aking!

"Faith, not a worrd moved our patient. She was that in all conscience,
sure.

"`Begorrah, I'll sind a bucket of could wather over her an' say if
that'll tach her manners!' said the ould hag, who tould us her own name
was Biddy Flynne, on our giving her an odd sixthpence for a dhrop of
drink. `It's a shame to bring yez honours out for nothin'!'

"She was jist going to do what she had threatened, sure enough whin,
providentially, in walked the professor from the college.

"He'd been listenin' outside the door, I believe, all the toime Terence
an' mesilf were talkin' an' arguin' about the ould dame's complaint,
puzzlin' our brains to find out what was the mather with her, for the
baste of a man had a broad grin on his face, loike that you say on a
mealy petaty whin the jacket pales off of it, whin he toorned round to
us afther examinin' poor Mistress Flannagan, now all a heap on her
chere.

"`Faith, I must complimint you, jintlemin, on the profound skill an'
knowledge you have shown in your profession,' says he. `I don't think I
ivver heard a more ignorant or illeterate diagnosis of a case since I've
been professor at Trinity College!'

"He was a moighty polite man was Professor Lancett. Terence an' I both
agrayed on his sayin' this, an' thought our fortunes were made an' we'd
git our diplomas at once, without any examination, sure!

"But his nixt remark purty soon took the consate out of both of us.

"`It's lucky for you two dunder-headed ignoramases!' he went on to say
in a nasty sneerin' way the baste had with him whin he was angry and was
any way put out. `Preshous lucky for you, Misther Terence Mahony, an'
you, too, Garry O'Neil, that I chanced to come afther you, thinkin' ye'd
be up to some mischief, or else ye'd have put your foot in it with a
vengeance an' murthered between you this poor, harmless ould woman lying
here. I am ashamed and disgusted with you!'

"He thin prosayded to till what the poor crayture was sufferin' from,
an' what d'ye think her complaint was, colonel? Jist give a guess, now,
jist to oblige me, sure."

"Great Scot!" cried the American, smiling at O'Neil's naive manner and
the happy and roguish expression on his face, our guest's appearance
having been much improved, by the food of which he had partaken as well
as the stimulant, which had put some little colour into his pale cheeks.
"I'm sure I can't guess. But what was it, sir, for you have excited my
curiosity?"