sure I did. O'Malley and I could not hear ourselves talking
with the uproar."

"Yes, indeed, it is very provoking; but then, what's to be done? One can't
complain, under the circumstances."

"Why, what do you mean?" said Mooney, anxiously.

"Nothing, sir; nothing. I'd much rather you'd not ask me; for after all,
I'll change my chambers."

"But why? Explain this at once. I insist upon it."

"Can I depend upon the discretion of your young friend?" said Mr. Webber,
gravely.

"Perfectly," said the doctor, now wound up to the greatest anxiety to learn
a secret.

"And you'll promise not to mention the thing except among your friends?"

"I do," said the doctor.

"Well, then," said he, in a low and confident whisper, "it's the dean."

"The dean!" said Mooney, with a start. "The dean! Why, how can it be the
dean?"

"Too true," said Mr. Webber, making a sign of drinking,--"too true, Doctor.
And then, the moment he is so, he begins smashing the furniture. Never was
anything heard like it. As for me, as I am now become a reading man, I must
go elsewhere."

Now, it so chanced that the worthy dean, who albeit a man of most
abstemious habits, possessed a nose which, in color and development, was a
most unfortunate witness to call to character, and as Mooney heard Webber
narrate circumstantially the frightful excesses of the great functionary, I
saw that something like conviction was stealing over him.

"You'll, of course, never speak of this except to your most intimate
friends," said Webber.

"Of course not," said the doctor, as he shook his hand warmly, and prepared
to leave the room. "O'Malley, I leave you here," said he; "Webber and you
can talk over your arrangements."

Webber followed the doctor to the door, whispered something in his ear, to
which the other replied, "Very well, I will write; but if your father
sends the money, I must insist--" The rest was lost in protestations and
professions of the most fervent kind, amidst which the door was shut, and
Mr. Webber returned to the room.

Short as was the interspace from the door without to the room within, it
was still ample enough to effect a very thorough and remarkable change in
the whole external appearance of Mr. Frank Webber; for scarcely had the
oaken panel shut out the doctor, when he appeared no longer the shy, timid,
and silvery-toned gentleman of five minutes before, but dashing boldly
forward, he seized a key-bugle that lay hid beneath a sofa-cus