicacy, its modesty, its propriety, which a criminal respects in proportion to his genius for crime. Sonia offended all in her daring, and lost at every turn. This trap would catch her own feet. A child! A son! He shuddered at the thought, and thanked God that he had escaped a new dishonor. His blood would never mingle with the puddle in Sonia's veins. He would not permit her to work this iniquity, and to check her he must risk final success in his plan of disappearance by violating the first principle of the art: that there be no further connection with the past. The detectives were watching the path by which he would return, counting perhaps upon his rage over this fraudulent heir. He must give them their opportunity, if he would destroy Sonia's schemes against Aunt Lois, but felt sure that they would be unprepared to seize it, even if they dreamed it at hand. He had a plan which might accomplish his object without endangering his position; and one night he slipped away from the city on a train for Boston, got off at a lonely station, and plunged into the darkness without a word for a sleepy station-master. At dawn after two hours' walk he passed the pond which had once seemed to him the door of escape. Poor old friend! Its gray face lay under the morning sky like the face of a dead saint, luminous in its outlines, as if the glory of heaven shone through; still, oh, so still, and deep as if it mirrored immensity. Little complaining murmurs, like the whimperings of a sleepy child, rose up from the reeds, sweeter than any songs. He paused an instant to compare the _then_ and _now_, but fled with a groan as the old sorrow, the old madness, suddenly seized him with the powerful grip of that horrid time. In fact, every step of the way to Martha's house was torture. He saw that for him there were other dangers than Sonia and her detectives, in leaving the refuge which God had provided for him. Oh, never could he be too grateful for the blessing, never could he love enough the holy man who had suggested it, never could he repay the dear souls whose love had made it beautiful. They rose up before him as he hurried down the road, the lovable, humorous, rollicking, faulty clan; and he would not have exchanged them for the glories of a court, for the joys of Arcady. The sun and he found Martha busy with household duties. She did not know him and he said not a word to enlighten her; he was a messenger from a friend who asked of her a service, the carrying of a letter to a certain woman in Boston; and no one should see her deliver the letter, or learn her name, or know her coming and going; for her friend, in hiding, and pursued, must not be discovered. Then she knew that he came from Horace, and shed tears that he lived well and happy, but could not believe, when he had made himself known, that this was the same man of a year before. They spent a happy day together in perfecting the details of her visit to Aunt Lois, which had to be accomplished with great care and secrecy. There was to be no correspondence between them. In two weeks he would come again to hear a report of her success or failure. If she were not at home, he would come two weeks later. She could tell Aunt Lois whatever the old lady desired to hear about him, and assure her that nothing would induce him ever to return to his former life. The letter said as much. When night came they went off over the hills together to the nearest railway station, where he left her to find her way to the city, while he went on to a different station and took a late train to New York. By these methods he felt hopeful that his violation of the rules of disappearing would have no evil results for him, beyond that momentary return of the old anguish which had frightened him more than Sonia's detectives. In four weeks old Martha returned from her mission, and told this story as they sat in the pleasant kitchen near a cheery fire. "I rented a room in the neighborhood of your Aunt Lois' house, and settled myself to wait for the most natural opportunity to meet her. It was long in coming, for she had been sick; but when she got better I saw her going out to ride, and a little later she took to walking in the park with her maid. There she often sat, and chatted with passing children, or with old women like herself, poor old things trying to get life from the air. The maid is a spy. She noted every soul about, and had an extra glance for me when your aunt spoke to me, after I had waited three weeks for a word. I told her my story, as I told it to you. She was interested, and I must go to her house to take lunch with her. I refused. I was not used to such invitations, but I would call on her at other times. And the maid listened the more. She was never out of hearing, nor out of sight, until Aunt Lois would get into a rage, and bid her take a walk. It was then I handed her the letter under my shawl. The maid's eyes could not see through the shawl. I told her what you bid me: that you would never return again, no more than if you were dead, that she must burn the letter so that none would know a letter had been received and burned, and that she would understand many things when she had read it; most particular that she was surrounded by spies, and that she must go right on as if nothing had happened, and deceive as she had been deceived. "I met her only twice after that. I told her my plan to deceive the maid. I was a shrewd beggar studying to get money out of her, with a story about going to my son in Washington. She bid the maid secretly find out if I was worthy, and I saw the maid in private, and begged her to report of me favorably, and she might have half the money, and then I would go away. And the maid was deceived, for she brought me fifty dollars from your aunt, and kept thirty. She would not give even the twenty until I had promised to go away without complaint. So I went away, and stayed with a friend in Worcester. Since I came home I have not seen or heard of any stranger in this neighborhood. So that it is likely I have not been suspected or followed. And the letter was burned. And at the first fair chance your Aunt will go to Europe, taking with her her two dearest relatives. She called them Sonia Endicott and her child Horace, and she would keep them with her while she lived. At the last she sent you her love, though she could not understand some of the things you were doing, but that was your own business. And she never shed a tear, but kept smiling, and her smile was terrible." He could believe that. Sonia might as well have lived in the glare of Vesuvius as in the enlightened smile of Aunt Lois. The schemer was now in her own toils, and only at the death of the brave old woman would she know her failure. Oh, how sweet and great is even human justice! "If I do not see you again, Martha," said Arthur as he kissed the dear old mother farewell, "remember that I am happy, and that you made me so." THE GREEN AGAINST THE RED. CHAPTER XII. THE HATE OF HANNIBAL. Owen Ledwith had a theory concerning the invasion of Ireland, which he began to expound that winter. Since few know much more about the military art than the firing of a shotgun, he won the scorn of all except his daughter and Arthur Dillon. In order to demonstrate his theory Ledwith was willing to desert journalism, to fit out a small ship, and to sail into an Irish harbor from New York and back, without asking leave from any government; if only the money were supplied by the patriots to buy the ship and pay the sailors. His theory held that a fleet of many ships might sail unquestioned from the unused harbors of the American coast, and land one hundred thousand armed men in Ireland, where a blow might be struck such as never had been yet in the good cause. Military critics denied the possibility of such an invasion. He would have liked to perform the feat with a single ship, to convince them. "I have a suspicion," he said one night to his daughter, "that this young Dillon would give me five thousand dollars for the asking. He is a Fenian now." "Is it possible?" Honora cried in astonishment. "Well, I don't see any reason for wonder, Nora. He has been listening to me for three months, vaporing over the wrongs of Ireland; he's of Celtic blood; he has been an adventurer in California; he has the money, it would seem. Why, the wonder would be if he did not do what all the young fellows are doing." "I have not quite made up my mind about him yet, father," the young woman said thoughtfully. "He's all man," said the father. "True, but a man who is playing a part." He laid down his pipe in his surprise, but she smiled assuringly. "Well, it's fine acting, if you call it so, my love. In a little over a year he has made himself the pride of Cherry Hill. Your great friend,"--this with a sniff--"Monsignor O'Donnell, is his sponsor. He speaks like the orator born and with sincerity, though he knows little of politics. But he has ideas. Then did you ever meet a merrier lad? Such a singer and dancer, such a favorite among boys and girls! He seems to be as lovable as his uncle the Senator, and the proof of it is that all confide in him. However, I have faith in your instincts, Nora. What do they say?" "He looks at us all like a spectator sitting in front of a stage. Of course I have heard the people talk about him. He is a popular idol, except to his mother who seems to be afraid of him. He has moods of sadness, gloom, and Miss Conyngham told me she would wager he left a wife in California. While all like him, each one has a curious thing to tell about him. They all say it is the sickness which he had on coming home, and that the queer things are leaving him. The impression he gives me is that of one acting a part. I must say it is fading every day, but it hinders me from feeling quite satisfied about him." "Well, one thing is in his favor: he listens to me," said Ledwith. "He is one of the few men to whom I am not a crazy dreamer, crazy with love of Erin and hate of her shameless foe." "And I love him for that, father," she said tenderly. "There is no acting in his regard and esteem for you, nothing insincere in his liking for us, even if we cannot quite understand it. For we _are_ queer, Daddy," putting her arms about him. "Much love for our old home and much thinking how to help it, and more despair and worry, have shut us off from the normal life, until we have forgotten the qualities which make people liked. Poor Daddy!" "Better that than doing nothing," he said sadly. "To struggle and fight once in a while mean living; to sit still would be to die." Arthur was ushered in just then by the servant, and took his place comfortably before the fire. One could see the regard which they felt for him; on the part of Ledwith it was almost affection. Deeply and sincerely he returned their kindly feeling. He had a host of reasons for his regard. Their position seemed as strange to the humdrum world as his own. They were looked on as queer people, who lived outside the ruts for the sake of an enslaved nation. The idea of losing three meals a day and a fixed home for a hopeless cause tickled the humor of the practical. Their devotion to an idea hardly surpassed their devotion to each other. He mourned for her isolation, she mourned over his failures to free his native land. "I have almost given the cause up," he said once to Arthur, "because I feel my helplessness. I cannot agree with the leaders nor they with me. But if I gave up she would worry herself to death over my loss of hope. I keep on, half on her account, half in the hope of striking the real thing at the end." "It seems to be also the breath of her life," said Arthur. "No, it is not," the father replied. "Have you not heard her talk of your friend, Louis Everard? How she dwells on his calling, and the happiness of it! My poor child, her whole heart yearns for the cloister. She loves all such things. I have urged her to follow her inclinations, though I know it would be the stroke of death for me, but she will not leave me until I die." "You must not take us too seriously," she had once said, "in this matter of Irish liberties. My father is hopelessly out of the current, for his health is only fair, and he has quarreled with his leaders. I have given up hope of achieving anything. But if he gives up he dies. So, I encourage him and keep marching on, in spite of the bitterest disappointments. Perhaps something may come of it in the end." "Not a doubt of it," said Arthur, uttering a great thought. "Every tear, every thought, every heart-throb, every drop of sweat and blood, expended for human liberty, must be gathered up by God and laid away in the treasury of heaven. The despots of time shall pay the interest of that fund here or there." A woman whose ideals embraced the freedom of an oppressed people, devotion to her father, and love for the things of God, would naturally have a strong title to the respect of Arthur Dillon; and she was, besides, a beautiful woman, who spoke great things in a voice so sweetly responsive to her emotions that father and friend listened as to music. The Ledwiths had a comfortable income, when they set to work, earned by his clever pen and her exquisite voice. The young man missed none of her public appearances, though he kept the fact to himself. She was on those occasions the White Lady in earnest. Her art had warmth indeed, but the coldness and aloofness of exalted purity put her beyond the zone of desire; a snowy peak, distinct to the eye, but inaccessible. When they were done with greetings Arthur brought up a specific subject. "It has gone about that I have become a Fenian," he said, "and I have been called on to explain to many what chance the movement has of succeeding. There was nothing in the initiation which gave me that information." "You can say: none," Ledwith answered bitterly. "And if you quote me as your authority there will be many new members in the brotherhood." "Then why keep up the movement, if nothing is to come of it?" "The fighting must go on," Ledwith replied, "from generation to generation in spite of failure. The Fenian movement will fail like all its predecessors. The only reason for its continuance is that its successor may succeed. Step by step! Few nations are as lucky as this to win in the first fight. Our country is the unluckiest of all. Her battle has been on seven hundred years." "But I think there must be more consolation in the fight than your words imply;" Arthur declared. "There must be a chance, a hope of winning." "The hope has never died but the chance does not yet exist, and there is no chance for the Fenians," Ledwith answered with emphasis. "The consolation lies for most of us in keeping up the fight. It is a joy to let our enemy, England, know, and to make her feel, that we hate her still, and that our hate keeps pace with her advancing greatness. It is pleasant to prove to her, even by an abortive rising, that all her crimes, rogueries, and diplomacies against us have been vain to quench our hate. We have been scattered over the world, but our hate has been intensified. It is joy to see her foam at the mouth like a wild beast, then whine to the world over the ingratitude of the Irish; to hear the representatives of her tax-payers howl in Parliament at the expense of putting down regular rebellions; to see the landlords flying out of the country they have ravaged, and the Orangemen white with the fear of slaughter. Then these movements are an education. The children are trained to a knowledge of the position, to hatred of the English power, and their generation takes up the fight where the preceding left it." "Hate is a terrible thing," said the young man. "Is England so hateful then?" Honora urged him by looks to change the subject, for her father knew no bounds in speaking of his country's enemy, but he would not lift his eyes to her face. He wished to hear Owen Ledwith express his feelings with full vent on the dearest question to his heart. The man warmed up as he spoke, fire in his eyes, his cheeks, his words, and gestures. "She is a fiend from hell," he replied, hissing the words quietly. Deep emotion brought exterior calm to Ledwith. "But that is only a feeling of mine. Let us deal with the facts. Like the fabled vampire England hangs upon the throat of Ireland, battening on her blood. Populous England, vanishing Ireland! What is the meaning of it? One people remains at home by the millions, the other flies to other lands by the millions. Because the hell-witch is good to her own. For them the trade of the world, the opening of mines, the building of factories, the use of every natural power, the coddling of every artificial power. They go abroad only to conquer and tax the foreigner for the benefit of those at home. Their harbors are filled with ships, and their treasury with the gold of the world. For our people, there is only permission to work the soil, for the benefit of absentee landlords, or encouragement to depart to America. No mines, no factories, no commerce, no harbors, no ships, in a word no future. So the Irish do not stay at home. The laws of England accomplished this destruction of trade, of art, of education, oh, say it at once, of life. Damnable laws, fashioned by the horrid greed of a rich people, that could not bear to see a poor people grow comfortable. They called over to their departments of trade, of war, of art, to court, camp, and studio, our geniuses, gave them fame, and dubbed them Englishmen; the castaways, the Irish in America and elsewhere are known as 'the mere Irish.'" "It is very bitter," said Arthur, seeing the unshed tears in Honora's eyes. "I wonder how we bear it," Ledwith continued. "We have not the American spirit, you may be sure. I can fancy the colonists of a hundred years back meeting an Irish situation; the men who faced the Indian risings, and, worse, the subduing of the wilderness. For them it would have been equal rights and privileges and chances, or the bottom of the sea for one of the countries. But we are poetic and religious, and murderous only when a Cromwell or a Castlereagh opens hell for us. However, the past is nothing; it is the present which galls us. The gilding of the gold and the painting of the lily are symbols of our present sufferings. After stripping and roasting us at home, this England, this hell-witch sends abroad into all countries her lies and slanders about us. Her spies, her professors, her gospellers, her agents, her sympathizers everywhere, can tell you by the yard of our natural inferiority to the Chinese. Was it not an American bishop who protested in behalf of the Chinese of San Francisco that they were more desirable immigrants than the sodden Irish? God! this clean, patient, laborious race, whose chastity is notorious, whose Christianity has withstood the desertion of Christ----" Honora gave a half scream at the blasphemy, but at once controlled herself. "I take that back, child--it was only madness," Ledwith said. "You see, Dillon, how scarred my soul is with this sorrow. But the bishop and the Chinese! Not a word against that unfortunate people, whose miseries are greater even than ours, and spring from the same sources. At least _they_ are not lied about, and a bishop, forsooth! can compare them, pagans in thought and act and habit though they be, with the most moral and religious people in the world, to his own shame. It is the English lie working. The Irish are inferior, and of a low, groveling, filthy nature; they are buried both in ignorance and superstition; their ignorance can be seen in their hatred of British rule, and their refusal to accept the British religion; wherever they go in the wide world, they reduce the average of decency and intelligence and virtue; for twenty years these lies have been sung in the ears of the nations, until only the enemies of England have a welcome for us. Behold our position in this country. Just tolerated. No place open to us except that of cleaning the sewers. Every soul of us compelled to fight, as Birmingham did the other day, for a career, and to fight against men like Livingstone, who should be our friends. And in the hearts of the common people a hatred for us, a disgust, even a horror, not inspired by the leprous Chinese. We have earned all this hatred and scorn and opposition from England, because in fighting with her we have observed the laws of humanity, when we should have wiped her people off the face of the earth as Saul smote Agag and his corrupt people, as Cromwell treated us. Do you wonder that I hate this England far more than I hate sin, or the devil, or any monstrous creature which feeds upon man." "I do not wonder," said Arthur. "With you there is always an increasing hatred of England?" "Until death," cried Ledwith, leaping from his seat, as if the fire of hate tortured him, and striding about the room. "To fight every minute against this monster, to fight in every fashion, to irritate her, to destroy a grain of her influence, in a single mind, in a little community, to expose her pretense, her sham virtues, her splendid hypocrisy, these are the breath of my life. That hate will never perish until----" He paused as if in painful thought, and passed his hand over his forehead. "Until the wrongs of centuries have been avenged," said Arthur. Ledwith sat down with a scornful laugh. "That's a sentence from the orations of our patriotic orators," he sneered. "What have we to do with the past? It is dead. The oppressed and injured are dead. God has settled their cause long ago. It would be a pretty and consoling sight to look at the present difference between the English Dives and the Irish Lazarus! The vengeance of God is a terrible thing. No! my hate is of the present. It will not die until we have shaken the hold of this vampire, until we have humiliated and disgraced it, and finally destroyed it. I don't speak of retaliation. The sufferings of the innocent and oppressed are not atoned for by the sufferings of other innocents and other oppressed. The people are blameless. The leaders, the accursed aristocracy of blood, of place, of money, these make the corporate vampire, which battens upon the weak and ignorant poor; only in England they give them a trifle more, flatter them with skill, while the Irish are kicked out like beggars." He looked at Dillon with haggard eyes. Honora sat like a statue, as if waiting for the storm to pass. "I have not sworn an oath like Hannibal," he said, "because God cannot be called as a witness to hate. But the great foe of Rome never observed his oath more faithfully than I shall that compact which I have made with myself and the powers of my nature: to turn all my strength and time and capacity into the channel of hate against England. Oh, how poor are words and looks and acts to express that fire which rages in the weakest and saddest of men." He sank back with a gesture of weariness, and found Honora's hand resting on his tenderly. "The other fire you have not mentioned, Daddy," she said wistfully, "the fire of a love which has done more for Erin than the fire of hate. For love is more than hate, Daddy." "Ay, indeed," he admitted. "Much as I hate England, what is it to my love for her victim? Love is more than hate. One destroys, the other builds." Ledwith, quite exhausted by emotion, became silent. The maid entered with a letter, which Honora opened, read silently, and handed to her father without comment. His face flushed with pleasure. "Doyle Grahame writes me," he explained to Arthur, "that a friend, who wishes to remain unknown, has contributed five thousand dollars to testing my theory of an invasion of Ireland. That makes the expedition a certainty--for May." "Then let me volunteer the first for this enterprise," said Arthur blithely. "And me the second," cried Honora with enthusiasm. "Accepted both," said Ledwith, with a proud smile, new life stealing into his veins. Not for a moment did he suspect the identity of his benefactor, until Monsignor, worried over the risk for Arthur came to protest some days later. The priest had no faith in the military enterprise of the Fenians, and, if he smiled at Arthur's interest in conspiracy, saw no good reasons why he should waste his money and expose his life and liberty in a feeble and useless undertaking. His protest both to Arthur and others was vigorous. "If you have had anything to do with making young Dillon a Fenian," he said, "and bringing him into this scheme of invasion, Owen, I would like you to undo the business, and persuade him to stay at home." "Which I shall not do, you may be sure, Monsignor," replied the patriot politely. "I want such men. The enemy we fight sacrifices the flower of English youth to maintain its despotism; why should we shrink from sacrifice?" "I do not speak of sacrifice," said Monsignor. "One man is the same as another. But there are grave reasons which demand the presence of this young man in America, and graver reasons why he should not spend his money incautiously." "Well, he has not spent any money yet, so far as I know," Ledwith said. The priest hesitated a moment, while the other looked at him curiously. "You are not aware, then, that he has provided the money for your enterprise?" Honora uttered a cry, and Ledwith sprang from his chair in delighted surprise. "Do you tell me that?" he shouted. "Honora, Honora, we have found the right man at last! Oh, I felt a hundred times that this young fellow was destined to work immense good for me and mine. God bless him forever and ever." "Amen," said Honora, rejoicing in her father's joy. "You know my opinion on these matters, Owen," said Monsignor. "Ay, indeed, and of all the priests for that matter. Had we no religion the question of Irish freedom would have been settled long ago. Better for us had we been pagans or savages. Religion teaches us only how to suffer and be slaves." "And what has patriotism done for you?" Monsignor replied without irritation. "Little enough, to be sure." "Now, since I have told you how necessary it is that Dillon should remain in America, and that his money should not be expended----" "Monsignor," Ledwith broke in impatiently, "let me say at once you are asking what you shall not get. I swear to you that if the faith which you preach depended on getting this young fellow to take back his money and to desert this enterprise, that faith would die. I want men, and I shall take the widow's only son, the father of the family, the last hope of a broken heart. I want money, and I shall take the crust from the mouth of the starving, the pennies from the poor-box, the last cent of the poor, the vessels of the altar, anything and everything, for my cause. How many times has our struggle gone down in blood and shame because we let our foolish hearts, with their humanity, their faith, their sense of honor, their ridiculous pride, rule us. I want this man and his money. I did not seek them, and I shall not play tricks to keep them. But now that they are mine, no man shall take them from me." Honora made peace between them, for these were stubborn men, unwilling to make compromises. Monsignor could give only general reasons. Ledwith thought God had answered his prayers at last. They parted with equal determination. What a welcome Arthur Dillon received from the Ledwiths on his next visit! The two innocents had been explaining their ideas for years, and traveling the earth to put them into action; and in all that time had not met a single soul with confidence enough to invest a dollar in them. They had spent their spare ducats in attempting what required a bank to maintain. They had endured the ridicule of the hard-hearted and the silent pity of the friends who believed them foolish dreamers. And behold a man of money appears to endow their enterprise, and to show his faith in it by shipping as a common member of the expedition. Was there ever such luck? They thanked him brokenly, and looked at him with eyes so full of tenderness and admiration and confidence, that Arthur swore to himself he would hereafter go about the earth, hunting up just such tender creatures, and providing the money to make their beautiful, heroic, and foolish dreams come true. He began to feel the truth of a philosopher's saying: the dreams of the innocent are the last reasoning of sages. "And to this joy is added another," said Ledwith, when he could speak steadily. "General Sheridan has promised to lead a Fenian army the moment the Irish government can show it in the field." "What does that mean?" said Arthur. "What does it mean that an Irish army on Irish soil should have for its leader a brilliant general like Sheridan?" cried Ledwith. A new emotion overpowered him. His eyes filled with tears. "It means victory for a forlorn cause. Napoleon himself never led more devoted troops than will follow that hero to battle. Washington never received such love and veneration as he will from the poor Irish, sick with longing for a true leader. Oh, God grant the day may come, and that we may see it, when that man will lead us to victory." His eyes flashed fire. He saw that far-off future, the war with its glories, the final triumph, the crowning of Sheridan with everlasting fame. And then without warning he suddenly fell over into a chair. Arthur lifted up his head in a fright, and saw a pallid face and lusterless eyes. Honora bathed his temples, with the coolness and patience of habit. "It is nothing, nothing," he said feebly after a moment. "Only the foolishness of it all ... I can forget like a boy ... the thing will never come to pass ... never, never, never! There stands the hero, splendid with success, rich in experience, eager, willing, a demigod whom the Irish could worship ... his word would destroy faction, wipe out treason, weed out fools, hold the clans in solid union ... if we could give him an army, back him with a government, provide him with money! We shall never have the army ... nothing. Treason breeding faction, faction inviting treason ... there's our story. O, God, ruling in heaven, but not on earth, why do you torture us so? To give us such a man, and leave us without the opportunity or the means of using him!" He burst into violent, silent weeping. Dillon felt the stab of that hopeless grief, which for the moment revived his own, although he could not quite understand it. Ledwith dashed away the tears after a little and spoke calmly. "You see how I can yield to dreams like a foolish child. I felt for a little as if the thing had come to pass, and gave in to the fascination. This is the awaking. All the joy and sorrow of my life have come mostly from dreams." CHAPTER XIII. ANNE DILLON'S FELICITY. Monsignor was not discouraged by his failure to detach Arthur from the romantic expedition to the Irish coast. With a view to save him from an adventure so hurtful to his welfare, he went to see Anne Dillon. Her home, no longer on Mulberry Street, but on the confines of Washington Square, in a modest enough dwelling, enjoyed that exclusiveness which is like the atmosphere of a great painting. One feels by instinct that the master hand has been here. Although aware that good fortune had wrought a marked change in Anne, Monsignor was utterly taken aback by a transformation as remarkable in its way as the metamorphosis of Horace Endicott. Judy Haskell admitted him, and with a reverence showed him into the parlor; the same Judy Haskell as of yore, ornamented with a lace cap, a collar, deep cuffs, and an apron; through which her homeliness shone as defiantly as the face of a rough mountain through the fog. She had been instructed in the delicate art of receiving visitors with whom her intimacy had formerly been marked; but for Monsignor she made an exception, and the glint in her eye, the smile just born in the corner of her emphatic mouth, warned him that she knew of the astonishment which his good breeding concealed. "We're mountin' the laddher o' glory," she said, after the usual questions. "Luk at me in me ould age, dhressed out like a Frinch sportin' maid. If there was a baby in the house ye'd see me, Father Phil, galivantin' behind a baby-carriage up an' down the Square. Faith, she does it well, the climbin', if we don't get dizzy whin we're halfway up, an' come to earth afore all the neighbors, flatter nor pancakes." "Tut, tut," said Monsignor, "are you not as good as the best, with the blood of the Montgomerys and the Haskells in your veins? Are you to make strange with all this magnificence, as if you were Indians seeing it for the first time?" "That's what I've been sayin' to meself since it began," she replied. "Since what began?" "Why, the changin' from Mulberry Sthreet Irish to Washington Square Yankees," Judy said with a shade of asperity. "It began wid the dog-show an' the opera. Oh, but I thought I'd die wid laughin', whin I had to shtan' at the doors o' wan place or the other, waitin' on Micksheen, or listenin' to the craziest music that ever was played or sung. After that kem politics, an' nothin' wud do her but she'd bate ould Livingstone for Mare all by herself. Thin it was Vandervelt for imbassador to England, an' she gev the Senator an' the Boss no pace till they tuk it up. An' now it's the Countess o' Skibbereen mornin', noon, an' night. I'm sick o' that ould woman. But she owns the soul of Anne Dillon." "Well, her son can afford it," said Monsignor affably. "Why shouldn't she enjoy herself in her own way?" "Thrue for you, Father Phil; I ought to call you Morrisania, but the ould names are always the shweetest. He has the money, and he knows how to spind it, an' if he didn't she'd show him. Oh, but he's the fine b'y! Did ye ever see annywan grow more an' more like his father, pace to his ashes. Whin he first kem it wasn't so plain, but now it seems to me he's the very spit o' Pat Dillon. The turn of his head is very like him." At this point in a chat, which interested Monsignor deeply, a soft voice floated down from the upper distance, calling, "Judy! Judy!" in a delicate and perfect French accent. "D'ye hear that, Father Phil?" whispered Judy with a grin. "It's nothin' now but Frinch an' a Frinch masther. Wait till yez hear me at it." She hastened to the hall and cried out, "Oui, oui, Madame," with a murmured aside to the priest, "It's all I know." "Venez en haut, Judy," said the voice. "Oui, oui, Madame," answered Judy. "That manes come up, Father Phil," and Judy walked off upright, with folded arms, swinging her garments, actions belied by the broad grin on her face, and the sarcastic motion of her lips, which kept forming the French words with great scorn. A few minutes afterward Anne glided into the room. The Montgomery girls had all been famous for their beauty in the earlier history of Cherry Hill, and Anne had been the belle of her time. He remembered her thirty years back, on the day of her marriage, when he served as altar-boy at her wedding; and recalled a sweet-faced girl, with light brown silken hair, languorous blue eyes, rose-pink skin, the loveliest mouth, the most provoking chin. Time and sorrow had dealt harshly with her, and changed her, as the fairies might, into a thin-faced, gray-haired, severe woman, whose dim eyes were hidden by glasses. She had retained only her grace and dignity of manner. He recalled all this, and drew his breath; for before him stood Anne Montgomery, as she had stood before him at the altar; allowing that thirty years had artistically removed the youthful brilliance of youth, but left all else untouched. The brown hair waved above her forehead, from her plump face most of the wrinkles had disappeared, her eyes gleamed with the old time radiance, spectacles had been banished, a subdued color tinted her smiling face. "Your son is not the only one to astound me," said Monsignor. "Anne, you have brought back your youth again. What a magician is prosperity." "It's the light-heartedness, Monsignor. To have as much money as one can use wisely and well, to be done with scrimpin' forever, gives wan a new heart, or a new soul. I feel as I felt the day I was married." She might have added some information as to the share which modiste and beautifier might claim in her rejuvenation, but Monsignor, very strict and happily ignorant of the details of the toilet, as an ecclesiastic should be, was lost in admiration of her. It took him ten minutes to come to the object of his visit. "He has long been ahead of you," she said, referring to Arthur. "I asked him for leave to visit Ireland, and he gave it on two conditions: that I would take Louis and Mona wid me, and refuse to interfere with this Fenian business, no matter who asked me. I was so pleased that I promised, and of course I can't go back on me word." "This is a very clever young man," said Monsignor, admiring Anne's skill in extinguishing her beautiful brogue, which, however, broke out sweetly at times. "Did you ever see the like of him?" she exclaimed. "I'm afraid of him. He begins to look like himself and like his father ... glory be to God ... just from looking at the pictures of the two and thinkin' about them. He's good and generous, but I have never got over being afeared of him. It was only when he went back on his uncle ... on Senator Dillon ... that I plucked up courage to face him. I had the Senator all ready to take the place which Mr. Birmingham has to-day, when Arthur called him off." "He never could have been elected, Anne." "I never could see why. The people that said that didn't think Mr. Vandervelt could be made ambassador to England, at least this time. But he kem so near it that Quincy Livingstone complimented me on my interest for Mr. Vandervelt. And just the same, Dan Dillon would have won had he run for the office. It was with him a case of not wantin' to be de trop." "Your French is três propos, Anne," said Monsignor with a laugh. "If you want to hear an opinion of it," said the clever woman, laughing, too, "go and hear the complaints of Mary and Sister Magdalen. Mais je suis capable de parler Français tout de même." "And are you still afraid of Arthur? Wouldn't you venture on a little protest against his exposing himself to needless danger?" "I can do that, certainement, but no more. I love him, he's so fine a boy, and I wish I could make free wid him; but he terrifies me when I think of everything and look at him. More than wanst have I seen Arthur Dillon looking out at me from his eyes; and sometimes I feel that Pat is in the room with me when he is around. As I said, I got courage to face him, and he was grieved that I had to. For he went right into the contest over Vandervelt, and worked beautifully for the Countess of Skibbereen. I'm to dine with her at the Vandervelts' next week, the farewell dinner." Her tones had a velvet tenderness in uttering this last sentence. She had touched one of the peaks of her ambition. "I shall meet you there," said Monsignor, taking a pinch of snuff. "Anne, you're a wonderful woman. How have all these wonders come about?" "It would take a head like your own to tell," she answered, with a meaning look at her handsome afternoon costume. "But I know some of the points of the game. I met Mr. Vandervelt at a reception, and told him he should not miss his chance to be ambassador, even if Livingstone lost the election and wanted to go to England himself. Then he whispered to me the loveliest whisper. Says he, 'Mrs. Dillon, they think it will be a good way to get rid of Mr. Livingstone if he's defeated,' says he; 'but if he wins I'll never get the high place, says he, 'for Tammany will be of no account for years.'" Anne smiled to herself with simple delight over that whispered confidence of a Vandervelt, and Monsignor sat admiring this dawning cleverness. He noticed for the first time that her taste in dress was striking and perfect, as far as he could judge. "'Then' says I, 'Mr. Vandervelt,' says I, 'there's only wan thing to be done, wan thing to be done,' says I. 'Arthur and the Senator and Doyle Grahame and Monsignor must tell Mr. Sullivan along wid Mr. Birmingham that you should go to England this year. 'Oh,' said he, 'if you can get such influence to work, nothing will stop me but the ill-will of the President.' 'And even there,' said I, 'it will be paving the way for the next time, if you make a good showing this time.' 'You see very far and well,' said he. That settled it. I've been dinin' and lunching with the Vandervelts ever since. You know yourself, Monsignor, how I started every notable man in town to tell Mr. Sullivan that Vandervelt must go to England. We failed, but it was the President did it; but he gave Mr. Vandervelt his choice of any other first-class mission. Then next, along came the old Countess of Skibbereen, and she was on the hands of the Vandervelts with her scheme of getting knitting-machines for the poor people of Galway. She wasn't getting on a bit, for she was old and queer in her ways, and the Vandervelts were worried over it. Then I said: 'why not get up a concert, and have Honora sing and let Tammany take up one end and society the other, and send home the Countess with ten thousand dollars?' My dear, they jumped at it, and the Countess jumped at me. Will you ever forget it, Monsignor dear, the night that Honora sang as the Genius of Erin? If that girl could only get over her craziness for Ireland and her father--but that's not what I was talking about. Well, the Countess has her ten thousand dollars, and says I'm the best-dressed woman in New York. So, that's the way I come to dine with the Vandervelts at the farewell dinner to the Countess, and when it comes off New York will be ringing with the name of Mrs. Montgomery Dillon." "Is that the present name?" said Monsignor. "Anne, if you go to Ireland you'll return with a title. Your son should be proud of you." "I'll give him better reason before I'm done, Monsignor." The prelate rose to go, then hesitated a moment. "Do you think there is anything?--do you think there could be anything with regard to Honora Ledwith?" She stopped him with a gesture. "I have watched all that. Not a thing could happen. Her thoughts are in heaven, poor child, and his are busy with some woman that bothered him long ago, and may have a claim on him. No wan told me, but my seein' and hearing are sharp as ever." "Good-by, Mrs. Montgomery Dillon," he said, bowing at the door. "Au plaisir, Monseigneur," she replied with a curtsey, and Judy opened the outer door, face and mien like an Egyptian statue of the twelfth dynasty. Anne Dillon watched him go with a sigh of deep contentment. How often she had dreamed of men as distinguished leaving her presence and her house in this fashion; and the dream had come true. All her life she had dreamed of the elegance and importance, which had come to her through her strange son, partly through her own ambition and ability. She now believed that if one only dreams hard enough fortune will bring dreams true. As the life which is past fades, for all its reality, into the mist-substance of dreams, why should not the reverse action occur? Had she been without the rich-colored visions which illuminated her idle hours, opportunity might have found her a spiritless creature, content to take a salary from her son and to lay it by for the miserable days of old age. Out upon such tameness! She had found life in her dreams, and the two highest expressions of that life were Mrs. Montgomery Dillon and the Dowager Countess of Skibbereen. As a pagan priestess might have arrayed herself for appearance in the sanctuary, she clothed herself in purple and gold on the evening of the farewell dinner. Arthur escorted his mother and Honora to the Vandervelt residence. As the trio made their bows, the aspirant for diplomatic honors rejoiced that his gratitude for real favors reflected itself in objects so distinguished. He was a grateful man, this Vandervelt, and broad-minded, willing to gild the steps by which he mounted, and to honor the humblest who honored him: an aristocrat in the American sense of the term, believing that those who wished should be encouraged to climb as high as natural capacity and opportunity permitted. The party sat down slightly bored, they had gone through it so often; but for Anne Dillon each moment and each circumstance shone with celestial beauty. She floated in the ether. The mellow lights, the glitter of silver and glass, the perfume of flowers, the soft voices, all sights and sounds, made up a harmony which lifted her body from the ground as on wings, more like a dream than her richest dreams. For conversation, some one started Lord Constantine on his hobby, and said Arthur was a Fenian, bent on destroying the hobby forever. In the discussion the Countess appealed to Anne. "We are a fighting race," said she, with admirable caution picking her steps through a long paragraph. "There's--there are times when no one can hold us. This is such a time. A few months back the Fenian trouble could have been settled in one week. Now it will take a year." "But how?" said Vandervelt. "If you had the making of the scheme, I'm sure it would be a success." "In this way," she answered, bowing and smiling to his sincere compliment, "by making all the Irish Fenians, that is, those in Ireland, policemen." The gentlemen laughed with one accord. "Mr. Sullivan manages his troublesome people that way," she observed triumphantly. "You are a student of the leader," said Vandervelt. "Everybody should study him, if they want to win," said Anne. "And that's wisdom," cried Lord Constantine. The conversation turned on opera, and the hostess wondered why Honora did not study for the operatic stage. Then they all urged her to think of the scheme. "I hope," said Anne gently, "that she will never try to spoil her voice with opera. The great singers give me the chills, and the creeps, and the shivers, the most terrible feeling, which I never had since the day Monsignor preached his first sermon, and broke down." "Oh, you dear creature," cried the Countess, "what a long memory you have." Monsignor had to explain his first sermon. So it went on throughout the dinner. The haze of perfect happiness gathered about Anne, and her speech became inspired. A crown of glory descended upon her head when the Dowager, hearing of her summer visit to Ireland with Mona and Louis in her care, exacted a solemn promise from her that the party should spend one month with her at Castle Moyna, her dower home. "That lovely boy and girl," said the Countess, "will find the place pleasant, and will make it pleasant for me; where usually I can induce not even my son's children to come, they find it so dull." It did not matter much to Anne what happened thereafter. The farewells, the compliments, the joy of walking down to the coach on the arm of Vandervelt, were as dust to this invitation of the Dowager Countess of Skibbereen. The glory of the dinner faded away. She looked down on the Vandervelts from the heights of Castle Moyna. She lost all at once her fear of her son. From that moment the earth became as a rose-colored flame. She almost ignored the adulation of Cherry Hill, and the astonished reverence of her friends over her success. Her success was told in awesome whispers in the church as she walked to the third pew of the middle aisle. A series of legends grew about it, over which the experienced gossips disputed in vain; her own description of the dinner was carried to the four quarters of the world by Sister Magdalen, Miss Conyngham, Senator Dillon, and Judy; the skeptical and envious pretended to doubt even the paragraph in the journals. At last they were struck dumb with the rest when it was announced that on Saturday last Mrs. Montgomery Dillon, Miss Mona Everard, and Mr. Louis Everard had sailed on the City of London for a tour of Europe, the first month of which would be spent at Castle Moyna, Ireland, as guests of the Dowager Countess of Skibbereen! CHAPTER XIV. ABOARD THE "ARROW." One month later sailed another ship. In the depth of night the _Arrow_ slipped her anchor, and stole away from the suspicious eyes of harbor officials into the Atlantic; a stout vessel, sailed with discretion, her trick being to avoid no encounters on the high seas and to seek none. Love and hope steered her course. Her bowsprit pointed, like the lance of a knight, at the power of England. Her north star was the freedom of a nation. War had nothing to do with her, however, though her mission was warlike: to prove that one hundred similar vessels might sail from various parts to the Irish coast, and land an army and its supplies without serious interference from the enemy. The crew was a select body of men, whose souls ever sought the danger of hopeless missions, as others seek a holiday. In spite of fine weather and bracing seas, the cloud of a lonely fate hung over the ship. Arthur alone was enthusiastic. Ledwith, feverish over slight success, because it roused the dormant appetite for complete success, and Honora, fed upon disappointment, feared that this expedition would prove ashen bread as usual; but the improvement in her father's health kept her cheerful. Doyle Grahame, always in high spirits, devoted his leisure to writing the book which was to bring him fame and much money. He described its motive and aim to his companions. "It calls a halt," he said "on the senseless haste of Christians to take up such pagans as Matthew Arnold, and raises a warning cry against surrender to the pagan spirit which is abroad." "And do you think that the critics will read it and be overcome?" asked Arthur. "It will convince the critics, not that they are pagans, but that I am. They will review it, therefore, just to annoy me." "You reason just like a critic, from anywhere to nowhere." "The book will make a stir, nevertheless," and Doyle showed his confidence. "It's to be a loud protest, and will tangle the supple legs of Henry Ward Beecher and other semi-pagans like a lasso." "How about the legs of the publishers?" "That's their lookout. I have nothing against them, and I hope at the close of the sale they will have nothing against me." "When, where, with what title, binding and so forth?" "Speak not overmuch to thy dentist," said Grahame slyly. "Already he knoweth too many of thy mouth's secrets." The young men kept the little company alive with their pranks and their badinage. Grahame discovered in the Captain a rare personality, who had seen the globe in its entirety, particularly the underside, as a detective and secret service agent for various governments. He was a tall, slender man, rather like a New England deacon than a daring adventurer, with a refined face, a handsome beard, and a speaking, languid gray eye. He spent the first week in strict devotion to his duties, and in close observation of his passengers. In the second week Grahame had him telling stories after dinner for the sole purpose of diverting the sad and anxious thoughts of Honora, although Arthur hardly gave her time to think by the multiplied services which he rendered her. There came an afternoon of storm, followed by a nasty night, which kept all the passengers in the cabin; and after tea there, a demand was made upon Captain Richard Curran for the best and longest story in his repertory. The men lit pipes and cigars, and Honora brought her crotcheting. The rolling and tossing of the ship, the beating of the rain, and the roar of the wind, gave them a sense of comfort. The ship, in her element, proudly and smoothly rode the rough waves, showing her strength like a racer. "Let us have a choice, Captain," said Grahame, as the officer settled himself in his chair. "You detectives always set forth your successes. Give us now a story of complete failure, something that remains a mystery till now." "Mystery is the word," said Honora. "This is a night of mystery. But a story without an end to it----" "Like the history of Ireland," said Ledwith dryly. "Is the very one to keep us thinking and talking for a month," said Grahame. "Captain, if you will oblige us, a story of failure and of mystery." "Such a one is fresh in my mind, for I fled from my ill-success to take charge of this expedition," said the Captain, whose voice was singularly pleasant. "The detective grows stale sometimes, as singers and musicians do, makes a failure of his simplest work, and has to go off and sharpen his wits at another trade. I am in that condition. For twenty months I sought the track of a man, who disappeared as if the air absorbed him where he last breathed. I did not find him. The search gave me a touch of monomania. For two months I have not been able to rest upon meeting a new face until satisfied its owner was not--let us say, Tom Jones." "Are you satisfied, then," said Arthur, "that we are all right?" "He was not an Irishman, but a Puritan," replied the Captain, "and would not be found in a place like this. I admit I studied your faces an hour or so, and asked about you among the men, but under protest. I have given up the pursuit of Tom Jones, and I wish he would give up the pursuit of me. I had to quiet my mind with some inquiries." "Was there any money awaiting Tom? If so, I might be induced to be discovered," Grahame said anxiously. "You are all hopeless, Mr. Grahame. I have known you and Mr. Ledwith long enough, and Mr. Dillon has his place secure in New York----" "With a weak spot in my history," said Arthur. "I was off in California, playing bad boy for ten years." The Captain waved his hand as admitting Dillon's right to his personality. "In October nearly two years ago the case of Tom Jones was placed in my care with orders to report at once to Mrs. Tom. The problem of finding a lost man is in itself very simple, if he is simply lost or in hiding. You follow his track from the place where he was last seen to his new abode. But around this simple fact of disappearance are often grouped the interests of many persons, which make a tangle worse than a poor fisherman's line. A proper detective will make no start in his search until the line is as straight and taut as if a black bass were sporting at the other end of it." All the men exchanged delighted glances at this simile. "I could spin this story for three hours straight talking of the characters who tangled me at the start. But I did not budge until I had unraveled them every one. Mrs. Jones declared there was no reason for the disappearance of Tom; his aunt Quincy said her flightiness had driven him to it; and Cousin Jack, Mrs. Tom's adviser, thought it just a freak after much dissipation, for Tom had been acting queerly for months before he did the vanishing act. The three were talking either from spleen or the wish to hide the truth. When there was no trace of Tom after a month of ordinary searching much of the truth came out, and I discovered the rest. Plain speech with Mrs. Tom brought her to the half-truth. She was told that her husband would never be found if the detective had to work in the dark. She was a clever woman, and very much worried, for reasons, over her husband's disappearance. It was something to have her declare that he had suspected her fidelity, but chiefly out of spleen, because she had discovered his infidelity. A little sifting of many statements, which took a long time, for I was on the case nearly two years, as I said, revealed Mrs. Tom as a remarkable woman. In viciousness she must have been something of a monster, though she was beautiful enough to have posed for an angel. Her corruption was of the marrow. She breathed crime and bred it. But her blade was too keen. She wounded herself too often. Grit and ferocity were her strong points. We meet such women occasionally. When she learned that I knew as much about her as need be, she threw off hypocrisy, and made me an offer of ten thousand dollars to find her husband." "I felt sure then of the money. Disappearance, for a living man, if clever people are looking for him, is impossible nowadays. I can admit the case of a man being secretly killed or self-buried, say, for instance, his wandering into a swamp and there perishing: these cases of disappearance are common. But if he is alive he can be found." "Why are you so sure of that?" said Arthur. "Because no man can escape from his past, which is more a part of him than his heart or his liver," said Curran. "That past is the pathway which leads to him. If you have it, it's only a matter of time when you will have him." "Yet you failed to find Tom Jones." "For the time, yes," said the Captain with an eloquent smile. "Then, I had an antagonist of the noblest quality. Tom Jones was a bud of the Mayflower stock. All his set agreed that he was an exceptional man: a clean, honest, upright chap, the son of a soldier and a peerless mother, apparently an every-day lad, but really as fine a piece of manhood as the world turns out. Anyhow, I came to that conclusion about him when I had studied him through the documents. What luck threw him between the foul jaws of his wife I can't say. She was a----" The detective coughed before uttering the word, and looked at the men as he changed the form of his sentence. "She was a cruel creature. He adored her, and she hated him, and when he was gone slandered him with a laugh, and defiled his honest name." "Oh," cried Honora with a gasp of pain, "can there be such women now? I have read of them in history, but I always felt they were far off----" "I hope they are not many," said the Captain politely, "but in my profession I have met them. Here was a case where the best of men was the victim of an Agrippina." "Poor, dear lad," sighed she, "and of course he fled from her in horror." "He was a wonder, Miss Ledwith. Think what he did. Such a man is more than a match for such a woman. He discovered her unfaithfulness months before he disappeared. Then he sold all his property, turning all he owned into money, and transferred it beyond any reach but his own, leaving his wife just what she brought him--an income from her parents of fifteen hundred a year: a mere drop to a woman whom he had dowered with a share in one hundred thousand. Though I could not follow the tracks of his feet, I saw the traces of his thoughts as he executed his scheme of vengeance. He discovered her villainy, he would have no scandal, he was disgusted with life, so he dropped out of it with the prize for which she had married him, and left her like a famished wolf in the desert. It would have satisfied him to have seen her rage and dismay, but he was not one of the kind that enjoys torture." "I watched Mrs. Tom for months, and felt she was the nearest thing to a demon I had ever met. Well, I worked hard to find Tom. We tried many tricks to lure him from his hiding-place, if it were near by, and we followed many a false trail into foreign lands. The result was dreadful to me. We found nothing. When a child was born to him, and the fact advertised, and still he did not appear, or give the faintest sign, I surrendered. It would be tedious to describe for you how I followed the sales of his property, how I examined his last traces, how I pursued all clues, how I wore myself out with study. At the last I gave out altogether and cut the whole business. I was beginning to have Tom on the brain. He came to live on my nerves, and to haunt my dreams, and to raise ghosts for me. He is gone two years, and Mrs. Tom is in Europe with her baby and Tom's aunt Quincy. When I get over my present trouble, and get back a clear brain, I shall take up the search. I shall find him yet. I'd like to show some of the documents, but the matter is still confidential, and I must keep quiet, though I don't suppose you know any of the parties. When I find him I shall finish the story for you." "You will never find him," said Honora with emphasis. "That fearful woman shattered his very soul. I know the sort of a man he was. He will never go back. If he can bear to live, it will be because in his obscurity God gave him new faith and hope in human nature, and in the woman's part of it." "I shall find him," said the detective. "You won't," said Grahame. "I'll wager he has been so close to you all this time, that you cannot recognize him. That man is living within your horizon, if he's living at all. Probably he has aided you in your search. You wouldn't be the first detective fooled in that game." The Captain made no reply, but went off to see how his ship was bearing the storm. The little company fell silent, perhaps depressed by the sounds of tempest without and the thought of the poor soul whose departure from life had been so strange. Arthur sat thinking of many things. He remembered the teaching that to God the past, present, and future are as one living present. Here was an illustration: the old past and the new present side by side to-night in the person of this detective. What a giant hand was that which could touch him, and fail to seize only because the fingers did not know their natural prey. No doubt that the past is more a part of a man than his heart, for here was every nerve of his body tingling to turn traitor to his will. Horace Endicott, so long stilled that he thought him dead, rose from his sleep at the bidding of the detective, and fought to betray Arthur Dillon. The blush, the trembling of the hands, the tension of the muscles, the misty eye, the pallor of the cheek, the tremulous lip, the writhing tongue, seemed to put themselves at the service of Endicott, and to fight for the chance to betray the secret to Curran. He sat motionless, fighting, fighting; until after a little he felt a delightful consciousness of the strength of Dillon, as of a rampart which the Endicott could not overclimb. Then his spirits rose, and he listened without dread to the story. How pitiful! What a fate for that splendid boy, the son of a brave soldier and a peerless mother! A human being allied with a beast! Oh, tender heart of Honora that sighed for him so pitifully! Oh, true spirit that recognized how impossible for Horace Endicott ever to return! Down, out of sight forever, husband of Agrippina! The furies lie in wait for thee, wretched husband of their daughter! Have shame enough to keep in thy grave until thou goest to meet Sonia at the judgment seat! Captain Curran was not at all flattered by the deep interest which Arthur took for the next two days in the case of Tom Jones; but the young man nettled him by his emphatic assertions that the detective had adopted a wrong theory as to the mysterious disappearance. They went over the question of motives and of methods. The shrewd objections of Dillon gave him favor in Curran's eyes. Before long the secret documents in the Captain's possession were laid before him under obligations of secrecy. He saw various photographs of Endicott, and wondered at the blindness of man; for here side by side were the man sought and his portrait, yet the detective could not see the truth. Was it possible that the exterior man had changed so thoroughly to match the inner personality which had grown up in him? He was conscious of such a change. The mirror which reflected Arthur Dillon displayed a figure in no way related to the portrait. "It seems to me," said Arthur, after a study of the photograph, "that I would be able to reach that man, no matter what his disguise." "Disguises are mere veils," said Curran, "which the trained eye of the detective can pierce easily. But the great difficulty lies in a natural disguise, in the case where the man's appearance changes without artificial aids. Here are two photographs which will illustrate my meaning. Look at this." Arthur saw a young and well-dressed fellow who might have been a student of good birth and training. "Now look at this," said the Captain, "and discover that they picture one and the same individual, with a difference in age of two years." The second portrait was a vigorous, rudely-dressed, bearded adventurer, as much like the first as Dillon was like Grahame. Knowing that the portraits stood for the same youth, Arthur could trace a resemblance in the separate features, but in the ensemble there was no likeness. "The young fellow went from college to Africa," said Curran, "where he explored the wilderness for two years. This photograph was taken on his return from an expedition. His father and mother, his relatives and friends, saw that picture without recognizing him. When told who it was, they were wholly astonished, and after a second study still failed to recognize their friend. What are you going to do in a case of that kind? You or Grahame or Ledwith might be Tom Jones, and how could I pierce such perfect and natural disguises." "Let me see," said Arthur, as he stood with Endicott's photograph in his hand and studied the detective, "if I can see this young man in you." Having compared the features of the portrait and of the detective, he had to admit the absence of a likeness. Handing the photograph to the Captain he said, "You do the same for me." "There is more likelihood in your case," said Curran, "for your age is nearer that of Tom Jones, and youth has resemblances of color and feature." He studied the photograph and compared it with the grave face before him. "I have done this before," said Curran, "with the same result. You are ten years older than Tom Jones, and you are as clearly Arthur Dillon as he was Tom Jones." The young man and the Captain sighed together. "Oh, I brought in others, clever and experienced," said Curran, "to try what a fresh mind could do to help me, but in vain." "There must have been something hard about Tom Jones," said Arthur, "when he was able to stay away and make no sign after his child was born." The Captain burst into a mocking laugh, which escaped him before he could repress the inclination. "He may never have heard of it, and if he did his wife's reputation----" "I see," said Arthur Dillon smiling, convinced that Captain Curran knew more of Sonia Westfield than he cared to tell. At the detective's request the matter was dropped as one that did him harm; but he complimented Arthur on the shrewdness of his suggestions, which indeed had given him new views without changing his former opinions. CHAPTER XV. THE INVASION OF IRELAND. One lovely morning the good ship sailed into the harbor of Foreskillen, an obscure fishing port on the lonely coast of Donegal. The _Arrow_ had been in sight of land all the day before. A hush had fallen on the spirits of the adventurers. The two innocents, Honora and her father, had sat on deck with eyes fixed on the land of their love, scarcely able to speak, and unwilling to eat, in spite of Arthur's coaxing. Half the night they sat there, mostly silent, talking reverently, every one touched and afraid to disturb them; after a short sleep they were on deck again to see the ship enter the harbor in the gray dawn. The sun was still behind the brown hills. Arthur saw a silver bay, a mournful shore with a few houses huddled miserably in the distance, and bare hills without verdure or life. It was an indifferent part of the earth to him; but revealed in the hearts of Owen Ledwith and his daughter, no jewel of the mines could have shone more resplendent. He did not understand the love called patriotism, any more than the love of a parent for his child. These affections have to be experienced to be known. He loved his country and was ready to die for it; but to have bled for it, to have writhed under tortures for it, to have groaned in unison with its mortal anguish, to have passed through the fire of death and yet lived for it, these were not his glories. In the cool, sad morning the father and daughter stood glorified in his eyes, for if they loved each other much, they loved this strange land more. The white lady, whiter now than lilies, stood with her arm about her father, her eyes shining; and he, poor man, trembled in an ague of love and pity and despair and triumph, with a rapt, grief-stricken face, his shoulders heaving to the repressed sob, as if nature would there make an end of him under this torrent of delight and pain. Arthur writhed in secret humiliation. To love like this was of the gods, and he had never loved anything so but Agrippina. As the ship glided to her anchorage the crew stood about the deck in absolute silence, every man's heart in his face, the watch at its post, the others leaning on the bulwarks. Like statues they gazed on the shore. It seemed a phantom ship, blown from ghostly shores by the strength of hatred against the enemy, and love for the land of Eire; for no hope shone in their eyes, or in the eyes of Ledwith and his daughter, only triumph at their own light success. What a pity, thought Dillon, that at this hour of time men should have reason to look so at the power of England. He knew there were millions of them scattered over the earth, studying in just hate to shake the English grip on stolen lands, to pay back the robberies of years in English blood. The ship came to anchor amid profound silence, save for the orders of the Captain and the movements of the men. Ledwith was speaking to himself more than to Honora, a lament in the Irish fashion over the loved and lost, in a way to break the heart. The tears rolled down Honora's cheek, for the agony was beginning. "Land of love ... land of despair ... without a friend except among thy own children ... here am I back again with just a grain of hope ... I love thee, I love thee, I love thee! Let them neglect thee ... die every moment under the knife ... live in rags ... in scorn ... and hatred too ... they have spared thee nothing ... I love thee ... I am faithful ... God strike me that day when I forget thee! Here is the first gift I have ever given thee besides my heart and my daughter ... a ship ... no freight but hope ... no guns alas! for thy torturers ... they are still free to tear thee, these wolves, and to lie about thee to the whole world ... blood and lies are their feast ... and how sweet are thy shores ... after all ... because thou art everlasting! Thy children are gone, but they shall come back ... the dead are dead, but the living are in many lands, and they will return ... perhaps soon ... I am the messenger ... helpless as ever, but I bring thee news ... good news ... my beautiful Ireland! Poorer than ever I return ... I shall never see thee free----" He was working himself into a fever of grief when Honora spoke to him. "You are forgetting, father, that this is the moment to thank Mr. Dillon in the name of our country----" "I forget everything when I am here," said Ledwith, breaking into cheerful smiles, and seizing Arthur's hand. "I would be ashamed to say 'thank you,' Arthur, for what you have done. Let this dear land herself welcome you to her shores. Never a foot stepped on them worthier of respect and love than you." They went ashore in silence, having determined on their course the night previous. They must learn first what had happened since their departure from New York, where there had been rumors of a rising, which Ledwith distrusted. It was too soon for the Fenians to rise; but as the movement had gotten partly beyond the control of the leaders, anything might have happened. If the country was still undisturbed, they might enjoy a ride through wild Donegal; if otherwise, it was safer, having accomplished the purpose of the trip, to sail back to the West. The miserable village at the head of the bay showed a few dwellers when they landed on the beach, but little could be learned from them, save directions to a distant cotter who owned an ass and a cart, and always kept information and mountain dew for travelers and the gentry. The young men visited the cotter, and returned with the cart and the news. The rising was said to have begun, but farther east and south, and the cotter had seen soldiers and police and squads of men hurrying over the country; but so remote was the storm that the whole party agreed a ride over the bare hills threatened no danger. They mounted the cart in high spirits, now that emotion had subsided. All matters had been arranged with Captain Curran, who was not to expect them earlier than the next day at evening, and had his instructions for all contingencies. They set out for a village to the north, expressly to avoid encounters possible southward. The morning was glorious. Arthur wondered at the miles of uninhabited land stretching away on either side of the road, at the lack of population in a territory so small. He had heard of these things before, but the sight of them proved stranger than the hearing. Perhaps they had gone five miles on the road to Cruarig, when Grahame, driving, pulled up the donkey with suddenness, and cried out in horror. Eight men had suddenly come in sight on the road, armed with muskets, and as suddenly fled up the nearest timbered hill and disappeared. "I'll wager something," said Grahame, "that these men are being pursued by the police, or--which would be worse for us--by soldiers. There is nothing to do but retreat in good order, and send out a scout to make sure of the ground. We ought to have done that the very first thing." No one gainsaid him, but Arthur thought that they might go on a bit further cautiously, and if nothing suspicious occurred reach the town. Dubiously Grahame whipped up the donkey, and drove with eyes alert past the wooded hill, which on its north side dropped into a little glen watered by the sweetest singing brook. They paused to look at the brook and the glen. The road stretched away above and below like a ribbon. A body of soldiers suddenly brightened the north end of the ribbon two miles off. "Now by all the evil gods," said Grahame, "but we have dropped into the very midst of the insurrection." He was about to turn the donkey, when Honora cried out in alarm and pointed back over the road which they had just traveled. Another scarlet troop was moving upon them from that direction. Without a word Grahame turned the cart into the glen, and drove as far as the limits would permit within the shade. They alighted. "This is our only chance," he said. "The eight men with muskets are rebels whom the troops have cornered. There may be a large force in the vicinity, ready to give the soldiers of Her Majesty a stiff battle. The soldiers will be looking for rebels and not for harmless tourists, and we may escape comfortably by keeping quiet until the two divisions marching towards each other have met and had an explanation. If we are discovered, I shall do the talking, and explain our embarrassment at meeting so many armed men first, and then so many soldiers. We are in for it, I know." No one seemed to mind particularly. Honora stole an anxious glance at her father, while she pulled a little bunch of shamrock and handed it to Arthur. He felt like saying it would yet be stained by his blood in defense of her country, but knew at the same moment how foolish and weak the words would sound in her ears. He offered himself as a scout to examine the top of the hill, and discover if the rebels were there, and was permitted to go under cautions from Grahame, to return within fifteen minutes. He returned promptly full of enthusiasm. The eight men were holding the top of the hill, almost over their heads, and would have it out with the two hundred soldiers from the town. They had expected a body of one hundred insurgents at this point, but the party had not turned up. Eager to have a brush with the enemy, they intended to hold the hill as long as possible, and then scatter in different directions, sure that pursuit could not catch them. "The thing for them to do is to save us," said Grahame. "Let them move on to another hill northward, and while they fight the soldiers we may be able to slip back to the ship." The suggestion came too late. The troops were in full sight. Their scouts had met in front of the glen, evidently acting upon information received earlier, and seemed disappointed at finding no trace of a body of insurgents large enough to match their own battalion. The boys on the top of the hill put an end to speculations as to the next move by firing a volley into them. A great scattering followed, and the bid for a fight was cheerfully answered by the officer in command of the troops. Having joined his companies, examined the position and made sure that its defenders were few and badly armed, he ordered a charge. In five minutes the troops were in possession of the hilltop, and the insurgents had fled; but on the hillside lay a score of men wounded and dead. The rebels were good marksmen, and fleet-footed. The scouts beat the bushes and scoured the wood in vain. The report to the commanding officer was the wounding of two men, who were just then dying in a little glen close by, and the discovery of a party of tourists in the glen, who had evidently turned aside to escape the trouble, and were now ministering to the dying rebels. Captain Sydenham went up to investigate. Before he arrived the little drama of death had passed, and the two insurgents lay side by side at the margin of the brook like brothers asleep. When the insurgents fled from their position, the two wounded ones dropped into the glen in the hope of escaping notice for the time; but they were far spent when they fell headlong among the party in hiding below. Grahame and Ledwith picked them up and laid them near the brook, Honora pillowed their heads with coats, Arthur brought water to bathe their hands and faces, grimy with dust of travel and sweat of death; for an examination of the wounds showed Ledwith that they were speedily mortal. He dipped his handkerchief in the flowing blood of each, and placed it reverently in his breast. There was nothing to do but bathe the faces and moisten the lips of the dying and unconscious men. They were young, one rugged and hard, the other delicate in shape and color; the same grace of youth belonged to both, and showed all the more beautifully at this moment through the heavy veil of death. Arthur gazed at them with eager curiosity, and at the red blood bubbling from their wounds. For their country they were dying, as his father had died, on the field of battle. This blood, of which he had so often read, was the price which man pays for liberty, which redeems the slave; richer than molten gold, than sun and stars, priceless. Oh, sweet and glorious, unutterably sweet to die like this for men! "Do you recognize him?" said Ledwith to Grahame, pointing to the elder of the two. Grahame bent forward, startled that he should know either unfortunate. "It is young Devin, the poet," cried Ledwith with a burst of tears. Honora moaned, and Grahame threw up his hands in despair. "We must give the best to our mother," said Ledwith, "but I would prefer blood so rich to be scattered over a larger soil." He took the poet's hand in his own, and stroked it gently; Honora wiped the face of the other; Grahame on his knees said the prayers he remembered for sinners and passing souls; secretly Arthur put in his pocket a rag stained with death-sweat and life-blood. Almost in silence, without painful struggle, the boys died. Devin opened his eyes one moment on the clear blue sky and made an effort to sing. He chanted a single phrase, which summed up his life and its ideals: "Mother, always the best for Ireland." Then his eyes closed and his heart stopped. The little party remained silent, until Honora, looking at the still faces, so young and tender, thought of the mothers sitting in her place, and began to weep aloud. At this moment Captain Sydenham marched up the glen with clinking spur. He stopped at a distance and took off his hat with the courtesy of a gentleman and the sympathy of a soldier. Grahame went forward to meet him, and made his explanations. "It is perfectly clear," said the Captain, "that you are tourists and free from all suspicion. However, it will be necessary for you to accompany me to the town and make your declarations to the magistrate as well. As you were going there anyhow it will be no hardship, and I shall be glad to make matters as pleasant as possible for the young lady." Grahame thanked him, and introduced him to the party. He bowed very low over the hand which Honora gave him. "A rather unfortunate scene for you to witness," he said. Yet she had borne it like one accustomed to scenes of horror. Her training in Ledwith's school bred calmness, and above all silence, amid anxiety, disappointment and calamity. "I was glad to be here," she replied, the tears still coursing down her face, "to take their mother's place." "Two beautiful boys," said the Captain, looking into the dead faces. "Killing men is a bad business anywhere, but when we have to kill our own, and such as these, it is so much worse." Ledwith flashed the officer a look of gratitude. "I shall have the bodies carried to the town along with our own dead, and let the authorities take care of them. And now if you will have the goodness to take your places, I shall do myself the pleasure of riding with you as far as the magistrate's." Honora knelt and kissed the pale cheeks of the dead boys, and then accepted Captain Sydenham's arm in the march out of the glen. The men followed sadly. Ledwith looked wild for a while. The tears pressed against Arthur's eyes. What honor gilded these dead heroes! The procession moved along the road splendidly, the soldiers in front and the cart in the rear, while a detail still farther off carried the wounded and dead. Captain Sydenham devoted himself to Honora, which gave Grahame the chance to talk matters over with Ledwith on the other side of the car. "Did you ever dream in all your rainbow dreams," said Grahame, "of marching thus into Cruarig with escort of Her Majesty? It's damfunny. But the question now is, what are we to do with the magistrate? Any sort of an inquiry will prove that we are more than suspicious characters. If they run across the ship we shall go to jail. If they discover you and me, death or Botany Bay will be our destination." "It is simply a case of luck," Ledwith replied. "Scheming won't save us. If Lord Constantine were in London now----" "Great God!" cried Grahame in a whisper, "there's the luck. Say no more. I'll work that fine name as it was never worked before." He called out to Captain Sydenham to come around to his side of the car for a moment. "I am afraid," he said, "that we have fallen upon evil conditions, and that, before we get through with the magistrates, delays will be many and vexatious. I feel that we shall need some of our English friends of last winter in New York. Do you know Lord Constantine?" "Are you friends of Lord Leverett?" cried the Captain. "Well, then, that settles it. A telegram from him will smooth the magistrate to the silkiness of oil. But I do not apprehend any annoyance. I shall be happy to explain the circumstances, and you can get away to Dublin, or any port where you hope to meet your ship." The Captain went back to Honora, and talked Lord Constantine until they arrived in the town and proceeded to the home of the magistrate. Unfortunately there was little cordiality between Captain Sydenham and Folsom, the civil ruler of the district; and because the gallant Captain made little of the episode therefore Folsom must make much of it. "I can easily believe in the circumstances which threw tourists into so unpleasant a situation," said Folsom, "but at the same time I am compelled to observe all the formalities. Of course the young lady is free. Messrs. Dillon and Grahame may settle themselves comfortably in the town, on their word not to depart without permission. Mr. Ledwith has a name which my memory connects with treasonable doings and sayings. He must remain for a few hours at least in the jail." "This is not at all pleasant," said Captain Sydenham pugnaciously. "I could have let these friends of my friends go without troubling you about them. I wished to make it easier for them to travel to Dublin by bringing them before you, and here is my reward." "I wish you had, Captain," said the magistrate. "But now you've done it, neither is free to do more than follow the routine. We have enough real work without annoying honest travelers. However, it's only a matter of a few hours." "Then you had better telegraph to Lord Constantine," said Sydenham to Grahame. Folsom started at the name and looked at the party with a puzzled frown. Grahame wrote on a sheet of paper the legend: "A telegram from you to the authorities here will get Honora and her party out of much trouble." "Is it as warm as that?" said the Captain with a smile, as he read the lines and handed the paper to Folsom with a broad grin. "I'm in for it now," groaned Folsom to himself as he read. "Wish I'd let the Captain alone and tended to strict business." While the wires were humming between Dublin and Cruarig, Captain Sydenham spent his spare time in atoning for his blunders against the comfort of the party. Ledwith having been put in jail most honorably, the Captain led the others to the inn and located them sumptuously. He arranged for lunch, at which he was to join them, and then left them to their ease while he transacted his own affairs. "One of the men you read about," said Grahame, as the three looked at one another dolorously. "Sorry I didn't confide in him from the start. Now it's a dead certainty that your father stays in jail, Honora, and I may be with him." "I really can't see any reason for such despair," said Arthur. "Of course not," replied Grahame. "But even Lord Constantine could not save Owen Ledwith from prison in times like these, if the authorities learn his identity." "What is to be done?" inquired Honora. "You will stay with your father of course?" Honora nodded. "I'm going to make a run for it at the first opportunity," said Grahame. "I can be of no use here, and we must get back the ship safe and sound. Arthur, if they hold Ledwith you will have the honor of working for his freedom. Owen is an American citizen. He ought to have all the rights and privileges of a British subject in his trial, if it comes to that. He won't get them unless the American minister to the court of St. James insists upon it. Said minister, being a doughhead, will not insist. He will even help to punish him. It will be your business to go up to London and make Livingstone do his duty if you have to choke him black in the face. If the American minister interferes in this case Lord Constantine will be a power. If the said minister hangs back, or says, hang the idiot, my Lord will not amount to a hill of beans." "If it comes to a trial," said Arthur, "won't Ledwith get the same chance as any other lawbreaker?" Honora and Grahame looked at each other as much as to say: "Poor innocent!" "When there's a rising on, my dear boy, there is no trial for Irishmen. Arrest means condemnation, and all that follows is only form. Go ahead now and do your best." Before lunch the telegrams had done their best and worst. The party was free to go as they came with the exception of Ledwith. They had a merry lunch, enlivened by a telegram from Lord Constantine, and by Folsom's discomfiture. Then Grahame drove away to the ship, Arthur set out for Dublin, and Honora was left alone with her dread and her sorrows, which Captain Sydenham swore would be the shortest of her life. CHAPTER XVI. CASTLE MOYNA. The Dillon party took possession of Castle Moyna, its mistress, and Captain Sydenham, who had a fondness for Americans. Mona Everard owned any human being who looked at her the second time, as the oriole catches the eye with its color and then the heart with its song; and Louis had the same magnetism in a lesser degree. Life at the castle was not of the liveliest, but with the Captain's aid it became as rapid as the neighboring gentry could have desired. Anne cared little, so that her children had their triumph. Wrapped in her dreams of amethyst, the exquisiteness of this new world kept her in ecstasy. Its smallest details seemed priceless. She performed each function as if it were the last of her life. While rebuffs were not lacking, she parried them easily, and even the refusal of the parish priest to accept her aid in his bazaar did not diminish the delight of her happy situation. She knew the meaning of his refusal: she, an upstart, having got within the gates of Castle Moyna by some servility, when her proper place was a _shebeen_ in Cruarig, offered him charity from a low motive. She felt a rebuke from a priest as a courtier a blow from his king; but keeping her temper, she made many excuses for him in her own mind, without losing the firm will to teach him better manners in her own reverent way. The Countess heard of it, and made a sharp complaint to Captain Sydenham. The old dowager had a short temper, and a deep gratitude for Anne's remarkable services in New York. Nor did she care to see her guests slighted. "Father Roslyn has treated her shabbily. She suggested a booth at his bazaar, offered to fit it up herself and to bring the gentry to buy. She was snubbed: 'neither your money nor your company.' You must set that right, Sydenham," said she. "He shall weep tears of brine for it," answered the Captain cheerfully. "Tell him," said the Dowager, "the whole story, if your priest can appreciate it, which I doubt. A Cavan peasant, who can teach the fine ladies of Dublin how to dress and how to behave; whose people are half the brains of New York; the prize-fighter turned senator, the Boss of Tammany, the son with a gold mine. Above all, don't forget to tell how she may name the next ambassador to England." They laughed in sheer delight at her accomplishments and her triumphs. "Gad, but she's the finest woman," the Captain declared. "At first I thought it was acting, deuced fine acting. But it's only her nature finding expression. What d'ye think she's planning now? An audience with the Pope, begad, special, to present an American flag and a thousand pounds. And she laid out Lady Cruikshank yesterday, stone cold. Said her ladyship: 'Quite a compliment to Ireland, Mrs. Dillon, that you kept the Cavan brogue so well.' Said Mrs. Dillon: 'It was all I ever got from Ireland, and a brogue in New York is always a recommendation to mercy from the court; then abroad it marks one off from the common English and their common Irish imitators.' Did she know of Lady Cruikshank's effort to file off the Dublin brogue?" "Likely. She seems to know the right thing at the right minute." Evidently Anne's footing among the nobility was fairly secure in spite of difficulties. There were difficulties below stairs also, and Judy Haskell had the task of solving them, which she did with a success quite equal to Anne's. She made no delay in seizing the position of arbiter in the servants' hall, not only of questions touching the Dillons, and their present relations with the Irish nobility, but also on such vital topics as the rising, the Fenians, the comparative rank of the Irish at home and those in America, and the standing of the domestics in Castle Moyna from the point of experience and travel. Inwardly Judy had a profound respect for domestics in the service of a countess, and looked to find them as far above herself as a countess is above the rest of the world. She would have behaved humbly among the servants of Castle Moyna, had not their airs betrayed them for an inferior grade. "These Americans," said the butler with his nose in the air. "As if ye knew anythin' about Americans," said Judy promptly. "Have ye ever thraveled beyant Donegal, me good little man?" "It wasn't necessary, me good woman." "Faith, it's yerself 'ud be blowin' about it if ye had. An' d'ye think people that thraveled five thousan' miles to spind a few dollars on yer miserable country wud luk at the likes o' ye? Keep yer criticisms on these Americans in yer own buzzum. It's not becomin' that an ould gossoon shud make remarks on Mrs. Dillon, the finest lady in New York, an' the best dhressed at this minnit in all Ireland. Whin ye've thraveled as much as I have ye can have me permission to talk on what ye have seen." "The impidence o' some people," said the cook with a loud and scornful laugh. "If ye laughed that way in New York," said Judy, "ye'd be sint to the Island for breaking the public peace. A laugh like that manes no increase o' wages." "The Irish in New York are allowed to live there I belave," said a pert housemaid with a simper. "Oh, yes, ma'am, an' they are also allowed to sind home the rint o' their houses to kape the poor Irish from starvin', an' to help the lords an' ladies of yer fine castles to kape the likes o' yees in a job." "'Twas always a wondher to me," said the cook to the housemaid, as if no other was present, "how these American bigbugs wid their inilligant ways ever got as far as the front door o' the Countess." "I can tell ye how Mrs. Dillon got in so far that her fut is on the neck of all o' yez this minnit," said Judy. "If she crooked her finger at ye this hour, ye'd take yer pack on yer back an' fut it over to yer father's shanty, wid no more chance for another place than if ye wor in Timbuctoo. The Countess o' Skibbereen kem over to New York to hould a concert, an' to raise money for the cooks an' housemaids an' butlers that were out of places in Donegal. Well, she cudn't get a singer, nor she couldn't get a hall, nor she cudn't sell a ticket, till Mrs. Dillon gathered around her the Boss of Tammany Hall, an' Senator Dillon, an' Mayor Birmingham, an' Mayor Livingstone, an' says to thim, 'let the Countess o' Skibbereen have a concert an' let Tammany Hall buy every ticket she has for sale, an' do yeez turn out the town to make the concert a success.' An' thin she got the greatest singer in the world, Honora Ledwith, that ye cudn't buy to sing in Ireland for all the little money there's in it, to do the singin', an' so the Countess med enough money to buy shirts for the whole of Ireland. But not a door wud have opened to her if Mrs. Dillon hadn't opened them all be wan word. That's why Castle Moyna is open to her to the back door. For me I wondher she shtays in the poor little place, whin the palace o' the American ambassador in London expects her." The audience, awed at Judy's assurance, was urged by pride to laugh haughtily at this last statement. "An' why wudn't his palace be open to her," Judy continued with equal scorn. "He's afraid of her. She kem widin an ace o' spoilin' his chances o' goin' to London an' bowin' to the Queen. An, bedad, he's not sure of his futtin' while she's in it, for she has her mind on the place for Mr. Vandervelt, the finest man in New York wid a family that goes back to the first Dutchman that ever was, a little fellow that sat fishin' in the say the day St. Pathrick sailed for Ireland. Now Mr. Livingstone sez to Mrs. Dillon whin he was leavin' for London, 'Come over,' sez he, 'an' shtay at me palace as long as I'm in it.' She's goin' there whin she laves here, but I don't see why she shtays in this miserable place, whin she cud be among her aquils, runnin' in an out to visit the Queen like wan o' thimselves." By degrees, as Judy's influence invaded the audience, alarm spread among them for their own interests. They had not been over polite to the Americans, since it was not their habit to treat any but the nobility with more than surface respect. New York most of them hoped to visit and dwell within some day. What if they had offended the most influential of the great ladies of the western city! Judy saw their fear and guessed its motive. "Me last word to the whole o' yez is, get down an yer knees to Mrs. Dillon afore she l'aves, if she'll let yez. I hear that some o' ye think of immigratin' to New York. Are yez fit for that great city? What are yer wages here? Mebbe a pound a month. In our city the girls get four pounds for doin' next to nothin'. An' to see the dhress an' the shtyle o' thim fine girls! Why, yez cudn't tell them from their own misthresses. What wud yez be doin' in New York, wid yer clothes thrun on yez be a pitchfork, an' lukkin' as if they were made in the ark? But if ye wor as smart as the lady that waits on the Queen, not wan fut will ye set in New York if Mrs. Dillon says no. Yez may go to Hartford or Newark, or some other little place, an' yez'll be mighty lucky if ye're not sint sthraight on to quarantine wid the smallpox patients an' the Turks." The cook gave a gasp, and Judy saw that she had won the day. One more struggle, however, remained before her triumph was complete. The housekeeper and the butler formed an alliance against her, and refused to be awed by the stories of Mrs. Dillon's power and greatness; but as became their station their opposition was not expressed in mere language. They did not condescend to bandy words with inferiors. The butler fought his battle with Judy by simply tilting his nose toward the sky on meeting her. Judy thereupon tilted her nose in the same fashion, so that the servants' hall was convulsed at the sight, and the butler had to surrender or lose his dignity. The housekeeper carried on the battle by an attempt to stare Judy out of countenance with a formidable eye; and the greatest staring-match on the part of rival servants in Castle Moyna took place between the representative of the Skibbereens and the maid of New York. The former may have thought her eye as good as that of the basilisk, but found the eye of Miss Haskell much harder. The housekeeper one day met Judy descending the back stairs. She fixed her eyes upon her with the clear design of transfixing and paralyzing this brazen American. Judy folded her arms and turned her glance upon her foe. The nearest onlookers held their breaths. Overcome by the calm majesty of Judy's iron glance, which pressed against her face like a spear, the housekeeper smiled scornfully and began to ascend the stairs with scornful air. Judy stood on the last step and turned her neck round and her eyes upward until she resembled the Gorgon. She had the advantage of the housekeeper, who in mounting the stairs had to watch her steps; but in any event the latter was foredoomed to defeat. The eyes that had not blinked before Anne Dillon, or the Senator, or Mayor Livingstone, or John Everard, or the Countess of Skibbereen, or the great Sullivan, and had modestly held their own under the charming glance of the Monsignor, were not to be dazzled by the fiercest glance of a mere Donegal housekeeper. The contempt in Judy's eyes proved too much for the poor creature, and at the top of the stairs, with a hysterical shriek, she burst into tears and fled humbled. "I knew you'd do it," said Jerry the third butler. "It's not in thim wake craythurs to take the luk from you, Miss Haskell." "Ye're the wan dacint boy in the place," said Judy, remembering many attentions from the shrewd lad. "An' as soon as iver ye come to New York, an' shtay long enough to become an American, I'll get ye a place on the polls." From that day the position of the Dillon party became something celestial as far as the servants were concerned, while Judy, as arbiter in the servants' hall, settled all questions of history, science, politics, dress, and gossip, by judgments from which there was no present appeal. All these details floated to the ears of Captain Sydenham, who was a favorite with Judy and shared her confidence; and the Captain saw to it that the gossip of Castle Moyna also floated into the parish residence daily. Some of it was so alarming that Father Roslyn questioned his friend Captain Sydenham, who dropped in for a quiet smoke now and then. "Who are these people, these Americans, do you know, Captain? I mean those just now stopping with the Countess of Skibbereen?" "That reminds me," replied the Captain. "Didn't you tell me Father William was going to America this winter on a collecting tour? Well, if you get him the interest of Mrs. Dillon his tour is assured of success before he begins it." A horrible fear smote the heart of the priest, nor did he see the peculiar smile on the Captain's face. Had he made the dreadful mistake of losing a grand opportunity for his brother, soon to undertake a laborious mission? "Why do you think so?" he inquired. "You would have to be in New York to understand it," replied the Captain. "But the Countess of Skibbereen is not a patch in this county compared to what Mrs. Dillon is in New York!" "Oh, dear me! Do you tell me!" "Her people are all in politics, and in the church, and in business. Her son is a--well, he owns a gold mine, I think, and he is in politics, too. In fact, it seems pretty clear that if you want anything in New York Mrs. Dillon is the woman to get it, as the Countess found it. And if you are not wanted in New York by Mrs. Dillon, then you must go west as far as Chicago." "Oh, how unfortunate! I am afraid, Captain, that I have made a blunder. Mrs. Dillon came to me--most kindly of course--and made an offer to take care of a booth at the bazaar, and I refused her. You know my feeling against giving these Americans any foothold amongst us----" "Don't tell that to Father William, or he will never forgive you," said the Captain. "But Mrs. Dillon is forgiving as well as generous. Do the handsome thing by her. Go up to the castle and explain matters, and she will forget your----" "Oh, call it foolishness at once," said the priest. "I'm afraid I'm too late, but for the sake of charity I'll do what you say." A velvety welcome Anne gave him. Before all others she loved the priest, and but that she had to teach Father Roslyn a lesson he would have seen her falling at his feet for his blessing. In some fashion he made explanation and apology. "Father dear, don't mention it. Really, it is my place to make explanations and not yours. I was hurt, of course, that you refused the little I can give you, but I knew other places would be the richer by it, and charity is good everywhere." "A very just thought, madam. It would give us all great pleasure if you could renew your suggestion to take a booth at the bazaar. We are all very fond of Americans here--that is, when we understand them----" "Only that I'm going up to London, father dear, I'd be only too happy. It was not the booth I was thinking of, you see, but the bringing of all the nobility to spend a few pounds with you." "Oh, my dear, you could never have done it," cried he in astonishment; "they are all Protestants, and very dark." "We do it in America, and why not here? I used to get more money from Protestant friends than from me own. When I told them of my scheme here they all promised to come for the enjoyment of it. Now, I'm so sorry I have to go to London. I must present my letters to the ambassador before he leaves town, and then we are in a hurry to get to Rome before the end of August. Cardinal Simeoni has promised us already a private audience with the Pope. Now, father dear, if there is anything I can do for you in Rome--of course the booth must go up at the bazaar just the same, only the nobility will not be there--but at Rome, now, if you wanted anything." "My dear Mrs. Dillon you overwhelm me. There is nothing I want for myself, but my brother, Father William----" "Oh, to be sure, your brother," cried Anne, when the priest paused in confusion; "let him call on us in Rome, and I will take him to the private audience." "Oh, thank you, thank you, my dear madam, but my brother is not going to Rome. It is to America I refer. His bishop has selected him from among many eminent priests of the diocese to make a collecting tour in America this winter. And I feel sure that if a lady of your rank took an interest in him, it would save him much labor, and, what I fear is unavoidable, hardship." Anne rose up delighted and came toward Father Roslyn with a smile. She placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. "Father dear, whisper." He bent forward. There was not a soul within hearing distance, but Anne loved a dramatic effect. "He need never leave New York. I'll see that Father William has the _entrée_ into the diocese, and I'll take care of him until he leaves for home." She tapped him on the shoulder with her jeweled finger, and gave him a most expressive look of assurance. "Oh, how you overwhelm me," cried Father Roslyn. "I thank you a hundred times, but I won't accept so kind an offer unless you promise me that you will preside at a booth in the bazaar." Of course she promised, much as the delay might embarrass the American minister in London, and the Cardinal who awaited with impatience her arrival in Rome. The bazaar became a splendid legend in the parish of Cruarig; how its glory was of heaven; how Mrs. Dillon seemed to hover over it like an angel or a queen; how Father Roslyn could hardly keep out of her booth long enough to praise the others; how the nobility flocked about it every night of three, and ate wonderful dishes at fancy prices, and were dressed like princes; and how Judy Haskell ruled the establishment with a rod of iron from two to ten each day, devoting her leisure to the explanation and description of the booths once presided over by her mistress in the great city over seas. All these incidents and others as great passed out of mind before the happenings which shadowed the last days at Castle Moyna with anxiety and dread. The Dowager gave a fête in honor of her guests one afternoon, and all the county came. As a rule the gentry sneered at the American guests of the Countess, and found half their enjoyment at a garden fête in making fun of the hostess and her friends in a harmless way. There might not have been so much ridicule on this occasion for two reasons: the children were liked, and their guardian was dreaded. Anne had met and vanquished her critics in the lists of wit and polite insolence. Then a few other Americans, discovered by Captain Sydenham, were present, and bore half the brunt of public attention. The Dillons met their countrymen for a moment and forgot them, even forgot the beautiful woman whose appearance held the eyes of the guests a long time. Captain Sydenham was interesting them in a pathetic story of battle and death which had just happened only a few miles away. When the two boys were dead beside the stream in the glen, and the tourists had met their fate before the magistrate in Cruarig, he closed the story by saying, "And now down in the hotel is the loveliest Irish girl you ever saw, waiting with the most patient grief for the help which will release her father from jail. Am I not right, Mrs. Endicott?" The beautiful American looked up with a smile. "Yes, indeed," she replied in a clear, rich voice. "It is long since I met a woman that impressed me more than this lonely creature. The Captain was kind enough to take me to see her, that I might comfort her a little. But she seemed to need little comfort. Very self-possessed you know. Used to that sort of thing." "The others got scot free, no thanks to old Folsom," said the Captain, "and one went off to their yacht and the other intended to start for Dublin to interest the secretary. The Countess should interest herself in her. Egad, don't you know, it's worth the trouble to take an interest in such a girl as Honora Ledwith." "Honora Ledwith," said the Dowager at a little distance. "What do you know of my lovely Honora?" Already in the course of the story a suspicion had been shaping itself in Anne's mind. The ship must have arrived, it was time to hear from Arthur and his party; the story warned her that a similar fate might have overtaken her friends. Then she braced herself for the shock which came with Honora's name; and at the same moment, as in a dream, she saw Arthur swinging up the lawn towards her group; whereupon she gave a faint shriek, and rose up with a face so pale that all stretched out hands to her assistance; but Arthur was before them, as she tottered to him, and caught her in his arms. After a moment of silence, Mona and Louis ran to his side, Captain Sydenham said some words, and then the little group marched off the lawn to the house, leaving the Captain to explain matters, and to wonder at the stupidity which had made him overlook the similarity in names. "Why, don't you know," said he to Mrs. Endicott, "her son was one of the party of tourists that Folsom sent to jail, and I never once connected the names. Absurd and stupid on my part." "Charming young man," said the lady, as she excused herself and went off. Up in one of the rooms of Castle Moyna, when the excitement was over and the explanations briefly made, Mona at the window described to Arthur the people of distinction, as they made their adieus to their hostess and expressed sympathy with the sudden and very proper indisposition of Mrs. Dillon. He could not help thinking how small the world is, what a puzzle is the human heart, how weird is the life of man. "There she is now," cried Mona, pointing to Mrs. Endicott and an old lady, who were bidding adieu to the Countess of Skibbereen. "A perfectly lovely face, a striking figure--oh, why should Captain Sydenham say our Honora was the loveliest girl he ever saw?--and he saw them together you know----" "Saw whom together?" said Arthur. "Why, Mrs. Endicott called on Honora at the hotel, you know." "Oh!" He leaned out of the window and took a long look at her with scarcely an extra beat of the heart, except for the triumph of having met her face to face and remained unknown. His longest look was for Aunt Lois, who loved him, and was now helping to avenge him. Strange, strange, strange! "Well?" cried Mona eagerly. "The old lady is a very sweet-looking woman," he answered. "On the whole I think Captain Sydenham was right." CHAPTER XVII. THE AMBASSADOR. After the happy reunion at Castle Moyna there followed a council of war. Captain Sydenham treasonably presided, and Honora sat enthroned amid the silent homage of her friends, who had but one thought, to lift the sorrow from her heart, and banish the pallor of anxiety from her lovely face. Her violet eyes burned with fever. The Captain drew his breath when he looked at her. "And she sings as she looks," whispered the Countess noting his gasp. "It's a bad time to do anything for Mr. Ledwith," the Captain said to the little assembly. "The Fenian movement has turned out a complete failure here in Ireland, and abroad too. As its stronghold was the United States, you can see that the power of the American Minister will be much diminished. It is very important to approach him in the right way, and count every inch of the road that leads to him. We must not make any mistakes, ye know, if only for Miss Ledwith's sake." His reward was a melting glance from the wonderful eyes. "I know the Minister well, and I feel sure he will help for the asking," said Anne. "Glad you're so hopeful, mother, but some of us are not," Arthur interjected. "Then if you fail with His Excellency, Artie," she replied composedly, "I shall go to see him myself." Captain and Dowager exchanged glances of admiration. "Now, there are peculiarities in our trials here, trials of rebels I mean ... I haven't time to explain them ..." Arthur grinned ... "but they make imperative a certain way of acting, d'ye see? If I were in Mr. Dillon's place I should try to get one of two things from the American Minister: either that the Minister notify Her Majesty's government that he will have his representative at the trial of Ledwith; or, if the trial is begun ... they are very summary at times ... that the same gentleman inform the government that he will insist on all the forms being observed." "What effect would these notifications have?" Arthur asked. "Gad, most wonderful," replied the Captain. "If the Minister got in his warning before the trial began, there wouldn't be any trial; and if later, the trial would end in acquittal." Every one looked impressed, so much so that the Captain had to explain. "I don't know how to explain it to strangers--we all know it here, doncheknow--but in these cases the different governments always have some kind of an understanding. Ledwith is an American citizen, for example; he is arrested as an insurgent, no one is interested in him, the government is in a hurry, a few witnesses heard him talk against the government, and off he goes to jail. It's a troublesome time, d'ye see? But suppose the other case. A powerful friend interests the American Minister. That official notifies the proper officials that he is going to watch the trial. This means that the Minister is satisfied of the man's innocence. Government isn't going to waste time so, when there are hundreds to be tried and deported. So he goes free. Same thing if the Minister comes in while the trial is going on, and threatens to review all the testimony, the procedure, the character of the witnesses. He simply knocks the bottom out of the case, and the prisoner goes free." "I see your points," said Arthur, smiling. "I appreciate them. Just the same, we must have every one working on the case, and if I should fail the others must be ready to play their parts." "Command us all," said the Captain with spirit. "You have Lord Constantine in London. He's a host. But remember we are in the midst of the trouble, and home influence won't be a snap of my finger compared with the word of the Minister." "Then the Minister's our man," said Anne with decision. "If Arthur fails with him, then every soul of us must move on London like an Irish army, and win or die. So, my dear Honora, take the puckers out of your face, and keep your heart light. I know a way to make Quincy Livingstone dance to any music I play." The smiles came back to Honora's face, hearts grew lighter, and Arthur started for London, with little confidence in the good-will of Livingstone, but more in his own ability to force the gentleman to do his duty. He ran up against a dead wall in his mission, however, for the question of interference on behalf of American citizens in English jails had been settled months before in a conference between Livingstone and the Premier, although feeling was cold and almost hostile between the two governments. Lord Constantine described the position with the accuracy of a theorist in despair. "There's just a chance of doing something for Ledwith," he said dolorously. "By your looks a pretty poor one, I think," Arthur commented. "Oh, it's got to be done, doncheknow," he said irritably. "But that da--that fool, Livingstone, is spoiling the stew with his rot. And I've been watching this pot boil for five years at least." "What's wrong with our representative?" affecting innocence. "What's right with him would be the proper question," growled his lordship. "In Ledwith's case the wrong is that he's gone and given assurances to the government. He will not interfere with their disposition of Fenian prisoners, when these prisoners are American citizen. In other words, he has given the government a free hand. He will not be inclined to show Ledwith any favor." "A free hand," repeated Arthur, fishing for information. "And what is a free hand?" "Well, he could hamper the government very much when it is trying an American citizen for crimes committed on British soil. Such a prisoner must get all the privileges of a native. He must be tried fairly, as he would be at home, say." "Well, surely that strong instinct of fair play, that sense of justice so peculiarly British, of which we have all heard in the school-books, would----" "Drop it," said Lord Constantine fiercely. "In war there's nothing but the brute left. The Fenians--may the plague take them ... will be hung, shipped to Botany Bay, and left to rot in the home prisons, without respect to law, privilege, decency. Rebels must be wiped out, doncheknow. I don't mind that. They've done me enough harm ... put back the alliance ten years at least ... and left me howling in the wilderness. Livingstone will let every Fenian of American citizenship be tried like his British mates ... that is, they will get no trial at all, except inform. They will not benefit by their American ties." "Why should he neglect them like that?" "He has theories, of course. I heard him spout them at some beastly reception somewhere. Too many Irish in America--too strong--too popish--must be kept down--alliance between England and the United States to keep them down----" "I remember he was one of your alliance men," provokingly. "Alas, yes," mourned his lordship. "The Fenians threatened to make mince-meat of it, but they're done up and knocked down. Now, this Livingstone proposes a new form of mincing, worse than the Fenians a thousand times, begad." "Begad," murmured Arthur. "Surely you're getting excited." "The alliance is now to be argued on the plea of defense against popish aggressions, Arthur. This is the unkind cut. Before, we had to reunite the Irish and the English. Now, we must soothe the prejudices of bigots besides. Oh, but you should see the programme of His Excellency for the alliance in his mind. You'll feel it when you get back home. A regular programme, doncheknow. The first number has the boards now: general indignation of the hired press at the criminal recklessness of the Irish in rebelling against our benign rule. When that chorus is ended, there comes a solo by an escaped nun. Did you ever hear of Sister Claire Thingamy----" "Saw her--know her--at a distance. What is she to sing?" "A book--confessions and all that thing--revelations of the horrors of papist life. It's to be printed by thousands and scattered over the world. After that Fritters, our home historian at Oxford, is to travel in your county and lecture to the cream of society on the beauty of British rule over the Irish. He is to affect the classes. The nun and the press are to affect the masses. Between them what becomes of the alliance? Am I not patient? My pan demanded harmonious and brotherly feelings among all parties. Isn't that what an alliance must depend on? But Livingstone takes the other tack. To bring about his scheme we shall all be at each other's throats. Talk of the Kilkenny cats and Donnybrook fair, begad!" "I don't wonder you feel so badly," Arthur said, laughing. "But see here: we're not afraid of Livingstone. We've knocked him out before, and we can do it again. It will be interesting to go back home, and help to undo that programme. If you can manage him here, rely on Grahame and me and a few others in New York, to take the starch out of him at home. What's all this to do with Ledwith?" "Nothing," said his lordship with an apology. "But my own trouble seems bigger than his. We'll get him out, of course. Go and see Livingstone, and talk to him on the uppish plan. Demand the rights and privileges of the British subject for our man. You won't get any satisfaction, but a stiff talk will pave the way for my share in the scheme. You take the American ground, and I come in on the British ground. We ought to make him ashamed between us, doncheknow." Arthur had doubts of that, but no doubt at all that Lord Constantine owned the finest heart that ever beat in a man. He felt very cheerful at the thought of shaking up the Minister. Half hopeful of success, curious to test the strings which move an American Minister at the court of St. James, anxious about Honora and Owen, he presented himself at Livingstone's residence by appointment, and received a gracious welcome. Unknown to themselves, the two men had an attraction for each other. Fate opposed them strangely. This hour Arthur Dillon stood forth as the knight of a despised and desperate race, in a bloody turmoil at home, fighting for a little space on American soil, hopeful but spent with the labor of upholding its ideals; and Livingstone represented a triumphant faction in both countries, which, having long made life bitter and bloody for the Irish, still kept before them the choice of final destruction or the acceptance of the Puritan gods. To Arthur the struggle so far seemed but a clever game whose excitement kept sorrow from eating out his heart. He saw the irony rather than the tragedy of the contest. It tickled him immensely just now that Puritan faced Puritan; the new striking at the old for decency's sake; a Protestant fighting a Protestant in behalf of the religious ideals of Papists. He had an advantage over his kinsman beyond the latter's ken; since to him the humor of the situation seemed more vital than the tragedy, a mistake quite easy to youth. Arthur stated Ledwith's case beautifully, and asked him to notify the British officials that the American Minister would send his representative to watch the trial. "Impossible," said Livingstone. "I am content with the ordinary course for all these cases." "We are not," replied Arthur as decisively, "and we call upon our government to protect its citizens against the packed juries and other injustices of these Irish trials." "And what good would my interference do?" said Livingstone. Arthur grinned. "Your Excellency, such a notification would open the doors of the jail to Ledwith to-morrow. There would be no trial." "My instructions from the President are precise in this matter. We are satisfied that American citizens will get as fair a trial as Englishmen themselves. There will be no interference until I am satisfied that things are not going properly." "Can you tell me, then, how I am to satisfy you in Ledwith's case?" said the young man good-naturedly. "I don't think you or any one else can, Mr. Dillon. I know Ledwith, a conspirator from his youth. He is found in Ireland in a time of insurrection. That's quite enough." "You forget that I have given you my word he was not concerned with the insurrection, and did not know it was so imminent; that he went to Ireland with his daughter on a business matter." "All which can be shown at the trial, and will secure his acquittal." "Neither I nor his daughter will ever be called as witnesses. Instead, a pack of ready informers will swear to anything necessary to hurry him off to life imprisonment." "That is your opinion." "Do you know who sent me here, your Excellency, with the request for your aid?" Livingstone stared his interrogation. "An English officer with whom you are acquainted, friendly to Ledwith for some one else's sake. In plain words, he gave me to understand that there is no hope for Ledwith unless you interfere. If he goes to trial, he hangs or goes to Botany Bay." "You are pessimistic," mocked Livingstone. "It is the fault of the Irish that they have no faith in any government, because they cannot establish one of their own." "Outside of New York," corrected Arthur, with delightful malice. "Amendment accepted." "Would you be able to interfere in behalf of my friend while the trial was on, say, just before the summing up, when the informers had sworn to one thing, and the witnesses for the defense to another, if they are not shut out altogether?" "Impossible. I might as well interfere now." "Then on the score of sentiment. Ledwith is failing into age. Even a brief term in prison may kill him." "He took the risk in returning to Ireland at this time. I would be willing to aid him on that score, but it would open the door to a thousand others, and we are unwilling to embarrass the English government at a trying moment." "Were they so considerate when our moments were trying and they could embarrass us?" "That is an Irish argument." "What they said of your Excellency in New York was true, I am inclined to believe: that you accepted the English mission to be of use to the English in the present insurrection." "Well," said the Minister, laughing in spite of himself at the audacity of Arthur, "you will admit that I have a right to pay back the Irish for my defeat at the polls." "You are our representative and defender," replied Arthur gravely, "and yet you leave us no alternative but to appeal to the English themselves." Livingstone began to look bored, because irritation scorched him and had to be concealed. Arthur rose. "We are to understand, then, the friends of Ledwith, that you will do nothing beyond what is absolutely required by the law, and after all formalities are complied with?" he said. "Precisely." "We shall have to depend on his English friends, then. It will look queer to see Englishmen take up your duty where you deserted it." The Minister waved his hand to signify that he had enough of that topic, but the provoking quality of Arthur's smile, for he did not seem chagrined, reminded him of a question. "Who are the people interested in Ledwith, may I ask?" "All your old friends of New York," said Arthur, "Birmingham, Sullivan, and so on." "Of course. And the English friends who are to take up my duties where I desert them?" "You must know some of them," and Arthur grinned again, so that the Minister slightly winced. "Captain Sydenham, commanding in Donegal----" "I met him in New York one winter--younger brother to Lord Groton." "The Dowager Countess of Skibbereen." "Very fine woman. Ledwith is in luck." "And Lord Constantine of Essex." "I see you know the value of a climax, Mr. Dillon. Well, good-night. I hope the friends of Mr. Ledwith will be able to do everything for him." It irritated him that Arthur carried off the honors of the occasion, for the young man's smiling face betrayed his belief that the mention of these noble names, and the fact that their owners were working for Ledwith, would sorely trouble the pillow of Livingstone that night. The contrast between the generosity of kindly Englishmen and his own harshness was too violent. He foresaw that to any determined attempt on the part of Ledwith's English friends he must surrender as gracefully as might be; and the problem was to make that surrender harmless. He had solved it by the time Anne Dillon reached London, and had composed that music sure to make the Minister dance whether he would or no. In taking charge of the case Anne briefly expressed her opinion of her son's methods. "You did the best you could, Arthur," she said sweetly. He could not but laugh and admire. Her instincts for the game were far surer than his own, and her methods infallible. She made the road easy for Livingstone, but he had to walk it briskly. How could the poor man help himself? She hurled at him an army of nobles, headed by the Countess and Lord Constantine; she brought him letters from his friends at home; there was a dinner at the hotel, the Dowager being the hostess; and he was almost awed by the second generation of Anne's audacious race: Mona, red-lipped, jewel-eyed, sweeter than wild honey; Louis, whose lovely nature and high purpose shone in his face; and Arthur, sad-eyed, impudent, cynical, who seemed ready to shake dice with the devil, and had no fear of mortals because he had no respect for them. These outcasts of a few years back were able now to seize the threads of intrigue, and shake up two governments with a single pull! He mourned while he described what he had done for them. There would be no trial for Ledwith. He would be released at once and sent home at government expense. It was a great favor, a very great favor. Even Arthur thanked him, though he had difficulty in suppressing the grin which stole to his face whenever he looked at his kinsman. The Minister saw the grin peeping from his eyes, but forgave him. Arthur had the joy of bringing the good news down to Donegal. Anne bade him farewell with a sly smile of triumph. Admirable woman! she floated above them all in the celestial airs. But she was gracious to her son. The poor boy had been so long in California that he did not know how to go about things. She urged him to join them in Rome for the visit to the Pope, and sent her love to Honora and a bit of advice to Owen. When Arthur arrived in Cruarig, whither a telegram had preceded him, he was surprised to find Honora Ledwith in no way relieved of anxiety. "You have nothing to do but pack your trunk and get away," he said. "There is to be no trial, you know. Your father will go straight to the steamer, and the government will pay his expenses. It ought to pay more for the outrage." She thanked him, but did not seem to be comforted. She made no comment, and he went off to get an explanation from Captain Sydenham. "I meant to have written you about it," said the Captain, "but hoped that it would have come out all right without writing. Ledwith maintains, and I think he's quite right, that he must be permitted to go free without conditions, or be tried as a Fenian conspirator. The case is simple: an American citizen traveling in Ireland is arrested on a charge of complicity in the present rebellion; the government must prove its case in a public trial, or, unable to do that, must release him as an innocent man; but it does neither, for it leads him from jail to the steamer as a suspect, ordering him out of the country. Ledwith demands either a trial or the freedom of an innocent man. He will not help the government out of the hole in which accident, his Excellency the Minister, and your admirable mother have placed it. Of course it's hard on that adorable Miss Ledwith, and it may kill Ledwith himself, if not the two of them. Did you ever in your life see such a daughter and such a father?" "Well, all we can do is to make the trial as warm as possible for the government," said Arthur. "Counsel, witnesses, publicity, telegrams to the Minister, cablegrams to our Secretary of State, and all the rest of it." "Of no use," said the Captain moodily. "You have no idea of an Irish court and an Irish judge in times of revolt. I didn't till I came here. If Ledwith stands trial, nothing can save him from some kind of a sentence." "Then for his daughter's sake I must persuade him to get away." "Hope you can. All's fair in war, you know, but Ledwith is the worst kind of patriot, a visionary one, exalted, as the French say." Ledwith thanked Arthur warmly when he called upon him in jail, and made his explanation as the Captain had outlined it. "Don't think me a fool," he said. "I'm eager to get away. I have no relish for English prison life. But I am not going to promote Livingstone's trickery. I am an American citizen. I have had no part, direct or indirect, in this futile insurrection. I can prove it in a fair trial. It must be either trial or honorable release to do as any American citizen would do under the circumstances. If I go to prison I shall rely on my friends to expose Livingstone, and to warm up the officials at home who connive with him." Nor would he be moved from this position, and the trial came off with a speed more than creditable when justice deals with pirates, but otherwise scandalous. It ended in a morning, in spite of counsel, quibbles, and other ornamental obstacles, with a sentence of twenty years at hard labor in an English prison. To this prison Ledwith went the next day at noon. There had not been much time for work, but Arthur had played his part to his own satisfaction; the Irish and American journals buzzed with the items which he provided, and the denunciations of the American Minister were vivid, biting, and widespread; yet how puerile it all seemed before the brief, half contemptuous sentence of the hired judge, who thus roughly shoved another irritating patriot out of the way. The farewell to Ledwith was not without hope. Arthur had declared his purpose to go straight to New York and set every influence to work that could reach the President. Honora was to live near the prison, support herself by her singing, and use her great friends to secure a mitigation of his sentence, and access to him at intervals. "I am going in joy," he said to her and Arthur. "Death is the lightest suffering of the true patriot. Nora and I long ago offered our lives for Ireland. Perhaps they are the only useful things we could offer, for we haven't done much. Poor old country! I wish our record of service had some brighter spots in it." "At the expense of my modesty," said Arthur, "can't I mention myself as one of the brighter spots? But for you I would never have raised a finger for my mother's land. Now, I am enlisted, not only in the cause of Erin, but pledged to do what I can for any race that withers like yours under the rule of the slave-master. And that means my money, my time and thought and labor, and my life." "It is the right spirit," said Ledwith, trembling. "I knew it was in you. Not only for Ireland, but for the enslaved and outraged everywhere. God be thanked, if we poor creatures have stirred this spirit in you, lighted the flame--it's enough." "I have sworn it," cried Arthur, betrayed by his secret rage into eloquence. "I did not dream the world was so full of injustice. I could not understand the divine sorrow which tore your hearts for the wronged everywhere. I saw you suffer. I saw later what caused your suffering, and I felt ashamed that I had been so long idle and blind. Now I have sworn to myself that my life and my wealth shall be at the service of the enslaved forever." They went their different ways, the father to prison, Honora to the prison village, and Arthur with all speed to New York, burning with hatred of Livingstone. The great man had simply tricked them, had studied the matter over with his English friends, and had found a way to satisfy the friends of Ledwith and the government at the same time. Well, it was a long lane that had no turning, and Arthur swore that he would find the turning which would undo Quincy Livingstone. AN ESCAPED NUN. CHAPTER XVIII. JUDY VISITS THE POPE. He used the leisure of the voyage to review recent events, and to measure his own progress. For the first time since his calamity he had lost sight of himself in this poetic enterprise of Ledwith's, successful beyond all expectation. In this life of intrigue against the injustice of power, this endless struggle to shake the grip of the master on the slave, he found an intoxication. Though many plans had come to nothing, and the prison had swallowed a thousand victims, the game was worth the danger and the failure. In the Fenian uprising the proud rulers had lost sleep and comfort, and the world had raised its languid eyes for a moment to study events in Ireland. Even the slave can stir the selfish to interest by a determined blow at his masters. In his former existence very far had been from him this glorious career, though honors lay in wait for an Endicott who took to statecraft. Shallow Horace, sprung from statesman, had found public life a bore. This feeling had saved him perhaps from the fate of Livingstone, who in his snail-shell could see no other America than a monstrous reproduction of Plymouth colony. He had learned at last that his dear country was made for the human race. God had guided the little ones of the nations, wretched but hardy, to the land, the only land on earth, where dreams so often come true. Like the waves they surged upon the American shore. With ax and shovel and plow, with sweat of labor and pain, they fought the wilderness and bought a foothold in the new commonwealth. What great luck that his exit from the old life should prove to be his entrance into the very heart of a simple multitude flying from the greed and stupidity of the decadent aristocracy of Europe! What fitness that he, child of a race which had triumphantly fought injustice, poverty, Indian, and wilderness, should now be leader for a people who had fled from injustice at home only to begin a new struggle with plotters like Livingstone, foolish representative of the caste-system of the old world. Sonia Westfield, by strange fatality, was aboard with her child and Aunt Lois. Her presence, when first they came face to face, startled him; not the event, but the littleness of the great earth; that his hatred and her crime could not keep them farther apart. The Endicott in him rose up for a moment at the sight of her, and to his horror even sighed for her: this Endicott, who for a twelvemonth had been so submerged under the new personality that Dillon had hardly thought of him. He sighed for her! Her beauty still pinched him, and the memory of the first enchantment had not faded from the mind of the poor ghost. It mouthed in anger at the master who had destroyed it, who mocked at it now bitterly: you are the husband of Sonia Westfield, and the father of her fraudulent child; go to them as you desire. But the phantom fled humiliated, while Dillon remained horror-shaken by that passing fancy of the Endicott to take up the dream of youth again. Could he by any fatality descend to this shame? Her presence did not arouse his anger or his dread, hardly his curiosity. He kept out of her way as much as possible, yet more than once they met; but only at the last did the vague inquiry in her face indicate that memory had impressions of him. Often he studied her from afar, when she sat deep in thought with her lovely eyes ... how he had loved them ... melting, damnable, false eyes fixed on the sea. He wondered how she bore her misery, of which not a sign showed on the velvet face. Did she rage at the depths of that sea which in an instant had engulfed her fool-husband and his fortune? The same sea now mocked her, laughed at her rage, bearing on its bosom the mystery which she struggled to steal from time. No one could punish this creature like herself. She bore her executioner about with her, Aunt Lois, evidently returning home to die. That death would complete the ruin of Sonia, and over the grave she would learn once for all how well her iniquity had been known, how the lost husband had risen from his darkness to accuse her, how little her latest crime would avail her. What a dull fool Horace Endicott had been over a woman suspected of her own world! Her beauty would have kept him a fool forever, had she been less beastly in her pleasures. And this Endicott, down in the depths, sighed for her still! But Arthur Dillon saw her in another light, as an unclean beast from sin's wilderness, in the light that shone from Honora Ledwith. Messalina cowered under the halo of Beatrice! When that light shone full upon her, Sonia looked to his eye like a painted Phryne surprised by the daylight. Her corruption showed through her beauty. Honora! Incomparable woman! dear lady of whiteness! pure heart that shut out earthly love, while God was to be served, or men suffered, or her country bled, or her father lived! The thought of her purified him. He had not truly known his dear mother till now; when he knew her in Honora, in old Martha, in charming Mona, in Mary Everard, in clever Anne Dillon. These women would bless his life hereafter. They refreshed him in mind and heart. It began to dawn upon him that his place in life was fixed, that he would never go back even though he might do so with honor, his shame remaining unknown. It was mere justice that the wretched past should be in a grave, doomed never to see the light of resurrection. His mother and her party shared the journey with him. The delay of Ledwith's trial had enabled them to make the short tour on the Continent, and catch his steamer. Anne was utterly vexed with him that Ledwith had not escaped the prison. Her plain irritation gave Judy deep content. "She needs something to pull her down," was her comment to Arthur, "or she'll fly off the earth with the lightness of her head. My, my, but the airs of her since she laid out the ambassador, an' talked to the Pope! She can hardly spake at all now wid the grandher! Whin Father Phil ... I never can call him Mounsinnyory ... an', be the way, for years wasn't I callin' him Morrisania be mistake, an' the dear man never corrected me wanst ... but I learned the difference over in Rome ... where was I?... whin Father Phil kem back from Rome he gev us a grand lecther on what he saw, an' he talked for two hours like an angel. But Anne Dillon can on'y shut her eyes, an' dhrop her head whin ye ask her a single question about it. Faith, I dinno if she'll ever get over it. Isn't that quare now?" "Very," Arthur answered, "but give her time. So you saw the Pope?" "Faith, I did, an' it surprised me a gra'dale to find out that he was a dago, God forgi' me for sayin' as much. I was tould be wan o' the Mounsinnyory that he was pure Italian. 'No,' sez I, 'the Pope may be Rooshin or German, though I don't belave he's aither, but he's not Italian. If he wor, he'd have the blessed sinse to hide it, for fear the Irish 'ud lave the Church whin they found it out.'" "What blood do you think there's in him?" said Arthur. "He looked so lovely sittin' there whin we wint in that me sivin sinses left me, an' I cudn't rightly mek up me mind afterwards. Thin I was so taken up wid Mrs. Dillon," and Judy laughed softly, "that I was bothered. But I know the Pope's not a dago, anny more than he's a naygur. I put him down in me own mind as a Roman, no more an' no less." "That's a safe guess," said Arthur; "and you still have the choice of his being a Sicilian, a Venetian, or a Neapolitan." "Unless," said the old lady cautiously, "he comes of the same stock as Our Lord Himself." "Which would make him a Jew," Arthur smoothly remarked. "God forgive ye, Artie! G'long wid ye! If Our Lord was a Jew he was the first an' last an' on'y wan of his kind." "And that's true too. And how did you come to see the Pope so easy, and it in the summer time?" The expressive grin covered Judy's face as with comic sunshine. "I dunno," she answered. "If Anne Dillon made up her mind to be Impress of France, I dunno annythin' nor anny wan that cud hould her back; an' perhaps the on'y thing that kep' her from tryin' to be Impress was that the Frinch had an Impress already. I know they had, because I heard her ladyship lamentin', whin we wor in Paris, that she didn't get a letther of introduction to the Impress from Lady Skibbereen. She had anny number of letthers to the Pope. I suppose that's how we all got in, for I wint too, an' the three of us looked like sisters of mercy, dhressed in black wid veils on our heads. Whin we dhruv up to the palace, her ladyship gev a screech. 'Mother of heaven,' says she, 'but I forgot me permit, an' we can't get in to see his Holiness.' We sarched all her pockets, but found on'y the square bit o' paper, a milliner's bill, that she tuk for the permit be mistake. 'Well, this'll have to do,' says she. Says I, 'Wud ye insult the Pope be shakin' a milliner's bill in his face as ye go in the dure?' She never answered me, but walked in an' presented her bill to a Mounsinnyory----" "What's that?" Arthur asked. "I was never in Rome." "Somethin' like the man that takes the tickets at the theayter, ou'y he's a priest, an' looks like a bishop, but he cuts more capers than ten bishops in wan. He never opened the paper--faith, if he had, there'd be the fine surprise--so we wint in. I knew the Pope the minnit I set eyes on him, the heavenly man. Oh, but I'd like to be as sure o' savin' me soul as that darlin' saint. His eyes looked as if they saw heaven every night an' mornin'. We dhropped on our knees, while the talkin' was goin' on, an' if I wasn't so frikened at bein' near heaven itself, I'd a died listenin' to her ladyship tellin' the Pope in French--in French, d'ye mind?--how much she thought of him an' how much she was goin' to spind on him while she was in Rome. 'God forgive ye, Anne Dillon,' says I to meself, 'but ye might betther spind yer money an' never let an.' She med quite free wid him, an' he talked back like a father, an' blessed us twinty times. I dinno how I wint in or how I kem out. I was like a top, spinnin' an' spinnin'. Things went round all the way home, so that I didn't dar say a word for fear herself might think I had been drinkin'. So that's how we saw the Pope. Ye can see now the terrible determination of Anne Dillon, though she was the weeniest wan o' the family." In the early morning the steamer entered the lower bay, picking up Doyle Grahame from a tug which had wandered about for hours, not in search of news, but on the scent for beautiful Mona. He routed out the Dillon party in short order. "What's up?" Arthur asked sleepily. "Are you here as a reporter----" "As a lover," Grahame corrected, with heaving chest and flashing eyes. "The crowd that will gather to receive you on the dock may have many dignitaries, but I am the only lover. That's why I am here. If I stayed with the crowd, Everard, who hates me almost, would have taken pains to shut me out from even a plain how-de-do with my goddess." "I see. It's rather early for a goddess, but no doubt she will oblige. You mentioned a crowd on the dock to receive us. What crowd?" "Your mother," said Doyle, "is a wonderful woman. I have often speculated on the absence of a like ability in her son." "Nature is kind. Wait till I'm as old as she is," said the son. "The crowd awaits her to do her honor. The common travelers _will land_ this morning, glad to set foot on solid ground again. Mrs. Montgomery Dillon and her party are the only personages that _will arrive from Europe_. The crowd gathers to meet, not the passengers who merely land, but the personages who arrive from Europe." "Nice distinction. And who is the crowd?" "Monsignor O'Donnell----" "A very old and dear friend----" "Who hopes to build his cathedral with her help. The Senator----" "Representing the Dillon clan." "Who did not dare absent himself, and hopes for more inspiration like that which took him out of the ring and made him a great man. Vandervelt." "Well, he, of course, is purely disinterested." "Didn't she inform him of her triumph over Livingstone in London? And isn't he to be the next ambassador, and more power to him?" "And John Everard of course." "To greet his daughter, and to prevent your humble servant from kissing the same," and he sighed with pleasure and triumph. "Where is she? Shall I have long to wait? Is she changed?" "Ask her brother," with a nod for the upper berth where Louis slept serenely. "And of course you have news?" "Loads of it. I have arranged for a breakfast and a talk after the arrival is finished. There'll be more to eat than the steak." The steamer swung to the pier some hours later, and Arthur walked ashore to the music of a band which played decorously the popular strains for a popular hero returning crowned with glory. His mother arrived as became the late guest of the Irish nobility. Grahame handed Mona into her father's arms with an exasperating gesture, and then plunged into his note-book, as if he did not care. The surprised passengers wondered what hidden greatness had traveled with them across the sea. On the deck Sonia watched the scene with dull interest, for some one had murmured something about a notorious Fenian getting back home to his kind. Arthur saw her get into a cab with her party a few minutes later and drive away. A sadness fell upon him, the bitterness which follows the fading of our human dreams before the strong light of day. CHAPTER XIX. LA BELLE COLETTE. After the situation had been discussed over the breakfast for ten minutes Arthur understood the mournful expression of the Senator, whose gaiety lapsed at intervals when bitterness got the better of him. "The boys--the whole town is raving about you, Artie," said he with pride, "over the way you managed that affair of Ledwith's. There'll be nothing too good for you this year, if you work all the points of the game--if you follow good advice, I mean. You've got Livingstone in a corner. When this cruel war is over, and it is over for the Fenians--they've had enough, God knows--it ought to be commencing for the Honorable Quincy Livingstone." "You make too much of it, Senator," Grahame responded. "We know what's back of these attacks on you and others. It's this way, Arthur: the Senator and I have been working hard for the American citizens in English jails, Fenians of course, and the Livingstone crowd have hit back at us hard. The Senator, as the biggest man in sight, got hit hardest." "What they say of me is true, though. That's what hurts." "Except that they leave out the man whom every one admires for his good sense, generous heart, and great success," Arthur said to console him. "Of course one doesn't like to have the sins of his youth advertised for two civilizations," Grahame continued. "One must consider the source of this abuse however. They are clever men who write against us, but to know them is not to admire them. Bitterkin of the _Post_ has his brain, stomach, and heart stowed away in a single sack under his liver, which is very torpid, and his stomach is always sour. His blood is three parts water from the Boyne, his food is English, his clothes are a very bad fit, and his whiskers are so hard they dull the scissors. He loves America when he can forget that Irish and other foreign vermin inhabit it, otherwise he detests it. He loves England until he remembers that he can't live in it. The other fellow, Smallish, writes beautiful English, and lives on the old clothes of the nobility. Now who would mourn over the diatribes of such cats?" The Senator had to laugh at the description despite his sadness. "This is only one symptom of the trouble that's brewing. There's no use in hiding the fact that things are looking bad. Since the Fenian scheme went to pieces, the rats have left their holes. The Irish are demoralized everywhere, fighting themselves as usual after a collapse, and their enemies are quoting them against one another. Here in New York the hired bravos of the press are in the pay of the Livingstone crowd, or of the British secret service. What can you expect?" "How long will it last? What is doing against it?" said Arthur. "Ask me easier questions. Anyway, I'm only consoling the Senator for the hard knocks he's getting for the sake of old Ireland. Cheer up, Senator." "Even when Fritters made his bow," said the mournful Senator, "they made game of me," and the tears rose to his eyes. Arthur felt a secret rage at this grief. "You heard of Fritters?" and Arthur nodded. "He arrived, and the Columbia College crowd started him off with a grand banquet. He's an Oxford historian with a new recipe for cooking history. The Columbia professor who stood sponsor for him at the banquet told the world that Fritters would show how English government worked among the Irish, and how impossible is the Anglo-Saxon idea among peoples in whom barbarism does not die with the appearance and advance of civilization. He touched up the elegant parades and genial shindys of St. Patrick's Day as 'inexplicable dumb shows and noise,'--see Hamlet's address to the players--and hoped the banks of our glorious Hudson would never witness the bloody rows peculiar to the banks of the immortal Boyne. Then he dragged in the Senator." "What's his little game?" Arthur asked. "Scientific ridicule ... the press plays to the galleries, and Fritters to the boxes ... it's a part of the general scheme ... I tell you there's going to be fun galore this winter ... and the man in London is at the root of the deviltry." "What's to be done?" "If we only knew," the Senator groaned. "If we could only get them under our fists, in a fair and square tussle!" "I think the hinge of the Livingstone plan is Sister Claire, the escaped nun," Grahame said thoughtfully. "She's the star of the combination, appeals to the true blue church-member with descriptions of the horrors of convents. Her book is out, and you'll find a copy waiting for you at home. Dime novels are prayer-books beside it. French novels are virtuous compared with it. It is raising an awful row. On the strength of it McMeeter has begun an enterprise for the relief of imprisoned nuns--to rescue them--house them for a time, and see them safely married. Sister Claire is to be matron of the house of escaped nuns. No one doubts her experience. Now isn't that McMeeter all over? But see the book, the _Confessions of an Escaped Nun_." "You think she's the hinge of the great scheme?" "She has the public eye and ear," said Grahame, thinking out his own theory as he talked. "Her book is the book of the hour ... reviewed by the press ... the theme of pulpits ... the text of speeches galore ... common workmen thump one another over it at the bench. Now all the others, Bradford, Fritters, the Columbia professors, Bitterkin and his followers, seem to play second to her book. They keep away from her society, yet her strongest backing is from them. You know what I mean. It has occurred to me that if we got her history ... it must be pretty savory ... and printed it ... traced her connection with the Livingstone crowd ... it would be quite a black eye for the Honorable Quincy." "By George, but you've struck it," cried Arthur waking up to the situation. "If she's the hinge, she's the party to strike at. Tell me, what became of Curran?" "Lucky thought," shouted Grahame. "He's in town yet. The very man for us." "I'm going to have it out with Livingstone," said Arthur, with a clear vision of an English prison and the patient woman who watched its walls from a window in the town. "In fact, I _must_ have it out with Livingstone. He's good game, and I'd like to bring him back from England in a bag. Perhaps Sister Claire may be able to provide the bag." "Hands on it," said Grahame, and they touched palms over the table, while the Senator broke into smiles. He had unlimited faith in his nephew. "Lord Conny gave me an outline of Livingstone's program before I left. He's worried over the effect it's going to have on his alliance scheme, and he cursed the Minister sincerely. He'll help us. Let's begin with Sister Claire in the hope of bagging the whole crowd. Let Curran hunt up her history. Above all let him get evidence that Livingstone provides the money for her enterprise." Having come to a conclusion on this important matter, they dropped into more personal topics. "Strangely enough," said Grahame cheerfully, "my own destiny is mixed up with this whole business. The bulwark of Livingstone in one quarter is John Everard. I am wooing, in the hope of winning, my future father-in-law." "He's very dead," the Senator thought. "The art of wooing a father-in-law!--what an art!" murmured Grahame. "The mother-in-law is easy. She wishes her daughter married. Papa doesn't. At least in this case, with a girl like Mona." "Has Everard anything against you?" "A whole litany of crimes." "What's wrong with Everard?" "He was born the night of the first big wind, and he has had it in for the whole world ever since. He's perverse. Nothing but another big wind will turn him round." Seeing Arthur puzzled over these allusions, Grahame explained. "Think of such a man having children like the twins, little lumps of sweetness ... like Louis ... heavens! if I live to be the father of such a boy, life will be complete ... like my Mona ... oh!" He stalked about the room throwing himself into poses of ecstasy and adoration before an imaginary goddess to the delight of the Senator. "I've been there myself," Arthur commented unmoved. "To the question: how do you hope to woo and win Everard?" "First, by my book. It's the story of just such a fool as he: a chap who wears the American flag in bed and waves it at his meals, as a nightgown and a napkin; then, he is a religious man of the kind that finds no religion to his liking, and would start one of his own if he thought it would pay; finally, he is a purist in politics, believes in blue glass, drinks ten glasses of filtered water a day, which makes him as blue as the glass, wears paper collars, and won't let his son be a monk because there are too many in the world. Now, Everard will laugh himself weak over this character. He's so perverse that he will never see himself in the mirror which I have provided." "Rather risky, I should think." "But that's not all," Grahame went on, "since you are kind enough to listen. I'm going to wave the American flag, eat it, sing it, for the next year, myself. Attend: the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are going to sit on what is left of Plymouth Rock next spring, and make speeches and read poems, and eat banquets. I am to be invited to sing, to read the poem. Vandervelt is to see to that. Think of it, a wild Irishman, an exile, a conspirator against the British Crown, a subject of the Pope, reading or singing the praises of the pilgrims, the grim pilgrims. Turn in your grave, Cotton Mather, as my melodious verses harrow your ears." "Will that impress John Everard?" "Or give him a fatal fit. The book and the poem ought to do the business. He can't resist. 'Never was Everard in this humor wooed, never was Everard in this humor won.' Oh, that Shakespeare had known an Everard, and embalmed him like a fly in the everlasting amber of his verse. But should these things fail, I have another matter. While Everard rips up Church and priest and doctrine at his pleasure, he has one devotion which none may take liberties with. He swears by the nuns. He is foaming at the mouth over the injury and insult offered them by the _Confessions_ of Sister Claire. We expose this clever woman. Picture me, then, the despised suitor, after having pleased him by my book, and astounded him with my poem, and mesmerized him with the exposure of Claire, standing before him with silent lips but eyes speaking: I want your daughter. Can even this perverse man deny me? Don't you think I have a chance?" "Not with Everard," said the Senator solemnly. "He's simply coke." "You should write a book, Doyle, on the art of wooing a father-in-law, and explain what you have left out here: how to get away with the dog." "Before marriage," said the ready wit, "the girl looks after the dog; after marriage the dog can be trained to bite the father-in-law." Arthur found the _Confessions of an Escaped Nun_ interesting reading from many points of view, and spent the next three days analyzing the book of the hour. His sympathy for convent life equaled his understanding of it. He had come to understand and like Sister Mary Magdalene, in spite of a prejudice against her costume; but the motive and spirit of the life she led were as yet beyond him. Nevertheless, he could see how earnestly the _Confessions_ lied about what it pretended to expose. The smell of the indecent and venal informer exhaled from the pages. The vital feature, however, lay in the revelation of Sister Claire's character, between the lines. Beneath the vulgarity and obscenity, poorly veiled in a mock-modest verbiage, pulsated a burning sensuality reaching the horror of mania. A well-set trap would have easy work in catching the feet of a woman related to the nymphs. Small wonder that the Livingstone party kept her afar off from their perfumed and reputable society while she did her nasty work. The book must have been oil to that conflagration raging among the Irish. The abuse of the press, the criticism of their friends, the reproaches of their own, the hostility of the government, the rage and grief at the failure of their hopes, the plans to annoy and cripple them, scorched indeed their sensitive natures; but the book of the Escaped Nun, defiling their holy ones so shamelessly, ate like acid into their hearts. Louis came in, when he had completed his analysis of the volume, and begun to think up a plan of action. The lad fingered the book gingerly, and said timidly: "I'm going to see ... I have an appointment with this terrible woman for to-morrow afternoon. In fact, I saw her this morning. I went to her office with Sister Mary Magdalen." "Of course the good Sister has a scheme to convert the poor thing!" Arthur said lightly, concealing his delight and surprise under a pretense of indifference. "Well, yes," and the lad laughed and blushed. "And she may succeed too. The greater the sin the deeper the repentance. The unfortunate woman----" "Who is making a fortune on her book by the way----" "----received us very kindly. Sister Magdalen had been corresponding with her. She wept in admitting that her fall seemed beyond hope. She felt so tangled in her own sins that she knew no way to get out of them. Really, she _was_ so sincere. When we were leaving she begged me to call again, and as I have to return to the seminary Monday I named to-morrow afternoon." "You may then have the honor of converting her." "It would be an honor," Louis replied stoutly. "Try it," said Arthur after thinking the matter over. "I know what force _your_ arguments will have with her. And if you don't object I'll stay ... by the way, where is her office?" "In a quiet business building on Bleecker Street, near Broadway." "If you don't mind I'll stay outside in the hall, and rush in to act as altar-boy, when she agrees to 'vert." "I'm going for all your ridicule, Arthur." "No objection, but keep a cool head, and bear in mind that I am in the hall outside." He suspected the motive of Sister Claire, both in making this appointment, and in playing at conversion with Sister Magdalen. Perhaps it might prove the right sort of trap for her cunning feet. He doubted the propriety of exposing Louis to the fangs of the beast, and for a moment he thought to warn him of the danger. But he had no right to interfere in Sister Magdalen's affair, and if a beginning had to be made this adventure could be used effectively. He forgot the affair within the hour, in the business of hunting up Curran. He had a double reason for seeking the detective. Besides the task of ferreting out the record of Sister Claire, he wished to get news of the Endicotts. Aunt Lois had slipped out of life two days after her return from Europe. The one heart that loved him truly beat for him no more. By this time her vengeance must have fallen, and Sonia, learning the full extent of her punishment, must now be writhing under a second humiliation and disappointment. He did not care to see her anguish, but he did care to hear of the new effort that would undoubtedly be made to find the lost husband. Curran would know. He met him that afternoon on the street near his own house. "Yes, I'm back in the old business," he said proudly; "the trip home so freshened me that I feel like myself again. Besides, I have my own home, here it is, and my wife lives with me. Perhaps you have heard of her, La Belle Colette." "And seen her too ... a beautiful and artistic dancer." "You must come in now and meet her. She is a trifle wild, you know, and once she took to drink; but she's a fine girl, a real good fellow, and worth twenty like me. Come right in, and we'll talk business later." La Belle Colette! The dancer at a cheap seaside resort! The wild creature who drank and did things! This shrewd, hard fellow, who faced death as others faced a wind, was deeply in love and happy in her companionship. What standard of womanhood and wifehood remained to such men? However, his wonder ceased when he had bowed to La Belle Colette in her own parlor, heard her sweet voice, and looked into the most entrancing eyes ever owned by a woman, soft, fiery, tender, glad, candid eyes. He recalled the dancer, leaping like a flame about the stage. In the plainer home garments he recognized the grace, quickness, and gaiety of the artist. Her charm won him at once, the spell which her rare kind have ever been able to cast about the hearts of men. He understood why the flinty detective should be in love with his wife at times, but not why he should continue in that state. She served them with wine and cigars, rolled a cigarette for herself, chatted with the ease and chumminess of a good fellow, and treated Arthur with tenderness. "Richard has told me so much of you," she explained. "I have so admired your exquisite art," he replied, "that we are already friends." "Que vous êtes bien gentil," she murmured, and her tone would have caressed the wrinkles out of the heart of old age. "Yes, I'm back at the old game," said Curran, when they got away from pleasantry. "I'm chasing after Tom Jones. It's more desperate than ever. His old aunt died some days back, and left Tom's wife a dollar, and Tom's son another dollar." "I can fancy her," said Colette with a laugh, "repeating to herself that magic phrase, two dollars, for hours and hours. Hereafter she will get weak at sight of the figure two, and things that go in twos, like married people, she will hate." "How easy to see that you are French, Colette," said Arthur, as a compliment. She threw him a kiss from her pretty fingers, and gave a sidelong look at Curran. "There's a devil in her," Arthur thought. "The will was very correct and very sound," resumed the detective. "No hope in a contest if they thought of such a thing among the West ... the Jones'. The heirs took pity on her, and gave her a lump for consolation. She took it and cursed them for their kindness. Her rage was something to see. She is going to use that lump, somewhere about twenty-five thousand, I think, to find her accursed Tom. How do I know? That's part of the prize for me if I catch up with Tom Jones within three years. And I draw a salary and expenses all the time. You should have seen Mrs. Tom the day I went to see her. Colette," with a smile for his wife, "your worst trouble with a manager was a summer breeze to it. You're a white-winged angel in your tempers compared with Mrs. Tom Jones. Her language concerning the aunt and the vanished nephew was wonderful. I tried to remember it, and I couldn't." "I can see her, I can feel with her," cried La Belle Colette, jumping to her feet, and rushing through a pantomime of fiendish rage, which made the men laugh to exhaustion. As she sat down she said with emphasis, "She must find him, and through you. I shall help, and so will our friend Dillon. It's an outrage for any man to leave a woman in such a scrape ... for a mere trifle." "She has her consolations," said the detective; "but the devil in her is not good-natured like the devil in you, Colette. She wants to get hold of Tom and cut him in little bits for what he has made her suffer." "Did you get out any plans?" said Arthur. "One. Look for him between here and Boston. That's my wife's idea. Tom Jones was not clever, but she says ... Say it yourself, my dear." "Rage and disappointment, or any other strong feeling," said the woman sharply, with strong puffs at her cigarette, "turns a fool into a wise man for a minute. It would be just like this fool to have a brilliant interval while he dreamed of murdering his clever wife. Then he hit upon a scheme to cheat the detectives. It's easy, if you know how stupid they are, except Dick. Tom Jones is here, on his own soil. He was not going to run away with a million and try to spend it in the desert of Sahara. He's here, or in Boston, enjoying the sight of his wife stewing in poverty. It would be just like the sneak to do her that turn." She looked wickedly at Arthur. What a face! Thin, broad, yet finely proportioned, with short, flaxen locks framing it, delicate eyebrows marking the brow and emphasizing the beautiful eyes. A woman to be feared, an evil spirit in some of her moods. "You tried the same plan," Arthur began---- "But he had no partner to sharpen his wits," she interrupted. Arthur bowed. "That makes all the difference in the world," he said sincerely. "Let me hope that you will give your husband some hints in a case which I am going to give him." He described the career of Sister Claire briefly, and expressed the wish to learn as much as possible of her earlier history. The Currans laughed. "I had that job before," said the detective. "If the Jones case were only half a hundred times harder I might be happy. Her past is unknown except that she has been put out of many convents. I never looked up her birthplace or her relatives. Her name is Kate Kerrigan along with ten other names. She drinks a little, and just now holds a fine stake in New York ... There's the whole of it." "Not much to build upon, if one wished to worry Claire, or other people." "Depend upon it," Colette broke in, "that Kate Kerrigan has a pretty history behind her. I'll bet she was an actress once. I've seen her stage poses ... then her name, catchy ... and the way she rolls her eyes and looks at that congregation of elders, and deacons and female saints, when she sets them shivering over the nastiness that's coming." Curran glanced at her with a look of inquiry. She sat on the window-sill like a bird, watching the street without, half listening to the men within. Arthur made a close study of the weird creature, sure that a strain of madness ran in her blood. Her looks and acts had the grace of a wild nature, which purrs, and kills, and purrs again. Quiet and dreamy this hour, in her dances she seemed half mad with vitality. "Tell him what you learned about her," said Curran, and then to Arthur, "She can do a little work herself, and likes it." "To hunt a poor soul down, never!" she cried. "But when a mean thing is hiding what every one has a right to know, I like to tear the truth out of her ... like your case of Tom Jones. Sister Claire is downright mean. Maybe she can't help it. But I know the nuns, and they're God's own children. She knows it too, but, just for the sake of money, she's lying night and day against them, and against her own conscience. There's a devil in her. I could do a thing like that for deviltry, and I could pull a load of money out of her backers, not for the money, but for deviltry too, to skin a miser like McMeeter, and a dandy like Bradford. And she's just skinning them, to the last cent." She took a fit of laughing, then, over the embarrassment of Sister Claire's chief supporters. "Here's what I know about her," she went on. "The museum fakirs are worshiping her as a wonderful success. They seem to feel by instinct that she's one of themselves, but a genius. They have a lot of fairy stories about her, but here's the truth: Bishop Bradford and Erastus McMeeter are her backers. The Bishop plays high society for her, and the bawler looks after the mob. She gets fifty per cent. of everything, and they take all the risks. Her book, I know you read it, chock-full of lies, thrilling lies, for the brothers and the sisters who can't read French novels in public--well, she owns the whole thing and gets all the receipts except a beggar's ten per cent., thrown to the publishers ... and they're the crack publishers of the town, the Hoppertons ... but all the same they dassent let their names go on the title-page ... they had that much shame ... so old Johnson, whom nobody knows, is printer and publisher. The book is selling like peanuts. There's more than one way of selling your soul to the devil." After this surprising remark, uttered without a smile, she looked out of the window sadly, while Curran chuckled with delight. "It takes the woman to measure the woman," he said. Arthur was delighted at this information. "I wish you would learn some more about her, Mrs. Curran." She mimicked the formal name in dumb show. "Well, La Belle Colette, then," he said laughing. She came over to him and sat on the arm of his chair, her beautiful eyes fixed on his with an expression well understood by both the men. "You are going to hunt that dreadful creature down," said she. "I won't help you. What do you know about her motives? She may have good reason for playing the part ... she may have suffered?" "One must protect his own," replied Arthur grimly. "What are we all but wolves that eat one another?--lambs by day, wolves in the night. We all play our part----" "All the world's a stage, of course----" "Even you are playing a part," with sudden violence. "I have studied you, young man, since you came in. Lemme read your palm, and tell you." She held his hand long, then tossed it aside with petulance, parted his hair and peered into his face, passed her hands lightly over his head for the prominences, dashed unexpected tears from her eyes, and then said with decision: "There are two of you in there," tapping his chest. "I can't tell why, but I can read, or feel one man, and outside I see another." "Your instinct is correct," said Arthur seriously. "I have long been aware of the same fact, peculiar and painful. But for a long time the outside man has had the advantage. Now with regard to this Sister Claire, not to change the subject too suddenly----" Colette deserted his chair, and went to her husband. She had lost interest in the matter and would not open her lips again. The men discussed the search for Endicott, and the inquiry into the history of Sister Claire, while the dancer grew drowsy after the fashion of a child, her eyes became misty, her red lips pouted, her voice drawled faint and complaining music in whispers, and Curran looked often and long at her while he talked. Arthur went away debating with himself. His mind had developed the habit of reminiscence. Colette reminded him of a face, which he had seen ... no, not a face but a voice ... or was it a manner?... or was it her look, which seemed intimate, as of earlier acquaintance?... what was it? It eluded him however. He felt happy and satisfied, now that he had set Curran on the track of the unclean beast. CHAPTER XX. THE ESCAPED NUN. Sister Claire sat in her office the next afternoon awaiting Louis as the gorged spider awaits the fly, with desire indeed, but without anxiety. Her office consisted of three rooms, opening into one another within, each connected by doors with the hall without. A solemn youth kept guard in the antechamber, a bilious lad whose feverish imagination enshrined Sister Claire and McMeeter on the same altar, and fed its fires on the promises of the worthy pair some day to send him on a mission as glorious as their own. The furnishings had the severe simplicity of the convent. The brilliant costume of the woman riveted the eye by the very dulness of her surroundings. At close view her beauty seemed more spiritual than in her public appearances. The heavy eyebrows were a blemish indeed, but like a beauty-spot emphasized the melting eyes and the peachy skin. The creamy habit of the nun and the white coif about her head left only her oval face and her lovely hands visible; but what a revelation were these of loveliness and grace! One glance at her tender face and the little hands would have scattered to the winds the slanders of Colette. Success had thrilled but not coarsened the escaped nun. As Grahame had surmised, she was now the hinge of Livingstone's scheme. The success of her book and the popularity of her lectures, together with her discreet behavior, had given her immense influence with her supporters and with the leaders. Their money poured into her lap. She did not need it while her book sold and her lectures were crowded. The office saw come and go the most distinguished visitors. Even the English historian did not begin to compare with her in glory, and so far his lectures had not been well attended. Thinking of many things with deep pride, she remembered that adversity had divided the leisure of her table with prosperity. Hence, she could not help wondering how long this fine success would last. Her peculiar fate demanded an end to it sometime. As if in answer to her question, the solemn youth in the antechamber knocked at her door, and announced with decorum Mr. Richard Curran. "I have made the inquiries you wanted," Curran said, as he took a chair at her bidding. "Young Everard is a special pet of Dillon. This boy is the apple of his eye. And Everard, the father, is an ardent supporter of Livingstone. I think you had better drop this affair, if you would escape a tangle--a nasty tangle." "If the boy is willing, where's the tangle, Mr. Curran?" she answered placidly. "Well, you know more about the thing than I can tell you," he said, as if worried. "You know them all. But I can't help warning you against this Dillon. If you lay your hand on anything of his, I'm of opinion that this country will not be big enough for you and him at the same time." "I shall get him also, and that'll put an end to his enmity. He's a fine fellow. He's on my track, but you'll see how enchantment will put him off it. Now, don't grumble. I'll be as tender and sweet with the boy as a siren. You will come in only when I feel that the spell doesn't work. Rely on me to do the prudent thing." That he did not rely on her his expression showed clearly. "You have made a great hit in this city, Sister Claire," he began---- "And you think I am about to ruin my chances of a fortune?" she interrupted. "Well, I am willing to take the risk, and you have nothing to say about it. You know your part. Go into the next room, and wait for your cue. I'll bet any sum that you'll never get the cue. If you do, be sure to make a quick entrance." He looked long at her and sighed, but made no pretense to move. She rose, and pointed to the third room of the suite. Sheepishly, moodily, in silent protest, he obeyed the gesture and went out humbly. Before that look the brave detective surrendered like a slave to his chains. The door had hardly closed behind him, when the office-boy solemnly announced Louis, and at a sign from Sister Claire ushered in the friend of Arthur Dillon. She received him with downcast eyes, standing at a little distance. With a whispered welcome and a drooping head, she pointed to a seat. Louis sat down nervous and overawed, wishing that he had never undertaken this impossible and depressing task. Who was he to be dealing with such a character as this dubious and disreputable woman? "I feared you would not come," she began in a very low tone. "I feared you would misunderstand ... what can one like you understand of sin and misery?... but thank Heaven for your courage ... I may yet owe to you my salvation!" "I was afraid," said the lad frankly, gladdened by her cunning words. "I don't know of what ... but I suppose it was distrust of myself. If I can be of any service to you how glad I shall be!" "Oh, you can, you can," she murmured, turning her beautiful eyes on him. Her voice failed her, and she had to struggle with her sobs. "What do you think I can do for you?" he asked, to relieve the suspense. "I shall tell you that later," she replied, and almost burst out laughing. "It will be simple and easy for you, but no one else can satisfy me. We are alone. I must tell you my story, that you may be the better able to understand the service which I shall ask of you. It is a short story, but terrible ... especially to one like you ... promise me that you will not shrink, that you will not despise me----" "I have no right to despise you," said Louis, catching his breath. She bowed her head to hide a smile, and appeared to be irresolute for a moment. Then with sudden, and even violent, resolve, she drew a chair to his side, and began the history of her wretched career. Her position was such, that to see her face he had to turn his head; but her delicate hands rested on the arm of his chair, clasped now, and again twisted with anguish, and then stretched out with upward palms appealing for pity, or drooping in despair. She could see his profile, and watch the growing uneasiness, the shame of innocence brought face to face with dirt unspeakable, the mortal terror of a pure boy in the presence of Phryne. With this sport Sister Claire had been long familiar. Her caressing voice and deep sorrow stripped the tale of half its vileness. At times her voice fell to a breath. Then she bent towards him humbly, and a perfume swept over him like a breeze from the tropics. The tale turned him to stone. Sister Claire undoubtedly drew upon her imagination and her reading for the facts, since it rarely falls to the lot of one woman to sound all the depths of depravity. Louis had little nonsense in his character. At first his horror urged him to fly from the place, but whenever the tale aroused this feeling in him, the cunning creature broke forth into a strain of penitence so sweet and touching that he had not the heart to desert her. At the last she fell upon her knees and buried her face in his lap, crying out: "If you do not hate me now ... after all this ... then take pity on me." * * * * * Arthur sauntered into the hall outside the office of Sister Claire about half-past four. He had forgotten the momentous interview which bid so fair to end in the conversion of the escaped nun; also his declaration to be within hailing distance in case of necessity. In a lucky moment, however, the thought of Sister Mary Magdalen and her rainbow enterprise, so foolish, so incredible, came to his mind, and sent him in haste to the rescue of his friend. Had Louis kept his engagement and received the vows and the confession of the audacious tool of Livingstone? No sound came from the office. It would hardly do for him to make inquiry. He observed that Sister Claire's office formed a suite of three rooms. The door of the first looked like the main entrance. It had the appearance of use, and within he heard the cough of the solemn office-boy. A faint murmur came from the second room. This must be the private sanctum of the spider; this murmur might be the spider's enchantment over the fly. What should the third room be? The trap? He turned the knob and entered swiftly and silently, much to the detective's surprise and his own. "I had no idea that door was unlocked," said Curran helplessly. "Nor I. Who's within? My friend, young Everard?" "Don't know. She shoved me in here to wait until some visitor departed. Then we are to consider a proposition I made her," said the calm detective. "So you have made a beginning? That's good. Don't stir. Perhaps it is as well that you are here. Let me discover who is in here with the good sister." "I can go to the first room, the front office, and inquire," said Curran. "Never mind." He could hear no words, only the low tones of the woman speaking; until of a sudden the strong, manly voice of Louis, but subdued by emotion, husky and uncertain, rose in answer to her passionate outburst. "He's inside ... my young man ... hopes to convert her," Arthur whispered to Curran, and they laughed together in silence. "Now I have my own suspicion as to her motive in luring the boy here. If he goes as he came, why I'm wrong perhaps. If there's a rumpus, I may have her little feet in the right sort of a trap, and so save you labor, and the rest of us money. If anything happens, Curran, leave the situation to me. I'm anxious for a close acquaintance with Sister Claire." Curran sat as comfortably, to the eye, as if in his own house entertaining his friend Dillon. The latter occasionally made the very natural reflection that this brave and skilful man lay in the trap of just such a creature as Sister Claire. Suddenly there came a burst of sound from the next room, exclamations, the hurrying of feet, the crash of a chair, and the trying of the doors. A frenzied hand shook the knob of the door at which Arthur was looking with a satisfied smile. "Locked in?" he said to Curran, who nodded in a dazed way. Then some kind of a struggle began on the other side of that door. Arthur stood there like a cat ready to pounce on the foolish mouse, and the detective glared at him like a surly dog eager to rend him, but afraid. They could hear smothered calls for help in a woman's voice. "If she knew how near the cat is," Arthur remarked patiently. At last the key clicked in the lock, the door half opened, and as Arthur pushed it inwards Sister Claire flung herself away from it, and gasped feebly for help. She was hanging like a tiger to Louis, who in a gentle way tried to shake her hands and arms from his neck. The young fellow's face bore the frightful look of a terrified child struggling for life against hopeless odds--mingled despair and pain. Arthur remained quietly in the entrance, and the detective glared over his shoulder warningly at Claire. At sight of the man who stood there, she would have shrieked in her horror and fright, but that sound died away in her throat. She loosened her grip, and stood staring a moment, then swiftly and meaningly began to arrange her disordered clothing. Louis made a dash for the door, seeing only a way of escape and not recognizing his friend. Arthur shook him. "Ah, you will go converting before your time," he said gayly. "Oh, Arthur, thank God----" the lad stammered. "Seize him," Claire began to shriek, very cautiously however. "Hold him, gentlemen. Get the police. He is an emissary of the papists----" "Let me go," Louis cried in anguish. "Steady all round," Arthur answered with a laugh. "Sister Claire, if you want the police raise your voice. One harlot more on the Island will not matter. Louis, get your nerve, man. Did I not tell you I would be in the hall? Go home, and leave me to deal with this perfect lady. Look after him," he flung at Curran, and closed the door on them, quite happy at the result of Sister Magdalen's scheme of conversion. He did not see the gesture from Curran which warned Sister Claire to make terms in a hurry with this dangerous young man. The fury stood at the far end of the office, burning with rage and uncertainty. Having fallen into her own trap, she knew not what to do. The situation had found its master. Arthur Dillon evidently took great pleasure in this climax of her making. He looked at her for a moment as one might at a wild animal of a new species. The room had been darkened so that one could not see distinctly. He knew that trick too. Her beauty improved upon acquaintance. For the second time her face reminded him that they had met before, and he considered the point for an instant. What did it matter just then? She had fallen into his hands, and must be disposed of. Pointing to a chair he sat down affably, his manner making his thought quite plain. She remained standing. "You may be very tired before our little talk is concluded----" "Am I to receive your insults as well as your agent's?" she interrupted. "Now, now, Sister Claire, this will never do. You have been acting" ... he looked at his watch ... "since four o'clock. The play is over. We are in real life again. Talk sense. Since Everard failed to convert you, and you to convert Everard, try the arts of Cleopatra on me. Or, let me convince you that you have made a blunder----" "I do not wish to listen you," she snapped. "I will not be insulted a second time." "Who could insult the author of the _Confessions_? You are beyond insult, Claire. I have read your book with the deepest interest. I have read you between every line, which cannot be said of most of your readers. I am not going to waste any words on you. I am going to give you an alternative, which will do duty until I find rope enough to hang you as high as Jack Sheppard. You know what you are, and so do I. The friends of this young man who fell so nicely into your claws will be anxious to keep his adventure with you very quiet." A light leaped into her eyes. She had feared that outside, in the hall, this man might have his hirelings ready to do her mischief, that some dreadful plot had come to a head which meant her ruin. Light began to dawn upon her. He laughed at her thoughts. "One does not care to make public an adventure with such a woman as you," said he affably. "A young man like that too. It would be fatal for him. Therefore, you are to say nothing about it. You are not eager to talk about your failure ... Cleopatra blushes for your failure ... but a heedless tongue and a bitter feeling often get the better of sense. If you remain silent, so shall I." "Very generous," she answered calmly, coming back to her natural coolness and audacity. "As you have all to lose, and I have all to gain by a description of the trap set for me by your unclean emissary, your proposition won't go. I shall place the matter before my friends, and before the public, when I find it agreeable." "When!" he mocked. "You know by this time that you are playing a losing game, Claire. If you don't know it, then you are not smart enough for the game. Apart from that, remember one thing: when you speak I shall whisper the truth to the excitable people whom your dirty book is harrying now." "I am not afraid of whispers, quite used to them in fact," she drawled, as if mimicking him. "I see you are not smart enough for the game," and the remark startled her. "You can see no possible results from that whisper. Did you ever hear of Jezebel and her fate? Oh, you recall how the dogs worried her bones, do you? So far your evil work has been confined to glittering generalities. To-day you took a new tack. Now you must answer to me. Let it once become known that you tried to defile the innocent, to work harm to one of mine, and you may suffer the fate of the unclean things to which you belong by nature. The mob kills without delicacy. It will tear you as the dogs tore the painted Jezebel." "You are threatening me," she stammered with a show of pride. "No. That would be a waste of time. I am warning you. You have still the form of a woman, therefore I give you a chance. You are at the end of your rope. Stretch it further, and it may become the noose to hang you. You have defiled with your touch one whom I love. He kept his innocence, so I let it pass. But a rat like you must be destroyed. Very soon too. We are not going to stand your abominations, even if men like Livingstone and Bradford encourage you. I am giving you a chance. What do you say? Have I your promise to be silent?" "You have," she replied brokenly. He looked at her surprised. The mask of her brazen audacity remained, but some feeling had overpowered her, and she began to weep like any woman in silent humiliation. He left her without a word, knowing enough of her sex to respect this inexplicable grief, and to wait for a more favorable time to improve his acquaintance. "Sonia's mate," he said to himself as he reached the street. The phrase never left him from that day, and became a prophecy of woe afterwards. He writhed as he saw how nearly the honor and happiness of Louis had fallen into the hands of this wretch. Protected by the great, she could fling her dirt upon the clean, and go unpunished. Sonia's mate! He had punished one creature of her kind, and with God's help he would yet lash the backs of Sister Claire and her supporters. CHAPTER XXI. AN ANXIOUS NIGHT. Curran caught up with him as he turned into Broadway. He had waited to learn if Arthur had any instructions, as he was now to return to Sister Claire's office and explain as he might the astounding appearance of Dillon at a critical moment. "She's a ripe one," Arthur said, smiling at thought of her collapse, but the next moment he frowned. "She's a devil, Curran, a handsome devil, and we must deal with her accordingly--stamp her out like a snake. Did you notice her?" "No doubt she's a bad one," Curran answered thickly, but Arthur's bitter words gave him a shiver, and he seemed to choke in his utterance. "Make any explanation you like, Curran. She will accuse you of letting me in perhaps. It looks like a trap, doesn't it? By the way, what became of the boy?" "He seemed pretty well broken up," the detective answered, "and sent me off as soon as he learned that I had him in charge. I told him that you had the whole business nicely in hand, and not to worry. He muttered something about going home. Anyway, he would have no more of me, and he went off quite steady, but looking rather queer, I thought." Arthur, with sudden anxiety, recalled that pitiful, hopeless look of the terrified child in Louis' face. Perhaps he had been too dazed to understand how completely Arthur had rescued him in the nick of time. To the lad's inexperience this cheap attempt of Claire to overcome his innocence by a modified badger game might have the aspect of a tragedy. Moreover, he remained ignorant of the farce into which it had been turned. "I am sorry you left him," he said, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances. "This creature threatened him, of course, with publicity, an attack on her honor by a papist emissary. He doesn't know how little she would dare such adventure now. He may run away in his fright, thinking that his shame may be printed in the papers, and that the police may be watching for him. Public disgrace means ruin for him, for, as you know, he is studying to be a priest." "I didn't know," Curran answered stupidly, a greenish pallor spreading over his face. "That kind of work won't bring her much luck." "It occurs to me now that he was too frightened to understand what my appearance meant, and what your words meant," Arthur resumed. "He may feel an added shame that we know about it. I must find him. Do you go at once to Sister Claire and settle your business with her. Then ride over to the Everards, and tell the lad, if he be there, that I wish to see him at once. If he has not yet got back, leave word with his mother ... keep a straight face while you talk with her ... to send him over to me as soon as he gets home. And tell her that if I meet him before he does get home, that I shall keep him with me all night. Do you see the point? If he has gone off in his fright, we have sixteen hours to find him. No one must know of his trouble, in that house at least, until he is safe. Do you think we can get on his trail right away, Curran?" "We must," Curran said harshly, "we must. Has he any money?" "Not enough to carry him far." "Then ten hours' search ought to capture him." "Report then to me at my residence within an hour. I have hopes that this search will not be needed, that you will find him at home. But be quicker than ever you were in your life, Curran. I'd go over to Cherry Street myself, but my inquiries would frighten the Everards. There must be no scandal." Strange that he had not foreseen this possibility. For him the escapade with the escaped nun would have been a joke, and he had not thought how differently Louis must have regarded it. If the lad had really fled, and his friends must learn of it, Sister Claire's share in the matter would have to remain a profound secret. With all their great love for this boy, his clan would rather have seen him borne to the grave than living under the shadow of scandal in connection with this vicious woman. Her perfidy would add disgrace to grief, and deepen their woe beyond time's power to heal. For with this people the prejudice against impurity was so nobly unreasonable that mere suspicion became equal to crime. This feeling intensified itself in regard to the priesthood. The innocence of Louis would not save him from lifelong reproach should his recent adventure finds its way into the sneering journals. Within the hour Curran, more anxious than Arthur himself, brought word that the lad had not yet reached home. His people were not worried, and promised to send him with speed to Arthur. "Begin your search then," said Arthur, "and report here every hour. I have an idea he may have gone to see an aunt of his, and I'll go there to find out. What is your plan?" "He has no money, and he'll want to go as far as he can, and where he won't be easily got at. He'll ship on an Indiaman. I'll set a few men to look after the outgoing ships as a beginning." "Secrecy above all things, understand," was the last admonition. Darkness had come on, and the clocks struck the hour of seven as Arthur set out for a visit to Sister Mary Magdalen. Possibly Louis had sought her to tell the story of failure and shame, the sad result of her foolish enterprise; and she had kept him to console him, to put him in shape before his return home, so that none might mark the traces of his frightful emotion. Alas, the good nun had not seen him since their visit to Claire's office in Bleecker Street the day before. He concealed from her the situation. "How in the name of Heaven," said he, "did you conceive this scheme of converting this woman?" "She has a soul to be saved, and it's quite saveable," answered the nun tartly. "The more hopeless from man's view, the more likely from God's. I have a taste for hopeless enterprises." "I wish you had left Louis out of this one," Arthur thought. "But to deal with a wretch like her, so notorious, so fallen," he said aloud, "you must have risked too much. Suppose, after you had entered her office, she had sent for a reporter to see you there, to see you leaving after kissing her, to hear a pretty story of an embassy from the archbishop to coax her back to religion; and the next morning a long account of this attempt on her resolution should appear in the papers? What would your superiors say?" "That could happen," she admitted with a shiver, "but I had her word that my visit was to be kept a secret." "Her word!" and he raised his hands. "Oh, I assure you the affair was arranged beforehand to the smallest detail," she declared. "Of course no one can trust a woman like that absolutely. But, as you see, in this case everything went off smoothly." "I see indeed," said Arthur too worried to smile. "I arranged the meeting through Miss Conyngham," the nun continued, "a very clever person for such work. I knew the danger of the enterprise, but the woman has a soul, and I thought if some one had the courage to take her by the hand and lead her out of her wicked life, she might do penance, and even become a saint. She received Miss Conyngham quite nicely indeed; and also my message that a helping hand was ready for her at any moment. She was afraid too of a trap; but at the last she begged to see me, and I went, with the consent of my superior." "And how did you come to mix Louis up in the thing?" "He happened to drop in as I was going, and I took him along. He was very much edified, we all were." "And he has been more edified since," observed Arthur, but the good nun missed the sarcasm. "She made open confession before the three of us," warming up at the memory of that scene. "With tears in her eyes she described her fall, her present remorse, her despair of the future, and her hope in us. Most remarkable scene I ever witnessed. I arranged for her to call at this convent whenever she could to plan for her return. She may be here any time. Oh, yes, I forgot. The most touching moment of all came at the last. When we were leaving she took Louis' hand, pressed it to her heart, kissed it with respect, and cried out: 'You happy soul, oh, keep the grace of God in your heart, hold to your high vocation through any torment: to lose it, to destroy it, as I destroyed mine, is to open wide the soul to devils.' Wasn't that beautiful now? Then she asked him in the name of God to call on her the next day, and he promised. He may be here to-night to tell me about it." "You say three. Was Edith Conyngham the third?" "Oh, no, only a sister of our community." He burst out laughing at the thought of the fox acting so cleverly before the three geese. Claire must have laughed herself into a fit when they had gone. He had now to put the Sister on her guard at the expense of her self-esteem. He tried to do so gently and considerately, fearing hysterics. "You put the boy in the grasp of the devil, I fear," he said. "Convert Sister Claire! You would better have turned your prayers on Satan! She got him alone this afternoon in her office, as you permitted, and made him a proposition, which she had in her mind from the minute she first saw him. I arrived in time to give her a shock, and to rescue him. Now we are looking for him to tell him he need not fear Sister Claire's threats to publish how he made an attack upon her virtue." "I do not quite understand," gasped Sister Magdalen stupefied. What Arthur thought considerate others might have named differently. Exasperation at the downright folly of the scheme, and its threatened results, may have actuated him. His explanation satisfied the nun, and her fine nerve resisted hysterics and tears. "It is horrible," she said at the last word. "But we acted honestly, and God will not desert us. You will find Louis before morning, and I shall spend the night in prayer until you have found him ... for him and you ... and for that poor wretch, that dreadful woman, more to be pitied than any one." His confidence did not encourage him. Hour by hour the messengers of Curran appeared with the one hopeless phrase: no news. He walked about the park until midnight, and then posted himself in the basement with cigar and journal to while away the long hours. Sinister thoughts troubled him, and painful fancies. He could see the poor lad hiding in the slums, or at the mercy of wretches as vile as Claire; wandering about the city, perhaps, in anguish over his ruined life, horrified at what his friends must read in the morning papers, planning helplessly to escape from a danger which did not exist, except in his own mind. Oh, no doubt Curran would find him! Why, he _must_ find him! Across the sea in London, Minister Livingstone slept, full fed with the flatteries of a day, dreaming of the pleasures and honors sure to come with the morning. Down in the prison town lived Honora, with her eyes dulled from watching the jail and her heart sore with longing. For Owen the prison, for Louis the pavement, for Honora and himself the sleepless hours of the aching heart; but for the responsible Minister and his responsible tool sweet sleep, gilded comfort, overwhelming honors. Such things could be only because men of his sort were craven idiots. What a wretched twist in all things human! Why not, if nothing else could be done, go and set fire to Claire's office, the bishop's house, and the Livingstone mansion? However, joy came at the end of the night, for the messenger brought word that the lad had been found, sound as a bell, having just shipped as a common sailor on an Indiaman. Since Curran could not persuade him to leave his ship, the detective had remained on the vessel to await Arthur's arrival. A cab took him down to the wharf, and a man led him along the dock to the gang-plank, thence across the deck to a space near the forecastle, where Curran sat with Louis in the starlight. "Then it's all true ... what he has been telling me?" Louis cried as he leaped to his feet and took the hearty grasp of his friend. "As true as gospel," said Arthur, using Judy's phrase. "Let's get out of this without delay. We can talk about it at home. Curran, do you settle with the captain." They hurried away to the cab in silence. Before entering Arthur wrung the hand of the detective warmly. "It would take more than I own to pay you for this night's work, Curran. I want you to know how I feel about it, and when the time comes ask your own reward." "What you have just said is half of it," the man answered in a strange tone. "When the time comes I shall not be bashful." "It would have been the greatest blunder of your life," Arthur said, as they drove homeward, "if you had succeeded in getting away. It cannot be denied, Louis, that from five o'clock this afternoon till now you made a fool of yourself. Don't reply. Don't worry about it. Just think of this gold-plate fact: no one knows anything about it. You are supposed to be sleeping sweetly at my house. I settled Claire beautifully. And Sister Magdalen, too. By the way, I must send her word by the cabby ... better let her do penance on her knees till sunrise ... she's praying for you ... but the suspense might kill her ... no, I'll send word. As I was saying, everything is as it was at four o'clock this afternoon." He chattered for the lad's benefit, noting that at times Louis shivered as with ague, and that his hands were cold. He has tasted calamity, Arthur thought with resignation, and life will never be quite the same thing again. In the comfortable room the marks of suffering became painfully evident. Even joy failed to rouse his old self. Pale, wrinkled like age, shrunken, almost lean, he presented a woful spectacle. Arthur mixed a warm punch for him, and spread a substantial lunch. "The sauce for this feast," said he, "is not appetite, but this fact: that your troubles are over. Now eat." Louis made a pretense of eating, and later, under the influence of the punch, found a little appetite. By degrees his mind became clearer as his body rested, the wrinkles began to disappear, his body seemed to fill out while the comfort of the situation invaded him. Arthur, puffing his cigar and describing his interview with Claire, looked so stanch and solid, so sure of himself, so at ease with his neighbors, that one could scarcely fail to catch his happy complaint. "She has begun her descent into hell," he said placidly, "but since you are with us still, I shall give her plenty of time to make it. What I am surprised at is that you did not understand what my entrance meant. She understood it. She thought Curran was due as her witness of the assault. What surprises me still more is that you so completely forgot my advice: no matter what the trouble and the shame, come straight to me. Here was a grand chance to try it." "I never thought of this kind of trouble," said Louis dully. "Anyway, I got such a fright that I understood nothing rightly up to midnight. The terrible feeling of public disgrace eat into me. I saw and heard people crying over me as at a funeral, you know that hopeless crying. The road ahead looked to be full of black clouds. I wanted to die. Then I wanted to get away. When I found a ship they took me for a half-drunk sailor, and hustled me into the forecastle in lively shape. When Curran found me and hauled me out of the bunk, I had been asleep enjoying the awfullest dreams. I took him for a trickster, who wanted to get me ashore and jail me. I feel better. I think I can sleep now." "Experience maybe has given you a better grip on the meaning of that wise advice which I repeat now: no matter what the trouble, come to me." "I shall come," said the lad with a show of spirit that delighted Arthur. "Even if you should see me hanged the next day." "That's a fine sentiment to sleep on, so we'll go to bed. However, remind yourself that a little good sense when you resume business ... by the way, it's morning ... no super-sensitiveness, no grieving, for you were straight all through ... go right on as if nothing had happened ... and in fact nothing has happened yet ... I can see that you understand." They went to bed, and slept comfortably until noon. After breakfast Louis looked passably well, yet miserable enough to make explanations necessary for his alarmed parents. Arthur undertook the disagreeable office, which seemed to him delightful by comparison with that other story of a runaway son _en route_ in fancied disgrace for India. All's well that ends well. Mary Everard wept with grief, joy, and gratitude, and took her jewel to her arms without complaint or question. The crotchety father was disposed to have it out with either the knaves or the fools in the game, did not Arthur reduce him to quiet by his little indictment. "There is only one to quarrel with about this sad affair, John Everard," said he smoothly, "and that only one is your friend and well wisher, Quincy Livingstone. I want you to remember that, when we set out to take his scalp. It's a judgment on you that you are the first to suffer directly by this man's plotting. You needn't talk back. The boy is going to be ill, and you'll need all your epithets for your chief and yourself before you see comfort again." Recalling his son's appearance the father remained silent. Arthur's prevision came true. The physician ordered Louis to bed for an indefinite time, having found him suffering from shock, and threatened with some form of fever. The danger did not daunt his mother. Whatever of suffering yet remained, her boy would endure it in the shelter of her arms. "If he died this night," she said to Arthur, "I would still thank God that sent him back to die among his own; and after God, you, son dear, who have been more than a brother to him." Thus the items in his account with kinsman Livingstone kept mounting daily. CHAPTER XXII. THE END OF A MELODRAMA. Louis kept his bed for some weeks, and suffered a slow convalescence. Private grief must give way to public necessity. In this case the private grief developed a public necessity. Arthur took pains to tell his story to the leaders. It gave point to the general onslaught now being made on the Irish by the hired journals, the escaped nun, and, as some named him, the escaped historian. A plan was formulated to deal with all three. Grahame entered the lists against Bitterkin and Smallish, Vandervelt denounced the _Confessions_ and its author at a banquet _vis-à-vis_ with Bradford, and Monsignor pursued the escaped historian by lecturing in the same cities, and often on the same platform. Arthur held to Sister Claire as his specialty, as the hinge of the Livingstone scheme, a very rotten hinge on which to depend. Nevertheless, she kept her footing for months after her interview with him. Curran had laid bare her life and exposed her present methods nicely; but neither afforded a grip which might shake her, except inasmuch as it gave him an unexpected clue to the Claire labyrinth. Her history showed that she had often played two parts in the same drama. Without doubt a similar trick served her now, not only to indulge her riotous passions, but to glean advantages from her enemies and useful criticism from her friends. He cast about among his casual acquaintance for characters that Claire might play. Edith Conyngham? Not impossible! The Brand who held forth at the gospel hall? Here was a find indeed! Comparing the impressions left upon him by these women, as a result he gave Curran the commission to watch and study the daily living of Edith Conyngham. Even this man's nerve shook at a stroke so luckily apt. "I don't know much about the ways of escaped nuns," said Arthur, "but I am going to study them. I'll wager you find Claire behind the rusty garments of this obscure, muddy, slimy little woman. They have the same appetite anyway." This choice bit of news, carried at once to the escaped nun, sounded in Sister Claire's ear like the crack of doom, and she stared at Curran, standing humbly in her office, with distorted face. "Is this the result of your clever story-telling, Dick Curran?" she gasped. "It's the result of your affair with young Everard," he replied sadly. "That was a mistake altogether. It waked up Arthur Dillon." "The mistake was to wake that man," she said sourly. "I fear him. There's something hiding in him, something terrible, that looks out of his eyes like a ghost in hell. The dogs ... Jezebel ... that was his threat ... ugh!" "He has waked up the whole crowd against you and frightened your friends. If ever he tells the Clan-na-Gael about young Everard, your life won't be worth a pin." "With you to defend me?" ironically. "I could only die with you ... against that crowd." "And you would," she said with conviction, tears in her eyes. "My one friend." His cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled at the fervent praise of his fidelity. "Well, it's all up with me," changing to a mood of gaiety. "The Escaped Nun must escape once more. They will all turn their coldest shoulders to me, absolutely frightened by this Irish crowd, to which we belong after all, Dick. I'm not sorry they can stand up for themselves, are you? So, there's nothing to do but take up the play, and begin work on it in dead earnest." "It's a bad time," Curran ventured, as she took a manuscript from a desk. "But you know how to manage such things, you are so clever," he hastened to add, catching a fiery glance from her eye. "Only you must go with caution." "It's a fine play," she said, turning the pages of the manuscript. "Dick, you are little short of a genius. If I had not liked the real play so well, playing to the big world this rôle of escaped nun, I would have taken it up long ago. The little stage of the theater is nothing to the grand stage of the world, where a whole nation applauds; and men like the Bishop take it for the real thing, this impersonation of mine. But since I am shut out ... and my curse on this Arthur Dillon ... no, no, I take that back ... he's a fine fellow, working according to his nature ... since he will shut me out I must take to the imitation stage. Ah, but the part is fine! First act: the convent garden, the novice reading her love in the flowers, the hateful old mother superior choking her to get her lover's note from her, the reading of the note, and the dragging of the novice to her prison cell, down in the depths of the earth. How that will draw the tears from the old maids of Methodism all over the country!" She burst into hearty laughter. "Second act: the dungeon, the tortures, old superior again, and the hateful hag who is in love with the hero and would like to wreak her jealousy on me, poor thing, all tears and determination. I loathe the two women. I denounce the creed which invents such tortures. I lie down to die in the dungeon while the music moans and the deacons and their families in the audience groan. Don't you think, Dicky dear, I can do the dying act to perfection?" "On the stage perfectly." "You're a wretch," she shrieked with sudden rage. "You hint at the night I took a colic and howled for the priest, when you know it was only the whisky and the delirium. How dare you!" "It slipped on me," he said humbly. "The third act is simply beautiful: chapel of the convent, a fat priest at the altar, all the nuns gathered about to hear the charges against me, I am brought in bound, pale, starved, but determined; the trial, the sentence, the curse ... oh, that scene is sublime, I can see Booth in it ... pity we can't have him ... then the inrush of my lover, the terror, the shrieks, the confusion, as I am carried off the stage with the curtain going down. At last the serene fourth act: another garden, the villains all punished, my lover's arms about me, and we two reading the flowers as the curtain descends. Well," with a sigh of pleasure, "if that doesn't take among the Methodists and the general public out West and down South, what will?" "I can see the fire with which you will act it," said Curran eagerly. "You are a born actress. Who but you could play so many parts at once?" "And yet," she answered dreamily, giving an expressive kick with unconscious grace, "this is what I like best. If it could be introduced into the last act ... but of course the audiences wouldn't tolerate it, dancing. Well," waking up suddenly to business, "are you all ready for the _grand coup_--press, manager, all details?" "Ready long ago." "Here then is the program, Dicky dear. To-morrow I seek the seclusion of the convent at Park Square--isn't _seclusion_ good? To-night letters go out to all my friends, warning them of my utter loneliness, and dread of impending abduction. In two or three days you get a notice in the papers about these letters, and secure interviews with the Bishop if possible, with McMeeter anyway ... oh, he'll begin to howl as soon as he gets his letter. Whenever you think the public interest, or excitement, is at its height, then you bring your little ladder to the convent, and wait outside for a racket which will wake the neighborhood. In the midst of it, as the people are gathering, up with the ladder, and down with me in your triumphant arms. Pity we can't have a calcium light for that scene. If there should be any failure ... of course there can't be ... then a note of warning will reach me, with any instructions you may wish to give me ... to the old address of course." Both laughed heartily at this allusion. "It has been great fun," she said, "fooling them all right and left. That Dillon is suspicious though ... fine fellow ... I like him. Dicky, ... you're not jealous. What a wonder you are, dear old faithful Dicky, my playwright, manager, lover, detective, everything to me. Well, run along to your work. We strike for fortune this time--for fortune and for fame. You will not see me again until you carry me down the ladder from the convent window. What a lark! And there's money in it for you and me." He dared not discourage her, being too completely her slave, like wax in her hands; and he believed, too, that her scheme of advertising the drama of _The Escaped Nun_ would lead to splendid and profitable notoriety. A real escape, from a city convent, before the very eyes of respectable citizens, would ring through the country like an alarm, and set the entire Protestant community in motion. While he feared, he was also dazzled by the brilliancy of the scheme. It began very well. The journals one morning announced the disappearance of Sister Claire, and described the alarm of her friends at her failure to return. Thereupon McMeeter raised his wonderful voice over the letter sent him on the eve of her flight, and printed the pathetic epistle along with his denunciation of the cowardice which had given her over to her enemies. Later Bishop Bradford, expressing his sympathy in a speech to the Dorcas' Society, referred to the walling up of escaped nuns during the dark ages. A little tide of paragraphs flowed from the papers, plaintively murmuring the one sad strain: the dear sister could not be far distant; she might be in the city, deep in a convent dungeon; she had belonged to the community of the Good Shepherd, whose convent stood in Morris Street, large enough, sufficiently barred with iron to suggest dungeons; the escaped one had often expressed her dread of abduction; the convents ought to be examined suddenly and secretly; and so on without end. "What is the meaning of it?" said Monsignor. "I thought you had extinguished her, Arthur." "Another scheme of course. I was too merciful with her, I imagine. All this noise seems to have one aim: to direct attention to these convents. Now if she were hidden in any of them, and a committee should visit that convent and find her forcibly detained, as she would call it; or if she could sound a fire alarm and make a spectacular escape at two in the morning, before the whole world, what could be said about it?" "Isn't it rather late in history for such things?" said Monsignor. "A good trick is as good to-day as a thousand years ago. I can picture you explaining to the American citizen, amid the howls of McMeeter and the purring speeches of the Bishop, how Sister Claire came to be in the convent from which her friends rescued her." "It would be awkward enough I admit. You think, then, that she ... but what could be her motive?" "Notoriety, and the sympathy of the people. I would like to trip her up in this scheme, and hurl her once for all into the hell which she seems anxious to prepare for other people. You Catholics are altogether too easy with the Claires and the McMeeters. Hence the tears of the Everards." "We are so used to it," said the priest in apology. "It would be foolish, however, not to heed your warning. Go to the convents of the city from me, and put them on their guard. Let them dismiss all strangers and keep out newcomers until the danger appears to be over." The most careful search failed to reveal a trace of Sister Claire's hiding-place among the various communities, who were thrown into a fever of dread by the warning. The journals kept up their crescendo of inquiry and information. One must look for that snake, Arthur thought, not with the eyes, but through inspiration. She hid neither in the clouds nor in Arizona, but in the grass at their feet. Seeking for inspiration, he went over the ground a second time with Sister Magdalen, who had lost flesh over the shame of her dealings with Claire, the Everard troubles, and the dread of what was still to come. She burned to atone for her holy indiscretions. The Park Square convent, however, held no strangers. In the home attached to it were many poor women, but all of them known. Edith Conyngham the obscure, the mute, the humble, was just then occupying a room in the place, making a retreat of ten days in charge of Sister Magdalen. At this fact Arthur was seized by his inspiration. "She must give up her retreat and leave the place," he said quietly, though his pulse was bounding. "Make no objection. It's only a case of being too careful. Leave the whole matter to me. Say nothing to her about it. To-night the good creature will have slipped away without noise, and she can finish her retreat later. It's absurd, but better be absurd than sorry." And Sister Magdalen, thinking of the long penance she must undergo for her folly, made only a polite objection. He wrote out a note at once in a disguised hand, giving it no signature: "The game is up. You cannot get out of the convent too quick or too soon. At ten o'clock a cab will be at the southwest corner of Park Square. Take it and drive to the office. Before ten I shall be with you. Don't delay an instant. State prison is in sight. Dillon is on your track." "At eight o'clock this evening where will Miss Conyngham be, Sister?" "In her room," said the nun, unhappy over the treatment intended for her client, "preparing her meditation for the morning. She has a great love for meditation on the profound mysteries of religion." "Glad to know it," he said dryly. "Well, slip this note under her door, make no noise, let no one see you, give her no hint of your presence. Then go to bed and pray for us poor sinners out in the wicked world." One must do a crazy thing now and then, under cover of the proprieties, if only to test one's sanity. Edith and Claire, as he had suggested to Curran, might be the same person. What if Claire appeared tall, portly, resonant, youthful, abounding in life, while Edith seemed mute, old, thin, feeble? The art of the actor can work miracles in personal appearance. A dual life provided perfect security in carrying out Claire's plans, and it matched the daring of the Escaped Nun to live as Edith in the very hearts of the people she sought to destroy. Good sense opposed his theory of course, but he made out a satisfactory argument for himself. How often had Sister Claire puzzled him by her resemblance to some one whom he could not force out of the shadows of memory! Even now, with the key of the mystery in his hands, he could see no likeness between them. Yet no doubt remained in his mind that a dual life would explain and expose Sister Claire. That night he sat on the seat of a cab in proper costume, at the southwest corner of Park Square. The convent, diagonally opposite, was dark and silent at nine o'clock; and far in the rear, facing the side street, stood the home of the indigent, whose door would open for the exit of a clever actress at ten o'clock, or, well closed, reproach him for his stupidity. The great front of the convent, dominating the Square, would have been a fine stage for the scene contemplated by Sister Claire, and he laughed at the spectacle of the escaped one leaping from a window into her lover's arms, or sliding down a rope amid the cheers of the mob and the shrieks of the disgraced poor souls within. Then he gritted his teeth at the thought of Louis, and Mary his mother, and Mona his sister. His breath came short. Claire was a woman, but some women are not dishonored by the fate of Jezebel. Shortly after ten o'clock a small, well-wrapped figure turned the remote corner of the Home, came out to the Square, saw the cab, and coming forward with confidence opened the door and stepped in. As Arthur drove off the blood surged to his head and his heart in a way that made his ears sing. It seemed impossible that the absurd should turn out wisdom at the first jump. As he drove along he wondered over the capacities of art. No two individuals could have been more unlike in essentials than Edith Conyngham and Sister Claire. Now it would appear that high-heeled shoes, padded clothes, heavy eyebrows, paint, a loud and confident voice, a bold manner, and her beautiful costume had made Sister Claire; while shoes without heels, rusty clothes, a gray wig, a weak voice, and timid manner, had given form to Edith Conyngham. A soul is betrayed by its sins. The common feature of the two characters was the sensuality which, neither in the nun nor in her double, would be repressed or disguised. Looking back, Arthur could see some points of resemblance which might have betrayed the wretch to a clever detective. Well, he would settle all accounts with her presently, and he debated only one point, the flinging of her to the dogs. In twenty minutes they reached the office of the Escaped Nun. He opened the door of the cab and she stepped out nervously, but walked with decision into the building, for which she had the keys. "Anything more, mum?" he said respectfully. "Come right in, and light up for me," she said ungraciously, in a towering rage. He found his way to the gas jets and flooded the office with the light from four. She pulled down the curtains, and flung aside her rusty shawl. At the same moment he flung an arm about her, and with his free hand tore the gray wig from her head, and shook free the mass of yellow hair which lay beneath it. Then he flung her limp into the nearest chair, and stood gazing at her, frozen with amaze. She cowered, pale with the sudden fright of the attack. It was not Sister Claire who stood revealed, but the charming and lovely La Belle Colette. The next instant he laughed like a hysterical woman. "By heavens, but that _was_ an inspiration!" he exclaimed. "Don't be frightened, beautiful Colette. I was prepared for a tragedy, but this discovery reveals a farce." Her terror gave way to stupefaction when she recognized him. "So it's three instead of two," he went on. "The lovely dancer is also the Escaped Nun and the late Edith Conyngham. And Curran knew it of course, who was our detective. That's bad. But Judy Haskell claims you as a goddaughter. You are Curran's wife. You are Sister Magdalen's poor friend. You are Katharine Kerrigan. You are Sister Claire. You are Messalina. La Belle Colette, you are the very devil." She recovered from her fright at his laugh, in which some amusement tinkled, and also something terrible. They were in a lonely place, he had made the situation, and she felt miserably helpless. "You need not blame Curran," she said decisively. "He knew the game, but he has no control over me. I want to go home, and I want to know right away your terms. It's all up with me. I confess. But let me know what you are going to do with me." "Take you home to your husband," said Arthur. "Come." They drove to the little apartment where Curran lay peacefully sleeping, and where he received his erratic wife with stupor. The three sat down in the parlor to discuss the situation, which was serious enough, though Arthur now professed to take it lightly. Colette stared at him like a fascinated bird and answered his questions humbly. "It's all very simple," said she. "I am truly Edith Conyngham, and Judy Haskell is my godmother, and I was in a convent out West. I was expelled for a love caper, and came back to my friends much older in appearance than I had need to be. The Escaped-Nun-racket was a money-maker. What I really am, you see. I am the dancer, La Belle Colette. All the rest is disguise." Curran asked no questions and accepted the situation composedly. "She is in your hands," he said. "I place her in yours for the present," Arthur replied, glowering as he thought of Louis. "Detectives will shadow you both until I come to a decision what to do with you. Any move to escape and you will be nipped. Then the law takes its course. As for you, La Belle Colette, say your prayers. I am still tempted to send you after Jezebel." "You are a terrible man," she whimpered, as he walked out and left them to their sins. CHAPTER XXIII. THE FIRST BLOW. Mayor Birmingham and Grahame, summoned by messengers, met him in the forever-deserted offices of Sister Claire. He made ready for them by turning on all the lights, setting forth a cheerful bottle and some soda from Claire's hidden ice-box, and lighting a cigar. Delight ran through his blood like fire. At last he had his man on the hip, and the vision of that toss which he meant to give him made his body tingle from the roots of his hair to the points of his toes. However, the case was not for him to deal with alone. Birmingham, the man of weight, prudence, fairness, the true leader, really owned the situation. Grahame, experienced journalist, had the right to manage the publicity department of this delicious scandal. His own task would be to hold Claire in the traces, and drive her round the track, show the world her paces, past the judge's stand. Ah, to see the face of the Minister as he read the story of exposure--her exposure and his own shame! The two men stared at his comfortable attitude in that strange inn, and fairly gasped at the climax of his story. "The devil's in you. No one but you would have thought out such a scheme," said Grahame, recalling the audacity, the cleverness, the surprises of his friend's career from the California episode to the invasion of Ireland. "Great heavens! but you have the knack of seizing the hinge of things." "I think we have Livingstone and his enterprise in the proper sort of hole," Arthur answered. "The question is how to use our advantage?" The young men turned to Birmingham with deference. "The most thorough way," said the Mayor, after complimenting Arthur on his astonishing success, "would be to hale Claire before the courts for fraud, and subpoena all our distinguished enemies. That course has some disagreeable consequences, however." "I think we had better keep out of court," Arthur said quickly. His companions looked surprised at his hesitation. He did not understand it himself. For Edith Conyngham he felt only disgust, and for Sister Claire an amused contempt; but sparkling Colette, so clever, bright, and amiable, so charmingly conscienceless, so gracefully wicked, inspired him with pity almost. He could not crush the pretty reptile, or thrust her into prison. "Of course I want publicity," he hastened to add, "the very widest, to reach as far as London, and strike the Minister. How can that be got, and keep away from the courts?" "An investigating committee is what you are thinking of," said the Mayor. "I can call such a body together at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, our most distinguished citizens. They could receive the confession of this woman, and report to the public on her character." "That's the plan," Arthur interrupted with joy. "That _must_ be carried out. I'll see that Claire appears before that committee and confesses her frauds. But mark this: on that committee you should have the agents of Livingstone: Bradford, Bitterkin ... I owe him one for his meanness to the Senator ... Smallish in particular, and McMeeter for the fun of the thing." "Wild horses wouldn't drag them to it," Grahame thought. "I have something better than wild horses, the proofs of their conspiracy, of their league with this woman," and Arthur pointed to the locked drawers of the office. "How will our minister to England like to have his name connected with this scandal openly. Now, if these people refuse to serve, by heavens, I'll take the whole case to court, and give it an exposure as wide as the earth. If they're agreeable, I'll keep away from the courts, and the rougher part of the scandal." "There's your weapon," said the Mayor, "the alternative of committee or court. I'll see to that part of the business. Do you get the escaped nun ready for her confession, and I'll guarantee the committee, let us say inside of ten days. Your part, Grahame, will be to write up a story for the morning papers, covering dramatically the details of this very remarkable episode." They sat long discussing the various features of the scheme. Next morning Curran and Arthur sat down to talk over the terms of surrender in the detective's house. Colette still kept her bed, distracted with grief, and wild with apprehension over the sensational articles in the morning papers. Curran saw little hope for himself and his wife in the stern face of Dillon. "At the start I would like to hear your explanation," Arthur began coldly. "You were in my employ and in hers." "In hers only to hinder what evil I could, and to protect her from herself," the detective answered steadily and frankly. "I make no excuse, because there isn't any to make. But if I didn't live up to my contract with you, I can say honestly that I never betrayed your interest. You can guess the helplessness of a man in my fix. I have no influence over Colette. She played her game against my wish and prayer. Most particular did I warn her against annoying you and yours. I was going to break up her designs on young Everard, when you did it yourself. I hope you----" In his nervous apprehension for Colette's fate the strong-willed man broke down. He remained silent, struggling for his vanishing self-control. "I understand, and I excuse you. The position was nasty. I have always trusted you without knowing why exactly," and he reflected a moment on that interesting fact. "You did me unforgettable service in saving Louis Everard." "How glad I am you remember that service," Curran gasped, like one who grasping at a straw finds it a plank. "I foresaw this moment when I said to you that night, 'I shall not be bashful about reminding you of it and asking a reward at the right time.' I ask it now. For the boy's sake be merciful with her. Don't hand her over to the courts. Deal with her yourself, and I'll help you." For the boy's sake, for that service so aptly rendered, for the joy it brought and the grief it averted, he could forget justice and crown Colette with diamonds! Curran trembled with eagerness and suspense. He loved her,--this wretch, witch, fiend of a woman! "The question is, can I deal with her myself? She is intractable." "You ought to know by this time that she will do anything for you ... and still more when she has to choose between your wish and jail." "I shall require a good deal of her, not for my own sake, but to undo the evil work----" "How I have tried to keep her out of that evil work," Curran cried fiercely. "We are bad enough as it is without playing traitors to our own, and throwing mud on holy things. There can be no luck in it, and she knows it. When one gets as low as she has, it's time for the funeral. Hell is more respectable." Arthur did not understand this feeling in Curran. The man's degradation seemed so complete to him that not even sacrilege could intensify it; yet clearly the hardened sinner saw some depths below his own which excited his horror and loathing. "If you think I can deal with her, I shall not invoke the aid of the law." The detective thanked him in a breaking voice. He had enjoyed a very bad night speculating on the probable course of events. Colette came in shortly, and greeted Arthur as brazenly as usual, but with extreme sadness, which became her well; so sweet, so delicate, so fragile, that he felt pleased to have forgiven her so early in the struggle. He had persecuted her, treated her with violence, and printed her history for the scornful pleasure of the world; he had come to offer her the alternative of public shame or public trial and jail; yet she had a patient smile for him, a dignified submission that touched him. After all, he thought with emotion, she is of the same nature with myself; a poor castaway from conventional life playing one part or another by caprice, for gain or sport or notoriety; only the devil has entered into her, while I have been lucky enough to cast my lot with the exorcists of the race. He almost regretted his duty. "I have taken possession of your office and papers, Colette," said he with the dignity of the master. "I dismissed the office-boy with his wages, and notified the owner that you would need the rooms no more after the end of the month." "Thanks," she murmured with downcast eyes. "I am ready now to lay before you the conditions----" "Are you going to send me to jail?" "I leave that to you," he answered softly. "You must withdraw your book from circulation. You must get an injunction from the courts to restrain the publishers, if they won't stop printing at your request, and you must bring suit against them for your share of the profits. I want them to be exposed. My lawyer is at your service for such work." "This for the beginning?" she said in despair. "You must write for me a confession next, describing your career, and the parts which you played in this city; also naming your accomplices, your supporters, and what money they put up for your enterprise." "You will find all that in my papers." "Is Mr. Livingstone's name among your papers?" "He was the ringleader. Of course." "Finally you must appear before a committee of gentlemen at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and show how you disguised yourself for the three parts of Edith Conyngham, Sister Claire, and the Brand of the gospel-hall." She burst out crying then, looking from one man to the other with the tears streaming down her lovely face. Curran squirmed in anguish. Arthur studied her with interest. Who could tell when she was not acting? "Ah, you wretch! I am bad. Sometimes I can't bear myself. But you are worse, utterly without heart. You think I don't feel my position." Her sobbing touched him by its pathos and its cleverness. "You are beyond feeling, but you _must_ talk about feeling," was his hard reply. "Probably I shall make you feel before the end of this adventure." "As if you hadn't done it already," she fairly bawled like a hurt child. "For months I have not left the house without seeing everywhere the dogs that tore Jezebel." "You might also have seen that poor child whom you nearly drove to death," he retorted, "and the mother whose heart you might have broken." "Poor child!" she sneered, and burst out laughing while the tears still lingered on her cheek. "He was a milksop, not a man. I thought he was a man, or I never would have offered him pleasure. And you want me to make a show of myself before...." "Your old friends and well-wishers, McMeeter, Bradford and Co." "Never, never, never," she screamed, and fell to weeping again. "I'll die first." "You won't be asked to die, madam. You'll go to jail the minute I leave this house, and stand trial on fifty different charges. I'll keep you in jail for the rest of your life. If by any trick you escape me, I'll deliver you to the dogs." "Can he do this?" she said scornfully to Curran, who nodded. "And if I agree to it, what do I get?" turning again to Dillon. "You can live in peace as La Belle Colette the dancer, practise your profession, and enjoy the embraces of your devoted husband. I let you off lightly. Your private life, your stage name, will be kept from the public, and, by consequence, from the dogs." She shivered at the phrase. Shame was not in her, but fear could grip her heart vigorously. Her nerve did not exclude cowardice. This man she had always feared, perceiving in him not only a strength beyond the common, but a mysterious power not to be analyzed and named. Her flimsy rage would break hopelessly on this rock. Still before surrendering, her crooked nature forced her to the petty arts in which she excelled. Very clearly in this acting appeared the various strokes of character peculiar to Edith, Claire, and the Brand. She wheedled and whined one moment in the husky tones of Sister Magdalen's late favorite; when dignity was required she became the escaped nun; and in her rage she would burst into the melodramatic frenzy dear to the McMeeter audiences; but Colette, the heedless, irresponsible, half-mad butterfly, dominated these various parts, and to this charming personality she returned. Through his own sad experience this spectacle interested him. He subdued her finally by a precise description of consequences. "You have done the Catholics of this city harm that will last a long time, Colette," said he. "That vile book of yours ... you ought to be hung for it. It will live to do its miserable work when you are in hell howling. I really don't know why I should be merciful to you. Did you ever show mercy to any one? The court would do this for you and for us: the facts, figures, and personages of your career would be dragged into the light of day ... what a background that would be ... not a bad company either ... not a fact would escape ... you would be painted as you are. I'll not tell you what you are, but I know that you would die of your own colors ... you would go to jail, and rot there ... every time you came out I'd have a new charge on which to send you back. Your infamy would be printed by columns in the papers ... and the dogs would be put on your trail ... ah, there's the rub ... if the law let you go free, what a meal you'd make for the people who think you ought to be torn limb from limb, and who would do it with joy. I really do not understand why I offer you an alternative. Perhaps it's for the sake of this man who loves you ... for the great service he did me." He paused to decide this point, while she gazed like a fascinated bird. "What I want is this really," he went on. "I want to let the city see just what tools Livingstone, your employer, is willing to do his dirty work with. I want this committee to assemble with pomp and circumstance ... those are the right words ... and to see you, in your very cleverest way, act the parts through which you fooled the wise. I want them to hear you say in that sweetest of voices, how you lied to them to get their dollars ... how you lied about us, your own people, threw mud on us, as Curran says, to get their dollars ... how your life, and your book, and your lectures, are all lies ... invented and printed because the crowd that devoured them were eager to believe us the horrible creatures you described. When you have done that, you can go free. No one will know your husband, or your name, or your profession. I don't see why you hesitate. I don't know why I should offer you this chance. When Birmingham hears your story he will not approve of my action. But if you agree to follow my directions to the letter I'll promise that the law will not seize you." What could she do but accept his terms, protesting that death was preferable? The risk of losing her just as the committee would be ready to meet, for her fickleness verged on insanity, he had to accept. He trusted in his own watchfulness, and in the fidelity of Curran to keep her in humor. Even now she forgot her disasters in the memory of her success as an impersonator, and entertained the men with scenes from her masquerade as Edith, Claire, and the Brand. From such a creature, so illy balanced, one might expect anything. However, by judicious coddling and terrorizing, her courage and spirit were kept alive to the very moment when she stood before Birmingham and his committee, heard her confession of imposture read, signed it with perfect sang-froid, and illustrated for the scandalized members her method of impersonation. So had Arthur worked upon her conceit that she took a real pride in displaying her costumes, and in explaining how skilfully she had led three lives in that city. Grim, bitter, sickened with disappointment, yet masked in smiles, part of the committee watched her performance to the end. They felt the completeness of Arthur's triumph. With the little airs and graces peculiar to a stage artiste, Edith put on the dusty costume of Edith Conyngham, and limped feebly across the floor; then the decorous garments of the Brand, and whispered tenderly in McMeeter's ear; last, the brilliant habit of the escaped nun, the curious eyebrows, the pallid face; curtseying at the close of the performance with her bold eyes on her audience, as if beseeching the merited applause. In the dead silence afterwards, Arthur mercifully led her away. The journals naturally gave the affair large attention, and the net results were surprisingly fine. The house of cards so lovingly built up by Livingstone and his friends tumbled in a morning never to rise again. All the little plans failed like kites snipped of their tails. Fritters went home, because the public lost interest in his lectures. The book of the escaped nun fell flat and disappeared from the market. McMeeter gave up his scheme of rescuing the inmates of convents and housing them until married. The hired press ignored the Paddies and their island for a whole year. Best of all, suddenly, on the plea of dying among his friends, Ledwith was set free, mainly through the representations of Lord Constantine in London and Arthur in Washington. These rebuffs told upon the Minister severely. He knew from whose strong hand they came, and that the same hand would not soon tire of striking. CHAPTER XXIV. ANNE MAKES HISTORY. In the months that followed Anne Dillon lived as near to perfect felicity as earthly conditions permit. A countess and a lord breathed under her roof, ate at her table, and talked prose and poetry with her as freely as Judy Haskell. The Countess of Skibbereen and Lord Constantine had accompanied the Ledwiths to America, after Owen's liberation from jail, and fallen victims to the wiles of this clever woman. Arthur might look after the insignificant Ledwiths. Anne would have none of them. She belonged henceforth to the nobility. His lordship was bent on utilizing his popularity with the Irish to further the cause of the Anglo-American Alliance. As the friend who had stood by the Fenian prisoners, not only against embittered England, but against indifferent Livingstone, he was welcomed; and if he wanted an alliance, or an heiress, or the freedom of the city, or anything which the Irish could buy for him, he had only to ask in order to receive. Anne sweetly took the responsibility off his shoulders, after he had outlined his plans. "Leave it all to me," said she. "You shall win the support of all these people without turning your hand over." "You may be sure she'll do it much better than you will," was the opinion of the Countess, and the young man was of the same mind. She relied chiefly on Doyle Grahame for one part of her program, but that effervescent youth had fallen into a state of discouragement which threatened to leave him quite useless. He shook his head to her demand for a column in next morning's _Herald_. "Same old story ... the Countess and you ... lovely costumes ... visits ... it won't go. The editors are wondering why there's so much of you." "Hasn't it all been good?" "Of course, or it would not have been printed. But there must come an end sometime. What's your aim anyway?" "I want a share in making history," she said slyly. "Take a share in making mine," he answered morosely, and thereupon she landed him. "Oh, run away with Mona, if you're thinking of marrying." "Thinking of it! Talking of it! That's as near as I can get to it," he groaned. "John Everard is going to drive a desperate bargain with me. I wrote a book, I helped to expose Edith Conyngham, I drove Fritters out of the country with my ridicule, I shocked Bradford, and silenced McMeeter; and I have failed to move that wretch. All I got out of my labors was permission to sit beside Mona in her own house with her father present." "You humor the man too much," Anne said with a laugh. "I can twist John Everard about my finger, only----" "There it is," cried Grahame. "Behold it in its naked simplicity! Only! Well, if anything short of the divine can get around, over, under, through, or by his sweet, little 'only,' he's fit to be the next king of Ireland. What have I not done to do away with it? Once I thought, I hoped, that the invitation to read the poem on the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, coming as a climax to multitudinous services, would surely have fetched him. Now, with the invitation in my pocket, I'm afraid to mention it. What if he should scorn it?" "He won't if I say the word. Give me the column to-morrow, and any time I want it for a month or two, and I'll guarantee that John Everard will do the right thing by you." "You can have the column. What do you want it for?" "The alliance, of course. I'm in the business of making history, as I told you. Don't open your mouth quite so wide, please. There's to be a meeting of the wise in this house, after a dinner, to express favorable opinions about the alliance. Then in a month or two a distinguished peer, member of the British Cabinet, is coming over to sound the great men on the question.... What are you whistling for?" "You've got a fine thing, Mrs. Dillon," said he. "By Jove, but I'll help you spread this for all it's worth." "Understand," she said, tapping the table with emphasis, "the alliance must go through as far as we can make it go. Now, do your best. When you go over to see John Everard next, go with a mind to kill him if he doesn't take your offer to marry his daughter. I'll see to it that the poem on the Pilgrims does the trick for you." "I'd have killed him long ago, if I thought it worth the trouble," he said. He felt that the crisis had come for him and Mona. That charming girl, in spite of his entreaties, of his threats to go exploring Africa, remained as rigidly faithful to her ideas of duty as her father to his obstinacy. She would not marry without his consent. With all his confidence in Anne's cleverness, how could he expect her to do the impossible? To change the unchangeable? John Everard showed no sign of the influence which had brought Livingstone to his knees, when Grahame and Mona stood before him, and the lover placed in her father's hands the document of honor. "Really, this is wonderful," said Everard, impressed to the point of violence. "You are to compose and to read the poem on the Pilgrim Fathers?" "That's the prize," said Grahame severely. He might be squaring off at this man the next moment, and could not carry his honors lightly. "And now that it has come I want my reward. We must be married two weeks before I read that poem, and the whole world must see and admire the source of my inspiration." He drew his beloved into his arms and kissed her pale cheek. "Very well. That will be appropriate," the father said placidly, clearing his throat to read the invitation aloud. He read pompously, quite indifferent to the emotion of his children, proud that they were to be prominent figures in a splendid gathering. They, beatified, pale, unstrung by this calm acceptance of what he had opposed bitterly two years, sat down foolishly, and listened to the pompous utterance of pompous phrases in praise of dead heroes and a living poet. Thought and speech failed together. If only some desperado would break in upon him and try to kill him! if the house would take fire, or a riot begin in the street! The old man finished his reading, congratulated the poet, blessed the pair in the old-fashioned style, informed his wife of the date of the wedding, and marched off to bed. After pulling at that door for years it was maddening to have the very frame-work come out as if cemented with butter. What an outrage to come prepared for heroic action, and to find the enemy turned friend! Oh, admirable enchantress was this Anne Dillon! The enchantress, having brought Grahame into line and finally into good humor, took up the more difficult task of muzzling her stubborn son. To win him to the good cause, she had no hope; sufficient, if he could be won to silence while diplomacy shaped the course of destiny. "Better let me be on that point," Arthur said when she made her attack. "I'm hostile only when disturbed. Lord Conny owns us for the present. I won't say a word to shake his title. Neither will I lift my eyebrows to help this enterprise." "If you only will keep quiet," she suggested. "Well, I'm trying to. I'm set against alliance with England, until we have knocked the devil out of her, begging your pardon for my frankness. I must speak plainly now so that we may not fall out afterwards. But I'll be quiet. I'll not say a word to influence a soul. I'll do just as Ledwith does." He laughed at the light which suddenly shone in her face. "That's a fair promise," she said smoothly, and fled before he could add conditions. Her aim and her methods alike remained hidden from him. He knew only that she was leading them all by the nose to some brilliant climax of her own devising. He was willing to be led. The climax turned out to be a dinner. Anne had long ago discovered the secret influence of a fine dinner on the politics of the world. The halo of a saint pales before the golden nimbus which well-fed guests see radiating from their hostess after dinner. A good man may possess a few robust virtues, but the dinner-giver has them all. Therefore, the manager of the alliance gathered about her table one memorable evening the leaders whose good opinion and hearty support Lord Constantine valued in his task of winning the Irish to neutrality or favor for his enterprise. Arthur recognized the climax only when Lord Constantine, after the champagne had sparkled in the glasses, began to explain his dream to Sullivan. "What do you think of it?" said he. "It sounds as harmless as a popgun, and looks like a vision. I don't see any details in your scheme," said the blunt leader graciously. "We can leave the details to the framers of the alliance," said His Lordship, uneasy at Arthur's laugh. "What we want first is a large, generous feeling in its favor, to encourage the leaders." "Well, in general," said the Boss, "it is a good thing for all countries to live in harmony. When they speak the same language, it's still better. I have no feeling one way or the other. I left Ireland young, and would hardly have remembered I'm Irish but for Livingstone. What do you think of it, Senator?" "An alliance with England!" cried he with contempt. "Fancy me walking down to a district meeting with such an auctioneer's tag hanging on my back. Why, I'd be sold out on the spot. Those people haven't forgot how they were thrown down and thrown out of Ireland. No, sir. Leave us out of an alliance." "That's the popular feeling, I think," Sullivan said to His Lordship. "I can understand the Senator's feelings," the Englishman replied softly. "But if, before the alliance came to pass, the Irish question should be well settled, how would that affect your attitude, Senator?" "My attitude," replied the Senator, posing as he reflected that a budding statesman made the inquiry, "would be entirely in your favor." "Thank you. What more could I ask?" Lord Constantine replied with a fierce look at Arthur. "I say myself, until the Irish get their rights, no alliance." "Then we are with you cordially. We want to do all we can for a man who has been so fair to our people," the Boss remarked with the flush of good wine in his cheek. "Champagne sentiments," murmured Arthur. Monsignor, prompted by Anne, came to the rescue of the young nobleman. "There would be a row, if the matter came up for discussion just now," he said. "Ten years hence may see a change. There's one thing in favor of Irish ... well, call it neutrality. Speaking as a churchman, Catholics have a happier lot in English-speaking lands than in other countries. They have the natural opportunity to develop, they are not hampered in speech and action as in Italy and France." "How good of you to say so," murmured His Lordship. "Then again," continued Monsignor, with a sly glance at Arthur, "it seems to me inevitable that the English-speaking peoples must come into closer communion, not merely for their own good, or for selfish aims, but to spread among less fortunate nations their fine political principles. There's the force, the strength, of the whole scheme. Put poor Ireland on her feet, and I vote for an alliance." "Truly, a Daniel come to judgment," murmured Arthur. "It's a fine view to take of it," the Boss thought. "Are you afraid to ask Ledwith for an opinion?" Arthur suggested. "What's he got to do with it?" Everard snapped, unsoftened by the mellow atmosphere of the feast. "It is no longer a practical question with me," Owen said cheerfully. "I have always said that if the common people of the British Isles got an understanding of each other, and a better liking for each other, the end of oppression would come very soon. They are kept apart by the artificial hindrances raised by the aristocracy of birth and money. The common people easily fraternize, if they are permitted. See them in this country, living, working, intermarrying, side by side." "How will that sound among the brethren?" said Arthur disappointed. His mother flashed him a look of triumph, and Lord Constantine looked foolishly happy. "As the utterance of a maniac, of course. Have they ever regarded me as sane?" he answered easily. "And what becomes of your dream?" Arthur persisted. "I have myself become a dream," he answered sadly. "I am passing into the land of dreams, of shadows. My dream was Ireland; a principle that would bring forth its own flower, fruit, and seed; not a department of an empire. Who knows what is best in this world of change? Some day men may realize the poet's dream: "The parliament of man, the federation of the world." Arthur surrendered with bad grace. He had expected from Ledwith the last, grand, fiery denunciation which would have swept the room as a broadside sweeps a deck, and hurled the schemes of his mother and Lord Constantine into the sea. Sad, sad, to see how champagne can undo such a patriot! For that matter the golden wine had undone the entire party. Judy declared to her dying day that the alliance was toasted amid cheers before the close of the banquet; that Lord Constantine in his delight kissed Anne as she left the room; with many other circumstances too improbable to find a place in a veracious history. It is a fact, however, that the great scheme which still agitates the peoples interested, had its success depended on the guests of Anne Dillon, would have been adopted that night. The dinner was a real triumph. Unfortunately, dinners do not make treaties; and, as Arthur declared, one dinner is good enough until a better is eaten. When the member of the British Cabinet came to sit at Anne's table, if one might say so, the tables were turned. Birmingham instead of Monsignor played the lead; the man whose practical temperament, financial and political influence, could soothe and propitiate his own people and interest the moneyed men in the alliance. It was admitted no scheme of this kind could progress without his aid. He had been reserved for the Cabinet Minister. No one thought much about the dinner except the hostess, who felt, as she looked down the beautiful table, that her glory had reached its brilliant meridian. A cabinet minister, a lord, a countess, a leading Knickerbocker, the head of Tammany, and a few others who did not matter; what a long distance from the famous cat-show and Mulberry Street! Arthur also looked up the table with satisfaction. If his part in the play had not been dumb show (by his mother's orders), he would have quoted the famous grind of the mills of the gods. The two races, so unequally matched at home, here faced each other on equal ground. Birmingham knew what he had to do. "I am sure," he said to the cabinet minister, "that in a matter so serious you want absolute sincerity?" "Absolute, and thank you," replied the great man. "Then let me begin with myself. Personally I would not lift my littlest finger to help this scheme. I might not go out of my way to hinder it, but I am that far Irish in feeling, not to aid England so finely. For a nation that will soon be without a friend in the world, an alliance with us would be of immense benefit. No man of Irish blood, knowing what his race has endured and still endures from the English, can keep his self-respect and back the scheme." Arthur was sorry for his lordship, who sat utterly astounded and cast down wofully at this expression of feeling from such a man. "The main question can be answered in this way," Birmingham continued. "Were I willing to take part in this business, my influence with the Irish and their descendants, whatever it may be, would not be able to bring a corporal's guard into line in its behalf." Lord Constantine opened his mouth, Everard snorted his contempt, but the great man signaled silence. Birmingham paid no attention. "In this country the Irish have learned much more than saving money and acquiring power; they have learned the unredeemed blackness of the injustice done them at home, just as I learned it. What would Grahame here, Sullivan, Senator Dillon, or myself have been at this moment had we remained in Ireland? Therefore the Irish in this country are more bitter against the English government than their brethren at home. I am certain that no man can rally even a minority of the Irish to the support of the alliance. I am sure I could not. I am certain the formal proposal of the scheme would rouse them to fiery opposition." "Remember," Arthur whispered to Everard, raging to speak, "that the Cabinet Minister doesn't care to hear anyone but Birmingham." "I'm sorry for you, Conny," he whispered to his lordship, "but it's the truth." "Never enjoyed anything so much," said Grahame _sotto voce_, his eyes on Everard. "However, let us leave the Irish out of the question," the speaker went on. "Or, better, let us suppose them favorable, and myself able to win them over. What chance has the alliance of success? None." "Fudge!" cried Everard, unabashed by the beautiful English stare of the C. M. "The measure is one-sided commercially. This country has nothing to gain from a scheme, which would be a mine to England; therefore the moneyed men will not touch it, will not listen to it. Their time is too valuable. What remains? An appeal to the people on the score of humanity, brotherhood, progress, what you please? My opinion is that the dead weight there could not be moved. The late war and the English share in it are too fresh in the public mind. The outlook to me is utterly against your scheme." "It might be objected to your view that feeling is too strong an element of it," said the Cabinet Minister. "Feeling has only to do with my share in the scheme," Birmingham replied. "As an Irishman I would not further it, yet I might be glad to see it succeed. My opinion is concerned with the actual conditions as I see them." With this remark the formal discussion ended. Mortified at this outcome of his plans, Lord Constantine could not be consoled. "As long as Livingstone is on your side, Conny," said Arthur, "you are foredoomed." "I am not so sure," His Lordship answered with some bitterness. "The Chief Justice of the United States is a good friend to have." A thrill shot through Dillon at this emphasis to a rumor hitherto too light for printing. The present incumbent of the high office mentioned by Lord Constantine lay dying. Livingstone coveted few places, and this would be one. In so exalted a station he would be "enskied and sainted." Even his proud soul would not disdain to step from the throne-room of Windsor to the dais of the Supreme Court of his country. And to strike him in the very moment of his triumph, to snatch away the prize, to close his career like a broken sentence with a dash and a mark of interrogation, to bring him home like any dead game in a bag: here would be magnificent justice! "Have I found thee, O mine enemy?" Arthur cried in his delight. CHAPTER XXV. THE CATHEDRAL. Ledwith was dying in profound depression, like most brave souls, whose success has been partial, or whose failure has been absolute. This mournful ending to a brave, unselfish life seemed to Arthur pitiful and monstrous. A mere breathing-machine like himself had enjoyed a stimulating vengeance for the failure of one part of his life. Oh, how sweet had been that vengeance! The draught had not yet reached the bottom of the cup! His cause for the moment a ruin, dragged down with Fenianism; his great enemy stronger, more glorious, and more pitiless than when he had first raised his hand against her injustice; now the night had closed in upon Ledwith, not merely the bitter night of sickness and death and failure, but that more savage night of despondency, which steeps all human sorrow in the black, polluted atmosphere of hell. For such a sufferer the heart of Arthur Dillon opened as wide as the gates of heaven. Oh, had he not known what it is to suffer so, without consolation! He was like a son to Owen Ledwith. Every plan born in the poetic and fertile brain of the patriot he took oath to carry out; he vowed his whole life to the cause of Ireland; and he consoled Owen for apparent failure by showing him that he had not altogether failed, since a man, young, earnest, determined, and wealthy should take up the great work just where he dropped it. Could any worker ask more of life? A hero should go to his eternity with lofty joy, leaving his noble example to the mean world, a reproach to the despicable among rulers, a star in the night to the warriors of justice. In Honora her father did not find the greatest comfort. His soul was of the earth and human liberty was his day-star; her soul rose above that great human good to the freedom of heaven. Her heart ached for him, that he should be going out of life with only human consolation. The father stood in awe of an affection, which at the same time humbled and exalted him; she had never loved man or woman like him; he was next to God in that virginal heart, for with all her love of country, the father had the stronger hold on her. Too spiritual for him, her sublime faith did not cheer him. Yet when they looked straight into each other's eyes with the consciousness of what was coming, mutual anguish terribly probed their love. He had no worry for her. "She has the best of friends," he said to Arthur, "she is capable, and trained to take care of herself handsomely; but these things will not be of any use. She will go to the convent." "Not if Lord Constantine can hinder it," Arthur said bluntly. "I would like to see her in so exalted and happy a sphere as Lord Constantine could give her. But I am convinced that the man is not born who can win the love of this child of mine. Sir Galahad might, but not the stuff of which you and I are made." "I believe you," said Arthur. Honora herself told him of her future plans, as they sat with the sick man after a trying evening, when for some hours the end seemed near. The hour invited confidences, and like brother and sister at the sick-bed of a beloved parent they exchanged them. When she had finished telling him how she had tried to do her duty to her father, and to her country, and how she had laid aside her idea of the convent for their sake, but would now take up her whole duty to God by entering a sisterhood, he said casually: "It seems to me these three duties work together; and when you were busiest with your father and your country, then were you most faithful to God." "Very true," she replied, looking up with surprise. "Obedience is better than sacrifice." "Take care that you are not deceiving yourself, Honora. Which would cause more pain, to give up your art and your cause, or to give up the convent?" "To give up the convent," she replied promptly. "That looks to me like selfishness," he said gently. "There are many nuns in the convents working for the wretched and helping the poor and praying for the oppressed, while only a few women are devoted directly to the cause of freedom. It strikes me that you descend when you retire from a field of larger scope to one which narrows your circle and diminishes your opportunities. I am not criticizing the nun's life, but simply your personal scheme." "And you think I descend?" she murmured with a little gasp of pain. "Why, how can that be?" "You are giving up the work, the necessary work, which few women are doing, to take up a work in which many women are engaged," he answered, uncertain of his argument, but quite sure of his intention. "You lose great opportunities to gain small ones, purely personal. That's the way it looks to me." With wonderful cunning he unfolded his arguments in the next few weeks. He appealed to her love for her father, her wish to see his work continued; he described his own helplessness, very vaguely though, in carrying out schemes with which he was unacquainted, and to which he was vowed; he mourned over the helpless peoples of the world, for whom a new community was needed to fight, as the Knights of St. John fought for Christendom; and he painted with delicate satire that love of ease which leads heroes to desert the greater work for the lesser on the plea of the higher life. Selfishly she sought rest, relief for the taxing labors, anxieties, and journeys of fifteen years, and not the will of God, as she imagined. Was he conscious of his own motives? Did he discover therein any selfishness? Who can say? He discoursed at the same time to Owen, and in the same fashion. Ledwith felt that his dreams were patch work beside the rainbow visions of this California miner, who had the mines which make the wildest dreams come true sometimes. The wealthy enthusiast might fall, however, into the hands of the professional patriot, who would bleed him to death in behalf of paper schemes. To whom could he confide him? Honora! It had always been Honora with him, who could do nothing without her. He did not wish to hamper her in the last moment, as he had hampered her since she had first planned her own life. It was even a pleasant thought for him, to think of his faithful child living her beautiful, quiet, convent life, after the fatigues and pilgrimages of years, devoted to his memory, mingling his name with her prayers, innocent of any other love than for him and her Creator. Yes, she must be free as the air after he died. However, the sick are not masters of their emotions. A great dread and a great anguish filled him. Would it be his fate to lose Arthur to Ireland by consideration for others? But he loved her so! How could he bind her in bonds at the very moment of their bitter separation? He would not do it! He would not do it! He fought down his own longing until he woke up in a sweat of terror one night, and called to her loudly, fearing that he would die before he exacted from her the last promise. He must sacrifice all for his country, even the freedom of his child. "Honora," he cried, "was I ever faithless to Erin? Did I ever hesitate when it was a question of money, or life, or danger, or suffering for her sake?" "Never, father dear," she said, soothing him like a child. "I have sinned now, then. For your sake I have sinned. I wished to leave you free when I am gone, although I saw you were still necessary to Eire. Promise me, my child, that you will delay a little after I am gone, before entering the convent; that you will make sure beforehand that Erin has no great need of you ... just a month or a year ... any delay----" "As long as you please, father," she said quietly. "Make it five years if you will----" "No, no," he interrupted with anguish in his throat. "I shall never demand again from you the sacrifices of the past. What may seem just to you will be enough. I die almost happy in leaving Arthur Dillon to carry on with his talent and his money the schemes of which I only dreamed. But I fear the money patriots will get hold of him and cheat him of his enthusiasm and his money together. If you were by to let him know what was best to be done--that is all I ask of you----" "A year at least then, father dear! What is time to you and me that we should be stingy of the only thing we ever really possessed." "And now I lose even that," with a long sigh. Thus gently and naturally Arthur gained his point. Monsignor came often, and then oftener when Owen's strength began to fail rapidly. The two friends in Irish politics had little agreement, but in the gloom of approaching death they remembered only their friendship. The priest worked vainly to put Owen into a proper frame of mind before his departure for judgment. He had made his peace with the Church, and received the last rites like a believer, but with the coldness of him who receives necessities from one who has wronged him. He was dying, not like a Christian, but like the pagan patriot who has failed: only the shades awaited him when he fled from the darkness of earthly shame. They sat together one March afternoon facing the window and the declining sun. To the right another window gave them a good view of the beautiful cathedral, whose twin spires, many turrets, and noble walls shone blue and golden in the brilliant light. "I love to look at it from this elevation," said Monsignor, who had just been discoursing on the work of his life. "In two years, just think, the most beautiful temple in the western continent will be dedicated." "The money that has gone into it would have struck a great blow for Erin," said Ledwith with a bitter sigh. "So much of it as escaped the yawning pockets of the numberless patriots," retorted Monsignor dispassionately. "The money would not have been lost in so good a cause, but its present use has done more for your people than a score of the blows which you aim at England." "Claim everything in sight while you are at it," said Owen. "In God's name what connection has your gorgeous cathedral with any one's freedom?" "Father dear, you are exciting yourself," Honora broke in, but neither heeded her. "Christ brought us true freedom," said Monsignor, "and the Church alone teaches, practises, and maintains it." "A fine example is provided by Ireland, where to a dead certainty freedom was lost because the Church had too unnatural a hold upon the people." "What was lost on account of the faith will be given back again with compound interest. Political and military movements have done much for Ireland in fifty years; but the only real triumphs, universal, brilliant, enduring, significant, leading surely up to greater things, have been won by the Irish faith, of which that cathedral, shining so gloriously in the sun this afternoon, is both a result and a symbol." "I believe you will die with that conviction," Ledwith said in wonder. "I wish you could die with the same, Owen," replied Monsignor tenderly. They fell silent for a little under the stress of sudden feeling. "How do men reason themselves into such absurdities?" Owen asked himself. "You ought to know. You have done it often enough," said the priest tartly. Then both laughed together, as they always did when the argument became personal. "Do you know what Livingstone and Bradford and the people whom they represent think of that temple?" said Monsignor impressively. "Oh, their opinions!" Owen snorted. "They are significant," replied the priest. "These two leaders would give the price of the building to have kept down or destroyed the spirit which undertook and carried out the scheme. They have said to themselves many times in the last twenty years, while that temple rose slowly but gloriously into being, what sort of a race is this, so despised and ill-treated, so poor and ignorant, that in a brief time on our shores can build the finest temple to God which this country has yet seen? What will the people, to whom we have described this race as sunk in papistical stupidity, debased, unenterprising, think, when they gaze on this absolute proof of our mendacity?" Ledwith, in silence, took a second look at the shining walls and towers. "Owen, your generous but short-sighted crowd have fought England briefly and unsuccessfully a few times on the soil of Ireland ... but the children of the faith have fought her with church, and school, and catechism around the globe. Their banner, around which they fought, was not the banner of the Fenians but the banner of Christ. What did you do for the scattered children of the household? Nothing, but collect their moneys. While the great Church followed them everywhere with her priests, centered them about the temple, and made them the bulwark of the faith, the advance-guard, in many lands. Here in America, and in all the colonies of England, in Scotland, even in England itself, wherever the Irish settled, the faith took root and flourished; the faith which means death to the English heresy, and to English power as far as it rests upon the heresy." "The faith kept the people together, scattered all over the world. It organized them, it trained them, it kept them true to the Christ preached by St. Patrick; it built the fortress of the temple, and the rampart of the school; it kept them a people apart, it kept them civilized, saved them from inevitable apostasy, and founded a force from which you collect your revenues for battle with your enemies; a force which fights England all over the earth night and day, in legislatures, in literature and journalism, in social and commercial life ... why, man, you are a fragment, a mere fragment, you and your warriors, of that great fight which has the world for an audience and the English earths for its stage." "When did you evolve this new fallacy?" said Ledwith hoarsely. "You have all been affected with the spirit of the anti-Catholic revolution in Europe, whose cry is that the Church is the enemy of liberty; yours, that it has been no friend to Irish liberty. Take another look at that cathedral. When you are dead, and many others that will live longer, that church will deliver its message to the people who pass: 'I am the child of the Catholic faith and the Irish; the broad shoulders of America waited for a simple, poor, cast-out people, to dig me from the earth and shape me into a thing of beauty, a glory of the new continent; I myself am not new; I am of that race which in Europe speaks in divine language to you pigmies of the giants that lived in ancient days; I am a new bond between the old continent and the new, between the old order and the new; I speak for the faith of the past; I voice the faith of the hour; the hands that raised me are not unskilled and untrained; from what I am judge, ye people, of what stuff my builders are made.' And around the world, in all the capitals, in the great cities, of the English-speaking peoples, temples of lesser worth and beauty, are speaking in the same strain." Honora anxiously watched her father. A new light shone upon him, a new emotion disturbed him; perhaps that old hardness within was giving way. Ledwith had the poetic temperament, and the philosopher's power of generalization. A hint could open a grand horizon before him, and the cathedral in its solemn beauty was the hint. Of course, he could see it all, blind as he had been before. The Irish revolution worked fitfully, and exploded in a night, its achievement measured by the period of a month; but this temple and its thousand sisters lived on doing their good work in silence, fighting for the truth without noise or conspiracy. "And this is the glory of the Irish," Monsignor continued, "this is the fact which fills me with pride, American as I am, in the race whose blood I own; they have preserved the faith for the great English-speaking world. Already the new principle peculiar to that faith has begun its work in literature, in art, in education, in social life. Heresy allowed the Christ to be banished from all the departments of human activity, except the home and the temple. Christ is not in the schools of the children, nor in the books we read, nor in the pictures and sculptures of our studios, nor in our architecture, even of the churches, nor in our journalism, any more than in the market-place and in the government. These things are purely pagan, or worthless composites. It looks as if the historian of these times, a century or two hence, will have hard work to fitly describe the Gesta Hibernicorum, when this principle of Christianity will have conquered the American world as it conquered ancient Europe. I tell you, Owen," and he strode to the window with hands outstretched to the great building, "in spite of all the shame and suffering endured for His sake, God has been very good to your people, He is heaping them with honors. As wide as is the power of England, it is no wider than the influence of the Irish faith. Stubborn heresy is doomed to fall before the truth which alone can set men free and keep them so." Ledwith had begun to tremble, but he said never a word. "I am prouder to have had a share in the building of that temple," Monsignor continued, "than to have won a campaign against the English. This is a victory, not of one race over another, but of the faith over heresy, truth over untruth. It will be the Christ-like glory of Ireland to give back to England one day the faith which a corrupt king destroyed, for which we have suffered crucifixion. No soul ever loses by climbing the cross with Christ." Ledwith gave a sudden cry, and raised his hands to heaven, but grew quiet at once. The priest watched contentedly the spires of his cathedral. "You have touched heart and reason together," Honora whispered. Ledwith remained a long time silent, struggling with a new spirit. At last he turned the wide, frank eyes on his friend and victor. "I am conquered, Monsignor." "Not wholly yet, Owen." "I have been a fool, a foolish fool,--not to have seen and understood." "And your folly is not yet dead. You are dying in sadness and despair almost, when you should go to eternity in triumph." "I go in triumph! Alas! if I could only be blotted out with my last breath, and leave neither grave nor memory, it would be happiness. Why do you say, 'triumph'?" "Because you have been true to your country with the fidelity of a saint. That's enough. Besides you leave behind you the son born of your fidelity to carry on your work----" "God bless that noble son," Owen cried. "And a daughter whose prayers will mount from the nun's cell, to bless your cause. If you could but go from her resigned!" "How I wish that I might. I ought to be happy, just for leaving two such heirs, two noble hostages to Ireland. I see my error. Christ is the King, and no man can better His plans for men. I surrender to Him." "But your submission is only in part. You are not wholly conquered." "Twice have you said that," Owen complained, raising his heavy eyes in reproach. "Love of country is not the greatest love." "No, love of the race, of humanity, is more." "And the love of God is more than either. With all their beauty, what do these abstract loves bring us? The country we love can give us a grave and a stone. Humanity crucifies its redeemers. Wolsey summed up the matter: 'Had I but served my God with half the zeal with which I served my king, He would not in mine age, have left me naked to mine enemies.'" He paused to let his words sink into Ledwith's mind. "Owen, you are leaving the world oppressed by the hate of a lifetime, the hate ingrained in your nature, the fatal gift of persecutor and persecuted from the past." "And I shall never give that up," Owen declared, sitting up and fixing his hardest look on the priest. "I shall never forget Erin's wrongs, nor Albion's crimes. I shall carry that just and honorable hate beyond the grave. Oh, you priests!" "I said you were not conquered. You may hate injustice, but not the unjust. You will find no hate in heaven, only justice. The persecutors and their victims have long been dead, and judged. The welcome of the wretched into heaven, the home of justice and love, wiped out all memory of suffering here, as it will for us all. The justice measured out to their tyrants even you would be satisfied with. Can your hate add anything to the joy of the blessed, or the woe of the lost?" "Nothing," murmured Owen from the pillow, as his eyes looked afar, wondering at that justice so soon to be measured out to him. "You are again right. Oh, but we are feeble ... but we are foolish ... to think it. What is our hate any more than our justice ... both impotent and ridiculous." There followed a long pause, then, for Monsignor had finished his argument, and only waited to control his own emotion before saying good-by. "I die content," said Ledwith with a long restful sigh, coming back to earth, after a deep look into divine power and human littleness. "Bring me to-morrow, and often, the Lord of Justice. I never knew till now that in desiring Justice so ardently, it was He I desired. Monsignor, I die content, without hate, and without despair." If ever a human creature had a foretaste of heaven it was Honora during the few weeks that followed this happy day. The bitterness in the soul of Owen vanished like a dream, and with it went regret, and vain longing, and the madness which at odd moments sprang from these emotions. His martyrdom, so long and ferocious, would end in the glory of a beautiful sunset, the light of heaven in his heart, shining in his face. He lay forever beyond the fire of time and injustice. Every morning Honora prepared the little altar in the sick-room, and Monsignor brought the Blessed Sacrament. Arthur answered the prayers and gazed with awe upon the glorified face of the father, with something like anger upon the exalted face of the daughter; for the two were gone suddenly beyond him. Every day certain books provided by Monsignor were read to the dying man by the daughter or the son; describing the migration of the Irish all over the English-speaking world, their growth to consequence and power. Owen had to hear the figures of this growth, see and touch the journals printed by the scattered race, and to hear the editorials which spoke their success, their assurance, their convictions, their pride. Then he laughed so sweetly, so naturally, chuckled so mirthfully that Honora had to weep and thank God for this holy mirthfulness, which sounded like the spontaneous, careless, healthy mirth of a boy. Monsignor came evenings to explain, interpret, put flesh and life into the reading of the day with his vivid and pointed comment. Ledwith walked in wonderland. "The hand of God is surely there," was his one saying. The last day of his pilgrimage he had a long private talk with Arthur. They had indeed become father and son, and their mutual tenderness was deep. Honora knew from the expression of the two men that a new element had entered into her father's happiness. "I free you from your promise, my child," said Ledwith, "my most faithful, most tender child. It is the glory of men that the race is never without such children as you. You are free from any bond. It is my wish that you accept your release." She accepted smiling, to save him from the stress of emotion. Then he wished to see the cathedral in the light of the afternoon sun, and Arthur opened the door of the sick-room. The dying man could see from his pillow the golden spires, and the shining roof, that spoke to him so wonderfully of the triumph of his race in a new land, the triumph which had been built up in the night, unseen, uncared for, unnoticed. "God alone has the future," he said. Once he looked at Honora, once more, with burning eyes, that never could look enough on that loved child. With his eyes on the great temple, smiling, he died. They thought he had fallen asleep in his weakness. Honora took his head in her arms, and Arthur Dillon stood beside her and wept. CHAPTER XXVI. THE FALL OF LIVINGSTONE. The ending of Quincy Livingstone's career in England promised to be like the setting of the sun: his glory fading on the hills of Albion only to burn with greater splendor in his native land: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court! He needed the elevation. True, his career at court had been delightful, from the English point of view even brilliant; the nobility had made much of him, if not as much as he had made of the nobility; the members of the government had seriously praised him, far as they stood from Lord Constantine's theory of American friendship. However pleasant these things looked to the Minister, of what account could they be to a mere citizen returning to private life in New York? Could they make up for the failures of the past year at home, the utter destruction of his pet schemes for the restraint of the Irish in the land of the Puritans? What disasters! The alliance thrust out of consideration by the strong hand of Birmingham; the learned Fritters chased from the platform by cold audiences, and then from the country by relentless ridicule; Sister Claire reduced to the rank of a tolerated criminal, a ticket-of-leave girl; and the whole movement discredited! Fortunately these calamities remained unknown in London. The new honors, however, would hide the failure and the shame. His elevation was certain. The President had made known his intention, and had asked Minister Livingstone to be ready within a short time to sail for home for final consultation. His departure from the court of St. James would be glorious, and his welcome home significant; afterwards his place would be amongst the stars. He owned the honorable pride that loves power and place, when these are worthy, but does not seek them. From the beginning the Livingstones had no need to run after office. It always sought them, receiving as rich a lustre as it gave in the recognition of their worth. His heart grew warm that fortune had singled him out for the loftiest place in his country's gift. To die chief-justice atoned for life's shortcomings. Life itself was at once steeped in the color and perfume of the rose. Felicitations poured in from the great. The simplicities of life suddenly put on a new charm, the commonplaces a new emphasis. My Lord Tomnoddy's 'how-de-do' was uttered with feeling, men took a second look at him, the friends of a season felt a warmth about their language, if not about the heart, in telling of his coming dignity. The government people shook off their natural drowsiness to measure the facts, to understand that emotion should have a share in uttering the words of farewell. "Oh, my _dear_, DEAR Livingstone!" cried the Premier as he pressed his hand vigorously at their first meeting after the news had been given out. Society sang after the same fashion. Who could resist the delight of these things? His family and friends exulted. Lovable and deep-hearted with them, harsh as he might be with opponents, their gladness gave him joy. The news spread among the inner circles with due reserve, since no one forgot the distance between the cup and the lip; but to intimates the appointment was said to be a certainty, and confirmation by the Senate as sure as anything mortal. Of course the Irish would raise a clamor, but no arm among them had length or strength enough to snatch away the prize. Not in many years had Livingstone dipped so deeply into the waters of joy as in the weeks that followed the advice from the President. Arthur Dillon knew that mere opposition would not affect Livingstone's chances. His position was too strong to be stormed, he learned upon inquiry in Washington. The political world was quiet to drowsiness, and the President so determined in his choice that candidates would not come forward to embarrass his nominee. The public accepted the rumor of the appointment with indifference, which remained undisturbed when a second rumor told of Irish opposition. But for Arthur's determination the selection of a chief-justice would have been as dull as the naming of a consul to Algiers. "We can make a good fight," was Grahame's conclusion, "but the field belongs to Livingstone." "Chance is always kind to the unfit," said Arthur, "because the Irish are good-natured." "I don't see the connection." "I should have said, because mankind is so. In this case Quincy gets the prize, because the Irish think he will get it." "You speak like the oracle," said Grahame. "Well, the fight must be made, a stiff one, to the last cartridge. But it won't be enough, mere opposition. There must be another candidate. We can take Quincy in front; the candidate can take him in the rear. It must not be seen, only said, that the President surrendered to Irish pressure. There's the plan: well-managed opposition, and another candidate. We can see to the first, who will be the other?" They were discussing that point without fruit when Anne knocked at the door of the study, and entered in some anxiety. "Is it true, what I heard whispered," said she, "that they will soon be looking for a minister to England, that Livingstone is coming back?" "True, mother dear," and he rose to seat her comfortably. "But if you can find us a chief-justice the good man will not need to come back. He can remain to help keep patriots in English prisons." "Why I want to make sure, you know, is that Vandervelt should get the English mission this time without fail. I wouldn't have him miss it for the whole world." "There's your man," said Grahame. "Better than the English mission, mother," Arthur said quickly, "would be the chief-justiceship for so good a man as Vandervelt. If you can get him to tell his friends he wants to be chief-justice, I can swear that he will get one place or the other. I know which one he would prefer. No, not the mission. That's for a few years, forgotten honors. The other's for life, lasting honor. Oh, how Vandervelt must sigh for that noble dais, the only throne in the Republic, the throne of American justice. Think, how Livingstone would defile it! The hater and persecutor of a wronged and hounded race, who begrudges us all but the honors of slavery, how could he understand and administer justice, even among his own?" "What are you raving about, Artie?" she complained. "I'll get Vandervelt to do anything if it's the right thing for him to do; only explain to me what you want done." He explained so clearly that she was filled with delight. With a quickness which astonished him, she picked up the threads of the intrigue; some had their beginning five years back, and she had not forgotten. Suddenly the root of the affair bared itself to her: this son of hers was doing battle for his own. She had forgotten Livingstone long ago, and therefore had forgiven him. Arthur had remembered. Her fine spirit stirred dubious Grahame. "Lave Vandervelt to me," she said, for her brogue came back and gently tripped her at times, "and do you young men look after Livingstone. I have no hard feelings against him, but, God forgive me, when I think of Louis Everard, and all that Mary suffered, and Honora, and the shame put upon us by Sister Claire, something like hate burns me. Anyway we're not worth bein' tramped upon, if we let the like of him get so high, when we can hinder it." "Hurrah for the Irish!" cried Grahame, and the two cheered her as she left the room to prepare for her share of the labor. The weight of the work lay in the swift and easy formation of an opposition whose strength and temper would be concealed except from the President, and whose action would be impressive, consistent, and dramatic. The press was to know only what it wished to know, without provocation. The main effort should convince the President of the unfitness of one candidate and the fitness of the other. There were to be no public meetings or loud denunciations. What cared the officials for mere cries of rage? Arthur found his task delightful, and he worked like a smith at the forge, heating, hammering, and shaping his engine of war. When ready for action, his mother had won Vandervelt, convinced him that his bid for the greater office would inevitably land him in either place. He had faith in her, and she had prophesied his future glory! Languidly the journals gave out in due time the advent of another candidate for the chief-justiceship, and also cloudy reports of Irish opposition to Livingstone. No one was interested but John Everard, still faithful to the Livingstone interest in spite of the gibes of Dillon and Grahame. The scheme worked so effectively that Arthur did not care to have any interruptions from this source. The leaders talked to the President singly, in the order of their importance, against his nominee, on the score of party peace. What need to disturb the Irish by naming a man who had always irritated and even insulted them? The representation in the House would surely suffer by his action, because in this way only could the offended people retaliate. They detested Livingstone. Day after day this testimony fairly rained upon the President, unanimous, consistent, and increasing in dignity with time, each protester seeming more important than he who just went out the door. Inquiries among the indifferent proved that the Irish would give much to see Livingstone lose the honors. And always in the foreground of the picture of protest stood the popular and dignified Vandervelt surrounded by admiring friends! Everard had the knack of ferreting out obscure movements. When this intrigue was laid bare he found Arthur Dillon at his throat on the morning he had chosen for a visit to the President. To promise the executive support from a strong Irish group in the appointment of Livingstone would have been fatal to the opposition. Hence the look which Arthur bestowed on Everard was as ugly as his determination to put the marplot in a retreat for the insane, if no other plan kept him at home. "I want to defeat Livingstone," said Arthur, "and I think I have him defeated. You had better stay at home. You are hurting a good cause." "I am going to destroy that good cause," John boasted gayly. "You thought you had the field to yourself. And you had, only that I discovered your game." "It's a thing to be proud of," Arthur replied sadly, "this steady support of the man who would have ruined your boy. Keep quiet. You've got to have the truth rammed down your throat, since you will take it in no other way. This Livingstone has been plotting against your race for twenty years. It may not matter to a disposition as crooked as yours, that he opened the eyes of English government people to the meaning of Irish advance in America, that he is responsible for Fritters, for the alliance, for McMeeter, for the escaped nun, for her vile _Confessions_, for the kidnapping societies here. You are cantankerous enough to forget that he used his position in London to do us harm, and you won't see that he will do as much with the justiceship. Let these things pass. If you were a good Catholic one might excuse your devotion to Livingstone on the score that you were eager to return good for evil. But you're a half-cooked Catholic, John. Let that pass too. Have you no manhood left in you? Are you short on self-respect? This man brought out and backed the woman who sought to ruin your son, to break your wife's heart, to destroy your own happiness. With his permission she slandered the poor nuns with tongue and pen, a vile woman hired to defile the innocent. And for this man you throw dirt on your own, for this man you are going to fight your own that he may get honors which he will shame. Isn't it fair to think that you are going mad, Everard?" "Don't attempt," said the other in a fury, "to work off your oratory on me. I am going to Washington to expose your intrigues against a gentleman. What! am I to tremble at your frown----?" "Rot, man! Who asked you to tremble? I saved your boy from Livingstone, and I shall save you from yourself, even if I have to put you in an asylum for the harmless insane. Don't you believe that Livingstone is the patron of Sister Claire? that he is indirectly responsible for that scandal?" "I never did, and I never shall," with vehemence. "You are one of those that can prove anything----" "If you were sure of his responsibility, would you go to Washington?" "Haven't I the evidence of my own senses? Were not all Livingstone's friends on the committee which exposed Sister Claire?" "Because we insisted on that or a public trial, and they came with sour stomachs," said Arthur, glad that he had begun to discuss the point. "Would you go to Washington if you were sure he backed the woman?" "Enough, young man. I'm off for the train. Here, Mary, my satchel----" Two strong bands were laid on his shoulders, he was pushed back into his chair, and the face which glowered on him after this astonishing violence for the moment stilled his rage and astonishment. "Would you go to Washington if you were sure Livingstone backed Sister Claire?" came the relentless question. "No, I wouldn't," he answered vacantly. "Do you wish to be made sure of it?" He began to turn purple and to bluster. "Not a word," said his master, "not a cry. Just answer that question. Do you wish to be made sure of this man's atrocious guilt and your own folly?" "I want to know what is the meaning of this," Everard sputtered, "this violence? In my own house, in broad day, like a burglar." "Answer the question." Alarm began to steal over Everard, who was by no means a brave man. Had Arthur Dillon, always a strange fellow, gone mad? Or was this scene a hint of murder? The desperate societies to which Dillon was said to belong often indulged in violence. It had never occurred to him before that these secret forces must be fighting Livingstone through Dillon. They would never permit him to use his influence at Washington in the Minister's behalf. Dreadful! He must dissemble. "If you can make me sure, I am willing," he said meekly. "Read that, then," and Arthur placed his winning card, as he thought, in his hands; the private confession of Sister Claire as to the persons who had assisted her in her outrageous schemes; and the chief, of course, was Livingstone. Everard read it with contempt. "Legally you know what her testimony is worth," said he. "You accepted her testimony as to her own frauds, and so did the whole committee." "We had to accept the evidence of our own senses." Obstinate to the last was Everard. "You will not be convinced," said Arthur rudely, "but you can be muzzled. I say again: keep away from Washington, and keep your hands off my enterprise. You have some idea of what happens to men like you for interfering. If I meet you in Washington, or find any trace of your meddling in the matter, here is what I shall do; this whole scandal of the escaped nun shall be reopened, this confession shall be printed, and the story of Louis' adventure, from that notable afternoon at four o'clock until his return, word for word, with portraits of his interesting family, of Sister Claire, all the details, will be given to the journals. Do you understand? Meanwhile, study this problem in psychology: how long will John Everard be able to endure life after I tell the Irish how he helped to enthrone their bitterest enemy?" He did not wait for an answer, but left the baffled man to wrestle with the situation, which must have worsted him, for his hand did not appear in the game at Washington. Very smoothly the plans of Arthur worked to their climax. The friends of Vandervelt pressed his cause as urgently and politely as might be, and with increasing energy as the embarrassment of the President grew. The inherent weakness of Vandervelt's case appeared to the tireless Dillon more appalling in the last moments than at the beginning: the situation had no logical outcome. It was merely a question whether the President would risk a passing unpopularity. He felt the absence of Birmingham keenly, the one man who could say to the executive with authority, this appointment would be a blunder. Birmingham being somewhere on the continent, out of reach of appeals for help, his place was honorably filled by the General of the Army, with an influence, however, purely sentimental. Arthur accompanied him for the last interview with the President. Only two days intervened before the invitation would be sent to Livingstone to return home. The great man listened with sympathy to the head of the army making his protest, but would promise nothing; he had fixed an hour however for the settlement of the irritating problem; if they would call the next morning at ten, he would give them his unalterable decision. Feeling that the decision must be against his hopes, Arthur passed a miserable night prowling with Grahame about the hotel. Had he omitted any point in the fight? Was there any straw afloat which could be of service? Doyle used his gift of poetry to picture for him the return of Livingstone, and his induction into office; the serenity of mind, the sense of virtue and patriotism rewarded, his cold contempt of the defeated opposition and their candidate, the matchless dignity, which would exalt Livingstone to the skies as the Chief-Justice. Their only consolation was the fight itself, which had shaken for a moment the edifice of the Minister's fame. The details went to London from friends close to the President, and enabled Livingstone to measure the full strength of a young man's hatred. The young man should be attended to after the struggle. There was no reason to lose confidence. While the factions were still worrying, the cablegram came with the request that he sail on Saturday for home, the equivalent of appointment. When reading it at the Savage Club, whither a special messenger had followed him, the heavy mustache and very round spectacles of Birmingham rose up suddenly before him, and they exchanged greetings with the heartiness of exiles from the same land. The Minister remembered that his former rival had no share in the attempt to deprive him of his coming honors, and Birmingham recalled the rumor picked up that day in the city. "I suppose there's no truth in it," he said. The Minister handed him the cablegram. "Within ten days," making a mental calculation, "I should be on my way back to London, with the confirmation of the Senate practically secured." "When it comes I shall be pleased to offer my congratulations," Birmingham replied, and the remark slightly irritated Livingstone. Could he have seen what happened during the next few hours his sleep would have lost its sweetness. Birmingham went straight to the telegraph office, and sent a cipher despatch to his man of business, ordering him to see the President that night in Washington, and to declare in his name, with all the earnestness demanded by the situation, that the appointment of Livingstone would mean political death to him and immense embarrassment to his party for years. As it would be three in the morning before a reply would reach London, Birmingham went to bed with a good conscience. Thus, while the two young men babbled all night in the hotel, and thought with dread of the fatal hour next morning, wire, and train, and business man flew into the capital and out of it, carrying one man's word in and another man's glory out, fleet, silent, unrecognized, unhonored, and unknown. At breakfast Birmingham read the reply from his business man with profound satisfaction. At breakfast the Minister read a second cablegram with a sudden recollection of Birmingham's ominous words the night before. He knew that he would need no congratulations, for the prize had been snatched away forever. The cablegram informed him that he should not sail on Saturday, and that explanations would follow. For a moment his proud heart failed him. Bitterness flowed in on him, so that the food in his mouth became tasteless. What did he care that his enemies had triumphed? Or, that he had been overthrown? The loss of the vision which had crowned his life, and made a hard struggle for what he thought the fit and right less sordid, even beautiful; that was a calamity. He had indulged it in spite of mental protests against the dangerous folly. The swift imagination, prompted by all that was Livingstone in him, had gone over the many glories of the expected dignity; the departure from beautiful and flattering England, the distinction of the return to his beloved native land, the splendid interval before the glorious day, the crowning honors amid the applause of his own, and the long sweet afternoon of life, when each day would bring its own distinction! He had had his glimpse of Paradise. Oh, never, never would life be the same for him! He began to study the reasons for his ill-success.... At ten o'clock that day the President informed the General of the Army in Mr. Dillon's presence that he had sent the name of Hon. Van Rensselaer Vandervelt to the Senate for the position of Chief-Justice! THE TEST OF DISAPPEARANCE. CHAPTER XXVII. A PROBLEM OF DISAPPEARANCE. After patient study of the disappearance of Horace Endicott, for five years, Richard Curran decided to give up the problem. All clues had come to nothing. Not the faintest trace of the missing man had been found. His experience knew nothing like it. The money earned in the pursuit would never repay him for the loss of self-confidence and of nerve, due to study and to ill success. But for his wife he would have withdrawn long ago from the search. "Since you have failed," she said, "take up my theory. You will find that man in Arthur Dillon." "That's the strongest reason for giving up," he replied. "Once before I felt my mind going from insane eagerness to solve the problem. It would not do to have us both in the asylum at once." "I made more money in following my instincts, Dick, than you have made in chasing your theories. Instinct warned me years ago that Arthur Dillon is another than what he pretends. It warns me now that he is Horace Endicott. At least before you give up for good, have a shy at my theory." "Instinct! Theory! It is pure hatred. And the hate of a woman can make her take an ass for Apollo." "No doubt I hate him. Oh, how I hate that man ... and young Everard...." "Or any man that escapes you," he filled in with sly malice. "Be careful, Dick," she screamed at him, and he apologized. "That hate is more to me than my child. It will grow big enough to kill him yet. But apart from hate, Arthur Dillon is not the man he seems. I could swear he is Horace Endicott. Remember all I have told you about his return. He came back from California about the time Endicott disappeared. I was playing Edith Conyngham then with great success, though not to crowded houses." She laughed heartily at the recollection. "I remarked to myself even then that Anne Dillon ... she's the choice hypocrite ... did not seem easy in showing the letter which told of his coming back, how sorry he was for his conduct, how happy he would make her with the fortune he had earned." "All pure inference," said Curran. "Twenty men arrived home in New York about the same time with fortunes from the mines, and some without fortunes from the war." "Then how do you account for this, smart one? Never a word of his life in California from that day to this. Mind that. No one knows, or seems to know, just where he had been, just how he got his money ... you understand ... all the little bits o' things that are told, and guessed, and leak out in a year. I asked fifty people, I suppose, and all they knew was: California. You'd think Judy Haskell knew, and she told me everything. What had she to tell? that no one dared to ask him about such matters." "Dillon is a very close man." "Endicott had to be among that long-tongued Irish crowd. I watched him. He was stupid at first ... stuck to the house ... no one saw him for weeks ... except the few. He listened and watched ... I saw him ... his eyes and his ears ought to be as big as a donkey's from it ... and he said nothing. They made excuses for a thing that everyone saw and talked about. He was ill. I say he wanted to make no mistakes; he was learning his part; there was nothing of the Irish in him, only the sharp Yankee. It made me wonder for weeks what was wrong. He looked as much like the boy that ran away as you do. And then I had no suspicions, mind you. I believed Anne Dillon's boy had come back with a fortune, and I was thinking how I could get a good slice of it." "And you didn't get a cent," Curran remarked. "He hated me from the beginning. It takes one that is playing a part to catch another in the same business. After a while he began to bloom. He got more Irish than the Irish. There's no Yankee living, no Englishman, can play the Irishman. He can give a good imitation maybe, d'ye hear? That's what Dillon gave. He did everything that young Dillon used to do before he left home ... a scamp he was too. He danced jigs, flattered the girls, chummed with the ditch-diggers and barkeepers ... and he hated them all, women and men. The Yankees hate the Irish as easy as they breathe. I tell you he had forgotten nothing that he used to do as a boy. And the fools that looked on said, oh, it's easy to see he was sick, for now that he is well we can all recognize our old dare-devil, Arthur." "He's dare-devil clear enough," commented her husband. "First point you've scored," she said with contempt. "Horace Endicott was a milksop: to run away when he should have killed the two idiots. Dillon is a devil, as I ought to know. But the funniest thing was his dealings with his mother. She was afraid of him ... as much as I am ... she is till this minute. Haven't I seen her look at him, when she dared to say a sharp thing? And she's a good actress, mind you. It took her years to act as a mother can act with a son." "Quite natural, I think. He went away a boy, came back a rich man, and was able to boss things, having the cash." "You think! You! I've seen ten years of your thinking! Well, I thought too. I saw a chance for cash, where I smelled a mystery. Do you know that he isn't a Catholic? Do you know that he's strange to all Catholic ways? that he doesn't know how to hear Mass, to kneel when he enters a pew, to bless himself when he takes the holy water at the door? Do you know that he never goes to communion? And therefore he never goes to confession. Didn't I watch for years, so that I might find out what was wrong with him, and make some money?" "All that's very plausible," said her husband. "Only, there are many Catholics in this town, and in particular the Californians, that forgot as much as he forgot about their religion, and more." "But he is not a Catholic," she persisted. "There's an understanding between him and Monsignor O'Donnell. They exchange looks when they meet. He visits the priest when he feels like it, but in public they keep apart. Oh, all round, that Arthur Dillon is the strangest fellow; but he plays his part so well that fools like you, Dick, are tricked." "You put a case well, Dearie. But it doesn't convince me. However," for he knew her whim must be obeyed, "I don't mind trying again to find Horace Endicott in this Arthur Dillon." "And of course," with a sneer, "you'll begin with the certainty that there's nothing in the theory. What can the cleverest man discover, when he's sure beforehand that there's nothing to discover?" "My word, Colette, if I take up the matter, I'll convince you that you're wrong, or myself that you're right. And I'll begin right here this minute. I believe with you that we have found Endicott at last. Then the first question I ask myself is: who helped Horace Endicott to become Arthur Dillon?" "Monsignor O'Donnell of course," she answered. "Then Endicott must have known the priest before he disappeared: known him so as to trust him, and to get a great favor from him? Now, Sonia didn't know that fact." "That fool of a woman knows nothing, never did, never will," she snapped. "Well, for the sake of peace let us say he was helped by Monsignor, and knew the priest a little before he went away. Monsignor helped him to find his present hiding-place; quite naturally he knew Mrs. Dillon, how her son had gone and never been heard of: and he knew it would be a great thing for her to have a son with an income like Endicott's. The next question is: how many people know at this moment who Dillon really is?" "Just two, sir. He's a fox ... they're three foxes ... Monsignor, Anne Dillon, and Arthur himself. I know, for I watched 'em all, his uncle, his friends, his old chums ... the fellows he played with before he ran away ... and no one knows but the two that had to know ... sly Anne and smooth Monsignor. They made the money that I wasn't smart enough to get hold of." "Then the next question is: is it worth while to make inquiries among the Irish, his friends and neighbors, the people that knew the real Dillon?" "You won't find out any more than I've told you, but you may prove how little reason they have for accepting him as the boy that ran away." "After that it would be necessary to search California." "Poor Dick," she interrupted with compassion, smoothing his beard. "You are really losing your old cleverness. Search California! Can't you see yet the wonderful 'cuteness of this man, Endicott? He settled all that before he wrote the letter to Anne Dillon, saying that her son was coming home. He found out the career of Arthur Dillon in California. If he found that runaway he sent him off to Australia with a lump of money, to keep out of sight for twenty years. Did the scamp need much persuading? I reckon not. He had been doing it for nothing ten years. Or, perhaps the boy was dead: then he had only to make the proper connections with his history up to the time of his death. Or he may have disappeared forever, and that made the matter all the simpler for Endicott. Oh, you're not clever, Dick," and she kissed him to sweeten the bitterness of the opinion. "I'm not convinced," he said cheerfully. "Then tell me what to do." "I don't know myself. Endicott took his money with him. Where does Arthur Dillon keep his money? How did it get there? Where was it kept before that? How is he spending it just now? Does he talk in his sleep? Are there any mementoes of his past in his private boxes? Could he be surprised into admissions of his real character by some trick, such as bringing him face to face on a sudden with Sonia? Wouldn't that be worth seeing? Just like the end of a drama. You know the marks on Endicott's body, birthmarks and the like ... are they on Dillon's body? The boy that ran away must have had some marks.... Judy Haskell would know ... are they on Endicott's body?" "You've got the map of the business in that pretty head perfect," said Curran in mock admiration. "But don't you see, my pet, that if this man is as clever as you would have him he has already seen to these things? He has removed the birthmarks and peculiarities of Horace, and adopted those of Arthur? You'll find it a tangled business the deeper you dive into it." "Well, it's your business to dive deeper than the tangle," she answered crossly. "If I had your practice----" "You would leave me miles behind, of course. Here's the way I would reason about this thing: Horace Endicott is now known as Arthur Dillon; he has left no track by which Endicott can be traced to his present locality; but there must be a very poor connection between the Dillon at home and the real Dillon in California, in Australia, or in his grave; if we can trace the real Arthur Dillon then we take away the foundations of his counterfeit. Do you see? I say a trip to California and a clean examination there, after we have done our best here to pick flaws in the position of the gentleman who has been so cruel to my pet. He must get his punishment for that, I swear." "Ah, there's the rub," she whimpered in her childish way. "I hate him, and I love him. He's the finest fellow in the world. He has the strength of ten. See how he fought the battles of the Irish against his own. One minute I could tear him like a wolf, and now I could let him tear me to pieces. You are fond of him too, Dick." "I would follow him to the end of the world, through fire and flood and fighting," said the detective with feeling. "He loves Ireland, he loves and pities our poor people, he is spending his money for them. But I could kill him just the same for his cruelty to you. He's a hard man, Colette." "Now I know what you are trying to do," she said sharply. "You think you can frighten me by telling me what I know already. Well, you can't." "No, no," he protested, "I was thinking of another thing. We'll come to the danger part later. There is one test of this man that ought to be tried before all others. When I have sounded the people about Arthur Dillon, and am ready for California, Sonia Endicott should be brought here to have a good look at him in secret first; and then, perhaps, in the open, if you thought well of it." "Why shouldn't I think well of it? But will it do any good, and mayn't it do harm? Sonia has no brains. If you can't see any resemblance between Arthur and the pictures of Horace Endicott, what can Sonia see?" "The eyes of hate, and the eyes of love," said he sagely. "Then I'd be afraid to bring them together," she admitted whispering again, and cowering into his arms. "If he suspects I am hunting him down, he will have no pity." "No doubt of it," he said thoughtfully. "I have always felt the devil in him. Endicott was a fat, gay, lazy sport, that never so much as rode after the hounds. Now Arthur Dillon has had his training in the mines. That explains his dare-devil nature." "And Horace Endicott was betrayed by the woman he loved," she cried with sudden fierceness. "That turns a man sour quicker than all the mining-camps in the world. That made him lean and terrible like a wolf. That sharpened his teeth, and gave him a taste for woman's blood. That's why he hates me." "You're wrong again, my pet. He has a liking for you, but you spoil it by laying hands on his own. You saw his looks when he was hunting for young Everard." "Oh, how he frightens me," and she began to walk the room in a rage. "How I would like to throw off this fear and face him and fight him, as I face you. I'll do it if the terror kills me. I shall not be terrified by any man. You shall hunt him down, Dick Curran. Begin at once. When you are ready send for Sonia. I'll bring them together myself, and take the responsibility. What can he do but kill me?" Sadness came over the detective as she returned to her seat on his knee. "He is not the kind, little girl," said he, "that lays hands on a woman or a man outside of fair, free, open fight before the whole world." "What do you mean?" knowing very well what he meant. "If he found you on his trail," with cunning deliberation, so that every word beat heart and brain like a hammer, "and if he is really Horace Endicott, he would only have to give your character and your address----" "To the dogs," she shrieked in a sudden access of horror. Then she lay very still in his arms, and the man laughed quietly to himself, sure that he had subdued her and driven her crazy scheme into limbo. The wild creature had one dread and by reason of it one master. Never had she been so amenable to discipline as under Dillon's remote and affable authority. Curran had no fear of consequences in studying the secret years of Arthur Dillon's existence. The study might reveal things which a young man preferred to leave in the shadows, but would not deliver up to Sonia her lost Horace; and even if Arthur came to know what they were doing, he could smile at Edith's vagaries. "What shall we do?" he ventured to say at last. "Find Horace Endicott in Arthur Dillon," was the unexpected answer, energetic, but sighed rather than spoken. "I fear him, I love him, I hate him, and I'm going to destroy him before he destroys me. Begin to-night." CHAPTER XXVIII. A FIRST TEST. Curran could not study the Endicott problem. His mind had lost edge in the vain process, getting as confused over details as the experimenter in perpetual motion after an hundred failures. In favor of Edith he said to himself that her instincts had always been remarkable, always helpful; and her theory compared well with the twenty upon which he had worked years to no purpose. Since he could not think the matter out, he went straight on in the fashion which fancy had suggested. Taking it for granted that Dillon and Endicott were the same man, he must establish the connection; that is, discover the moment when Horace Endicott passed from his own into the character of Arthur Dillon. Two persons would know the fact: Anne Dillon and her son. Four others might have knowledge of it; Judy, the Senator, Louis, and Monsignor. A fifth might be added, if the real Arthur Dillon were still living in obscurity, held there by the price paid him for following his own whim. Others would hardly be in the secret. The theory was charming in itself, and only a woman like Edith, whose fancy had always been sportive, would have dreamed it. The detective recalled Arthur's interest in his pursuit of Endicott; then the little scenes on board the _Arrow_; and grew dizzy to think of the man pursued comparing his own photograph with his present likeness, under the eyes of the detective who had grown stale in the chase of him. He knew of incidents quite as remarkable, which had a decent explanation afterwards, however. He went about among the common people of Cherry Hill, who had known Arthur Dillon from his baptism, had petted him every week until he disappeared, and now adored him in his success. He renewed acquaintance with them, and heaped them with favors. Loitering about in their idling places, he threw out the questions; hints, surmises, which might bring to the surface their faith in Arthur Dillon. He reported the result to Edith. "Not one of them" said he, "but would go to court and swear a bushel of oaths that Arthur Dillon is the boy who ran away. They have their reasons too; how he dances, and sings, and plays the fiddle, and teases the girls, just as he did when a mere strip of a lad; how the devil was always in him for doing the thing that no one looked for; how he had no fear of even the priest, or of the wildest horse; and sought out terrible things to do and to dare, just as now he shakes up your late backers, bishops, ministers, ambassadors, editors, or plots against England; all as if he earned a living that way." She sneered at this bias, and bade him search deeper. It was necessary to approach the Senator on the matter. He secured from him a promise that their talk would remain a secret, not only because the matter touched one very dear to the Senator, but also because publicity might ruin the detective himself. If the Senator did not care to give his word, there would be no talk, but his relative might also be exposed to danger. The Senator was always gracious with Curran. "Do you know anything about Arthur's history in California?" and his lazy eyes noted every change in the ruddy, handsome face. "Never asked him but one question about it. He answered that straight, and never spoke since about it. Nothing wrong, I hope?" the Senator answered with alarm. "Lots, I guess, but I don't know for sure. Here are the circumstances. Think them out for yourself. A crowd of sharp speculators in California mines bought a mine from Arthur Dillon when he was settling up his accounts to come home to his mother. As trouble arose lately about that mine, they had to hunt up Arthur Dillon. They send their agent to New York, he comes to Arthur, and has a talk with him. Then he goes back to his speculators, and declares to them that this Arthur Dillon is not the man who sold the mine. So the company, full of suspicion, offers me the job of looking up the character of Arthur, and what he had been doing these ten years. They say straight out that the real Arthur Dillon has been put out of the way, and that the man who is holding the name and the stakes here in New York is a fraud." This bit of fiction relieved the Senator's mind. "A regular cock-and-bull story," said he with indignation. "What's their game? Did you tell them what we think of Artie? Would his own mother mistake him? Or even his uncle? If they're looking for hurt, tell them they're on the right road." "No, no," said Curran, "these are straight men. But if doubt is cast on a business transaction, they intend to clear it away. It would be just like them to bring suit to establish the identity of Arthur with the Arthur Dillon who sold them the mine. Now, Senator, could you go into court and swear positively that the young man who came back from California five years ago is the nephew who ran away from home at the age of fifteen?" "Swear it till I turned blue; why, it's foolish, simply foolish. And every man, woman, and child in the district would do the same. Why don't you go and talk with Artie about it?" "Because the company doesn't wish to make a fuss until they have some ground to walk on," replied Curran easily. "When I tell them how sure the relatives and friends of Arthur are about his identity, they may drop the affair. But now, Senator, just discussing the thing as friends, you know, if you were asked in court why you were so sure Arthur is your nephew, what could you tell the court?" "If the court asked me how I knew my mother was my mother----" "That's well enough, I know. But in this case Arthur was absent ten years, in which time you never saw him, heard of him, or from him." "Good point," said the Senator musingly. "When Artie came home from California, he was sick, and I went to see him. He was in bed. Say, I'll never forget it, Curran. I saw Pat sick once at the same age ... Pat was his father, d'ye see?... and here was Pat lying before me in the bed. I tell you it shook me. I never thought he'd grow so much like his father, though he has the family features. Know him to be Pat's son? Why, if he told me himself he was any one else, I wouldn't believe him." Evidently the Senator knew nothing of Horace Endicott and recognised Arthur Dillon as his brother's son. The detective was not surprised; neither was Edith at the daily report. "There isn't another like him on earth," she said with the pride of a discoverer. "Keep on until you find his tracks, here or in California." Curran had an interesting chat with Judy Haskell on a similar theme, but with a different excuse from that which roused the Senator. The old lady knew the detective only as Arthur's friend. He approached her mysteriously, with a story of a gold mine awaiting Arthur in California, as soon as he could prove to the courts that he was really Arthur Dillon. Judy began to laugh. "Prove that he's Arthur Dillon! Faith, an' long I'd wait for a gold mine if I had to prove I was Judy Haskell. How can any one prove themselves to be themselves, Misther Curran? Are the courts goin' crazy?" The detective explained what evidence a court would accept as proof of personality. "Well, Arthur can give that aisy enough," said she. "But he won't touch the thing at all, Mrs. Haskell. He was absent ten years, and maybe he doesn't want that period ripped up in a court. It might appear that he had a wife, you know, or some other disagreeable thing might leak out. When the lawyers get one on the witness stand, they make hares of him." "Sure enough," said Judy thoughtfully. Had she not suggested this very suspicion to Anne? The young are wild, and even Arthur could have slipped from grace in that interval of his life. Curran hoped that Arthur could prove his identity without exposing the secrets of the past. "For example," said he smoothly, with an eye for Judy's expression, "could you go to court to-morrow and swear that Arthur is the same lad that ran away from his mother fifteen years ago?" "I cud swear as manny oaths on that point as there are hairs in yer head," said Judy. "And what would you say, Mrs. Haskell, if the judge said to you: Now, madam, it's very easy for you to say you know the young man to be the same person as the runaway boy; but how do you know it? what makes you think you know it?" "I'd say he was purty sassy, indade. Of coorse I'd say that to meself, for ye can't talk to a judge as aisy an' free as to a lawyer. Well, I'd say manny pleasant things. Arthur was gone tin years, but I knew him an' he knew me the minute we set eyes on aich other. Then, agin, I knew him out of his father. He doesn't favor the mother at all, for she's light an' he's dark. There's a dale o' the Dillon in him. Then, agin, how manny things he tould me of the times we had together, an' he even asked me if Teresa Flynn, his sweetheart afore he wint off, was livin' still. Oh, as thrue as ye're sittin' there! Poor thing, she was married. An' he remembered how fond he was o' rice puddin' ice cold. An' he knew Louis Everard the minute he shtud forninst him in the door. But what's the use o' talkin'? I cud tell ye for hours all the things he said an' did to show he was Arthur Dillon." "Has he any marks on his body that would help to identify him, if he undertook to get the gold mine that belongs to him?" "Artie had only wan mark on him as a boy ... he was the most spotless child I ever saw ... an' that was a mole on his right shoulder. He tuk it wid him to California, an' he brought it back, for I saw it meself in the same spot while he was sick, an' I called his attintion to it, an' he was much surprised, for he had never thought of it wanst." "It's my opinion," said Curran solemnly, "that he can prove his identity without exposing his life in the west. I hope to persuade him to it. Maybe the photographs of himself and his father would help. Have you any copies of them?" "There's jist two. I wudn't dare to take thim out of his room, but if ye care to walk up-stairs, Mr. Curran, an' luk at thim there, ye're welcome. He an' his mother are away the night to a gran' ball." They entered Arthur's apartments together, and Judy showed the pictures of Arthur Dillon as a boy of fourteen, and of his youthful father; old daguerreotypes, but faithful and clear as a likeness. Judy rattled on for an hour, but the detective had achieved his object. She had no share in the secret. Arthur Dillon was his father's son, for her. He studied the pictures, and carefully examined the rooms, his admiration provoking Judy into a display of their beauties. With the skill and satisfaction of an artist in man-hunting, he observed how thoroughly the character of the young man displayed itself in the trifles of decoration and furnishing. The wooden crucifix with the pathetic figure in bronze on the wall over the desk, the holy water stoup at the door, carved figures of the Holy Family, a charming group, on the desk, exquisite etchings of the Christ and the Madonna after the masters, a _prie-dieu_ in the inner room with a group of works of devotion: and Edith had declared him no Catholic. Here was the refutation. "He is a pious man," Curran said. "And no wan sees it but God and himself. So much the betther, I say," Judy remarked. "Only thim that had sorra knows how to pray, an' he prays like wan that had his fill of it." The tears came into the man's eyes at the indications of Arthur's love for poor Erin. Hardness was the mark of Curran, and sin had been his lifelong delight; but for his country he had kept a tenderness and devotion that softened and elevated his nature at times. Of little use and less honor to his native land, he felt humbled in this room, whose books, pictures, and ornaments revealed thought and study in behalf of a harried and wretched people, yet the student was not a native of Ireland. It seemed profane to set foot here, to spy upon its holy privacy. He felt glad that its details gave the lie so emphatically to Edith's instincts. The astonishing thing was the absence of Californian relics and mementoes. Some photographs and water colors, whose names Curran mentally copied for future use, pictured popular scenes on the Pacific slope; but they could be bought at any art store. Surely his life in the mines, with all the luck that had come to him, must have held some great bitterness, that he never spoke of it casually, and banished all remembrances. That would come up later, but Curran had made up his mind that no secret of Arthur's life should ever see the light because he found it. Not even vengeful Edith, and she had the right to hate her enemy, should wring from him any disagreeable facts in the lad's career. So deeply the detective respected him! In the place of honor, at the foot of his bed, where his eyes rested on them earliest and latest, hung a group of portraits in oil, in the same frame, of Louis the beloved, from his babyhood to the present time: on the side wall hung a painting of Anne in her first glory as mistress of the new home in Washington Square; opposite, Monsignor smiled down in purple splendor; two miniatures contained the grave, sweet, motherly face of Mary Everard and the auburn hair and lovely face of Mona. "There are the people he loves," said Curran with emotion. "Ay, indade," Judy said tenderly, "an' did ever a wild boy like him love his own more? Night an' day his wan thought is of them. The sun rises an' sets for him behind that picther there," pointing to Louis' portraits. "If annythin' had happened to that lovely child last Spring he'd a-choked the life out o' wan woman wid his own two hands. He's aisy enough, God knows, but I'd rather jump into the say than face him when the anger is in him." "He's a terrible man," said Curran, repeating Edith's phrase. He examined some manuscript in Arthur's handwriting. How different from the careless scrawl of Horace Endicott this clear, bold, dashing script, which ran full speed across the page, yet turned with ease and leisurely from the margin. What a pity Edith could not see with her own eyes these silent witnesses to the truth. Beyond the study was a music-room, where hung his violin over some scattered music. Horace Endicott hated the practising of the art, much as he loved the opera. It was all very sweet, just what the detective would have looked for, beautiful to see. He could have lingered in the rooms and speculated on that secret and manly life, whose currents were so feebly but shiningly indicated in little things. It occurred to him that copies of the daguerreotypes, Arthur at fourteen and his father at twenty-five, would be of service in the search through California. He spoke of it to Judy. "Sure that was done years ago," said Judy cautiously. "Anne Dillon wouldn't have it known for the world, ye see, but I know that she sint a thousand o' thim to the polis in California; an' that's the way she kem across the lad. Whin he found his mother shtill mournin' him, he wrote to her that he had made his pile an' was comin' home. Anne has the pride in her, an' she wants all the world to believe he kem home of himself, d'ye see? Now kape that a secret, mind." "And do you never let on what I've been telling you," said Curran gravely. "It may come to nothing, and it may come to much, but we must be silent." She had given her word, and Judy's word was like the laws of the Medes and Persians. Curran rejoiced at the incident of the daguerreotypes, which anticipated his proposed search in California. Vainly however did he describe the result of his inquiry for Edith. She would have none of his inferences. He must try to entrap Anne Dillon and the priest, and afterwards he might scrape the surface of California. CHAPTER XXIX. THE NERVE OF ANNE. Curran laid emphasis in his account to his wife on the details of Arthur's rooms, and on the photographs which had helped to discover the lost boy in California. Edith laughed at him. "Horace Endicott invented that scheme of the photographs," said she. "The dear clever boy! If he had been the detective, not a stupid like you! I saw Arthur Dillon in church many times in four years, and I tell you he is not a Catholic born, no matter what you saw in his rooms. He's playing the part of Arthur Dillon to the last letter. Don't look at me that way, Dick or I'll scratch your face. You want to say that I am crazy over this theory, and that I have an explanation ready for all your objections." "I have nothing to say, I am just working on your lines, dearie," he replied humbly. "Just now your game is busy with an affair of the heart. He won't be too watchful, unless, as I think, he's on our tracks all the time. You ought to get at his papers." "A love affair! Our tracks!" Curran repeated in confusion. "Do you think you can catch a man like Arthur napping?" she sneered. "Is there a moment in the last four years that he has been asleep? See to it that you are not reported to him every night. But if he is in love with Honora Ledwith, there's a chance that he won't see or care to see what you are doing. She's a lovely girl. A hint of another woman would settle his chances of winning her. I can give her that. I'd like to. A woman of her stamp has no business marrying." She mused a few minutes over her own statements, while Curran stared. He began to feel that the threads of this game were not all in his hands. "You must now go to the priest and Anne Dillon," she resumed, "and say to them plump ... take the priest first ... say to them plump before they can hold their faces in shape: do you know Horace Endicott? Then watch the faces, and get what you can out of them." "That means you will have Arthur down on you next day." "Sure," catching her breath. "But it is now near the end of the season. When he comes to have it out with me, he will find himself face to face with Sonia. If it's to be a fight, he'll find a tiger. Then we can run away to California, if Sonia says so." "You are going to bring Sonia down, then?" "You suggested it. Lemme tell you what you're going to find out to-day. You're going to find out that Monsignor knew Horace Endicott. After that I think it would be all right to bring down Sonia." Little use to argue with her, or with any woman for that matter, once an idea lodged so deep in her brain. He went to see Monsignor, with the intention of being candid with him: in fact there was no other way of dealing with the priest. In his experience Curran had found no class so difficult to deal with as the clergy. They were used to keeping other people's secrets as well as their own. He did not reveal his plan to Edith, because he feared her criticism, and could not honestly follow her methods. He had not, with all his skill and cunning, her genius for ferreting. Monsignor, acquainted with him, received him coldly. Edith's instructions were, ask the question plump, watch his face, and then run to Anne Dillon before she can be warned by the Monsignor's messenger. Looking into the calm, well-drilled countenance of the priest, Curran found it impossible to surprise him so uncourteously. Anyway the detective felt sure that there would be no surprise, except at the mere question. "I would like to ask you a question, Monsignor," said Curran smoothly, "which I have no right to ask perhaps. I am looking for a man who disappeared some time ago, and the parties interested hope that you can give some information. You can tell me if the question is at all impertinent, and I will go. Do you know Horace Endicott?" There was no change in the priest's expression or manner, no starting, no betrayal of feeling. Keeping his eyes on the detective's face, he repeated the name as one utters a half-forgotten thing. "Why has that name a familiar sound?" he asked himself. "You may have read it frequently in the papers at the time Horace Endicott disappeared," Curran suggested. "Possibly, but I do not read the journals so carefully," Monsignor answered musingly. "Endicott, Endicott ... I have it ... and it brings to my mind the incident of the only railroad wreck in which I have ever had the misfortune to be ... only this time it was good fortune for one poor man." Very deliberately he told the story of the collision and of his slight acquaintance with the young fellow whose name, as well as he could remember, was Endicott. The detective handed him a photograph of the young man. "How clearly this picture calls up the whole scene," said Monsignor much pleased. "This is the very boy. Have you a copy of this? Do send me one." "You can keep that," said Curran, delighted at his progress, astonished that Edith's prophecy should have come true. Naturally the next question would be, have you seen the young man since that time? and Curran would have asked it had not the priest broken in with a request for the story of his disappearance. It was told. "Of course I shall be delighted to give what information I possess," said Monsignor. "There was no secret about him then ... many others saw him ... of course this must have been some time before he disappeared. But let me ask a question before we go any further. How did you suspect my acquaintance with a man whom I met so casually? The incident had almost faded from my mind. In fact I have never mentioned it to a soul." "It was a mere guess on the part of those interested in finding him." "Still the guess must have been prompted by some theory of the search." "I am almost ashamed to tell it," Curran said uneasily. "The truth is that my employers suspect that Horace Endicott has been hiding for years under the character of Arthur Dillon." Monsignor looked amazed for a moment and then laughed. "Interesting for Mr. Dillon and his friends, particularly if this Endicott is wanted for any crime...." "Oh, no, no," cried the detective. "It is his wife who is seeking him, a perfectly respectable man, you know ... it's a long story. We have chased many a man supposed to be Endicott, and Mr. Dillon is the latest. I don't accept the theory myself. I know Dillon is Dillon, but a detective must sift the theories of his employers. In fact my work up to this moment proves very clearly that of all our wrong chases this is the worst." "It looks absurd at first sight. I remember the time poor Mrs. Dillon sent out her photographs, scattered a few hundred of them among the police and the miners of California, in the hope of finding her lost son. That was done with my advice. She had her first response, a letter from her son, about the very time that I met young Endicott. For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone should suppose Arthur Dillon...." He picked up the photograph of Endicott again. "The two men look as much alike as I look like you. I'm glad you mentioned the connection which Dillon has with the matter. You will kindly leave me out of it until you have made inquiries of Mr. Dillon himself. It would not do, you understand, for a priest in my position to give out any details in a matter which may yet give trouble. I fear that in telling you of my meeting with Endicott I have already overstepped the limits of prudence. However, that was my fault, as you warned me. Thanks for the photograph, a very nice souvenir of a tragedy. Poor young fellow! Better had he perished in the smash-up than to go out of life in so dreary a way." "If I might venture another----" "Pardon, not another word. In any official and public way I am always ready to tell what the law requires, or charity demands." "You would be willing then to declare that Arthur Dillon----" "Is Mrs. Dillon's son? Certainly ... at any time, under proper conditions. Good morning. Don't mention it," and Curran was outside the door before his thoughts took good shape; so lost in wonder over the discovery of Monsignor's acquaintance with Endicott, that he forgot to visit Anne Dillon. Instead he hurried home with the news to Edith, and blushed with shame when she asked if he had called on Anne. She forgave his stupidity in her delight, and put him through his catechism on all that had been said and seen in the interview with Monsignor. "You are a poor stick," was her comment, and for the first time in years he approved of her opinion. "The priest steered you about and out with his little finger, and the corner of his eye. He did not give you a chance to ask if he had ever seen Horace Endicott since. Monsignor will not lie for any man. He simply refuses to answer on the ground that his position will not permit it. You will never see the priest again on this matter. Arthur Dillon will bid you stand off. Well, you see what my instinct is now! Are you more willing to believe in it when it says: Arthur Dillon is Horace Endicott?" "Not a bit, sweetheart." "I won't fight with you, since you are doing as I order. Go to Anne Dillon now. Mind, she's already prepared by this time for your visit. You may run against Arthur instead of her. While you are gone I shall write to Sonia that we have at last found a clue, and ask her to come on at once. Dillon may not give us a week to make our escape after he learns what we have been doing. We must be quick. Go, my dear old stupid, and bear in mind that Anne Dillon is the cunningest cat you've had to do with yet." She gave an imitation of the lady that was funny to a degree, and sent the detective off laughing, but not at all convinced that there was any significance in his recent discovery. He felt mortified to learn again for the hundredth time how a prejudice takes the edge off intellect. Though certain Edith's theory was wrong, why should he act like a donkey in disproving it? On the contrary his finest skill was required, and methods as safe as if Dillon were sure to turn out Endicott. He sharpened his blade for the coming duel with Anne, whom Monsignor had warned, without doubt. However, Anne had received no warning and she met Curran with her usual reserve. He was smoothly brutal. "I would like to know if you are acquainted with Mr. Horace Endicott?" said he. Anne's face remained as blank as the wall, and her manner tranquil. She had never heard the name before, for in the transactions between herself and her son only the name of Arthur Dillon had been mentioned, while of his previous life she knew not a single detail. Curran not disappointed, hastened, after a pause, to explain his own rudeness. "I never heard the name," said Anne coldly. "Nor do I see by what right you come here and ask questions." "Pardon my abruptness," said the detective. "I am searching for a young man who disappeared some years ago, and his friends are still hunting for him, still anxious, so that they follow the most absurd clues. I am forced to ask this question of all sorts of people, only to get the answer which you have given. I trust you will pardon me for my presumption for the sake of people who are suffering." His speech warned her that she had heard her son's name for the first time, that she stood on the verge of exposure; and her heart failed her, she felt that her voice would break if she ventured to speak, her knees give way if she resented this man's manner by leaving the room. Yet the weakness was only for a moment, and when it passed a wild curiosity to hear something of that past which had been a sealed book to her, to know the real personality of Arthur Dillon, burned her like a flame, and steadied her nerves. For two years she had been resenting his secrecy, not understanding his reasons. He was guarding against the very situation of this moment. "Horace Endicott," she repeated with interest. "There is no one of that name in my little circle, and I have never heard the name before. Who was he? And how did he come to be lost?" And she rose to indicate that his reply must be brief. Curran told with eloquence of the disappearance and the long search, and gave a history of Endicott's life in nice detail, pleased with the unaffected interest of this severe but elegant woman. As he spoke his eye took in every mark of feeling, every gesture, every expression. Her self-command, if she knew Horace Endicott, remained perfect; if she knew him not, her manner seemed natural. "God pity his poor people," was her fervent comment as she took her seat again. "I was angry with you at first, sir," looking at his card, "and of a mind to send you away for what looked like impertinence. But it's I would be only too glad to give you help if I could. I never even heard the young man's name. And it puzzles me, why you should come to me." "For this reason, Mrs. Dillon," he said with sincere disgust. "The people who are hunting for Horace Endicott think that Arthur Dillon is the man; or to put it in another way, that you were deceived when you welcomed back your son from California. Horace Endicott and not Arthur Dillon returned." "My God!" cried she, and sat staring at him; then rose up and began to move towards the door backwards, keeping an eye upon him. Her thought showed clear to the detective: she had been entertaining a lunatic. He laughed. "Don't go," he said. "I know what you imagine, but I'm no lunatic. I don't believe that your son is an impostor. He is a friend of mine, and I know that he is Arthur Dillon. But a man in my business must do as he is ordered by his employers. I am a detective." For a minute she hesitated with hand outstretched to the bell-rope. Her mind acted with speed; she had nothing to fear, the man was friendly, his purpose had failed, whatever it was, the more he talked the more she would learn, and it might be in her power to avert danger by policy. She went back to her seat, having left it only to act her part. Taking the hint provided by Curran, she pretended belief in his insanity, and passed to indignation at this attempt upon her happiness, her motherhood. This rage became real, when she reflected that the Aladdin palace of her life was really threatened by Curran's employers. To her the prosperity and luxury of the past five years had always been dream-like in its fabric, woven of the mists of morning, a fairy enchantment, which might vanish in an hour and leave poor Cinderella sitting on a pumpkin by the roadside, the sport of enemies, the burden of friends. How near she had been to this public humiliation! What wretches, these people who employed the detective! "My dear boy was absent ten years," she said, "and I suffered agony all that time. What hearts must some people have to wish to put me through another time like that! Couldn't any wan see that I accepted him as my son? that all the neighbors accepted him? What could a man want to deceive a poor mother so? I had nothing to give him but the love of a mother, and men care little for that, wild boys care nothing for it. He brought me a fortune, and has made my life beautiful ever since he came back. I had nothing to give him. Who is at the bottom of this thing?" The detective explained the existence and motives of a deserted, poverty-stricken wife and child. "I knew a woman would be at the bottom of it," she exclaimed viciously, feeling against Sonia a hatred which she knew to be unjust. "Well, isn't she able to recognize her own husband? If I could tell my son after ten years, when he had grown to be a man, can't she tell her own husband after a few years? Could it be that my boy played Horace Endicott in Boston and married that woman, and then came back to me?" "Oh, my dear Mrs. Dillon," cried the detective in alarm, "do not excite yourself over so trifling a thing. Your son is your son no matter what our theories may be. This Endicott was born and brought up in the vicinity of Boston, and came from a very old family. Your suspicion is baseless. Forget the whole matter I beg of you." "Have you a picture of the young man?" He handed her the inevitable photograph reluctantly, quite sure that she would have hysterics before he left, so sincere was her excitement. Anne studied the portrait with keen interest, it may be imagined, astonished to find it so different from Arthur Dillon. Had she blundered as well as the detective? Between this portrait and any of the recent photographs of Arthur there seemed no apparent resemblance in any feature. She had been exciting herself for nothing. "Wonderful are the ways of men," was her comment. "How any one ..." her brogue had left her ... "could take Arthur Dillon for this man, even supposing he was disguised now, is strange and shameful. What is to be the end of it?" "Just this, dear madam," said Curran, delighted at her returning calmness. "I shall tell them what you have said, what every one says, and they'll drop the inquiry as they have dropped about one hundred others. If they are persistent, I shall add that you are ready to go into any court in the land and swear positively that you know your own son." "Into twenty courts," she replied with fervor, and the tears, real tears came into her eyes; then, at sight of Aladdin's palace as firm as ever on its frail foundations, the tears rolled down her cheeks. "Precisely. And now if you would be kind enough to keep this matter from the ears of Mr. Dillon ... he's a great friend of mine ... I admire him ... I was with him in the little expedition to Ireland, you know ... and it was to save him pain that I came to you first ... if it could be kept quiet----" "I want it kept quiet," she said with decision, "but at the same time Arthur must know of these cruel suspicions. Oh, how my heart beats when I think of it! Without him ten years, and then to have strangers plan to take him from me altogether ... forever ... forever ... oh!" Curran perspired freely at the prospect of violent hysterics. No man could deal more rudely with the weak and helpless with right on his side, or if his plans demanded it. Before a situation like this he felt lost and foolish. "Certainly he must know in time. I shall tell him myself, as soon as I make my report of the failure of this clue to my employers. I would take it as a very great favor if you would permit me to tell him. It must come very bitter to a mother to tell her son that he is suspected of not being her son. Let me spare you that anguish." Anne played with him delightfully, knowing that she had him at her mercy, not forgetting however that the sport was with tigers. Persuaded to wait a few days while Curran made his report, in return he promised to inform her of the finding of poor Endicott at the proper moment. The detective bowed himself out, the lady smiled. A fair day's work! She had learned the name and the history of the young man known as Arthur Dillon in a most delightful way. The doubt attached to this conclusion did not disturb her. Wonderful, that Arthur Dillon should look so little like the portrait of Horace Endicott! More wonderful still that she, knowing Arthur was not her son, had come to think of him, to feel towards him, and to act accordingly, as her son! Her rage over this attempt upon the truth and the fact of their relationship grew to proportions. CHAPTER XXX. UNDER THE EYES OF HATE. Edith's inference from the interviews with the Monsignor and Anne did justice to her acuteness. The priest alone knew the true personality of Arthur. From Anne all but the fact of his disappearance had been kept, probably to guard against just such attempts as Curran's. The detective reminded her that her theory stood only because of her method of selection from his investigations. Nine facts opposed and one favored her contention: therefore nine were shelved, leaving one to support the edifice of her instincts or her suspicions. She stuck out her tongue at him. "It shows how you are failing when nine out of ten facts, gathered in a whole day's work, are worthless. Isn't that one fact, that the priest knew Horace Endicott, worth all your foolish reasonings? Who discovered it? Now, will you coax Sonia Endicott down here to have a look at this Arthur Dillon? Before we start for California?" He admitted humbly that the lady would not accept his invitation, without stern evidence of a valuable clue. The detectives had given her many a useless journey. "She'll be at the Everett House to-morrow early in the morning," said Edith proudly. "Want to know why, stupid? I sent her a message that her game had been treed at last ... by me." He waved his hands in despair. "Then you'll do the talking, Madam Mischief." "And you'll never say a word, even when asked. What! would I let you mesmerize her at the start by telling her how little you think of my idea and my plans? She would think as little of them as you do, when you got through. No! I shall tell her, I shall plan for her, I shall lead her to the point of feeling where that long experience with Horace Endicott will become of some use in piercing the disguise of Arthur Dillon. You would convince her she was not to see Horace Endicott, and of course she would see only Arthur Dillon. I'll convince her she is to see her runaway husband, and then if she doesn't I'll confess defeat." "There's a good deal in your method," he admitted in a hopeless way. "We are in for it now," she went on, scorning the compliment. "By this time Arthur Dillon knows, if he did not before, that I am up to mischief. He may fall on us any minute. He will not suffer this interference: not because he cares two cents one way or the other, but because he will not have us frightening his relatives and friends, telling every one that he is two. Keep out of his way so that he shall have to come here, and to send word first that he is coming. I'll arrange a scene for him with his Sonia. It may be sublime, and again it may be a fizzle. One way or the other, if Sonia says so, we'll fly to the west out of his way. The dear, dear boy!" "He'll _dear_ you after that scene!" "Now, do you make what attempts you may to find out where he keeps his money, he must have piles of it, and search his papers, his safe...." "He has nothing of the kind ... everything about him is as open as the day ... it's an impertinence to bother him so ... well, he can manage you, I think ... no need for me to interfere or get irritated." Then she had a tantrum, which galled the soul of Curran, except that it ended as usual in her soft whimpering, her childish murmuring, her sweet complaint against the world, and her falling asleep in his arms. Thus was he regularly conquered and led captive. They went next day at noon to visit Sonia Endicott at the Everett House, where she had established herself with her little boy and his nurse. Her reception of the Currans, while supercilious in expression, was really sincere. They represented her hope in that long search of five years, which only a vigorous hate had kept going. Marked with the characteristics of the cat, velvety to eye and touch, insolent and elusive in her glance, undisciplined, she could act a part for a time. To Horace Endicott she had played the rôle of a child of light, an elf, a goddess, for which nature had dressed her with golden hair, melting eyes of celestial blue, and exquisite form. The years had brought out the animal in her. She found it more and more difficult to repress the spite, rage, hatred, against Horace and fate, which consumed her within, and violated the external beauty with unholy touches, wrinkles, grimaces, tricks of sneering, distortions of rage. Her dreams of hatred had only one scene: a tiger in her own form rending the body of the man who had discovered and punished her with a power like omnipotence; rending him but not killing him, leaving his heart to beat and his face unmarked, that he might feel his agony and show it. "If _you_ had sent me the telegram," she remarked to Curran, "I would not have come. But this dear Colette, she is to be my good angel and lead me to success, aren't you, little devil? Ever since she took up the matter I have had my beautiful dreams once more, oh, such thrilling dreams! Like the novels of Eugene Sue, just splendid. Well, why don't you speak?" He pointed to Edith with a gesture of submission. She was hugging the little boy before the nurse took him away, teasing him into baby talk, kissing him decorously but lavishly, as if she could not get enough of him. "He's not to speak until asked," she cried. "And then only say what she thinks," he added. "La! are you fighting over it already? That's not a good sign." With a final embrace which brought a howl from young Horace, Edith gave the boy to the nurse and began her story of finding Horace Endicott in the son of Anne Dillon. She acted the story, admirably keeping back the points which would have grated on Sonia's instincts, or rather expectations. The lady, impressed, evidently felt a lack of something when Curran refused his interest and his concurrence to the description. "What do you wish me to do?" said she. "To see this Dillon and to study him, as one would a problem. The man's been playing this part, living it indeed, nearly five years. Can any one expect that the first glance will pierce his disguise? He must be watched and studied for days, and if that fetches nothing, then you must meet him suddenly, and say to him tenderly, 'at last, Horace!' If that fetches nothing, then we must go to California, and work until we get the evidence which will force him to acknowledge himself and give up his money. But by that time, if we can make sure it is he, and if we can get his money, then I would recommend one thing! Kill him!" Sonia's eyes sparkled at the thought of that sweet murder. "And wait another five years for all this," was her cynical remark. "If the question is not settled this Fall, then let it go forever," said Edith with energy. "The scheme is well enough," Sonia said lazily. "Is this Arthur Dillon handsome, a dashing blade?" "Better," murmured Edith with a smack of her lips, "a virtuous sport, who despises the sex in a way, and can master woman by a look. He is my master. And I hate him! It will be worth your time to see him and meet him." "And now you," to Curran. Sonia did not know, nor care why Edith hated Dillon. "I protest, Sonia. He will put a spell on you, and spoil our chances. Let him talk later when we have succeeded or failed." "Nonsense, you fool. I must hear both sides, but I declare now that I submit myself to you wholly. What do you say, Curran?" "Just this, madam: if this man Arthur Dillon is really your husband, then he's too clever to be caught by any power in this world. Any way you choose to take it, you will end as this search has always ended." "Why do you think him so clever? My Horace was anything but clever ... at least we thought so ... until now." "Until he has foiled every attempt to find him," said Curran. "Colette has her own ideas, but she has kept back all the details that make or unmake a case. She is so sure of her instincts! No doubt they are good." "But not everything, hey?" said the lady tenderly. "Ah, a woman's instincts lead her too far sometimes...." they all laughed. "Well, give me the details Colette left out. No winking at each other. I won't raise a hand in this matter until I have heard both sides." "This Arthur Dillon is Irish, and lives among the Irish in the old-fashioned Irish way, half in the slums, and half in the swell places...." "_Mon Dieu_, what is this I hear! The Irish! My Horace live among the Irish! That's not the man. He could live anywhere, among the Chinese, the Indians, the niggers, but with that low class of people, never!" and she threw up her hands in despair. "Did I come from Boston to pursue a low Irishman!" "You see," cried Edith. "Already he has cast his spell on you. He doesn't believe I have found your man, and he won't let you believe it. Can't you see that this Horace went to the very place where you were sure he would not go?" "You cannot tell him now from an Irishman," continued the detective. "He has an Irish mother, he is a member of Tammany Hall, he is a politician who depends on Irish voters, he joined the Irish revolutionists and went over the sea to fight England, and he's in love with an Irish girl." "Shocking! Horace never had any taste or any sense, but I know he detested the Irish around Boston. I can't believe it of him. But, as Colette says truly, he would hide himself in the very place where we least think of looking for him." "Theories have come to nothing," screamed Edith, until the lady placed her hands on her ears. "Skill and training and coolness and all that rot have come to nothing. Because I hate Arthur Dillon I have discovered Horace Endicott. Now I want to see your eyes looking at this man, eyes with hate in them, and with murder in them. They will discover more than all the stupid detectives in the country. See what hate did for Horace Endicott. He hated you, and instead of murdering you he learned to torture you. He hated you, and it made him clever. Oh, hate is a great teacher! This fool of mine loves Arthur Dillon, because he is a patriot and hates England. Hate breeds cleverness, it breeds love, it opens the mind, it will dig out Horace Endicott and his fortune, and enrich us all." "La, but you are strenuous," said the lady placidly, but impressed. She was a shallow creature in the main, and Curran compared his little wife, eloquent, glowing with feeling, dainty as a flame, to the slower-witted beauty, with plain admiration in his gaze. She deserves to succeed, he thought. Sonia came to a conclusion, languidly. "We must try the eyes of hate," was her decision. The pursuit of Arthur proved very interesting. The detective knew his habits of labor and amusement, his public haunts and loitering-places. Sonia saw him first at the opera, modestly occupying a front seat in the balcony. "Horace would never do that when he could get a box," and she leveled her glass at him. Edith mentally dubbed her a fool. However, her study of the face and figure and behavior of the man showed care and intelligence. Edith's preparation had helped her. She saw a lean, nervous young man, whose flowing black hair and full beard were streaked with gray. His dark face, hollow in the cheeks and not too well-colored with the glow of health, seemed to get light and vivacity from his melancholy eyes. Seriousness was the characteristic expression. Once he laughed, in the whole evening. Once he looked straight into her face, with so fixed, so intense an expression, so near a gaze, so intimate and penetrating, that she gave a low cry. "You have recognized him?" Edith whispered mad with joy. "No, indeed," she answered sadly, "That is not Horace Endicott. Not a feature that I recall, certainly no resemblance. I was startled because I saw just now in his look, ... he looked towards me into the glass ... an expression that seemed familiar ... as if I had seen it before, and it had hurt me then as it hurts me now." "There's a beginning," said Edith with triumph. "Next time for a nearer look." "Oh, he could never have changed so," Sonia cried with bitterness of heart. Curran secured tickets for a ball to be held by a political association in the Cherry Hill district, and placed the ladies in a quiet corner of the gallery of the hall. Arthur Dillon, as a leading spirit in the society, delighted to mingle with the homely, sincere, warm-hearted, and simple people for whom this occasion was a high festival; and nowhere did his sorrow rest so lightly on his soul, nowhere did he feel so keenly the delight of life, or give freer expression to it. Edith kept Sonia at the highest pitch of excitement and interest. "Remember," she said now, "that he probably knows you are in town, that you are here watching him; but not once will he look this way, nor do a thing other than if you were miles away. My God, to be an actor like that!" The actor played his part to perfection and to the utter disappointment of the women. The serious face shone now with smiles and color, with the flash of wit and the play of humor. Horace Endicott had been a merry fellow, but a Quaker compared with the butterfly swiftness and gaiety of this young man, who led the grand march, flirted with the damsels and chatted with the dames, danced as often as possible, joked with the men, found partners for the unlucky, and touched the heart of every rollicking moment. The old ladies danced jigs with him, proud to their marrow of the honor, and he allowed himself ... Sonia gasped at the sight ... to execute a wild Irish _pas seul_ amid the thunderous applause of the hearty and adoring company. "That man Horace Endicott!" she exclaimed with contempt. "Bah! But it's interesting, of course." "What a compliment! what acting! oh, incomparable man!" said Edith, enraged at his success before such an audience. Her husband smiled behind his hand. "You have a fine imagination, Colette, but I would not give a penny for your instinct," said Sonia. "My instinct will win just the same, but I fear we shall have to go to California. This man is too clever for commonplace people." "Arthur Dillon is a fine orator," said Curran mischievously, "and to-morrow night you shall hear him at his best on the sorrows of Ireland." Sonia laughed heartily and mockingly. Were not these same sorrows, from their constancy and from repetition, become the joke of the world? Curran could have struck her evil face for the laugh. "Was your husband a speaker?" he asked. "Horace would not demean himself to talk in public, and he couldn't make a speech to save his life. But to talk on the sorrows of Ireland ... oh, it's too absurd." "And why not Ireland's sorrows as well as those of America, or any other country?" he replied savagely. "Oh, I quite forgot that you were Irish ... a thousand pardons," she said with sneering civility. "Of course, I shall be glad to hear his description of the sorrows. An orator! It's very interesting." The occasion for the display of Arthur's powers was one of the numerous meetings for which the talking Irish are famous all over the world, and in which their clever speakers have received fine training. Even Sonia, impressed by the enthusiasm of the gathering, and its esteem for Dillon, could not withhold her admiration. Alas, it was not her Horace who poured out a volume of musical tone, vigorous English, elegant rhetoric, with the expression, the abandonment, the picturesqueness of a great actor. She shuddered at his descriptions, her heart melted and her eyes moistened at his pathos, she became filled with wonder. It was not Horace! Her husband might have developed powers of eloquence, but would have to be remade to talk in that fashion of any land. This Dillon had terrible passion, and her Horace was only a a handsome fool. She could have loved Dillon. "So you will have to arrange the little scene where I shall stand before him without warning, and murmur tenderly, 'at last, Horace!' And it must be done without delay," was her command to Edith. "It can be done perhaps to-morrow night," Edith said in a secret rage, wondering what Arthur Dillon could have seen in Sonia. "But bear in mind why I am doing this scene, with the prospects of a furious time afterwards with Dillon. I want you to see him asleep, just for ten minutes, in the light of a strong lamp. In sleep there is no disguise. When he is dressed for a part and playing it, the sharpest eyes, even the eyes of hate, may not be able to escape the glamour of the disguise. The actor asleep is more like himself. You shall look into his face, and turn it from side to side with your own hands. If you do not catch some feeling from that, strike a resemblance, I shall feel like giving up." "La, but you are an audacious creature," said Sonia, and the triviality of the remark sent Edith into wild laughter. She would like to have bitten the beauty. The detective consented to Edith's plans, in his anxiety to bring the farce to an end before the element of danger grew. Up to this point they might appeal to Arthur for mercy. Later the dogs would be upon them. As yet no sign of irritation on Arthur's part had appeared. The day after the oration on the sorrows of Erin he sent a note to Curran announcing his intention to call the same evening. Edith, amazed at her own courage in playing with the fire which in an instant could destroy her, against the warning of her husband, was bent on carrying out the scene. Dearly she loved the dramatic off the stage, spending thought and time in its arrangement. How delicious the thought of this man and his wife meeting under circumstances so wondrous after five years of separation. Though death reached her the next moment she would see it. The weakness of the plot lay in Sonia's skepticism and Arthur's knowledge that a trap was preparing. He would brush her machinery aside like a cobweb, but that did not affect the chance of his recognition by Sonia. Dillon had never lost his interest in the dancer and her husband. They attracted him. In their lives ran the same strain of madness, the madness of the furies, as in his own. Their lovable qualities were not few. Occasionally he dropped in to tease Edith over her lack of conscience, or her failures, and to discuss the cause of freedom with the smooth and flinty Curran. Wild humans have the charm of their wilderness. One must not forget their teeth and their claws. This night the two men sat alone. Curran filled the glasses and passed the cigars. Arthur made no comment on the absence of Edith. He might have been aware that the curtains within three feet of his chair, hiding the room beyond, concealed the two women, whose eyes, peering through small glasses fixed in the curtains, studied his face. He might even have guessed that his easy chair had been so placed as to let the light fall upon him while Curran sat in the dim light beyond. The young man gave no sign, spoke freely with Curran on the business of the night, and acted as usual. "Of course it must be stopped at once," he said. "Very much flattered of course that I should be taken for Horace Endicott ... you gave away Tom Jones' name at last ... but these things, so trifling to you, jar the nerves of women. Then it would never do for me, with my little career in California unexplained, to have stories of a double identity ... is that what you call it?... running around. Of course I know it's that devil Edith, presuming always on good nature ... that's _her_ nature ... but if you don't stop it, why I must." "You'll have to do it, I think," the detective replied maliciously. "I can do only what she orders. I had to satisfy her by running to the priest, and your mother, and the Senator----" "What! even my poor uncle! Oh, Curran!" "The whole town, for that matter, Mr. Dillon. It was done in such a way, of course, that none of them suspected anything wrong, and we talked under promise of secrecy. I saw that the thing had to be done to satisfy her and to bring you down on us. Now you're down and the trouble's over as far as I am concerned." "And Tom Jones was Horace Endicott," Arthur mused, "I knew it of course all along, but I respected your confidence. I had known Endicott." "You knew Horace Endicott?" said Curran, horrified by a sudden vision of his own stupidity. "And his lady, a lovely, a superb creature, but just a shade too sharp for her husband, don't you know. He was a fool in love, wasn't he? judging from your story of him. Has she become reconciled to her small income, I wonder? She was not that kind, but when one has to, that's the end of it. _And there are consolations._ How the past month has tired me. I could go to sleep right in the chair, only I want to settle this matter to-night, and I must say a kind word to the little devil----" His voice faded away, and he slept, quite overpowered by the drug placed in his wine. After perfect silence for a minute, Curran beckoned to the women, who came noiseless into the room, and bent over the sleeping face. In his contempt for them, the detective neither spoke nor left his seat. Harpies brooding over the dead! Even he knew that! Arthur's face lay in profile, its lines all visible, owing to the strong light, through the disguise of the beard. The melancholy which marks the face of any sleeper, a foreshadow of the eternal sleep, had become on this sleeper's countenance a profound sadness. From his seat Curran could see the pitiful droop of the mouth, the hollowness of the eyes, the shadows under the cheek-bones; marks of a sadness too deep for tears. Sonia took his face in her soft hands and turned the right profile to the light. She looked at the full face, smoothed his hair as if trying to recall an ancient memory. "The eyes of hate," murmured Edith between tears and rage. She pitied while she hated him, understanding the sorrow that could mark a man's face so deeply, admiring the courage which could wear the mask so well. Sonia was deeply moved in spite of disappointment. At one moment she caught a fleeting glimpse of her Horace, but too elusive to hold and analyze. Something pinched her feelings and the great tears fell from her soft eyes. Emotion merely pinched her. Only in hate could she writhe and foam and exhaust nature. She studied his hands, observed the fingers, with the despairing conviction that this was not the man; too lean and too coarse and too hard; and her rage began to burn against destiny. Oh, to have Horace as helpless under her hands! How she could rend him! "Do you see any likeness?" whispered Edith. "None," was the despairing answer. "Be careful," hissed Curran. "In this sleep words are heard and remembered sometimes." Edith swore the great oaths which relieved her anger. But what use to curse, to look and curse again? At the last moment Curran signalled them away, and began talking about his surprise that Arthur should have known the lost man. "Because you might have given me a clue," Arthur heard him saying as he came back from what he thought had been a minute's doze, "and saved me a year's search, not to mention the money I could have made." "I'll tell you about it some other time," said Arthur with a yawn, as he lit a fresh cigar. "Ask madam to step in here, will you. I must warn her in a wholesome way." "I think she is entertaining a friend," Curran said, hinting plainly at a surprise. "Let her bring the friend along," was the careless answer. The two women entered presently, and Edith made the introduction. The husband and wife stood face to face at last. Her voice failed in her throat from nervousness, so sure was she that the Endicotts had met again! They had the center of the stage, and the interest of the audience, but acted not one whit like the people in a play. "Delighted," said Arthur in his usual drawling way on these occasions. "I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Endicott before." "Indeed," cried the lady. "I regret that my memory...." "At Castle Moyna, a little fête, mother fainted because she saw me running across the lawn ... of course you remember...." "Why, certainly ... we all felt so sorry for the young singer ... her father...." "He was in jail and died since, poor man. Then I saw you coming across on the steamer with a dear, sweet, old lady...." "My husband's aunt," Sonia gasped at the thought of Aunt Lois. "Oh, but he's letter-perfect," murmured Edith in admiration. "And you might remember me," said the heartless fellow, "but of course on a wedding-tour no one can expect the parties to remember anything, as the guide for a whole week to your party in California." "Of course there was a guide," she admitted, very pleasant to meet him again, and so on to the empty end. Edith, stunned by her defeat, sat crushed, for this man no more minded the presence of his wife than did Curran. It was true. Arthur had often thought that a meeting like this in the far-off years would rock his nature as an earthquake rocks the solid plain. Though not surprised at her appearance, for Edith's schemes had all been foreseen, he felt surprise at his own indifference. So utterly had she gone out of his thought, that her sudden appearance, lovely and seductive as of old, gave him no twinge of hate, fear, repugnance, disgust, horror, shame, or pain. He took no credit to himself for a self-control, which he had not been called upon by any stress of feeling to exercise. He was only Arthur Dillon, encountering a lady with a past; a fact in itself more or less amusing. Once she might have been a danger to be kept out like a pest, or barricaded in quarantine. That time had gone by. His indifference for the moment appalled him, since it showed the hopeless depth of Endicott's grave. After chatting honestly ten minutes, he went away light of heart, without venturing to warn Edith. Another day, he told her, and be good meanwhile. Curran became thoughtful, and the women irritable after he had gone. Edith felt that her instincts had no longer a value in the market. In this wretched Endicott affair striking disappointment met the most brilliant endeavors. Sonia made ready to return to her hotel. Dolorously the Currans paid her the last courtesies, waiting for the word which would end the famous search for her Horace. "I have been thinking the matter over," she said sweetly, "and I have thought out a plan, not in your line of course, which I shall see to at once. I think it worth while to look through California for points in the life of this interesting young man, Mr. Dillon." When the door closed on her, Edith began to shriek in hysterical laughter. CHAPTER XXXI. THE HEART OF HONORA. While Edith urged the search for Endicott, the little world to be horrified by her success enjoyed itself north and south as the season suggested, and the laws of fashion permitted. At the beginning of June, Anne settled herself comfortably for the summer in a roomy farmhouse, overlooking Lake Champlain and that particular island of Valcour, which once witnessed the plucky sea-fight and defeat of dare-devil Arnold. Only Honora accompanied her, but at the close of the month Louis, the deacon, and Mrs. Doyle Grahame joined them; and after that the whole world came at odd times, with quiet to-day and riot to-morrow. Honora, the center of interest, the storm-center, as we call it in these days, turned every eye in her direction with speculative interest. Would she retire to the convent, or find her vocation in the world? She had more than fulfilled her father's wish that she remain in secular life for a year. Almost two years had passed. He could not reproach her from his grave. One divine morning she came upon the natural stage which had been the scene of a heart-drama more bitter to her than any sorrow. Walking alone in the solemn woods along the lake shore, the path suddenly ended on a rocky terrace, unshaded by trees, and directly over the water. Raspberry bushes made an enclosure there, in the center of which the stumps of two trees held a rough plank to make a seat. A stony beach curved inward from this point, the dark woods rose behind, and the soft waters made music in the hollows of the rock beneath her feet. Delightful with the perfume of the forest, the placid shores of Valcour, sun, and flower, and bird filling eye and ear with beauty, the sight of the spot chilled her heart. Here Lord Constantine had offered her his love and his life the year before. To her it had been a frightful scene, this strong, handsome, clever man, born to the highest things of mind, heart, talent and rank, kneeling before her, pleading with pallid face for her love, ... and all the rest of it! She would have sunk down with shame but for his kindness in accepting the situation, and carrying her through it. Why his proposal shocked her his lordship could not see at first. He understood before his mournful interview and ended. Honora was of that class, to whom marriage does not present itself as a personal concern. She had the true feminine interest in the marriage of her friends, and had vaguely dreamed of her own march to the altar, an adoring lover, a happy home and household cares. Happy in the love of a charming mother and a high-hearted father, she had devoted her youthful days to them and to music. They stood between her and importunate lovers, whose intentions she had never divined. With the years came trouble, the death of the mother, the earning of her living by her art, the care of her father, and the work for her native land. Lovers could not pursue this busy woman, occupied with father and native land, and daily necessity. The eternal round of travel, conspiracy, scheming, planning, spending, with its invariable ending of disappointment and weariness of heart, brought forth a longing for the peace of rest, routine, satisfied aspirations; and from a dream the convent became a passion, longed for as the oasis by the traveler in the sands. Simple and sincere as light, the hollow pretence of the world disgusted her. Her temperament was of that unhappy fiber which sees the end almost as speedily as the beginning; change and death and satiety treading on the heels of the noblest enterprise. For her there seemed no happiness but in the possession of the everlasting, the unchangeable, the divinely beautiful. Out of these feelings and her pious habits rose the longing for the convent, for what seemed to be permanent, fixed, proportioned, without dust and dirt and ragged edges, and wholly devoted to God. After a little Lord Constantine understood her astonishment, her humiliation, her fright. He had a wretched satisfaction in knowing that no other man would snatch this prize; but oh, how bitter to give her up even to God! The one woman in all time for him, more could be said in her praise still; her like was not outside heaven. How much this splendid lake, with sapphire sky and green shores, lacked of true beauty until she stepped like light into view; then, as for the first time, one saw the green woods glisten, the waters sparkle anew, the sky deepen in richness! One had to know her heart, her nature, so nobly dowered, to see this lighting up of nature's finest work at her coming. She was beautiful, white as milk, with eyes like jewels, framed in lashes of silken black, so dark, so dark! Honora wept at the sight of his face as he went away. She had seen that despair in her father's face. And she wept to-day as she sat on the rough bench. Had she been to blame? Why had she delayed her entrance into the convent a year beyond the time? Arthur had declared his work could not get on without her for at least an extra half year. She was lingering still? Had present comfort shaken her resolution? A cry roused her from her mournful thoughts, and she looked up to see Mona rounding the point at the other end of the stony beach, laboring at the heavy oars. Honora smiled and waved her handkerchief. Here was one woman for whom life had no problems, only solid contentment, and perennial interest; and who thought her husband the finest thing in the world. She beached her boat and found her way up to the top of the rock. To look at her no one would dream, Honora certainly did not, that she had any other purpose than breathing the air. Mrs. Doyle Grahame enjoyed the conviction that marriage settles all difficulties, if one goes about it rightly. She had gone about it rightly, with marvellous results. That charming bear her father had put his neck in her yoke, and now traveled about in her interest as mild as a clam. All men gasped at the sight of his meekness. When John Everard Grahame arrived on this planet, his grandfather fell on his knees before him and his parents, and never afterwards departed from that attitude. Doyle Grahame laid it to his art of winning a father-in-law. Mona found the explanation simply in the marriage, which to her, from the making of the trousseau to the christening of the boy, had been wonderful enough to have changed the face of the earth. The delicate face, a trifle fuller, had increased in dignity. Her hair flamed more glorious than ever. As a young matron she patronized Honora now an old maid. "You've been crying," said she, with a glance around, "and I don't wonder. This is the place where you broke a good man's heart. It will remain bewitched until you accept some other man in the same spot. How did we know, Miss Cleverly? Do you think Conny was as secret as you? And didn't I witness the whole scene from the point yonder? I couldn't hear the words, but there wasn't any need of it. Heavens, the expression of you two!" "Mona, do you mean to tell me that every one knew it?" "Every soul, my dear ostrich with your head in the sand. The hope is that you will not repeat the refusal when the next lover comes along. And if you can arrange to have the scene come off here, as you arranged for the last one ... I have always maintained that the lady with a convent vocation is by nature the foxiest of all women. I don't know why, but she shows it." The usual fashion of teasing Honora attributed to her qualities opposed to a religious vocation. "Well, I have made up my mind to fly at once to the convent," she said, "with my foxiness and other evil qualities. If it was my fault that one man proposed to me----" "It was your fault, of course. Why do you throw doubt upon it?" "It will not be my fault that the second man proposes. So, this place may remain accursed forever. Oh, my poor Lord Constantine! After all his kindness to father and me, to be forced to inflict such suffering on him! Why do men care for us poor creatures so much, Mona?" "Because we care so much for them ..." Honora laughed ... "and because we are necessary to their happiness. You should go round the stations on your knees once a day for the rest of your life, for having rejected Lord Conny. It wasn't mere ingratitude ... that was bad enough; but to throw over a career so splendid, to desert Ireland so outrageously," this was mere pretence ... "to lose all importance in life for the sake of a dream, for the sake of a convent." "You have a prejudice against convents, Mona." "No, dear, I believe in convents for those who are made that way. I have noticed, perhaps you have too, that many people who should go to a convent will not, and many people at present in the cloisters ought to have stayed where nature put them first." "It's pleasant on a day like this for you to feel that you are just where nature intended you to be, isn't it? How did you leave the baby?" Mona leaped into a rhapsody on the wonderful child, who was just then filling the time of Anne, and at the same time filling the air with howlings, but returned speedily to her purpose. "Did you say you had fixed the day, Honora?" "In September, any day before the end of the month." "You were never made for the convent," with seriousness. "Too fond of the running about in life, and your training is all against it." "My training!" said Honora. "All your days you were devoted to one man, weren't you? And to the cause of a nation, weren't you? And to the applause of the crowd, weren't you? Now, my dear, when you find it necessary to make a change in your habits, the changes should be in line with those habits. Otherwise you may get a jolt that you won't forget. In a convent, there will be no man, no Ireland, and no crowd, will there? What you should have done was to marry Lord Conny, and to keep right on doing what you had done before, only with more success. Now when the next man comes along, do not let the grand opportunity go." "I'll risk the jolt," Honora replied. "But this next man about whom you have been hinting since you came up here? Is this the man?" She pointed to the path leading into the woods. Louis came towards them in a hurry, having promised them a trip to the rocks of Valcour. The young deacon was in fighting trim after a month on the farm, the pallor of hard study and confinement had fled, and the merry prospect ahead made his life an enchantment. Only his own could see the slight but ineffaceable mark of his experience with Sister Claire. "Take care," whispered Mona. "He is not the man, but the man's agent." Louis bounced into the raspberry enclosure and flung himself at their feet. "Tell me," said Honora mischievously. "Is there any man in love with me, and planning to steal away my convent from me? Tell me true, Louis." The deacon sat up and cast an indignant look on his sister. "Shake not thy gory locks at me," she began cooly.... "There it is," he burst out. "Do you know, Honora, I think marriage turns certain kinds of people, the redheads in particular, quite daft. This one is never done talking about her husband, her baby, her experience, her theory, her friends who are about to marry, or who want to marry, or who can't marry. She can't see two persons together without patching up a union for them...." "Everybody should get married," said Mona serenely, "except priests and nuns. Mona is not a nun, therefore she should get married." "The reasoning is all right," replied the deacon, "but it doesn't apply here. Don't you worry, Honora. There's no man about here that will worry you, and even if there was, hold fast to that which is given thee...." "Don't quote Scripture, Reverend Sir," cried Mona angrily. "The besotted world is not worth the pother this foolish young married woman makes over it." The foolish young woman received a warning from her brother when Mona went into the woods to gather an armful of wild blossoms for the boat. "Don't you know," said he with the positiveness of a young theologian, "that Arthur will probably never marry? Has he looked at a girl in that way since he came back from California? He's giddy enough, I know, but one that studies him can see he has no intention of marrying. Now why do you trouble this poor girl, after her scene with the Englishman, with hints of Arthur? I tell you he will never marry." "You may know more about him than I do," his sister placidly answered, "but I have seen him looking at Honora for the last five years, and working for her, and thinking about her. His look changed recently. Perhaps you know why. There's something in the air. I can feel it. You can't. None of you celibates can. And you can't see beyond your books in matters of love and marriage. That's quite right. We can manage such things better. And if Arthur makes up his mind to win her, I'm bound she shall have him." "We can manage! I'm bound!" he mimicked. "Well, remember that I warned you. It isn't so much that your fingers may be burned ... that's what you need, you married minx. You may do harm to those two. They seem to be at peace. Let 'em alone." "What was the baby doing when you left the house?" said she for answer. "Tearing the nurse's hair out in handfuls," said the proud uncle, as he plunged into a list of the doings of the wonderful child, who fitted into any conversation as neatly as a preposition. Mona, grew sad at heart. Her brother evidently knew of some obstacle to this union, something in Arthur's past life which made his marriage with any woman impossible. She recalled his silence about the California episode, his indifference to women, his lack of enthusiasm as to marriage. They rowed away over the lake, with the boat half buried in wild bushes, sprinkled with dandelion flowers and the tender blossoms of the apple trees. Honora was happy, at peace. She put the scene with Lord Constantine away from her, and forgot the light words of Mona. Whoever the suitor might be, Arthur did not appear to her as a lover. So careful had he been in his behavior, that Louis would have as much place in her thought as Arthur, who had never discouraged her hope of the convent, except by pleading for Ireland. The delay in keeping her own resolution had been pleasant. Now that the date was fixed, the grateful enclosure of the cloister seemed to shut her in from all this dust and clamor of men, from the noisome sights and sounds of world-living, from the endless coming and going and running about, concerning trifles, from the injustice and meanness and hopeless crimes of men. In the shade of the altar, in the restful gloom of Calvary, she could look up with untired eyes to the calm glow of the celestial life, unchanging, orderly, beautiful with its satisfied aspiration, and rich in perfect love and holy companionship. Such a longing came over her to walk into this perfect peace that moment! Mona well knew this mood, and Louis in triumph signalled his sister to look. Her eyes, turned to the rocky shore of Valcour, saw far beyond. On her perfect face lay a shadow, the shadow of her longing, and from her lips came now and then the perfume of a sigh. In silence these two watched her, Louis recognizing the borderland of holy ecstasy, Mona hopeful that the vision was only a mirage. The boat floated close to the perpendicular rocks and reflected itself in the deep waters; far away the farmhouse lay against the green woods; to the north rose the highest point of the bluff, dark with pines; farther on was the sweep of the curved shore, and still farther the red walls of the town. Never boat carried freight so beautiful as this which bore along the island the young mother, the young deacon, and deep-hearted Honora, who was blessing God. CHAPTER XXXII. THE PAULINE PRIVILEGE. For a week at the end of July Arthur had been in the city closing up the Curran episode. On his return every one felt that change of marked and mysterious kind had touched him. His face shone with joy. The brooding shadow, acquired in his exile, had disappeared. Light played about his face, emanated from it, as from moonlit water, a phosphorescence of the daylight. His mother studied him with anxiety, without which she had not been since the surprising visit of Curran. The old shadow seemed to have fled forever. One night on the lake, as Louis and he floated lazily towards the island, he told the story. After enjoying a moonlight swim at the foot of the bluff, they were preparing to row over to Valcour when Honora's glorious voice rang out from the farmhouse on the hill above, singing to Mona's accompaniment. The two sat in delight. A full moon stood in the sky, and radiance silvered the bosom of the lake, the mystic shores, the far-off horizon. This singer was the voice of the night, whose mystic beauty and voiceless feeling surged into the woman's song like waters escaping through a ravine. Dillon was utterly oppressed by happiness. When the song had ceased, he stretched out his arms towards her. "Dearest and best of women! By God's grace I shall soon call you mine!" Louis took up the oars and pulled with energy in the direction of Valcour. "Is that the meaning of the look on your face since your return?" said he. "That's the meaning. I saw you all watching me in surprise. My mother told me of it in her anxiety. If my face matched my feelings the moon there would look sickly besides its brightness. I have been in jail for five years, and to-day I am free." "And how about that other woman ...?" "Dead as far as I am concerned, the poor wretch! Yesterday I could curse her. I pity her to-day. She has gone her way and I go mine. Monsignor has declared me free. Isn't that enough?" "That's enough," cried Louis, dropping the oars in his excitement. "But is it enough to give you Honora? I'm so glad you think of her that way. Mona told her only yesterday that some lover was pursuing her, not mentioning your name. I assured her on the contrary that the road to the convent would have no obstacles. And I rebuked Mona for her interference." "You were right, and she was right," said Arthur sadly. "I never dared to show her my love, because I was not free. But now I shall declare it. What did she think of Mona's remarks?" "She took them lightly. I am afraid that your freedom comes at a poor time, Arthur; that you may be too late. I have had many talks with her. Her heart is set on the convent, she has fixed the date for September, and she does not seem to have love in her mind at all." "Love begets love. How could she think of love when I never gave any sign, except what sharp-eyed Mona saw. You can conceal nothing from a woman. Wait until I have wooed her ... but apart from all that you must hear how I came to be free ... oh, my God, I can hardly believe it even now after three days ... I have been so happy that the old anguish which tore my soul years ago seemed easier to bear than this exquisite pain. I must get used to it. Listen now to the story of my escape, and row gently while you listen so as to miss not a word." Arthur did not tell his chum more than half of the tale, chiefly because Louis was never to know the story of Horace Endicott. He had gone to New York at the invitation of Livingstone. This surprising incident began a series of surprises. The Currans had returned from California, and made their report to Sonia; and to Livingstone of all men the wife of Horace Endicott had gone for advice in so delicate an affair as forcing Arthur Dillon to prove and defend his identity. After two or three interviews with Livingstone Arthur carried his report to Monsignor. "All this looks to me," said the priest, "as if the time for a return to your own proper personality had come. You know how I have feared the consequences of this scheme. The more I look into it, the more terrible it seems." "And why should I give up now of all times? when I am a success?" cried the young fellow. "Do I fear Livingstone and the lawyers? Curran and his wife have done their best, and failed. Will the lawyers do any better?" "It is not that," said the priest. "But you will always be annoyed in this way. The sharks and blackmailers will get after you later...." "No, no, no, Monsignor. This effort of the Currans and Mrs. Endicott will be the last. I won't permit it. There will be no result from Livingstone's interference. He can go as far as interviews with me, but not one step beyond. And I can guarantee that no one will ever take up the case after him." "You are not reasonable," urged the priest. "The very fact that these people suspect you to be Horace Endicott is enough; it proves that you have been discovered." "I am only the twentieth whom they pursued for Horace," he laughed. "Curran knows I am not Endicott. He has proved to the satisfaction of Livingstone that I am Arthur Dillon. But the two women are pertinacious, and urge the men on. Since these are well paid for their trouble, why should they not keep on?" "They are not the only pertinacious ones," the priest replied. "You may claim a little of the virtue yourself," Arthur slyly remarked. "You have urged me to betray myself into the hands of enemies once a month for the last five years." "In this case would it not be better to get an advantage by declaring yourself, before Livingstone can bring suit against you?" "There will be no suit," he answered positively. "I hold the winning cards in this game. There is no advantage in my returning to a life which for me holds nothing but horror. Do you not see, Monsignor, that the same reasons which sent me out of it hold good to keep me out of it?" "Very true," said Monsignor reluctantly, as he viewed the situation. "And new reasons, not to be controverted, have sprung up around Arthur Dillon. For Horace Endicott there is nothing in that old life but public disgrace. Do you know that I hate that fat fool, that wretched cuckold who had not sense enough to discover what the uninterested knew about that woman? I would not wear his name, nor go back to his circle, if the man and woman were dead, and the secret buried forever." "He was young and innocent," said the priest with a pitiful glance at Arthur. "And selfish and sensual too. I despise him. He would never have been more than an empty-headed pleasure-seeker. With that wife he could have become anything you please. The best thing he did was his flight into everlasting obscurity, and that he owed to the simple, upright, strong-hearted woman who nourished him in his despair. Monsignor," and he laid his firm hand on the knee of the priest and looked at him with terrible eyes, "I would choose death rather than go back to what I was. I shall never go back. I get hot with shame when I think of the part an Endicott played as Sonia Westfield's fool." "And the reason not to be controverted?" "In what a position my departure would leave my mother. Have you thought of that? After all her kindness, her real affection, as if I had been her own son. She thinks now that I am her son, and I feel that she is my mother. And what would induce me to expose her to the public gaze as the chief victim, or the chief plotter in a fraud? If it had to be done, I would wait in any event until my mother was dead. But beyond all these minor reasons is one that overshadows everything. I am Arthur Dillon. That other man is not only dead, he is as unreal to me as the hero of any book I read in my boyhood. It was hard to give up the old personality; to give up what I am now would be impossible. I am what I seem. I feel, think, speak, dream Arthur Dillon. The roots would bleed if I were to transplant myself. I found my career among your people, and the meaning of life. There is no other career for me. These are the people I love. I will never raise between them and me so odious a barrier as the story of my disappearance would be. They could never take to Horace Endicott. Oh, I have given the matter a moment's thought, Monsignor. The more I dwell on it, the worse it seems." He considered the point for a moment, and then whispered with joyous triumph, "I have succeeded beyond my own expectations. I have disappeared even from myself. An enemy cannot find me, not even my own confession would reveal me. The people who love me would swear to a man that I am Arthur Dillon, and that only insanity could explain my own confession. At the very least they would raise such a doubt in the mind of a judge that he would insist on clean proofs from both sides. But there's the clear fact. I have escaped from myself, disappeared from the sight of Arthur Dillon. Before long I can safely testify to a dream I had of having once been a wretch named Horace Endicott. But I have a doubt even now that I was such a man." "My God, but it's weird," said Monsignor with emotion, as he rose to walk the room. "I have the same notion myself at times." "It's a matter to be left undisturbed, or some one will go crazy over it," Arthur said seriously. "And you are happy, really happy? The sight of this woman did not revive in you any regret...." "I am happy, Monsignor, beyond belief," with a contented sigh. "It would be too much to expect perfect happiness. Yet that is within my reach. If I were only free to marry Honora Ledwith." "I heard of that too," said the priest meditatively. "Has she any regard for you?" "As a brother. How could I have asked any other love? And I am rich in that. Since there is no divorce for Catholics, I could not let her see the love which burned in me. I had no hope." "And she goes into the convent, I believe. You must not stand in God's way." "I have not, though I delayed her going because I could not bear to part from her. Willingly I have resigned her to God, because I know that in His goodness, had I been free, He would have given her to me." Monsignor paused as if struck by the thought and looked at him for a moment. "It is the right spirit," was his brief comment. He loved this strange, incomprehensible man, who had stood for five years between his adopted people and their enemies in many a fight, who had sought battle in their behalf and heaped them with favors. His eyes saw the depth of that resignation which gave to God the one jewel that would have atoned for the horrid sufferings of the past. If he were free! He thought of old Lear moaning over dead Cordelia. She lives! If it be so, It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows That ever I have felt. "It is the right spirit," he repeated as he considered the matter. "One must not stand in the way of a soul, or in the way of God. Yet were you free, where would be the advantage? She is for the convent, and has never thought of you in the way of love." "Love begets love, father dear. I could light the flame in her heart, for I am dear to her as a brother, as her father's son." "Then her dream of the convent, which she has cherished so many years, cannot be more than a dream, if she resigned it for you." "I cannot argue with you," he said hopelessly, "and it's a sad subject. There is only the will of God to be done." "And if you were free," went on Monsignor smiling, "and tried and failed to light love in her heart, you would suffer still more." "A little more or less would not matter. I would be happy still to give her to God." "I see, I see," shaking his sage head. "To God! As long as it is not to another and luckier fellow, the resignation is perfect." Arthur broke into a laugh, and the priest said casually: "I think that by the law of the Church you are a free man." Arthur leaped to his feet with a face like death. "In the name of God!" he cried. Monsignor pushed him back into his chair. "That's my opinion. Just listen, will you. Then take your case to a doctor of the law. There is a kind of divorce in the Church known as the Pauline Privilege. Let me state the items, and do you examine if you can claim the privilege. Horatius, an infidel, that is, unbaptized, deserts his wife legally and properly, because of her crimes; later he becomes a Catholic; meeting a noble Catholic lady, Honoria, he desires to marry her; question, is he free to contract this marriage? The answer of the doctors of the law is in the affirmative, with the following conditions: that the first wife be an infidel, that is, unbaptized; that to live with her is impossible; that she has been notified of his intention to break the marriage. The two latter conditions are fulfilled in your case the moment the first wife secures the divorce which enables her to marry her paramour. Horatius is then free to marry Honoria, or any other Catholic lady, but not a heretic or a pagan. This is called the Pauline Privilege because it is described in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. My opinion is that you are free." The man, unable to speak, or move, felt his hope grow strong and violent out of the priest's words. "Mind, it's only my opinion," said Monsignor, to moderate his transports. "You must go to Dr. Bender, the theologian, to get a purely legal decision. I fear that I am only adding to your misery. What if he should decide against you? What if she should decide against you?" "Neither will happen," with painful effort. Sudden joy overcame him with that anguish of the past, and this was overwhelming, wonderful. "The essence of love is sacrifice," said Monsignor, talking to give him time for composure. "Not your good only, but the happiness of her you love must control your heart and will; and above all there must be submission to God. When He calls, the child must leave the parent, the lover his mistress, all ties must be broken." "I felt from the beginning that this would come to pass," said Arthur weakly. "Oh, I made my sacrifice long ago. The facts were all against me, of course. Easy to make the sacrifice which had to be made. I can make another sacrifice, but isn't it now her turn? Oh, Monsignor, all my joy seems to come through you! From that first moment years ago, when we met, I can date----" "All your sorrow," the priest interrupted. "And all my joy. Well, one cannot speak of these great things, only act. I'm going to the theologian. Before I sleep to-night he must settle that case. I know from your eyes it will be in my favor. I can bear disappointment. I can bear anything now. I am free from that creature, she is without a claim on me in any way, law, fact, religion, sympathy. Oh, my God!" Monsignor could not hinder the tears that poured from his eyes silently. He clasped Arthur's hand and saw him go as he wept. In his varied life he had never seen so intimately any heart, none so strange and woful in its sorrow and its history, none so pathetic. The man lived entirely on the plane of tragedy, in the ecstasy of pain; a mystery, a problem, a wonder, yet only an average, natural, simple man, that had fought destiny with strange weapons. This story Arthur whispered to Louis, floating between the moonlit shores of Champlain. He lay in the stern watching the rhythmic rise of the oar-blades, and the flashing of the water-drops falling back like diamonds into the wave. Happiness lay beside him steering the boat, a seraph worked the oars, the land ahead must be paradise. His was a lover's story, clear, yet broken with phrases of love; for was he not speaking to the heart, half his own, that beat with his in unison? The tears flowed down the deacon's cheek, tears of dread and of sympathy. What if Honora refused this gift laid so reverently at her feet? He spoke his dread. "One must take the chance," said the lover calmly. "She is free too. I would not have her bound. The very air up here will conspire with me to win her. She must learn at once that I want her for my wife. Then let the leaven work." The boat came back to the landing. The ladies sat on the veranda chatting quietly, watching the moon which rose higher and higher, and threw Valcour into shadow so deep, that it looked like a great serpent asleep on a crystal rock, nailed by a golden spike through its head to the crystal rock beneath. The lighthouse lamp burning steadily at the south point, and its long reflection in the still waters, was the golden nail. A puffing tug passed by with its procession of lumber boats, fanciful with colored lights, resounding with the roaring songs of the boatmen; and the waves recorded their protest against it in long groans on the shore. Arthur drank in the scene without misgiving, bathed in love as in moonlight. This moon would see the consummation of his joy. CHAPTER XXXIII. LOVE IS BLIND. Next morning after breakfast the house began to echo with the singing of the inmates. Mona sang to the baby in an upper room, the Deacon thrummed the piano and hummed to himself in the raucous voice peculiar to most churchmen. Judy in the kitchen meditatively crooned to her maids an ancient lamentation, and out on the lawn, Arthur sang to his mother an amorous ditty in compliment to her youthful appearance. Honora, the song-bird, silent, heard with amusement this sudden lifting up of voices, each unconscious of the other. Arthur's bawling dominated. "Has the house gone mad?" she inquired from the hallway stairs, so clearly that the singers paused to hear. "What is the meaning of all this uproar of song. Judy in the kitchen, Mona in the nursery, Louis in the parlor, Arthur on the lawn?" The criminals began to laugh at the coincidence. "I always sing to baby," Mona screamed in justification. "I wasn't singing, I never sing," Louis yelled from the parlor. "Mother drove me to it," Arthur howled through the door. "I think the singin' was betther nor the shoutin'," Judy observed leaning out of the window to display her quizzical smile. A new spirit illumined the old farmhouse. Love had entered it, and hope had followed close on his heels; hope that Honora would never get to her beloved convent. They loved her so and him that with all their faith, their love and respect for the convent life, gladly would they have seen her turn away from the holy doors into Arthur's reverential arms. With the exception of Anne. So surely had she become his mother that the thought of giving him up to any woman angered her. She looked coldly on Honora for having inspired him with a foolish passion. "Come down, celestial goddess," said Arthur gayly, "and join the Deacon and me in a walk over the bluff, through the perfumed woods, down the loud-resounding shore. Put on rubbers, for the dew has no respect for the feet of such divinity." They went off together in high spirits, and Mona came down to the veranda with the baby in her arms to look after them. Anne grieved at the sight of their intimacy. "I have half a mind," she said, "to hurry Honora off to her convent, or to bring Sister Magdalen and the Mother Superior up here to strengthen her. If that boy has his way, he'll marry her before Christmas. He has the look of it in his eye." "And why shouldn't he?" Mona asked. "If she will have him, then she has no business with the convent, and it will be a good opportunity for her to test her vocation." "And what luck will there be in it for him?" said the mother bitterly. "How would you feel if some hussy cheated Louis out of his priesthood, with blue eyes and golden hair and impudence? If Arthur wants to marry after waiting so long, let him set eyes on women that ask for marriage. He'll never have luck tempting a poor girl from the convent." "Little ye think o' the luck," said Judy, who had come out to have her morning word with the mistress. "Weren't ye goin' into a convent yerself whin Pat Dillon kem along, an' wid a wink tuk ye to church undher his arm. An' is there a woman in the whole world that's had greater luck than yerself?" "Oh, I know you are all working for the same thing, all against me," Anne said pettishly. "Faith we are, and may the angels guide him and her to each other. Can't a blind man see they wor made to be man an' wife? An' I say it, knowin' that the convent is the best place in the world for anny girl. I wish every girl that was born wint there. If they knew what is lyin' in wait for thim whin they take up wid a man, there wouldn't be convents enough to hould all that wud be runnin' to thim. But ye know as well as I do that the girls are not med for the convent, except the blessed few...." Anne fled from the stream of Judy's eloquence, and the old lady looked expressively at Mona. "She's afraid she's goin' to lose her Artie. Oh, these Irish mothers! they'd kape a boy till his hairs were gray, an' mek him belave it too, if they cud. I never saw but wan mother crazy to marry her son. That was Biddy Brady, that wint to school wid yer mother, an' poor Micksheen was a born ijit, wid a lip hangin' like a sign, so's ye cud hang an auction notice on it. Sure, the poor boy wudn't lave his mother for Vanus herself, an' the mother batin' him out o' the house every day, an' he bawlin' for fear the women wud get hould of him." Honora had observed the happy change in Arthur, her knight of service, who had stood between her and danger, and had fought her battles with chivalry; asking no reward, hinting at none, because she had already given him all, a sister's love. What tenderness, what adoration, what service had he lavished on her, unmarred by act, or word, or hint! God would surely reward him for his consideration. Walking through the scented woods she found it easy to tell them of the date fixed for her entrance into the convent. Grand trees were marshalled along the path, supporting a roof of gold and green, where the sun fell strong on the heavy foliage. "September," said Arthur making a calculation. "Why not wait until October and then shed your colors with the trees. I can see her," he went on humorously, "decorously arranging the black dress so that it will hang well, and not make her a fright altogether before the other women; and getting a right tilt to the black bonnet and enough lace in it to set off her complexion." "Six months later," said the Deacon taking up the strain, "she will do better than that. Discarding the plain robes of the postulant, she will get herself into the robes of a bride...." "Oh, sooner than that," said Arthur with a meaning which escaped her. "No, six months is the period," she corrected seriously. "In wedding finery she will prance before her delighted friends for a few minutes, and then march out to shed white silk and fleecy tulle. A vengeful nun, whose hair has long been worn away, will then clip with one snip of the scissors her brown locks from her head...." "Horror!" cried Arthur. "Sure, straight across the neck, you know, like the women's-rights people. Then the murder of the hair has to be concealed, so they put on a nightcap, and hide that with a veil, and then bring her into the bishop to tell him it's all right, and that she's satisfied." "And what do they make of the hair?" said Arthur. "That's one of the things yet to be revealed." "And after that she is set at chasing the rule, or being chased by the rule for two years. She studies striking examples of observing the rule, and of the contrary. She has a shy at observing it herself, and the contrary. The rule is it when she observes it; she's it when she doesn't. At this point the mother superior comes into the game." "Where do the frowsy children come in?" "At meals usually. Honora cuts the bread and her fingers, butters it, and passes it round; the frowsy butter themselves, and Honora; this is an act of mortification, which is intensified when the mistress of novices discovers the butter on her habit." "Finally the last stage is worse than the first, I suppose. Having acquired the habit she gets into it so deeply...." "She sheds it once more, Arthur. Then she's tied to the frowsy children forever, and is known as Sister Mary of the Cold Shoulder to the world." "This is a case of rescue," said Arthur with determination, "I move we rescue her this minute. Help, help!" The woods echoed with his mocking cries. Honora had not spoken, the smile had died away, and she was plainly offended. Louis observant passed a hint to Arthur, who made the apology. "We shall be there," he said humbly, "with our hearts bleeding because we must surrender you. And who are we that you need care? It is poor Ireland that will mourn for the child that bathed and bound her wounds, that watched by her in the dark night, and kept the lamp of hope and comfort burning, that stirred hearts to pity and service, that woke up Lord Constantine and me, and strangers and enemies like us, to render service; the child whose face and voice and word and song made the meanest listen to a story of injustice; all shut out, concealed, put away where the mother may never see or hear her more." His voice broke, his eyes filled with tears at the vividness of the vision called up in the heart of the woods; and he walked ahead to conceal his emotion. Honora stopped dead and looked inquiringly at the Deacon, who switched the flowers with downcast eyes. "What is the meaning of it, Louis?" He knew not how to make answer, thinking that Arthur should be the first to tell his story. "Do you think that we can let you go easily?" he said. "If we tease you as we did just now it is to hide what we really suffer. His feeling got the better of him, I think." The explanation sounded harmless. For an instant a horrid fear that these woods must witness another scene like Lord Constantine's chilled her heart. She comforted Arthur like a sister. "Do not feel my going too deeply. Change must come. Let us be glad it is not death, or a journey into distant lands with no return. I shall be among you still, and meanwhile God will surely comfort you." "Oh, if we could walk straight on like this," Arthur answered, "through the blessed, free, scented forest, just as we are, forever! And walking on for years, content with one another, you, Louis, and I, come out at last, as we shall soon come out here on the lake, on the shore of eternity, just as life's sun sets, and the moon of the immortal life rises; and then without change, or the anguish of separation and dying, if we could pass over the waters, and enter the land of eternity, taking our place with God and His children, our friends, that have been there so long!" "Is not that just what we are to do, not after your fashion, but after the will of God, Arthur? Louis at the altar, I in the convent before the altar, and you in the field of battle fighting for us both. Aaron, Miriam, Moses, here are the three in the woods of Champlain, as once in the desert of Arabia," and she smiled at the young men. Louis returned the smile, and Arthur gave her a look of adoration, so tender, so bold, that she trembled. The next moment, when the broad space through which they were walking ended in a berry-patch, he plunged among the bushes with eagerness, to gather for her black raspberries in his drinking-cup. Her attempt to discuss her departure amiably had failed. "I am tired already," said she to Louis helplessly. "I shall go back to the house, and leave you to go on together." "Don't blame him," the Deacon pleaded, perceiving how useless was concealment. "If you knew how that man has suffered in his life, and how you opened heaven to him ..." she made a gesture of pain ... "remember all his goodness and be gentle with him. He must speak before you go. He will take anything from you, and you alone can teach him patience and submission." "How long...." she began. He divined what she would have asked. "Mona has known it more than a year, but no one else, for he gave no sign. I know it only a short time. After all it is not to be wondered at. He has been near you, working with you for years. His life has been lonely somehow, and you seemed to fill it. Do not be hasty with him. Let him come to his avowal and his refusal in his own way. It is all you can do for him. Knowing you so well he probably knows what he has to receive." Arthur came back with his berries and poured them out on a leaf for her to eat. Seated for a little on a rock, while he lay on the ground at her feet, she ate to please him; but her soul in terror saw only the white face of Lord Constantine, and thought only of the pain in store for this most faithful friend. Oh, to have it out with him that moment! Yet it seemed too cruel. But how go on for a month in dread of what was to come? She loved him in her own beautiful way. Her tears fell that night as she sat in her room by the window watching the high moon, deep crimson, rising through the mist over the far-off islands. How bitter to leave her beloved even for God, when the leaving brought woe to them! So long she had waited for the hour of freedom, and always a tangle at the supreme moment! How could she be happy and he suffering without the convent gates? This pity was to be the last temptation, her greatest trial. Its great strength did not disarm her. If twenty broke their hearts on that day, she would not give up her loved design. Let God comfort them, since she could not. But the vision of a peaceful entrance into the convent faded. She would have to enter, as she had passed through life, carrying the burden of another's woe, in tears. She could see that he never lost heart. The days passed delightfully, and somehow his adoration pleased her. Having known him in many lights, there was novelty in seeing him illumined by candid love. How could he keep so high a courage with the end so dark and so near? Honora had no experience of love, romantic love, and she had always smiled at its expression in the novels of the time. If Arthur only knew the task he had set for himself! She loved him truly, but marriage repelled her almost, except in others. Therefore, having endured the uncertainty of the position a week, she had it out with Arthur. Sitting on the rocks of an ancient quarry, high above the surface of the lake, they watched the waters rough and white from the strong south wind. The household had adjourned that day for lunch to this wild spot, and the members were scattered about, leaving them, as they always did now, by common consent alone. "Perhaps," she said calmly, "this would be a good time to talk to you, Arthur, as sister to brother ... can't we talk as brother and sister?" For a change came over his face that sickened her. The next moment he was ready for the struggle. "I fear not, Honora," said he humbly. "I fear we can never do that again." "Then you are to stand in my way too?" with bitterness. "No, but I am not going to stand in my own way," he replied boldly. "Have I ever stood in your way, Honora?" "You have always helped me. Do not fail me at the last, I beg of you." "I shall never fail you, nor stand in your way. You are free now as your father wished you to be. You shall go to the convent on the date which you have named. Neither Ireland, nor anything but your heart shall hinder you. You have seen my heart for a week as you never saw it before. Do not let what you saw disturb or detain you. I told your father of it the last day of his life, and he was glad. He said it was like ... he was satisfied. Both he and I were of one mind that you should be free. And you are." Ideas and words fled from her. The situation of her own making she knew not how to manage. What could be more sensible than his speech? "Very well, thank you," she said helplessly. He had perfect control of himself, but his attitude expressed his uneasiness, his face only just concealed his pain. All his life in moments like this, Arthur Dillon would suffer from his earliest sorrow. "I hope you will all let me go with resignation," she began again. "I give you to God freely," was his astonishing answer, "but I may tell you it is my hope He will give you back to me. I have nothing, and He is the Lord of all. He has permitted my heart to be turned to ashes, and yet gave it life again through you. I have confidence in Him. To you I am nothing; in the future I shall be only a memory to be prayed for. If we had not God to lift us up, and repay us for our suffering, to what would we come? I could not make my heart clear to you, show you its depths of feeling, frightful depths, I think sometimes, and secure your pity. God alone, the master of hearts, can do that. I have been generous to the last farthing. He will not be outdone by me." "Oh, my God!" she murmured, looking at him in wonder, for his words sounded insanely to her ear. "I love you, Honora," he went on, with a flush on his cheek, and so humble that he kept his eyes on the ground. "Go, in spite of that, if God demands it. If you can, knowing that I shall be alone, how much alone no one may know, go nevertheless. Only bear it in mind, that I shall wait for you outside the convent gate. If you cannot remain thinking of me, I shall be ready for you. If not here, then hereafter, as God wills. But you are free, and I love you. Before you go, God's beloved," and he looked at her then with eyes so beautiful that her heart went out to him, "you must let me tell you what I have been. You will pray for me better, when you have learned how far a man can sink into hell, and yet by God's grace reach heaven again." CHAPTER XXXIV. A HARPY AT THE FEAST. Honora now saw that suffering was not to be avoided. Experience had taught her how to economize with it. In the wood one day she watched for minutes two robins hopping about in harmony, feeding, singing now and then low notes of content from a bough, and always together. A third robin made appearance on the scene, and their content vanished. Irritated and uneasy, even angered, they dashed at the intruder, who stood his ground, confident of his strength. For a long time he fought them, leaving only at his own pleasure. Longer still the pair remained unquiet, distressed by the struggle rather than wearied, complaining to each other tenderly. Behold a picture of her own mind, its order upset by the entrance of a new idea. That life of the mind, which is our true life, had to change its point of view in order to meet and cope with the newcomer. Arthur's love had the fiber of tragedy. She felt rather than knew its nature. For years it had been growing in his strong heart, disciplined by steady buffeting, by her indifference, by his own hard circumstances; no passion of an hour like Romeo's; more like her father's love for Erin. Former ideas began to shift position, and to struggle against the intruder vainly. Some fought in his favor. The vision of convent peace grew dim. She must take it with tears, and his sorrow would cloud its beauty. Marriage, always so remote from her life, came near, and tried to prove the lightness of its yoke with Arthur as the mate. The passion of her father's life awoke. Dear Erin cried out to her for the help which such a union would bring. Her fixed resolve to depart for her convent in September kept the process from tangle. Sweet indeed was the thought of how nobly he loved her. She was free. God alone was the arbiter. None would hinder her going, if her heart did not bid her stay for his sake. Her father had needed her. She would never have forgiven herself had she left him to carry his sorrow alone. Perhaps this poor soul needed her more. With delight one moment and shame the next, she saw herself drifting towards him. Nevertheless she did not waver, nor change the date of her departure. Arthur continued to adore at her shrine as he had done for years, and she studied him with the one thought: how will he bear new sorrow? No man bore the mark of sorrow more terribly when he let himself go, and at times his mask fell off in spite of resolve. As a lover Honora, with all her distaste for marriage, found him more lovable than ever, and had to admit that companionship with her hero would not be irritating. The conspiracy in his favor flourished within and without the citadel. Knowing that he adored her, she liked the adoration. To any goddess the smell of the incense is sweet, the sight of the flowers, the humid eyes, the leaping heart delightful. Yet she put it one side when the day over, and she knelt in her room for prayer. Like a dream the meanings of the day faded, and the vision of her convent cell, its long desired peace and rest, returned with fresher coloring. The men and women of her little world, the passions and interests of the daylight, so faded, that they seemed to belong to another age. While this comedy went on the farmhouse and its happy life were keenly and bitterly watched by the wretched wife of Curran. It was her luck, like Sonia's, to spoil her own feast in defiling her enemy's banquet. Having been routed at all points and all but sent to Jezebel's fate by Arthur Dillon, she had stolen into this paradise to do what mischief she could. Thus it happened, at the moment most favorable for Arthur's hopes, when Honora inclined towards him out of sisterly love and pity, that the two women met in a favorite haunt of Honora's, in the woods near the lake shore. To reach it one took a wild path through the woods, over the bluff, and along the foot of the hill, coming out on a small plateau some fifteen feet above the lake. Behind rose a rocky wall, covered with slender pines and cedars; noble trees shaded the plateau, leaving a clearing towards the lake; so that one looked out as from a frame of foliage on the blue waters, the islet of St. Michel, and the wooded cape known as Cumberland Head. As Honora entered this lovely place, Edith sat on a stone near the edge of the precipice, enjoying the view. She faced the newcomer with unfailing impertinence, and coolly studied the woman whom Arthur Dillon loved. Sickness of heart filled her with rage. The evil beauty of Sonia and herself showed purely animal beside the pale spiritual luster that shone from this noble, sad-hearted maid. Honora bowed distantly and passed on. Edith began to glow with delight of torturing her presently, and would not speak lest her pleasure be hurried. The instinct of the wild beast, to worry the living game, overpowered her. What business had Honora with so much luck? The love of Arthur, fame as a singer, beauty, and a passion for the perfect life? God had endowed herself with three of these gifts. Having dragged them through the mud, she hated the woman who had used them with honor. What delight that in a moment she could torture her with death's anguish! "I came here in the hope of meeting you, madam," she began suddenly, "if you are Miss Ledwith. I come to warn you." "I do not need warnings from strangers," Honora replied easily, studying the other for an instant with indifferent eyes, "and if you wished me to see on proper matters you should have called at the house." "For a scene with the man who ran away from his wife before he deceived me, and then made love to you? I could hardly do that," said she as demure and soft as a purring cat. Honora's calm look plainly spoke her thought: the creature was mad. "I am not mad. Miss Ledwith, and your looks will not prevent me warning you. Arthur Dillon is not the man he pretends----" "Please go away," Honora interrupted. "He is not the son of Anne Dillon----" "Then I shall go," said Honora, but Edith barred the only way out of the place, her eyes blazing with the insane pleasure of torturing the innocent. Honora turned her back on her and walked down to the edge of the cliff, where she remained until the end. "I know Arthur Dillon better than you know him," Edith went on, "and I know you better than you think. Once I had the honor of your acquaintance. That doesn't matter. Neither does it matter just who Arthur Dillon is. He's a fraud from cover to cover. His deserted wife is living, poor as well as neglected. The wretched woman has sought him long----" "Why don't you put her on the track?" Honora asked, relieved that the lunatic wished only to talk. "He makes love to you now as he has done for years, and he hopes to marry you soon. I can tell that by his behavior. I warn you that he is not free to marry. His wife lives. If you marry him I shall put her on his track, and give you a honeymoon of scandal. It was enough for him to have wrecked my life and broken my heart. I shall not permit him to repeat that work on any other unfortunate." "Is that all?" Edith, wholly astonished at the feeble impression made by her story, saw that her usual form had been lacking. Her scorn for Honora suggested that acting would be wasted on her; that the mere news of the living wife would be sufficient to plunge her into anguish. But here was no delight of pallid face and trembling limbs. Her tale would have gone just as well with the trees. "I have risked my life to tell you this," said she throwing in the note of pathos. "If Arthur Dillon, or whoever he is, hears of it, he will kill me." "Don't worry then," and Honora turned about with benign face and manner, quite suited to the need of a crazy patient escaped from her keepers, "I shall never tell him. But please go, for some one is coming. It may be he." Edith turned about swiftly and saw a form approaching through the trees. She had her choice of two paths a little beyond, and fled by the upper one. Her fear of Arthur had become mortal. As it was she rushed into the arms of Louis, who had seen the fleeing form, and thought to play a joke upon Mona or Honora. He dropped the stranger and made apologies for his rudeness. She curtsied mockingly, and murmured: "Possibly we have met before." The blood rose hot to his face as he recognized her, and her face paled as he seized her by the wrist with scant courtesy. "I scarcely hoped for the honor of meeting you again, Sister Claire. Of course you are here only for mischief, and Arthur Dillon must see you and settle with you. I'll trouble you to come with me." "You have not improved," she snarled. "You would attack my honor again." Then she screamed for help once, not the second time, which might have brought Arthur to the scene; but Honora came running to her assistance. "Ah, this was your prey, wolf?" said Louis coolly. "Honora, has she been lying to you, this fox, Sister Claire, Edith Conyngham, with a string of other names not to be remembered? Didn't you know her?" Honora recoiled. Edith stood in shame, with the mortified expression of the wild beast, the intelligent fox, trapped by an inferior boy. "Oh, let her go, Louis," she pleaded. "Not till she has seen Arthur. The mischief she can do is beyond counting. Arthur knows how to deal with her." "I insist," said Honora. "Come away, Louis, please, come away." He flung away her wrist with contempt, and pointed out her path. In a short time she had disappeared. "And what had she to tell you, may I ask?" said the Deacon. "Like the banshee her appearance brings misfortune to us." "You have always been my confidant, Louis," she answered after some thought. "Do you know anything about the earlier years of Arthur Dillon?" "Much. Was that her theme?" "That he was married and his wife still lives." "He will tell you about that business himself no doubt. I know nothing clear or certain ... some hasty expressions of feeling ... part of a dream ... the declaration that all was well now ... and so on. But I shall tell him. Don't object, I must. The woman is persistent and diabolical in her attempts to injure us. He must know at least that she is in the vicinity. He will guess what she's after without any further hint. But you mustn't credit her, Honora. As you know...." "Oh, I know," she answered with a smile. "The wretched creature is not to be believed under any circumstances. Poor soul!" Nevertheless she felt the truth of Edith's story. It mattered little whether Arthur was Anne Dillon's son, he would always be the faithful, strong friend, and benefactor. That he had a wife living, the living witness of the weakness of his career in the mines, shocked her for the moment. The fact carried comfort too. Doubt fled, and the weighing of inclinations, the process kept up by her mind apart from her will, ceased of a sudden. The great pity for Arthur, which had welled up in her heart like a new spring, dried up at its source. For the first time she felt the sin in him, the absence of the ideal. He had tripped and fallen like all his kind in the wild days of youth; and according to his nature had been repeating with her the drama enacted with his first love. She respected his first love. She respected the method of nature, but did not feel forced to admire it. Her distaste for the intimacy of marriage returned with tenfold strength. One might have become submissive and companionable with a virgin nature; to marry another woman's lover seemed ridiculous. This storm cleared the air beautifully. Her own point of view became plainer, and she saw how far inclination had hurried her. For some hours she had been near to falling in love with Arthur, had been willing to yield to tender persuasion. The woman guilty of such weakness did not seem at this moment to have been Honora Ledwith; only a poor soul, like a little ship in a big wind, borne away by the tempest of emotion. She had no blame for Arthur. His life was his own concern. Part of it had brought her much happiness. Edith's scandalous story did not shake her confidence in him. Undoubtedly he was free to marry, or he would not have approached her. His freedom from a terrible bond must have been recent, since his manner towards herself had changed only that summer, within the month in fact. The reserve of years had been prompted by hard conditions. In honor he could not woo. Ah, in him ran the fibre of the hero, no matter what might have been his mistakes! He had resisted every natural temptation to show his love. Once more they were brother and sister, children of the dear father whose last moments they had consoled. Who would regret the sorrow which led to such a revealing of hearts? The vision of her convent rose again to her pleased eye, fresh and beautiful as of old, and dearer because of the passing darkness which had concealed it for a time; the light from the chapel windows falling upon the dark robes in the choir, the voices of the reader, chanter, and singer, and the solemn music of the organ; the procession filing silently from one duty to another, the quiet cell when the day was over, and the gracious intimacy with God night and day. Could her belief and her delight in that holy life have been dim for an instant? Ah, weakness of the heart! The mountain is none the less firm because clouds obscure its lofty form. She had been wrapped in the clouds of feeling, but never once had her determination failed. CHAPTER XXXV. SONIA CONSULTS LIVINGSTONE. Edith's visit, so futile, so unlike her, had been prompted by the hatefulness of her nature. The expedition to California had failed, her effort to prove her instincts true had come to nothing, and Arthur Dillon had at last put his foot down and extinguished her and Sonia together. Free to snarl and spit if they chose, the two cats could never plot seriously against him more. Curran triumphed in the end. Tracking Arthur Dillon through California had all the features of a chase through the clouds after a bird. The scene changed with every step, and the ground just gone over faded like a dream. They found Dillons, a few named Arthur, some coincidences, several mysteries, and nothing beyond. The police still had the photographs sent out by Anne Dillon, and a record that the man sought for had been found and returned to his mother. The town where the search ended had only a ruined tavern and one inhabitant, who vaguely remembered the close of the incident. Edith surrendered the search in a violent temper, and all but scratched out the eyes of her devoted slave. To Sonia the detective put the net result very sensibly. "Arthur Dillon did not live in California under his own name," said he, "and things have so changed there in five years that his tracks have been wiped out as if by rain. All that has been done so far proves this man to be just what he appears. We never had a worse case, and never took up a more foolish pursuit. We have proved just one sure thing: that if this man be Horace, then he can't be found. He is too clever to be caught, until he is willing to reveal himself. If you pursue him to the point which might result in his capture, there'll be murder or worse waiting for you at that point. It might be better for you two not to find him." This suggestion, clever and terrifying, Sonia could not understand as clearly as Curran. She thought the soft nature of Horace quite manageable, and if murder were to be done her knife should do it. Oh, to seize his throat with her beautiful hands, to press and squeeze and dig until the blood gorged his face, and to see him die by inches, gasping! He had lied like a coward! Nothing easier to destroy than such a wretch! "Don't give up, Sonia," was Edith's comment on the wise words of Curran. "Get a good lawyer, and by some trick drag Dillon and his mother and the priest to court, put them on oath as to who the man is; they won't perjure themselves, I'll wager." "That is my thought," said Sonia tenderly nursing the idea. "There seems to be nothing more to do. I have thought the matter over very carefully. We are at the end. If this fails I mean to abandon the matter. But for his money I would have let him go as far as he wanted, and I would let this man pass too but for the hope of getting at his money. It is the only way to punish Horace, as he punished me. I feel like you, that the mystery is with this Arthur Dillon. Since I saw you last, he has filled my dreams, and always in the dreams he has been so like Horace that I now see more of a likeness in Arthur Dillon. I have a relative in the city, a very successful lawyer, Quincy Livingstone. I shall consult him. Perhaps it would be well for you to accompany me, Edith. You explain this case so well." "No, she'll keep out of it, by your leave," the detective answered for her. "Dillon has had patience with this woman, but he will resent interference so annoying." Edith made a face at him. "As if I could be bossed by either you or Arthur. Sonia, you have the right stuff in you, clear grit. This trick will land your man." "You'll find an alligator who will eat the legs off you both before you can run away," said Curran. "Do you know what I think, Dick Curran?" she snapped at him. "That you have been playing the traitor to us, telling Arthur Dillon all we've been doing. Oh, if I could prove that, you wretch!" "You have a high opinion of his softness, if you think he would throw away money to learn what any schoolboy might learn by himself. How much did you, with all your cleverness, get out of him in the last five years?" He laughed joyfully at her wicked face. "Let me tell you this," he added. "You have been teasing that boy as a monkey might a lion. Now you will set on him the man that he likes least in this world, Livingstone. What a pretty mouthful you will be when he makes up his mind that you've done enough." Nevertheless the two women called on Livingstone. The great man, no longer great, no longer in the eye of the world, out of politics because the charmed circle had closed, and no more named for high places because his record had made him impossible, had returned to the practice of law. Eminent by his ability, his achievement, and his blood, but only a private citizen, the shadow of his failure lay heavy on his life and showed clearly in his handsome face. That noble position which he had missed, so dear to heart and imagination, haunted his moments of leisure and mocked his dreams. He had borne the disappointment bravely, had lightly called it the luck of politics. Now that the past lay in clear perspective, he recognized his own madness. He had fought with destiny like a fool, had stood in the path of a people to whom God had given the chance which the rulers of the earth denied them; and this people, through a youth carrying the sling of David, had ruined him. He had no feeling against Birmingham, nor against Arthur Dillon. The torrent, not the men, had destroyed him. Yet he had learned nothing. With a fair chance he would have built another dam the next morning. He was out of the race forever. In the English mission he had touched the highest mark of his success. He mourned in quiet. Life had still enough for him, but oh! the keenness of his regret. Sonia's story he had heard before, at the beginning of the search, as a member of the Endicott family. The details had never reached him. The cause of Horace Endicott's flight he had forgotten. Edith in her present costume remained unknown, nor did she enlighten him. Her thought as she studied him was of Dillon's luck in his enterprises. Behold three of his victims. Sonia repeated for the lawyer the story of her husband's disappearance, and of the efforts to find him. "At last I think that I have found him," was her conclusion, "in the person of a man known in this city as Arthur Dillon." Livingstone started slightly. However, there must be many Arthur Dillons, the Irish being so numerous, and tasteless in the matter of names. When she described her particular Arthur his astonishment became boundless at the absurdity of the supposition. "You have fair evidence I suppose that he is Horace Endicott, madam?" "I am sorry to tell you that I have none, because the statement makes one feel so foolish. On the contrary the search of a clever detective ... he's really clever, isn't he, Edith?... shows that Dillon is just what he appears to be, the son of Mrs. Anne Dillon. The whole town believes he is her son. The people who knew him since he was born declare him to be the very image of his father. Still, I think that he is Horace Endicott. Why I think so, ... Edith, my dear, it is your turn now. Do explain to the lawyer." Livingstone wondered as the dancer spoke where that beautiful voice and fluent English had become familiar. Sister Claire had passed from his mind with all the minor episodes of his political intrigues. He could not find her place in his memory. Her story won him against his judgment. The case, well put, found strength in the contention that the last move had not been made, since the three most important characters in the play had not been put to the question. His mind ran over the chief incidents in that remarkable fight which Arthur Dillon had waged in behalf of his people: the interview before the election of Birmingham, ... the intrigues in London, the dexterous maneuvers which had wrecked the campaign against the Irish, had silenced McMeeter, stunned the Bishop, banished Fritters, ruined Sister Claire, tumbled him from his lofty position, and cut off his shining future. How frightful the thought that this wide ruin might have been wrought by an Endicott, one of his own blood! "A woman's instincts are admirable," he said, politely and gravely, "and they have led you admirably in this case. But in face of three facts, the failure of the detective, the declaration of Mr. Dillon, and your failure to recognize your husband after five years, it would be absurd to persist in the belief that this young man is your husband. Moreover there are intrinsic difficulties, which would tell even if you had made out a good case for the theory. No Endicott would take up intimate connection with the Irish. He would not know enough about them, he could not endure them; his essence would make the scheme, even if it were presented to him by others, impossible. One has only to think of two or three main difficulties to feel and see the utter absurdity of the whole thing." "No doubt," replied Sonia sweetly. "Yet I am determined not to miss this last opportunity to find my husband. If it fails I shall get my divorce, and ... bother with the matter no more." Edith smiled faintly at the suggestive pause, and murmured the intended phrase, "marry Quincy Lenox." "Very well," said the lawyer. "You have only to begin divorce proceedings here, issue a summons for the real Horace Endicott, and serve the papers on Mr. Arthur Dillon. You must be prepared for many events however. The whole business will be ventilated in the journals. The disappearance will come up again, and be described in the light of this new sensation. Mr. Dillon is eminent among his people, and well known in this city. It will be a year's wonder to have him sued in a divorce case, to have it made known that he is supposed to be Horace Endicott." "That is unavoidable," Edith prompted, seeing a sudden shrinking on the part of Sonia. "Do not forget, sir, that all Mrs. Endicott wants is the sworn declaration of Arthur Dillon that he is not Horace Endicott, of his mother that he is her son, of Father O'Donnell that he knows nothing of Horace Endicott since his disappearance." "You would not like the case to come to trial?" said the lawyer to Sonia. "I must get my divorce," she answered coolly, "whether this is the right man or no." "Let me tell you what may happen after the summons, or notice, is served on Mr. Dillon," said the lawyer. "The serving can be done so quietly that for some time no others but those concerned need know about it. I shall assume that Mr. Dillon is not Horace Endicott. In that case he can ignore the summons, which is not for him, but for another man. He need never appear. If you insisted on his appearance, you would have to offer some evidence that he is really Horace Endicott. This you cannot do. He could make affidavit that he is not the man. By that time the matter would be public property, and he could strike back at you for the scandal, the annoyance, and the damage done to his good name." "What I want is to have his declaration under oath that he is not Horace. If he is Horace he will never swear to anything but the truth." For the first time Sonia showed emotion, tears dropped from her lovely eyes, and the lawyer wondered what folly had lost to her husband so sweet a creature. Evidently she admired one of Horace's good qualities. "You can get the declaration in that way. To please you, he might at my request make affidavit without publicity and scenes at court." "I would prefer the court," said Sonia firmly. "She's afeared the lawyer suspects her virtue," Edith said to herself. "Let me now assume that Arthur Dillon is really Horace Endicott," continued Livingstone. "He must be a consummate actor to play his part so well and so long. He can play the part in this matter also, by ignoring the summons, and declaring simply that he is not the man. In that case he leaves himself open to punishment, for if he should thereafter be proved to be Horace Endicott, the court could punish him for contempt. Or, he can answer the summons by his lawyer, denying the fact, and stating his readiness to swear that he is not any other than Arthur Dillon. You would then have to prove that he is Horace Endicott, which you cannot do." "All I want is the declaration under oath," Sonia repeated. "And you are ready for any ill consequences, the resentment and suit of Mr. Dillon, for instance? Understand, my dear lady, that suit for divorce is not a trifling matter for Mr. Dillon, if he is not Endicott." "Particularly as he is about to marry a very handsome woman," Edith interjected, heedless of the withering glance from Sonia. "Ah, indeed!" "Then I think some way ought to be planned to get Anne Dillon and the priest into court," Edith suggested. "Under oath they might give us some hint of the way to find Horace Endicott. The priest knows something about him." "I shall be satisfied if Arthur Dillon swears that he is not Horace," Sonia said, "and then I shall get my divorce and wash my hands of the tiresome case. It has cost me too much money and worry." "Was there any reason alleged for the remarkable disappearance of the young man? I knew his father and mother very well, and admired them. I saw the boy in his schooldays, never afterwards. You have a child, I understand." Edith lowered her eyes and looked out of the window on the busy street. "It is for my child's sake that I have kept up the search," Sonia answered with maternal tenderness. "Insanity is supposed to be the cause. Horace acted strangely for three months before his disappearance, he grew quite thin, and was absent most of the time. As it was summer, which I spent at the shore with friends, I hardly noticed his condition. It was only when he had gone, without warning, taking considerable money with him, that I recalled his queer behavior. Since then not a scrap of information, not a trace, nor a hint of him, has ever come back to me. The detectives did their best until this moment. All has failed." "Very sad," Livingstone said, touched by the hopeless tone. "Well, as you wish it then, I shall bring suit for divorce and alimony against Horace Endicott, and have the papers served on Arthur Dillon. He can ignore them or make his reply. In either case he must be brought to make affidavit that he is not the man you look for." "And the others? The priest and Mrs. Dillon?" asked Edith. "They are of no consequence," was Sonia's opinion. After settling unimportant details the two women departed. Livingstone found the problem which they had brought to his notice fascinating. He had always marked Arthur Dillon among his associates, as an able and peculiar young man, he had been attracted by him, and had listened to his speeches with more consideration than most young men deserved. His amazing success in dealing with a Livingstone, his audacity and nerve in attacking the policy which he brought to nothing, were more wonderful to the lawyer than to the friends of Dillon, who had not seen the task in its entirety. And this peculiar fellow was thought to be an Endicott, of his own family, of the English blood, more Irish than the Irish, bitterer towards him than the priests had been. The very impossibility of the thing made it charming. What course of thought, what set of circumstances, could turn the Puritan mind in the Celtic direction? Was there such genius in man to convert one personality into another so neatly that the process remained undiscoverable, not to be detected by the closest observation? He shook off the fascination. These two women believed it, but he knew that no Endicott could ever be converted. CHAPTER XXXVI. ARTHUR'S APPEAL. Suit was promptly begun by Livingstone on behalf of Sonia for a divorce from Horace Endicott. Before the papers had been fully made out, even before the officer had been instructed to serve them on Arthur Dillon, the lawyer received an evening visit from the defendant himself. As a suspicious act he welcomed it; but a single glance at the frank face and easy manner, when one knew the young man's ability, disarmed suspicion. The lawyer studied closely, for the first time with interest, the man who might yet prove to be his kinsman. He saw a form inclined to leanness, a face that might have been handsome but for the sunken cheeks, dark and expressive eyes whose natural beauty faded in the dark circles around them, a fine head with dead black hair, and a handsome beard, streaked with gray. His dress, gentleman-like but of a strange fashion, the lawyer did not recognize as the bachelor costume of Cherry Hill prepared by his own tailor. Nothing of the Endicott in face or manner, nothing tragical, the expression decorous and formal, perhaps a trifle quizzical, as this was their first meeting since the interview in London. "I have called to enter a protest," Arthur began primly, "against the serving of the papers in the coming Endicott divorce case on your humble servant." "As the papers are to be served only on Horace Endicott, I fail to see how you have any right or reason to protest," was the suave answer. "I know all about the matter, sir, for very good reasons. For some months the movements of the two women concerned in this affair have been watched in my interest. Not long after they left you a few days ago, the result of their visit was made known to me. To anticipate the disagreeable consequences of serving the papers on me, I have not waited. I appeal to you not only as the lawyer of Mrs. Endicott, but also as one much to blame for the new persecution which is about to fall upon me." "I recognize the touch," said Livingstone, unable to resist a smile. "Mr. Dillon must be audacious or nothing." "I am quite serious," Arthur replied. "You know part of the story, what Mrs. Endicott chose to tell you, but I can enlighten you still more. I appeal to you, as the lady's lawyer, to hinder her from doing mischief; and again I appeal to you as one to blame in part for the threatened annoyances. But for the lady who accompanied Mrs. Endicott, I would not be suspected of relationship with your honored family. But for the discipline which I helped to procure for that lady, she would have left me in peace. But for your encouragement of the lady, I would not have been forced to subject a woman to discipline. You may remember the effective Sister Claire?" So true was the surprise that Livingstone blushed with sudden violence. "That woman was the so-called escaped nun?" he exclaimed. "Now Mrs. Curran, wife of the detective employed by Mrs. Endicott for five years to discover her lost husband. She satisfies her noblest aspirations by dancing in the theaters, ... and a very fine dancer she is. Her leisure is devoted to plotting vengeance on me. She pretends to believe that I am Horace Endicott; perhaps she does believe it. Anyway she knows that persecution will result, and she has persuaded Mrs. Endicott to inaugurate it. I do not know if you were her selection to manage the case." This time Livingstone did not blush, being prepared for any turn of mood and speech from this singular young man. "As the matter was described to me," he said, "only a sentimental reason included you in the divorce proceedings. I can understand Mrs. Curran's feelings, and to what they would urge a woman of that character. Still, her statements here were very plausible." "Undoubtedly. She made her career up to this moment on the plausible. Let me tell you, if it is not too tedious, how she has pursued this theory in the face of all good sense." The lawyer bowed his permission. "I am of opinion that the creature is half mad, or subject to fits of insanity. Her husband had talked much of the Endicott case, which was not good for a woman of her peculiarities. By inspiration, insane suggestion, she assumed that I was the man sought for, and built up the theory as you have heard. First, she persuaded her good-natured husband, with whom I am acquainted, to investigate among my acquaintances for the merest suspicion, doubt, of my real personality. A long and minute inquiry, the details of which are in writing in my possession, was made by the detective with one result: that no one doubted me to be what I was born." Livingstone cast a look at him to see the expression which backed that natural and happy phrase. Arthur Dillon might have borne it. "She kept at her husband, however, until he had tried to surprise my relatives, my friends, my nurse, and my mother, ... yes, even my confessor, into admissions favorable to her mad dream. My rooms, my papers, my habits, my secrets were turned inside out; Mrs. Endicott was brought on from Boston to study me in my daily life; for days I was watched by the three. In the detective's house I was drugged into a profound sleep, and for ten minutes the two women examined my sleeping face for signs of Horace Endicott. When all these things failed, Sister Claire dragged her unwilling husband to California, where I had spent ten years of my life, and tried hard to find another Arthur Dillon, or to disconnect me with myself. She proved to her own satisfaction that these things could not be done. But there is a devil of perversity in her. She is like a boa constrictor ... I think that's the snake which cannot let go its prey once it has seized it. She can't let go. In desperation she is risking her own safety and happiness to make public her belief that I am Horace Endicott. In spite of the overwhelming proofs against the theory, and in favor of me, she is bent on bringing the case into court." "Risking her own safety and happiness?" Livingstone repeated. "If the wild geese among the Irish could locate Sister Claire, who is supposed to have fled the town long ago, her life would be taken. If this suit continues she will have to leave the city forever. Knowing this the devil in her urges her to her own ruin." "You have kept close track of her," said Livingstone. "You left me no choice," was the reply, "having sprung the creature on us, and then thrown her off when you found out her character. If she had only turned on her abettors and wracked them I wouldn't have cared." "You protest then against the serving of these papers on you. Would it not be better to settle forever the last doubts in so peculiar a matter?" "What have I to do with the doubts of an escaped nun, and of Mrs. Endicott? Must I go to court and stand the odium of a shameful imputation to settle the doubts of a lunatic criminal and a woman whose husband fled from her with his entire fortune?" "It is regrettable," the lawyer admitted with surprise. "As Mrs. Endicott is perhaps the most deeply interested, I fear that the case must go on." "I have come to show you that it will not be to the interest of the two women that it should go on. In fact I feel quite certain that you will not serve those papers on me after I have laid a few facts before you." "I shall be glad to examine them in the interest of my client." "Having utterly failed to prove me other than I am," Arthur said easily, while the lawyer watched with increasing interest the expressive face, "these women have accepted your suggestion to put me under oath as to my own personality. I would not take affidavit," and his contempt was evident. "I am not going to permit any public or official attempt to cast doubt on my good name. You can understand the feeling. My mother and my friends are not accustomed to the atmosphere of courts, nor of scandal. It would mean severe suffering for them to be dragged into so sensational a trial. The consequences one cannot measure beforehand. The unpleasantness lives after all the parties are dead. Since I can prevent it I am going to do it. As far as I am concerned Mrs. Endicott must be content with a simple denial, or a simple affirmation rather, that I am Arthur Dillon, and therefore not her husband. It is more than she deserves, because there is not a shred of evidence to warrant her making a single move against me. She has not been able to find in me a feature resembling her husband." "Then, you are prepared to convince Mrs. Endicott that she has more to lose than to gain by bringing you into her divorce suit?" "Precisely. Here is the point for her to consider: if the papers in this suit are served upon me, then there will be no letting-up afterward. Her affairs, the affairs of this woman Curran, the lives of both to the last detail, will be served up to the court and the public. You know how that can be done. I would rather not have it done, but I proffer Mrs. Endicott the alternative." "I do not know how strong an argument that would be with Mrs. Endicott," said Livingstone with interest. "She is too shallow a woman to perceive its strength, unless you, as her lawyer and kinsman, make it plain to her," was the guileless answer. "Mrs. Curran knows nothing of court procedure, but she is clever enough to foresee consequences, and her history before her New York fiasco includes bits of romance from the lives of important people." Livingstone resisted the inclination to laugh, and then to get angry. "You think then, that if Mrs. Endicott could be made to see the possibilities of a desperate trial, the possible exposures of her sins and the sins of others, that she would not risk it?" "She has family pride," said Arthur seriously, "and would not care to expose her own to scorn. I presume you know something about the Endicott disappearance?" "Nothing more than the fact, and the failure to find the young man?" "His wife employed the detective Curran to make the search for Endicott, and Curran is a Fenian, as interested as myself in such matters. He was with me in the little enterprise which ended so fatally for Ledwith and ... others." Livingstone was too sore on this subject to smile at the pause and the word. "Curran told me the details after he had left the pursuit of Endicott. They are known now to Mrs. Endicott's family in part. It is understood that she will marry her cousin Quincy Lenox when she gets a divorce. He was devoted to her before her marriage and is faithful still, I am told." Not a sign of feeling in the utterance of these significant words! "It is not affection, then, which prompts the actions of my client? She wishes to make sure of the existence or non-existence of her husband before entering upon this other marriage?" "Of course I can tell you only what the detective and one other told us," Arthur said. "When Horace Endicott disappeared, it is said, he took with him his entire fortune, something over a million, leaving not one cent to his wife. He had converted his property into cash secretly. Her anxiety to find him is very properly to get her lawful share in that property, that is, alimony with her divorce?" "I see," said Livingstone, and he began to understand the lines and shadows on this young man's face. "A peculiar, and I suppose thorough, revenge." "If the papers are served on me, you understand, then in one fashion or another Mrs. Endicott shall be brought to court, and Quincy Lenox too, with the detective and his wife, and a few others. It is almost too much that you have been made acquainted with the doubts of these people. I bear with it, but I shall not endure one degree more of publicity. Once it is known that I am thought to be Horace Endicott, then the whole world must know quite as thoroughly that I am Arthur Dillon; and also who these people are that so foolishly pursue me. It cannot but appear to the average crowd that this new form of persecution is no more than an outgrowth of the old." Then they glared at each other mildly, for the passions of yesterday were still warm. Livingstone's mood had changed, however. He felt speculatively certain that Horace Endicott sat before him, and he knew Sonia to be a guilty woman. As his mind flew over the humiliating events which connected him with Dillon, consolation soothed his wounded heart that he had been overthrown perhaps by one of his own, rather than by the Irish. The unknown element in the contest had given victory to the lucky side. He recalled his sense of this young fellow's superiority to his environment. He tried to fathom Arthur's motive in this visit, but failed. As a matter of fact Arthur was merely testing the thoroughness of his own disappearance. His visit to Livingstone the real Dillon would have made. It would lead the lawyer to believe that Sonia, in giving up her design, had been moved by his advice and not by a quiet, secret conversation with her husband. Livingstone quickly made up his mind that the divorce suit would have to be won by default, but he wished to learn more of this daring and interesting kinsman. "The decision must remain with Mrs. Endicott," he said after a pause. "I shall tell her, before your name is mixed up with the matter, just what she must expect. If she has anything to fear from a public trial you are undoubtedly the man to bring it out." "Thank you." "I might even use persuasion ..." "It would be a service to the Endicott family," Arthur said earnestly, "for I can swear to you that the truth will come out, the scandal which Horace Endicott fled to avoid and conceal forever." "Did you know Endicott?" "Very well indeed. I was his guide in California every time he made a trip to that country." "I might persuade Mrs. Endicott," said the lawyer with deeper interest, "for the sake of the family name, to surrender her foolish theory. It is quite clear to any one with unbiased judgment that you are not Horace Endicott, even if you are not Arthur Dillon. I knew the young man slightly, and his family very well. I can see myself playing the part which you have presented to us for the past five years, quite as naturally as Horace Endicott would have played it. It was not in Horace's nature, nor in the Endicott nature to turn Irish so completely." Arthur felt all the bitterness and the interest which this shot implied. "I had the pleasure of knowing Endicott well, much better than you, sir," he returned warmly, "and while I know he was something of a good-natured butterfly, I can say something for his fairness and courage. If he had known what I know of the Irish, of their treatment by their enemies at home and here, of English hypocrisy and American meanness, of their banishment from the land God gave them and your attempt to drive them out of New York or to keep them in the gutter, he would have taken up their cause as honestly as I have done." "You are always the orator, Mr. Endi ... Dillon." "I have feeling, which is rare in the world," said Arthur smiling. "Do you know what this passion for justice has done for me, Mr. Livingstone? It has brought out in me the eloquence which you have praised, and inspired the energy, the deviltry, the trickery, the courage, that were used so finely at your expense. "I was like Endicott, a wild irresponsible creature, thinking only of my own pleasure. Out of my love for one country which is not mine, out of a study of the wrongs heaped upon the Irish by a civilized people, I have secured the key to the conditions of the time. I have learned to despise and pity the littleness of your party, to recognize the shams of the time everywhere, the utter hypocrisy of those in power. "I have pledged myself to make war on them as I made war on you; on the power that, mouthing liberty, holds Ireland in slavery; on the powers that, mouthing order and peace, hold down Poland, maintain Turkey, rob and starve India, loot the helpless wherever they may. I was a harmless hypocrite and mostly a fool once. Time and hardship and other things, chiefly Irish and English, have given me a fresh start in the life of thought. You hardly understand this, being thoroughly English in your make-up. "You love good Protestants, pagans who hate the Pope, all who bow to England, and that part of America which is English. You can blow about their rights and liberties, and denounce their persecutors, if these happen to be French or Dutch or Russian. For a Pole or an Irishman you have no sympathy, and you would deny him any place on the earth but a grave. Liberty is not for him unless he becomes a good English Protestant at the same time. In other words liberty may be the proper sauce for the English goose but not for the Irish gander." "I suppose it appears that way to you," said Livingstone, who had listened closely, not merely to the sentiments, but to the words, the tone, the idiom. Could Horace Endicott have ever descended to this view of his world, this rawness of thought, sentiment, and expression? So peculiarly Irish, anti-English, rich with the flavor of the Fourth Ward, and nevertheless most interesting. "I shall not argue the point," he continued. "I judge from your earnestness that you have a well-marked ambition in life, and that you will follow it." "My present ambition is to see our grand cathedral completed and dedicated as soon as possible, as the loudest word we can speak to you about our future. But I fear I am detaining you. If during the next few days the papers in the divorce case are not served on me, I may feel certain that Mrs. Endicott has given up the idea of including me in the suit?" "I shall advise her to leave you in peace for the sake of the Endicott name," said Livingstone politely. Arthur thanked him and departed, while the lawyer spent an hour enjoying his impressions and vainly trying to disentangle the Endicott from the Dillon in this extraordinary man. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE END OF MISCHIEF. Arthur set out for the Curran household, where he was awaited with anxiety. Quite cheerful over his command of the situation, and inclined to laugh at the mixed feelings of Livingstone, he felt only reverence and awe before the human mind as seen in the light of his own experience. His particular mind had once been Horace Endicott's, but now represented the more intense and emotional personality of Arthur Dillon. He was neither Horace, nor the boy who had disappeared; but a new being fashioned after the ideal Arthur Dillon, as Horace Endicott had conceived him. What he had been seemed no more a part of his past, but a memory attached to another man. All his actions proved it. The test of his disappearance delighted him. He had gone through its various scenes with little emotion, with less than Edith had displayed; far less than Arthur Dillon would have felt and shown. Who can measure the mind? Itself the measure of man's knowledge, the judge in the court of human destiny, how feeble its power over itself! A few years back this mind directed Horace Endicott; to-day it cheerfully served the conscience of Arthur Dillon! Edith and her husband awaited their executioner. The detective suffered for her rather than himself. From Dillon he had nothing to fear, and for his sake, also for the strange regard he had always kept for Curran's wife, Arthur had been kind when harshness would have done more good. Now the end had come for her and Sonia. As the unexpected usually came from this young man, they had reason to feel apprehension. He took his seat comfortably in the familiar chair, and lit his cigar while chaffing her. "They who love the danger shall perish in it," he said for a beginning. "You court it, Colette, and not very wisely." "How, not wisely?" she asked with a pretence of boldness. "You count on the good will of the people whom you annoy and wrong, and yet you have never any good will to give them in return. You have hated me and pursued me on the strength of my good will for you. It seems never to have occurred to you to do me a good turn for the many I have done for you. You are a bud of incarnate evil, Colette." How she hated him when he talked in that fashion! "Well, it's all settled. I have had the last talk with Livingstone, and spoiled your last trick against the comfort of Arthur Dillon. There will be no dragging to court of the Dillon clan. Mr. Livingstone believes with me that the publicity would be too severe for Mrs. Endicott and her family, not to mention the minor revelations connected with yourself. So there's the end of your precious tomfoolery, Colette." She burst into vehement tears. "But you weep too soon," he protested. "I have saved you as usual from yourself, but only to inflict my own punishment. Don't weep those crocodile diamonds until you have heard your own sentence. Of course you know that I have followed every step you took in this matter. You are clever enough to have guessed that. You discovered all that was to be discovered, of course. But you are too keen. If this trial had come to pass you would have been on the witness stand, and the dogs would have caught the scent then never to lose it. You would have ruined your husband as well as yourself." "Why do you let him talk to me so?" she screamed at Curran. "Because it is for your good," Arthur answered. "But here's briefness. You must leave New York at once, and forever. Get as far from it as you can, and stay there while I am alive. And for consolation in your exile take your child with you, your little boy, whom Mrs. Endicott parades as her little son, the heir of her beloved Horace." A frightful stillness fell in the room with this terrific declaration. But for pity he could have laughed at the paralysis which seized both the detective and his wife. Edith sat like a statue, white-faced, pouting at him, her hands clasped in her lap. "Well, are you surprised? You, the clever one? If I am Horace Endicott, as you pretend to believe, do I not know the difference between my own child and another's? I am Arthur Dillon only, and yet I know how you conspired with Mrs. Endicott to provide her with an heir for the Endicott money. You did this in spite of your husband, who has never been able to control you, not even when you chose to commit so grave a crime. Now, it is absolutely necessary for the child's sake that you save him from Mrs. Endicott's neglect, when he is of no further use to her. She loves children, as you know." "Who are you, anyway?" Curran burst out hoarsely after a while. "Not half as good a detective as you are, but I happen in this matter to be on the inside," Arthur answered cheerfully. "I knew Horace Endicott much better than his wife or his friends. The poor fellow is dead and gone, and yet he left enough information behind him to trouble the clever people. Are you satisfied, Colette, that this time everything must be done as I have ordered?" "You have proved yourself Horace Endicott," she gasped in her rage, burning with hate, mortification, shame, fifty tigerish feelings that could not find expression. "Fie, fie, Colette! You have proved that I am Arthur Dillon. Why go back on your own work? If you had known Horace Endicott as I did, you would not compare the meek and civilized Dillon with the howling demon into which his wife turned him. That fellow would not have sat in your presence ten minutes knowing that you had palmed off your child as his, without taking your throat in his hands for a death squeeze. His wife would not have escaped death from the madman had he ever encountered her. Here are your orders now; it is late and I must not keep you from your beauty sleep; take the child as soon as the Endicott woman sends him to you, and leave New York one hundred miles behind you. If you are found in this city any time after the month of September, you take all the risks. I shall not stand between you and justice again. You are the most ungrateful sinner that I have ever dealt with. Now go and weep for yourself. Don't waste any tears on Mrs. Endicott." Sobbing like an angry and humiliated child, Edith rushed out of the room. Curran felt excessively foolish. Though partly in league with Arthur, the present situation went beyond him. "Be hanged if I don't feel like demanding an explanation," he said awkwardly. "You don't need it," said Arthur as he proceeded to make it. "Can't you see that Horace Endicott is acting through me, and has been from the first, to secure the things I have secured. He is dead as I told you. How he got away, kept himself hid, and all that, you are as good an authority as I. While he was alive you could have found him as easily as I could, but he was beyond search always, though I guess not beyond betrayal. Well, let me congratulate you on getting your little family together again. Don't worry over what has happened to-night. Drop the Endicott case. You can see there's no luck in it for any one." Certainly there had been no luck in it for the Currans. Arthur went to his club in the best humor, shaking with laughter over the complete crushing of Edith, with whom he felt himself quite even in the contest that had endured so long. Next morning it would be Sonia's turn. Ah, what a despicable thing is man's love, how unstable and profitless! No wonder Honora valued it so lightly. How Horace Endicott had raved over this whited sepulcher five years ago, believed in her, sworn by her virtue and truth! And to-day he regarded her without feeling, neither love nor hate, perfect indifference only marking his mental attitude in her regard. Somehow one liked to feel that love is unchangeable, as with the mother, the father; as with God also, for whom sin does not change relationship with the sinner. When he stood before her the next day in the hotel parlor, she reminded him in her exquisite beauty of a play seen from the back of the stage; the illusion so successful with the audience is there an exposed sham, without coherence, and without beauty. Her eyes had a scared look. She had to say to herself, if this is Horace then my time has come, if it is Arthur Dillon I have nothing to worry about, before her hate came to her aid and gave her courage. She murmured the usual formula of unexpected pleasure. He bowed, finding no pleasure in this part of his revenge. Arthur Dillon could not have been more considerate of Messalina. "It is certainly a privilege and an honor," said he, "to be suspected of so charming a relationship with Mrs. Endicott. Nevertheless I have persuaded your lawyer, Mr. Livingstone, that it would be unprofitable and imprudent to bring me into the suit for divorce. He will so advise you I think to-day." She smiled at the compliment and felt reassured. "There were some things which I could not tell the lawyer," he went on, "and so I made bold to call on you personally. It is disagreeable, what I must tell you. My only apology is that you yourself have made this visit necessary by bringing my name into the case." Her smile died away, and her face hardened. She prepared herself for trouble. "I told your lawyer that if the papers were served on me, and a public and official doubt thrown on my right to the name of Arthur Dillon, I would not let the business drop until the Endicott-Curran-Dillon mystery had been thoroughly ventilated in the courts. He agreed with me that this would expose the Endicott name to scandal." "We have been perhaps too careful from the beginning about the Endicott name," she said severely. "Which is the reason why no advance has been made in the search for my dear husband." "That may be true, Mrs. Endicott. You must not forget, however, that you will be a witness, and Mrs. Curran, and her husband, and Mr. Quincy Lenox, and others besides. How do you think these people would stand questioning as to who your little boy, called Horace Endicott, really is?" She sat prepared for a dangerous surprise, but not for this horror; and the life left her on the spot, for the poor weed was as soft and cowardly as any other product of the swamp. He rang for restoratives and sent for her maid. In ten minutes, somewhat restored, she faced the ordeal, if only to learn what this terrible man knew. "Who are you?" she asked feebly, the same question asked by Curran in his surprise. "A friend of Horace Endicott," he answered quietly. "And what do you know of us?" "All that Horace knew." She could not summon courage to put a third question. He came to her aid. "Perhaps you are not sure about what Horace knew? Shall I tell you? I did not tell your lawyer. I only hinted that the truth would be brought out if my name was dragged into the case against my protest. Shall I tell you what Horace knew?" With closed eyes she made a sign of acquiescence. "He knew of your relations with Quincy Lenox. He saw you together on a certain night, when he arrived home after a few days' absence. He also heard your conversation. In this you admitted that out of hatred for your husband you had destroyed his heir before the child was born. He knew your plan of retrieving that blunder by adopting the child of Edith Curran, and palming him off as your own. He knew of your plan to secure the good will of his Aunt Lois for the impostor, and found the means to inform his aunt of the fraud. All that he knew will be brought out at any trial in which my name shall be included. Your lawyer will tell you that it cannot be avoided. Therefore, when your lawyer advises you to get a divorce from your former husband without including me as that husband, yon had better accept that advice." She opened her eyes and stared at him with insane fright. Who but Horace Endicott could know her crimes? All but the crime which he had named her blunder. Could this passionless stranger, this Irish politician, looking at her as indifferently as the judge on the bench, be Horace? No, surely no! Because that fool, dolt though he was, would never have seen this wretched confession of her crimes, and not slain her the next minute. Into this ambuscade had she been led by the crazy wife of Curran, whose sound advice she herself had thrown aside to follow the instincts of Edith. Recovering her nerve quickly, she began her retreat as well as one might after so disastrous a field. "It was a mistake to have disturbed you, Mr. Dillon," she said. "You may rest assured that no further attempt will be made on your good name. Since you pretend to such intimacy with my unfortunate husband I would like to ask you...." "That was the extent of my intimacy, Mrs. Endicott, and I would never have revealed it except to defend myself," he interrupted suavely. "Of course the revelation brings consequences. You must arrange to have your little Horace die properly in some remote country, surround his funeral with all the legal formalities, and so on. That will be easy. Meanwhile you can return the boy to his mother, who is ready to receive him. Then your suit for divorce must continue, and you will win it by default, that is, by the failure of Horace Endicott to defend his side. When these things are done, it would be well for your future happiness to lay aside further meddling with the mystery of your husband's disappearance." "I have learned a lesson," she said more composedly. "I shall do as you command, because I feel sure it is a command. I have some curiosity however about the life which Horace led after he disappeared. Since you must have known him a little, would it be asking too much from you...." She lost her courage at sight of his expression. Her voice faded. Oh, shallow as any frog-pond, indecently shallow, to ask such a question of the judge who had just ordered her to execution. His contempt silenced her. With a formal apology for having caused her so much pain, he bowed and withdrew. Some emotion had stirred him during the interview, but he had kept himself well under control. Later he found it was horror, ever to have been linked with a monster; and dread too that in a sudden access of passion he might have done her to death. It seemed natural and righteous to strike and destroy the reptile. CHAPTER XXXVIII. A TALE WELL TOLD. Of these strange and stirring events no one knew but Arthur himself; nor of the swift consequences, the divorce of Sonia from her lost husband, her marriage to Quincy Lenox, the death and burial of her little boy in England, and the establishment of La Belle Colette and her son Horace in Chicago, where the temptation to annoy her enemies disappeared, and the risk to herself was practically removed forever. Thus faded the old life out of Arthur's view, its sin-stained personages frightened off the scene by his well-used knowledge of their crimes. Whatever doubt they held about his real character, self-interest accepted him as Arthur Dillon. He was free. Honora saw the delight of that freedom in his loving and candid expression. He repressed his feelings no more, no longer bound. He was gayer than ever before, with the gaiety of his nature, not of the part which he had played. Honora knew how deeply she loved him, from her very dread of inflicting on him that pain which was bound to come. The convent would be her rich possession; but he who had given her and her father all that man could give, he would have only bitter remembrance. How bitter that could be experience with her father informed her. The mystery of his life attracted her. If not Arthur Dillon, who was he? What tragedy had driven him from one life into another? Did it explain that suffering so clearly marked on his face? To which she must add, as part of the return to be made for all his goodness! Her pity for him grew, and prompted deeper tenderness; and how could she know, who had been without experience, that pity is often akin to love? The heavenly days flew by like swift swallows. September came with its splendid warnings of change. The trees were suddenly bordered in gold yellow and dotted with fire-red. The nights began to be haunted by cool winds. Louis packed his trunk early in the month. His long vacations had ended, ordination was at hand, and his life-work would begin in the month of October. The household went down to the city for the grand ceremony. Mona and her baby remained in the city then, while the others returned to the lake for a final week, Anne with perfect content, Honora in calmness of spirit, but also in dread for Arthur's sake. He seemed to have no misgivings. Her determination continued, and the situation therefore remained as clear as the cold September mornings. Yet some tie bound them, elusive, beyond description, but so much in evidence that every incident of the waiting time seemed to strengthen it. Delay did not abate her resolution, but it favored his hope. "Were you disturbed by the revelations of Mrs. Curran?" he said as they sat, for the last time indeed, on the terrace so fatal to Lord Constantine. Anne read the morning newspaper in the shadow of the grove behind them, with Judy to comment on the news. The day, perfect, comfortable, without the perfume of August, sparkled with the snap of September. "My curiosity was disturbed," she admitted frankly, and her heart beat, for the terrible hour had come. "I felt that your life had some sadness and mystery in it, but it was a surprise to hear that you were not Anne Dillon's long-lost son." "That was pure guess-work on Colette's part, you know. She's a born devil, if there are such things among us humans. I'll tell you about her some time. Then the fact of my wife's existence did not disturb you at all?" "On the contrary, it soothed me, I think," she said with a blush. "I know why. Well, it will take my story to explain hers. She told the truth in part, poor Colette. Once I had a wife, before I became Anne Dillon's son. Will it be too painful for you to hear the story? It is mournful. To no one have I ever told it complete; in fact I could not, only to you. How I have burned to tell it from beginning to end to the true heart. I could not shock Louis, the dear innocent, and it was necessary to keep most of it from my mother, for legal reasons. Monsignor has heard the greater part, but not all. And I have been like the Ancient Mariner. Since then at an uncertain hour That agony returns; And till my ghastly tale is told, The heart within me burns. * * * * * That moment that his face I see I know the man that must hear me; To him my tale I teach." "I am the man," said she, "with a woman's curiosity. How can I help but listen?" He holds him with his glittering eye-- The wedding-guest stood still, And listens like a three years' child: The mariner hath his will. The wedding-guest sat on a stone, He cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, That bright-eyed mariner. "Do you remember how we read and re-read it on the _Arrow_ years ago? Somehow it has rung in my ears ever since, Honora. My life had a horror like it. Had it not passed I could not speak of it even to you. Long ago I was an innocent fool whom men knew in the neighborhood of Cambridge as Horace Endicott. I was an orphan, without guides, or real friends. I felt no need of them, for was I not rich, and happily married? Good nature and luck had carried me along lazily like that pine-stick floating down there. What a banging it would get on this rocky shore if a good south wind sprang up. For a long time I escaped the winds. When they came.... I'll tell you who I was and what she was. Do you remember on the _Arrow_ Captain Curran's story of Tom Jones?" He looked up at her interested face, and saw the violet eyes widen with sudden horror. "I remember," she cried with astonishment and pain. "You, Arthur, you the victim of that shameful story?" "Do you remember what you said then, Honora, when Curran declared he would one day find Tom Jones?" She knew by the softness of his speech that her saying had penetrated the lad's heart, and had been treasured till this day, would be treasured forever. "And you were sitting there, in the cabin, not ten feet off, listening to him and me?" she said with a gasp of pleasure. "'You will never find him, Captain Curran ... that fearful woman shattered his very soul ... I know the sort of man he was ... he will never go back ... if he can bear to live, it will be because in his obscurity God gave him new faith and hope in human nature, and in the woman's part of it.' Those are your words, Honora." She blushed with pleasure and murmured: "I hope they came true!" "They were true at that moment," he said reflectively. "Oh, indeed God guided me, placed me in the hands of Monsignor, of my mother, of such people as Judy and the Senator and Louis, and of you all." "Oh, my God, what suffering!" she exclaimed suddenly as her tears began to fall. "Louis told me, I saw it in your face as every one did, but now I know. And we never gave you the pity you needed!" "Then you must give it to me now," said he with boldness. "But don't waste any pity on Endicott. He is dead, and I look at him across these five years as at a stranger. Suffer? The poor devil went mad with suffering. He raved for days in the wilderness, after he discovered his shame, dreaming dreams of murder for the guilty, of suicide for himself----" She clasped her hands in anguish and turned toward him as if to protect him. "It was a good woman who saved him, and she was an old mother who had tasted death. Some day I shall show you the pool where this old woman found him, after he had overcome the temptation to die. She took him to her home and her heart, nourished him, gave him courage, sent him on a new mission of life. What a life! He had a scheme of vengeance, and to execute it he had to return to the old scenes, where he was more alone---- Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide, wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony. * * * * * O wedding-guest! this soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea; So lonely 'twas that God Himself Scarce seemed there to be." The wonder to Honora, as he described himself, was the indifference of his tone. It had no more than the sympathy one might show toward a stranger whose suffering had been succeeded by great joy. "Oh, God grant," he broke in with vehemence, "that no soul suffers as did this Endicott, poor wretch, during the time of his vengeance. Honora, I would not inflict on that terrible woman the suffering of that man for a year after his discovery of her sin. I doubted long the mercy of God. Rather I knew nothing about His mercy. I had no religion, no understanding of it, except in a vague, unpractical way. You know now that I am of the Puritan race ... Livingstone is of my family ... the race which dislikes the Irish and the Catholic as the English dislike them ... the race that persecuted yours! But you cannot say that I have not atoned for them as nearly as one man can?" Trembling with emotion, she simply raised her hands in a gesture that said a thousand things too beautiful for words. "My vengeance on the guilty was to disappear. I took with me all my property, and I left Messalina with her own small dower to enjoy her freedom in poverty. She sought for me, hired that detective and others to hound me to my hiding-place, and so far has failed to make sure of me. But to have you understand the story clearly, I shall stick to the order of events. I had known Monsignor a few days before calamity overtook me, and to him I turned for aid. It was he who found a mother for me, a place among 'the mere Irish,' a career which has turned out very well. You know how Anne Dillon lost her son. What no one knows is this: three months before she was asked to take part in the scheme of disappearance she sent a thousand photographs of her dead husband and her lost son to the police of California, and offered a reward for his discovery living or dead. Monsignor helped her to that. I acknowledged that advertisement from one of the most obscure and ephemeral of the mining-camps, and came home as her son." "And the real Arthur Dillon? He was never found?" "Oh, yes, he answered it too, indirectly. While I was loitering riotously about, awaiting the proper moment to make myself known, I heard that one Arthur Dillon was dying in another mining-camp some thirty miles to the north of us. He claimed to be the real thing, but he was dying of consumption, and was too feeble, and of too little consequence, to be taken notice of. I looked after him till he died, and made sure of his identity. He was Anne Dillon's son and he lies in the family lot in Calvary beside his father. No one knows this but his mother, Monsignor, and ourselves. Colette stumbled on the fact in her search of California, but the fates have been against that clever woman." He laughed heartily at the complete overthrow of the escaped nun. Honora looked at him in astonishment. Arthur Dillon laughed, quite forgetful of the tragedy of Horace Endicott. "Since my return you know what I have been, Honora. I can appeal to you as did Augustus to his friends on his dying-bed: have I not played well the part?" "I am lost in wonder," she said. "Then give me your applause as I depart," he answered sadly, and her eyes fell before his eloquent glance. "In those early days rage and hate, and the maddest desire for justice, sustained me. That woman had only one wish in life: to find, rob, and murder the man who had befooled her worse than she had tricked him. I made war on that man. I hated Horace Endicott as a weak fool. He had fallen lowest of all his honest, able, stern race. I beat him first into hiding, then into slavery, and at last into annihilation. I studied to annihilate him, and I did it by raising Arthur Dillon in his place. I am now Arthur Dillon. I think, feel, act, speak, dream like that Arthur Dillon which I first imagined. When you knew me first, Honora, I was playing a part. I am no longer acting. I am the man whom the world knows as Arthur Dillon." "I can see that, and it seems more wonderful than any dream of romance. You a Puritan are more Irish than the Irish, more Catholic than the Catholics, more Dillon than the Dillons. Oh, how can this be?" "Don't let it worry you," he said grimly. "Just accept the fact and me. I never lived until Horace Endicott disappeared. He was a child of fortune and a lover of ease and pleasure. His greatest pain had been a toothache. His view of life had been a boy's. When I stepped on this great stage I found myself for the first time in the very current of life. Suffering ate my heart out, and I plunged into that current to deaden the agony. I found myself by accident a leader of a poor people who had fled from injustice at home to suffer a mean persecution here. I was thrown in with the great men of the hour, and found a splendid opponent in a member of the Endicott family, Livingstone. I saw the very heart of great things, and the look enchanted me. "You know how I worked for my friends, for your father, for the people, for every one and everything that needed help. For the first time I saw into the heart of a true friend. Monsignor helped me, carried me through, stood by me, directed me. For the first time I saw into the heart of innocence and sanctity, deep down, the heart of that blessed boy, Louis. For the first time I looked into the heart of a patriot, and learned of the love which can endure, not merely failure, but absolute and final disappointment, and still be faithful. I became an orator, an adventurer, an enthusiast. The Endicott who could not speak ten words before a crowd, the empty-headed stroller who classed patriots with pickles, became what you know me to be. I learned what love is, the love of one's own; of mother, and friend, and clan. Let me not boast, but I learned to know God and perhaps to love Him, at least since I am resigned to His will. But I am talking too much, since it is for the last time." "You have not ended," said she beseechingly. "It would take a lifetime," and he looked to see if she would give him that time, but her eyes watched the lake. "The latest events in my history took place this summer, and you had a little share in them. By guess-work Colette arrived at the belief that I am Horace Endicott, and she set her detective-husband to discover the link between Endicott and Dillon. I helped him, because I was curious to see how Arthur Dillon would stand the test of direct pursuit. They could discover nothing. As fast as a trace of me showed it vanished into thin air. There was nothing to do but invent a suit which would bring my mother, Monsignor, and myself into court, and have us declare under oath who is Arthur Dillon. I blocked that game perfectly. Messalina has her divorce from Horace Endicott, and is married to her lover. There will be no further search for the man who disappeared. And I am free, Monsignor declares. No ties bind me to that shameful past. I have had my vengeance without publicity or shame to anyone. I have punished as I had the right to punish. I have a noble place in life, which no one can take from me." "And did you meet her since you left her ... that woman?" Honora said in a low voice half ashamed of the question. "At Castle Moyna ..." he began and stopped dead at a sudden recollection. "I met her," cried Honora with a stifled scream, "I met her." "I met her again on the steamer returning," he said after a pause. "She did not recognize me, nor has she ever. We met for the last time in July. At that meeting Arthur Dillon pronounced sentence on her in the name of Horace Endicott. She will never wish to see me or her lost husband again." "Oh, how you must have suffered, Arthur, how you must have suffered!" She had grown pale alarmingly, but he did not perceive it. The critical moment had come for him, and he was praying silently against the expected blow. Her resolution had left her, and the road had vanished in the obscurity of night. She no longer saw her way clear. Her nerves had been shaken by this wonderful story, and the surges of feeling that rose before it like waves before the wind. "And I must suffer still," he went on half to himself. "I was sure that God would give me that which I most desired, because I had given Him all that belonged to me. I kept back nothing except as Monsignor ordered. Through you, Honora, my faith in woman came back, as you said it would when you answered the detective in my behalf. When Monsignor told me I was free, that I could speak to you as an honorable man, I took it as a sign from heaven that the greatest of God's gifts was for me. I love you so, Honora, that your wish is my only happiness. Since you must go, if it is the will of God, do not mind my suffering, which is also His will...." He arose from his place and his knees were shaking. "There is consolation for us all somewhere. Mine is not to be here. The road to heaven is sometimes long. Not here, Honora?" The hope in him was not yet dead. She rose too and put her arms about him, drawing his head to her bosom with sudden and overpowering affection. "Here and hereafter," she whispered, as they sat down on the bench again. * * * * * "Judy," said Anne in the shade of the trees, "is Arthur hugging Honora, or...." "Glory be," whispered Judy with tears streaming down her face, "it's Honora that's hugging Arthur ... no, it's both o' them at wanst, thanks be to God." And the two old ladies stole away home through the happy woods. CHAPTER XXXIX. THREE SCENES. Anne might have been the bitterest critic of Honora for her descent from the higher to the lesser life, but she loved the girl too well even to look displeasure. Having come to believe that Arthur would be hers alone forever, she regarded Honora's decision as a mistake. The whole world rejoiced at the union of these ideal creatures, even Sister Magdalen, from whom Arthur had snatched a prize. Honora was her own severest critic. How she had let herself go in pity for a sufferer to whom her people, her faith, her father, her friends, and herself owed much, she knew not. His explanation was simple: God gave you to me. The process of surrender really began at Louis' ordination. Arthur watched his boy, the center of the august ceremony, with wet eyes. This innocent heart, with its solemn aspirations, its spiritual beauty, had always been for him a wonder and a delight; and it seemed fitting that a life so mysteriously beautiful should end its novitiate and begin its career with a ceremony so touching. The September sun streamed through the venerable windows of the cathedral, the music soared among the arches, the altar glowed with lights and flowers; the venerable archbishop and his priests and attendants filled the sanctuary, an adoring crowd breathed with reverence in the nave; but the center of the scene, its heart of beauty, was the pale, sanctified son of Mary Everard. For him were all these glories! Happy, happy, youth! Blessed mother! There were no two like them in the whole world, he said in his emotion. Her glorified face often shone on him in the pauses of the ceremony. Her look repeated the words she had uttered the night before: "Under God my happiness is owing to you, Arthur Dillon: like the happiness of so many others; and that I am not to-day dead of sorrow and grief is also owing to you; now may God grant you the dearest wish of your heart, as He has granted mine this day through you; for there is nothing too good for a man with a heart and a hand like yours." How his heart had like to burst under that blessing! He thought of Honora, not yet his own. The entire Irishry was present, with their friends of every race. In deference to his faithful adherent, the great Livingstone sat in the very front pew, seriously attentive to the rite, and studious of its significance. Around him were grouped the well-beloved of Arthur Dillon, the souls knit to his with the strength of heaven; the Senator, high-colored, richly-dressed, resplendent, sincere; the Boss, dark and taciturn, keen, full of emotion, sighing from the depths of his rich nature over the meaning of life, as it leaped into the light of this scene; Birmingham, impressive and dignified, rejoicing at the splendor so powerful with the world that reckons everything by the outward show; and all the friends of the new life, to whom this ceremony was dear as the breath of their bodies. For this people the sanctuary signified the highest honor, the noblest service, the loftiest glory. Beside it the honors of the secular life, no matter how esteemed, looked like dead flowers. At times his emotion seemed to slip from the rein, threatening to unman him. This child, whose innocent hands were anointed with the Holy Oil, who was bound and led away, who read the mass with the bishop and received the Sacred Elements with him, upon whom the prelate breathed solemn powers, who lay prostrate on the floor, whose head was blessed by the hands of the assembled priests: this child God had given him to replace the innocent so cruelly destroyed long ago! Honora's eyes hardly left Arthur's transfigured face, which held her, charmed her, frightened her by its ever-changing expression. Light and shadow flew across it as over the depths of the sea. The mask off, the habit of repression laid aside, his severe features responded to the inner emotions. She saw his great eyes fill with tears, his breast heave at times. As yet she had not heard his story. The power of that story came less from the tale than the recollection of scenes like this, which she unthinking had witnessed in the years of their companionship. What made this strange man so unlike all other men? At the close of the ordination the blessing from the new priest began. Flushed, dewy-eyed, calm, and white, Louis stood at the railing to lay his anointed hands on each in turn; first the mother, and the father. Then came a little pause, while Mona made way for him dearest to all hearts that day, Arthur. He held back until he saw that his delay retarded the ceremony, when he accepted the honor. He felt the blessed hands on his head, and a thrill leaped through him as the palms, odorous of the balmy chrism, touched his lips. Mona held up her baby with the secret prayer that he too would be found worthy of the sanctuary; then followed her husband and her sisters. Honora did not see as she knelt how Arthur's heart leaped into his eyes, and shot a burning glance at Louis to remind him of a request uttered long ago: when you bless Honora, bless her for me! Thus all conspired against her. Was it wonderful that she left the cathedral drawn to her hero as never before? The next day Arthur told her with pride and tenderness, as they drove to the church where Father Louis was to sing his first Mass, that every vestment of the young priest came from him. Sister Magdalen had made the entire set, with her own hands embroidered them, and he had borne the expense. Honora found her heart melting under these beautiful details of an affection, without limit. The depth of this man's heart seemed incredible, deeper than her father's, as if more savage sorrow had dug depths in what was deep enough by nature. Long afterward she recognized how deeply the ordination had affected her. It roused the feeling that such a heart should not be lightly rejected. * * * * * Desolation seized her, as the vision of the convent vanished like some lovely vale which one leaves forever. Very simply he banished the desolation. "I have been computing," he said, as they sat on the veranda after breakfast, "what you might have been worth to the Church as a nun ... hear me, hear me ... wait for the end of the story ... it is charming. You are now about twenty-seven, I won't venture any nearer your age. I don't know my mother's age." "And no man will ever know it," said Anne. "Men have no discretion about ages." "Let me suppose," Arthur continued, "that fifty years of service would be the limit of your active life. You would then be seventy-seven, and there is no woman alive as old as that. The oldest is under sixty." "Unless the newspapers want to say that she's a hundred," said Anne slyly. "For the sake of notoriety she is willing to have the truth told about her age." "As a school-teacher, a music-teacher, or a nurse, let me say that your services might be valued at one thousand a year for the fifty years, Honora. Do you think that a fair average?" "Very fair," said she indifferently. "Well, I am going to give that sum to the convent for having deprived them of your pleasant company," said he. "Hear me, hear me, ... I'm not done yet. I must be generous, and I know your conscience will be tender a long time, if something is not done to toughen it. I want to be married in the new cathedral, which another year will see dedicated. But a good round sum would advance the date. We owe much to Monsignor. In your name and mine I am going to give him enough to put the great church in the way to be dedicated by November." He knew the suffering which burned her heart that morning, himself past master in the art of sorrow. That she had come down from the heights to the common level would be her grief forever; thus to console her would be his everlasting joy. "What do you think of it? Isn't it a fair release?" "Only I am not worth it," she said. "But so much the better, if every one gains more than I lose by my ... infatuation." "Are you as much in love as that?" said Anne with malice. They were married with becoming splendor in January. A quiet ceremony suggested by Honora had been promptly overruled by Anne Dillon, who saw in this wedding a social opportunity beyond any of her previous triumphs. Mrs. Dillon was not your mere aristocrat, who keeps exclusive her ceremonious march through life. At that early date she had perceived the usefulness to the aristocracy of the press, of general popularity, and of mixed assemblies; things freely and openly sought for by society to-day. Therefore the great cathedral of the western continent never witnessed a more splendid ceremony than the wedding of Honora and Arthur; and no event in the career of Anne Dillon bore stronger testimony to her genius. The Chief Justice of the nation headed the _élite_, among whom shone like a constellation the Countess of Skibbereen; the Senator brought in the whole political circle of the city and the state; Grahame marshaled the journalists and the conspirators against the peace of England; the profession of music came forward to honor the bride; the common people of Cherry Hill went to cheer their hero; Monsignor drew to the sanctuary the clerics of rank to honor the benefactor of the cathedral; and high above all, enthroned in beauty, the Cardinal of that year presided as the dispenser of the Sacrament. As at the ordination of Louis the admirable Livingstone sat among the attendant princes. For the third time within a few months had he been witness to the splendors of Rome now budding on the American landscape. He did not know what share this Arthur Dillon had in the life of Louis and in the building of the beautiful temple. But he knew the strength of his leadership among his people; and he felt curious to see with his own eyes, to feel with his own heart, the charm, the enchantment, which had worked a spell so fatal on the richly endowed Endicott nature. For enchantment there must have been. The treachery and unworthiness of Sonia, detestable beyond thought, could not alone work so strange and weird a transformation. Half cynic always, and still more cynical since his late misfortunes, he could not withhold his approbation from the cleverness which grouped about this young man and his bride the great ones of the hour. The scene wholly depressed him. Not the grandeur, nor the presence of the powers of society, but the sight of this Endicott, of the mould of heroes, of the blood of the English Puritan, acting as sponsor of a new order of things in his beloved country, the order which he had hoped, still hoped, to destroy. His heart bled as he watched him. The lovely mother, the high-hearted father, lay in their grave. Here stood their beloved, a prince among men, bowing before the idols of Rome, receiving for himself and his bride the blessing of the archpriest of Romanism, a cardinal in his ferocious scarlet. All his courage and skill would be forever at the service of the new order. Who was to blame? Was it not the rotten reed which he had leaned upon, the woman Sonia, rather than these? True it is, true it always will be, that a man's enemies are they of his own household. * * * * * A grand content filled the heart of Arthur. The bitterness of his fight had passed. So long had he struggled that fighting had become a part of his dreams, as necessary as daily bread. He had not laid aside his armor even for his marriage. Yet there had been an armistice, quite unperceived, from the day of the cathedral's dedication. He had lonely possession of the battle-field. His enemies had fled. All was well with his people. They had reached and passed the frontier, as it were, on that day when the great temple opened its sanctuary to God and its portals to the nation. The building he regarded as a witness to the daring of Monsignor; for Honora's sake he had given to it a third of his fortune; the day of the dedication crowned Monsignor's triumph. When he had seen the spectacle, he learned how little men have to do with the great things of history. God alone makes history; man is the tide which rushes in and out at His command, at the great hours set by Him, and knows only the fact, not the reason. In the building that day gathered a multitude representing every form of human activity and success. They stood for the triumph of a whole race, which, starved out of its native seat, had clung desperately to the land of Columbia in spite of persecution. Soldiers sat in the assembly, witnesses for the dead of the southern battle-fields, for all who had given life and love, who had sacrificed their dearest, to the new land in its hour of calamity. Men rich in the honors of commerce, of the professions, of the schools, artists, journalists, leaders, bore witness to the native power of a people, who had been written down in the books of the hour as idle, inferior, incapable by their very nature. In the sanctuary sat priests and prelate, a brilliant gathering, surrounding the delicate-featured Cardinal, in gleaming red, high on his beautiful throne. From the organ rolled the wonderful harmonies born of faith and genius; from the pulpit came in sonorous English the interpretation of the scene as a gifted mind perceived it; about the altar the ancient ritual enacted the holy drama, whose sublime enchantment holds every age. Around rose the towering arches, the steady columns, the broad walls, lighted from the storied windows, of the first really great temple of the western continent! Whose hands raised it? Arthur discovered in the answer the charm which had worked upon dying Ledwith, turned his failure into triumph, and his sadness into joy. What a witness, an eternal witness, to the energy and faith of a poor, simple, despised people, would be this temple! Looking upon its majestic beauty, who could doubt their powers, though the books printed English slanders in letters of gold? Out of these great doors would march ideas to strengthen and refresh the poor; ideas once rejected, once thought destructible by the air of the American wilderness. A conspiracy of centuries had been unable to destroy them. Into these great portals for long years would a whole people march for their own sanctification and glory! Thereafter the temple became for him a symbol, as for the faithful priest; the symbol of his own life as that of his people. He saw it in the early dawn, whiter than the mist which broke against it, a great angel whose beautiful feet the longing earth had imprisoned! red with the flush of morning, rosy with the tints of sunrise, as if heaven were smiling upon it from open gates! clear, majestic, commanding in the broad day, like a leader of the people, drawing all eyes to itself, provoking the question, the denial, the prayer from every passer, as tributes to its power! in the sunset, as dying Ledwith had seen it, flushed with the fever of life, but paling like the day, tender, beseeching, appealing to the flying crowd for a last turning to God before the day be done forever! in the twilight, calm, restful, submissive to the darkness, which had no power over it, because of the Presence within! terrible when night falls and sin goes forth in purple and fine linen, a giant which had heaved the earth and raised itself from the dead stone to rebuke and threaten the erring children of God! He described all this for Honora, and, strangely enough, for Livingstone, who never recovered from the spell cast over him by this strange man. The old gentleman loved his race with the fervor of an ancient clansman. For this lost sheep of the house of Endicott he developed in time an interest which Arthur foresaw would lead agreeably one day to a review of the art of disappearing. He was willing to satisfy his curiosity. Meanwhile, airing his ideas on the providential mission of the country, and of its missionary races, and combatting his exclusiveness, they became excellent friends. Livingstone fell deeply in love with Honora, as it was the fashion in regard to that charming woman. For Arthur the circle of life had its beginning in her, and with her would have its end. THE END.