lonesome places lost no time in
sitting themselves down and inditing congratulatory letters; object
matrimony. Some of these were single ladies; others had been widowed,
either by death or request. Various other persons of both sexes,
residing here, there and elsewhere in our country, suddenly remembered
that they, too, were descended from the O'Days of Ireland, and wrote on
forthwith to claim proud and fond relationship with the particular O'Day
who had come into money.

It was a remarkable circumstance, which instantly developed, that one
man should have so many distant cousins scattered over the Union, and a
thing equally noteworthy that practically all these kinspeople, through
no fault of their own, should at the present moment be in such
straitened circumstances and in such dire need of temporary assistance
of a financial nature. Ticker and printer's ink, operating in
conjunction, certainly did their work mighty well; even so, several days
were to elapse before the news reached one who, of all those who read
it, had most cause to feel a profound personal sensation in the
intelligence.

This delay, however, was nowise to be blamed upon the tardiness of the
newspapers; it was occasioned by the fact that the person referred to
was for the moment well out of touch with the active currents of world
affairs, he being confined in a workhouse at Evansville, Indiana.

As soon as he had rallied from the shock this individual set about
making plans to put himself in direct touch with the inheritor. He had
ample time in which to frame and shape his campaign, inasmuch as there
remained for him yet to serve nearly eight long and painfully tedious
weeks of a three-months' vagrancy sentence. Unlike most of those now
manifesting their interest, he did not write a letter; but he dreamed
dreams that made him forget the annoyances of a ball and chain fast on
his ankle and piles of stubborn stones to be cracked up into fine bits
with a heavy hammer.

We are getting ahead of our narrative, though--days ahead of it. The
chronological sequence of events properly dates from the morning
following the morning when Peep O'Day, having been abruptly translated
from the masses of the penniless to the classes of the wealthy, had
forthwith embarked upon the gastronomic orgy so graphically detailed by
Deputy Sheriff Quarles.

On that next day more eyes probably than had been trained in Peep
O'Day's direction in all the unremarked and unremar