s friend shook hands with him, gave
the schoolmaster's fingers a slight squeeze, such as a man gives who
would gently entreat your sympathy. The schoolmaster looked at him, and
thought he shook his head. Of this, however, he could not be certain;
for, as he shook his own during the moment of observation, he concluded
that it might be a mere mistake of the eye, or perhaps the result of a
mind predisposed to be credulous on the subject of shaking heads.

We wish it were in our power to draw a veil, or curtain, or blind of
some description, over the remnant of the tailor's narrative that is to
follow; but as it is the duty of every faithful historian to give
the secret causes of appearances which the world in general do not
understand, so we think it but honest to go on, impartially and
faithfully, without shrinking from the responsibility that is frequently
annexed to truth.

For the first three days after matrimony, Neal felt like a man who had
been translated to a new and more lively state of existence. He had
expected, and flattered himself, that, the moment this event should
take place, he would once more resume his heroism, and experience
the pleasure of a drubbing. This determination he kept a profound
secret--nor was it known until a future period, when he disclosed it to
Mr. O'Connor. He intended, therefore, that marriage should be nothing
more than a mere parenthesis in his life--a kind of asterisk, pointing,
in a note at the bottom, to this single exception in his general
conduct--a _nota bene_ to the spirit of a martial man, intimating that
he had been peaceful only for a while. In truth, he was, during the
influence of love over him, and up to the very day of his marriage,
secretly as blue-moulded as ever for want of a beating. The heroic
penchant lay snugly latent in his heart, unchecked and unmodified. He
flattered himself that he was achieving a capital imposition upon the
world at large--that he was actually hoaxing mankind in general--and
that such an excellent piece of knavish tranquillity had never been
perpetrated before his time.

On the first week after his marriage, there chanced to be a fair in
the next market-town. Neal, after breakfast, brought forward a bunch of
shillelahs, in order to select the best; the wife inquired the purpose
of the selection, and Neal declared that he was resolved to have a fight
that day, if it were to be had, he said, for love or money. "The thruth
is," he exclaimed,