o Garvey's
lodgins and mine, to-morrow evenin', you may find him there; but don't
blame me if I fail."

"No one's goin' to blame you," said Slanty, "an' the devil's own pity it
is that that blasted _Drywig_ of a brother of his keeps him in leadin'
strings the way he does."

"The way I'll do is this: I'll ask him up to look at the pattern of my
new waistcoat, an' wanst I get him in, all I have to do is to lay it on
thick."

"I doubt that," said another, who had joined them; "when he came here
first, and for a long time afther, soapin' him might do; but I tell you
his eye's open--it's no go--he's wide awake now."

"Shut your orifice," said Harte; "lave the thing to me; 'twas I did it
before, although he doesn't think so, an' it's I that will do it again,
although he doesn't think so. Haven't I been for the last mortal month
guardin' him aginst yez, you villains?"

"To-morrow evenin'?"

"Ay, to-morrow evenin'; an' if we don't give him a gauliogue that'll
make him dance the circumbendibus widout music--never believe that my
name's any thing else than Tom Thin, that got thick upon spring wather.
Hello! there's the bell, boys, so mind what I tould yez; we'll give him
a farewell benefit, if it was only for the sake of poor _Drywig_. Ah,
poor _Drywig!_ how will he live widout him? Ochone, ochone! ha, ha, ha!"

Without at all suspecting the trap that had been set for him, Art
attended his business as usual, till towards evening, when Harte took an
opportunity, when he got him for a few minutes by himself, of speaking
to him apparently in a careless and indifferent way.

"Art, that's a nate patthern in your waistcoat; but any how, I dunna
how it is that you contrive to have every thing about you dacenter an'
jinteeler than another." This, by the way, was true, both of him and his
brother.

"Tut, it's but middlin'," said Art; "it's now but a has-been:--when it
was at itself it wasn't so bad."

"Begad, it was lovely wanst; now; how do you account, Art, for bein'
supairior to us in all in--in every thing, I may say; ay, begad, in
every thing, and in all things, for that's a point every one allows."

"Nonsense, Syl" (his name was Sylvester), "don't be comin' it soft over
me; how am I betther than any other?"

"Why, you're betther made, in the first place, than e'er a man among
us; in the next place, you're a betther workman;"--both these were
true--"an', in the third place, you're the best lookin' of the whole
pack; a