lloped out of the company of dacent men."

"But, Capt'n," said Lovibond, falteringly! "Capt'n...."

"What?"

"Wasn't Mrs. Quiggin a poor girl when you married her?"

At that word Davy looked like a man newly awakened from a trance. His
voice, which had rung out like a horn, seemed to wheeze back like a
whistle; his eyes, which had begun to blaze, took a fixed and stupid
look; his lips parted; his head dropped forward; his chest fell inward;
and his big shoulders seemed to shrink. He looked about him vacantly,
put one hand up to his forehead and said in a broken underbreath,
"Lord-a-massy! What am I doing? What am I saying?"

The painful moment was broken by the arrival of the first of the guests.
It was Keruish, the churchwarden, a very-secular person, deep in the
dumps over a horse which he had bought at Castletown fair the week
before (with money cheated out of Davy), and lost by an attack of the
worms that morning. "Butts in the stomach, sir," he moaned; "they're
bad, sir, aw, they're bad."

"Nothing wuss," said Davy. "I know them. Ate all the goodness out of
you and lave you without bowels. Men has them as well as horses--only we
call (them) friends instead."

The other guests arrived one by one--the blacksmith, the crier, the
brewer, the lodging-house keeper, and the two secretaries of the
charitable societies (whose names were "spells" too big for Davy), and
the keeper of a home for lost dogs.

They were a various and motley company of the riff-raff and raggabash of
the island,--young and elderly, silent and glib--rough as a pigskin, and
smooth as their sleeves at the elbow; with just one feature common to
the whole pack of pick-thanks, and that was a look of shallow cunning.

Davy received them with noisy welcomes and equal cheer, but he had
the measure of every man of them all, down to the bottom of their fob
pockets. The cloth was laid, the supper was served, and down they sat at
the table.

"Anywhere, anywhere!" cried Davy, as they took their places. "The mate
is the same at every seat."

"Ay, ay," they laughed, and then fell to without ceremony.

"Only wait till I've done the carving, and we'll all start fair," said
Davy.

"Coorse, coorse," they answered, from mouths half full already.

"That's what Kinvig said when he was cutting up his sermon into firstly,
secondly, thirdly, and fourteenthly."

"Ha, ha! Kinvig! I'd drink the ould man's health if I had anything,"
cried the blacksmith, with