the deep; and they have to
face hunger and cold and death, for what? A little more money, and a
little more drink; and your sentence: Why didn't he leave us alone?
Weren't we just as well off as we were? which is the everlasting song
of your respected predecessor, only he put it in Latin: _Cui bono?_"

He pondered deeply for a long time. Then he said: "It sounds sensible;
but there is some vile fallacy at the bottom of it. Anyhow, I'll try.
Father, give me your blessing!"

"There again," I said, "see how innocent you are. You don't know the
vernacular."

He looked surprised.

"When you know us better," I answered, in reply to his looks, "you will
understand that by that formula you ask for a drink. And as I don't
happen to be under my own roof just now--"

His glorious laugh stopped me. It was like the ringing of a peal of
bells.

"No matter," he said. "I may go on?"

"Certainly," I replied. "You'll have a few gray hairs in your raven
locks in twelve months time,--that's all."

"What a hare," I thought as I went home, "is madness, the youth, to leap
over the meshes of good counsel, the cripple." Which is not mine, but
that philosopher, Will Shakespeare; or is it Francis Bacon?

CHAPTER V

A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING

Father Letheby commenced sooner than I had expected.

I think it was about nine or ten days after his formal instalment in his
new house, just as I was reading after breakfast the _Freeman's Journal_
of two days past, the door of my parlor was suddenly flung open, a bunch
of keys was thrown angrily on the table, and a voice (which I recognized
as that of Mrs. Darcy, the chapel woman), strained to the highest
tension of indignation, shouted:--

"There! and may there be no child to pray over my grave if ever I touch
them again! Wisha! where in the world did you get him? or where did he
come from, at all, at all? The son of a jook! the son of a draper over
there at Kilkeel. Didn't Mrs. Morarty tell me how she sowld socks to
his ould father? An' he comes here complaining of dacent people! 'Dirt,'
sez he. 'Where?' sez I. 'There,' sez he. 'Where?' sez I. I came of as
dacent people as him. Wondher _you_ never complained. But you're too
aisy. You always allow these galivanters of curates to crow over you.
But I tell you I won't stand it. If I had to beg my bread from house to
house, I won't stand being told I'm dirty. Why, the ladies of the
Great House said they could see their faces in the c