e under the hands of the hangman, with the rope about
your neck, for the question is, indeed, a trying-one which I am about to
put. Are you still 'blue-moulded for want of beating?'"

The tailor collected himself to make a reply; he put one leg out--the
very leg which he used to show in triumph to his friend; but, alas, how
dwindled! He opened his waistcoat, and lapped it round him, until he
looked like a weasel on its hind legs. He then raised himself up on his
tip toes, and, in an awful whisper, replied, "No!!! the devil a bit I'm
blue-mowlded for want of a batin."

The schoolmaster shook his head in his own miserable manner; but, alas!
he soon perceived that the tailor was as great an adept at shaking the
head as himself. Nay, he saw that there was a calamitous refinement--a
delicacy of shake in the tailor's vibrations, which gave to his own nod
a very commonplace character.

The next day the tailor took in his clothes; and from time to time
continued to adjust them to the dimensions of his shrinking person.
The schoolmaster and he, whenever they could steal a moment, met and
sympathized together. Mr. O'Connor, however, bore up somewhat better
than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit; thoroughly,
completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened
by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the
calamities of a hen-pecked husband are painted by the devil. He no
longer strutted as he was wont to do; he no longer carried a cudgel
as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a
married man.--Sneakingiy, and with a cowardly crawl did he creep along
as if every step brought him nearer to the gallows. The schoolmaster's
march of misery was far slower than Neal's: the latter distanced him.
Before three years passed, he had shrunk up so much, that he could not
walk abroad of a windy day without carrying weights in his pockets to
keep him firm on the earth, which he once trod with the step of a giant.
He again sought the schoolmaster, with whom indeed he associated as
much as possible. Here he felt certain of receiving sympathy; nor was
he disappointed. That worthy, but miserable, man and Neal, often retired
beyond the hearing of their respective wives, and supported each other
by every argument in their power. Often have they been heard, in the
dusk of evening, singing behind a remote hedge that melancholy ditty,
"Let us both be unhappy together;" which