ged you to work,--to do honest work for
honest wages."

"Begor," said the unabashed Jem, "if I was a Turk, or a Armaynian, I'd
be allowed to ate my dinner."

"But this is not your dinner hour!"

"Twelve to wan is the dinner hour, except when I dines at the Grate
House, whin, for my convaynience, they puts it off till aight."

It was a sly cut at Father Letheby, and he felt it.

"And your dinner, I presume, is the usual quantity of filthy porter,
such as I see represented in your hand."

"It is, your reverence, excep' whin I dines with the Captain. Den we
haves roast beef and champagne."

All this Father Letheby told me, with a look of puzzled anger, and with
many exclamations.

"I never saw such a people; I'll never understand them," etc. His
magnificent impetuosity again.

"Tell me," I said, for he had given me most cordially the privilege of
speaking freely, "do you make your meditation regularly?"

"Well, I do," he replied, "in a kind of way."

"Because," I went on to say, "apart from the spiritual advantages it
affords, that closing of our eyes daily and looking steadily into
ourselves is a wonderfully soothing process. It is solitude--and
solitude is the mother country of the strong. It is astonishing what an
amount of irritation is poured from external objects through the windows
of the soul,--on the retina, where they appear to be focused, and then
turned like a burning-glass on the naked nerves of the soul. To shut
one's eyes and turn the thoughts inward is like sleep, and, like sleep,
gives strength and peace. Now, would you accept from me a subject of
meditation?"

"Willingly, sir," he said, like a child.

"All that you want to be perfect is to curb your impetuosity. I notice
it everywhere. Probably it is natural; probably it is accentuated by
your residence in feverish cities. Now, I have a right to give an advice
on this matter, for I got it and took it myself. When I was as young as
you I said Mass in twenty minutes, and said the Office in forty minutes.
How? Because I slurred over words, spoke to the Almighty as a
ballad-singer, and for a few years went through these awful and sacred
duties without ever resting or dwelling on their sublime signification.
One day a holy old priest said to me:--

"'Father, would you kindly give me an easy translation of the first
stanza of the hymn for Terce?'

"I was completely at sea. He saw it.

"'Ah, never mind. But what means _factus sum, sicut uter