ut phthisic--boys, will
yez stop yer noise there--signifies----but, Larry, it's so deep a
word in larnin' that I should draw it out on a slate for you. And now I
remimber, man alive, you're not far enough on yet to understand it: but
what's physic, Larry?"

"Isn't that sir, what my father tuck the day he got sick, sir?"

"That's the very thing, Larry: it has what larned men call a
medical property, and resembles little ricketty Dan Reilly there--it
retrogrades. Och! Och! I'm the boy that knows things--you see now how I
expounded them two hard words for yez, boys--don't yez?"

"Yes, sir," etc., etc.

"So, Larry, you haven't the larnin' for that either: but here's an
'asier one--spell me Ephabridotas (Epaphroditas)--you can't! hut!
man--you're a big dunce, entirely, that little shoneen Sharkey there
below would _sack_. God be wid the day when I was the likes of you--it's
I that was the bright gorsoon entirely--and so sign was on it, when
a great larned traveler--silence boys, till I tell yez this [a dead
silence]--from Thrinity College, all the way in Dublin, happened to meet
me one day--seeing the slate and Gough, you see, undher my arm, he axes
me--' Arrah, Mat,' says he, 'what are you _in_?' says he. 'Faix, I'm
in my breeches, for one thing,' says I, off hand--silence childhre,
and don't laugh so loud--(ha, ha, ha!) So he looks closer at me: 'I see
that,' says he; 'but what are you reading?' 'Nothing at all at all,'
says I; 'bad manners to the taste, as you may see, if you've your
eyesight.' 'I think,' says he, 'you'll be apt to die in your breeches;'
and set spurs to a fine saddle mare he rid--faith, he did so--thought me
so cute--(omnes--ha, ha, ha!) Whisht, boys, whisht; isn't it a terrible
thing that I can't tell yez a joke, but you split your sides laughing at
it--(ha, ha, ha!)--don't laugh so loud, Barney Casey."--(ha, ha, ha!)

_Barney_.--"I want to go out, if you plase, sir."

"Go, avick, you'll be a good scholar yet, Barney. Faith, Barney knows
whin to laugh, any how."

"Well, Larry, you can't spell Ephabridotas?--thin, here's a short weeshy
one, and whoever spells it will get the pins;--spell a red rogue wid
three letters. You, Micky! Dan? Jack? Natty? Alick? Andy? Pettier? Jim?
Tim? Pat? Body? you? you? you? Now, boys, I'll hould you that my little
Andy here, that's only beginning the _Rational Spelling Book_, bates you
all; come here, Andy, alanna: now, boys, If he bates you, you 'must all
bring him