arrior, who had got the first priming of his war paint. I
certainly must have been rueful object, were I only to judge from the
faces of the waiters as they gazed on me when the coach drew up at Rice
and Walsh's hotel. Cold, wet, and weary as I was, my curiosity to learn
more of my late agreeable companion was strong as ever within me
--perhaps stronger, from the sacrifices his acquaintance had exacted
from me. Before, however, I had disengaged myself from the pile of
trunks and carpet bags I had surrounded myself with--he had got out of
the coach, and all I could catch a glimpse of was the back of a little
short man in a kind of grey upper coat, and long galligaskins on his
legs. He carried his two bundles under his arm, and stepped nimbly up
the steps of the hotel, without turning his head to either side.

"Don't fancy you shall escape me now, my good friend," I cried out, as I
sprung from the roof to the ground, with one jump, and hurried after the
great unknown into the coffee-room. By the time I reached it he had
approached the fire, on the table near which, having deposited the
mysterious paper parcels, he was now busily engaged in divesting himself
of his great coat; his face was still turned from me, so that I had time
to appear employed in divesting myself of my wet drapery before he
perceived me; at last the coat was unbuttoned, the gaiters followed, and
throwing them carelessly on a chair, he tucked up the skirts of his coat;
and spreading himself comfortably a l'Anglais, before the fire, displayed
to my wondering and stupified gaze, the pleasant features of Doctor
Finucane.

"Why, Doctor--Doctor Finucane," cried I, "is this possible? were you
really the inside in the mail last night."

"Devil a doubt of it, Mr. Lorrequer; and may I make bould to ask,--were
you the outside?"

"Then what, may I beg to know, did you mean by your damned story about
Barney Doyle, and the hydrophobia, and Cusack Rooney's thumb--eh?"

"Oh, by the Lord," said Finucane, "this will be the death of me; and it
was you that I drove outside in all the rain last night! Oh, it will
kill Father Malachi outright with laughing, when I tell him;" and he
burst out into a fit of merriment that nearly induced me to break his
head with the poker.

"Am I to understand, then, Mr. Finucane, that this practical joke of your
was contrived for my benefit, and for the purpose of holding me up to the
ridicule of your confounded acquaintances."