eal disappointed."

"Why so, Mr. Hycy?"

"Why, because I did not think there was any other man in the country who
could have written it."

"Eh? how is that now?"

"Faith, it's very simple; the letter is written with surprising
ability--the language is beautiful--and the style, like the land of
Canaan, flowing with milk and honey. It is certainly a most uncommon
production."

"Now, seriously, do you think so? At all events, Mr. Hycy, it was
written by a friend of yours--that's a clear case."

"I think so; but what strikes me is its surprising ability; no wonder
the writer should say that he is not unknown to fame--he could not
possibly remain in obscurity."

"Mr. Hycy, your health--I remember when you were wid me you certainly
were _facile princeps_ for a ripe judgment, even in your rudiments;
so then, you are of opinion that the epistle in question has janius?
I think myself it is no everyday production; not I believe such as
the thistle-browser Heffernan, or Misther Demosthenes M'Gosther could
achieve--the one wid his mile and a half, and the other wid his three
townlands of reputation. No, sir, to the divil I pitch them both; they
could never indite such a document. Your health, Mr. Hycy--_propino
tibi_, I say; and you are right, _ille ego_--it's a a fact; I am the
man, sir--I acknowledge the charge."

This admission having been made, we need scarcely add that an
explanation was at at once given by Finigan of the motive which had
induced him to write the letter.

"On laving the kemp," said he, "and getting into the open air--_sub
diu_, Mr. Hycy--I felt a general liquidation of my whole bodily
strength, with a strong disposition to make short excursions to the
right or to the left rather than hold my way straight a-head, with, I
must confess, an equal tendency to deposit my body on my mother earth
and enact the soporiferous. On passing Gerald Cavanagh's kiln, where
the Hogans kennel, I entered, and was greeted wid such a chorus of
sternutation as you might expect from a pigsty in midsummer, and made me
envy the unlicked young savages who indulged in it. At the period spoken
of neither you nor they had come in from the kemp. Even this is but a
dim recollection, and I remember nothing more until I overheard your
voice and theirs in dialogue as you were about to depart. After you
went, I heard the dialogue which I hinted at in the letter, between
Teddy Phats and them; and knowing my position and the misbegotte