e carried a shrewd and
kindly face, withered and toothless, yet not without a certain charm of
line. Mart's fine profile was like his sire's, only larger, bolder, and
calmer.

With a chuckle he introduced him. "Bertie, this is me worthless old
dad." And Patrick, though he was sidling and side-stepping with the
awkwardness of a cat on wet ice, still retained his Celtic
self-possession.

"Lave Mart to slander the soorce av aal his good qualities," he
retorted. "He was iver an uncivil divil to me--after the day he first
thrun me down, the big gawk."

Mart took the little man by the collar and twirled him about. "Luk at
'im! Did he ever feel the like of such cloes in his life?"

Patrick grinned a wide, silent, mirthful grimace. "Sure me heart is
warmed wid 'em. I feel as well trussed as me lady's footman."

It was plain that every thread on the old man was new. Mart explained.
"I stripped him to the buff and built him up plumb to his necktie, which
is green--the wan thing he would have to his own taste. To-morrow we go
to the tooth-factory."

"'Tis a waste of good money," interjected Patrick. "I ate soup."

"Soup be damned! Ye've many a steak to eat with me, ye contrary little
baboon. 'Tis a pity if I can't do as I like with me own. Do as I say,
and be gay."

Patrick cackled again, and his little twinkling eyes were half hid. "Ye
may load me with jewels and goold, me lad, but divil a once do I allow a
man wid a feet-lathe boring-machine to enter me head."

"Ye have nothing to bore, ye old jackass! Divil a rock is left to
prospect in--so don't fuss."

Bertha interjected a question. "Where did you find him?"

"Marking up in a pool-room. Nice place for the father of Captain Haney!
'Come out o' that,' I says, 'or fight me.' And the old fox showed gooms
at me, and says he: 'I notice ye're crippled, Mart. I think I'll jest
take what ye owe me out of yer hide.'" They both chuckled at the
recollection of it. Then Mart went on: "I'll not disgrace me wife by
telling what the old tramp had on. I tuck him by the shoulder and I
said: 'Have ye anny Sunday clothes?' I said. 'Narry a thread,' says he.
'Come along with me,' I says. 'You can't visit my wife in the hotel till
every thread on yer corpus is changed,' for Donahue keeps a dirty place.
So here he is--scrubbed, fumigated, barbered, and tailored; and when he
gets his cellulide teeth he'll make as slick a little Irishman as ever
left the old sod." Here his face became s