ou're making me sick. Darby M'Keown,' said
the voice again.

"'The heavens be about us!' says I, 'what 's that? and who are you at
all?' for someways I thought I knew the voice.

"'I 'm your father!' says the voice.

"'My father!' says I. 'Holy Joseph, is it truth you 're telling me?'

"'The divil a word o' lie in it,' says the voice. 'Take me down, and
give me an air o' the fire, for the night 's cowld.'

"'And where are you, father,' says I, 'av it's plasing to ye?'

"'I 'm on the dhresser,' says he. 'Don't you see me?'

"'Sorra bit o' me. Where now?'

"'Arrah, on the second shelf, next the rowling-pin. Don't you see the
green jug?--that's me.'

"'Oh, the saints in heaven be about us!' says I; 'and are you a green
jug?'

"'I am,' says he; 'and sure I might be worse. Tim Healey's mother is
only a cullender, and she died two years before me.'

"'Oh! father, darlin',' says I, 'I hoped you wor in glory; and you only
a jug all this time!'

"'Never fret about it,' says my father; 'it 's the transmogrification
of sowls, and we 'll be right by and by. Take me down, I say, and put me
near the fire.'

"So I up and took him down, and wiped him with a clean cloth, and put
him on the hearth before the blaze.

"'Darby,' says he, 'I'm famished with the druth. Since you took to
coortin' there 's nothing ever goes into my mouth; haven't you a taste
of something in the house?'

"I wasn't long till I hated some wather, and took down the bottle of
whiskey and some sugar, and made a rousing jugful, as strong as need be.

"'Are you satisfied, father?' says I.

"'I am,' says he; 'you 're a dutiful child, and here 's your health,
and don't be thinking of Biddy Finn,'

"With that my father began to explain how there was never any rest nor
quietness for a man after he married,--more be token, if his wife was
fond of talking; and that he never could take his dhrop of drink in
comfort afterwards.

"'May I never,' says he, 'but I 'd rather be a green jug, as I am now,
than alive again wid your mother. Sure it 's not here you'd be sitting
to-night,' says he, 'discoorsing with me, av you wor married; devil a
bit. Fill me,' says my father, 'and I 'll tell you more.'

"And sure enough I did, and we talked away till near daylight; and then
the first thing I did was to take the ould mare out of the stable, and
set off to Father Curtin, and towld him all about it, and how my father
would n't give his consent by no means.

"'W