That afternoon the two set forth for Halifax, and on the way thither
Terry had time to tell his companion in full detail the wonderful
experiences which had been his during the past two months. Mr. Hobart
was intensely interested, as may be imagined, and would often exclaim,--

"Why, Terry, you'll be the hero of the place for nine days at least.
If one of these newspaper men get hold of your story, they'll make a
great to-do over it. I think I must tell the editor of the _Herald_ to
have you interviewed."

"Sure now and you're only joking, Mr. Hobart," was Terry's response to
this banter, for it never entered his mind that any doing of his could
be worth newspaper notice.

"Not a bit of it, Terry," Mr. Hobart insisted; "you'll see when we get
to Halifax."

They reached their destination without mishap in due time, and as it
was too late to go to the office that day they each went to their own
homes, Terry promising to be at Drummond and Brown's bright and early
the next morning.

It was not without some misgivings as to the kind of reception awaiting
him that Terry made his way to Blind Alley. What would his mother say
to him? And would his father strike him, as he had done more than once
before when he had been away from home for a time?

He passed and repassed the entrance to the alley several times before
he could make up his mind to enter its forbidding gloom. But at last,
saying to himself, "Ah! what's the use of foolin' like this? Here
goes," he pushed in with quickened pace until he was within ten yards
of the tenement house, when his progress was suddenly arrested by a
familiar voice falling upon his ear. It was saying, in tones of
despairing grief,--

"No, no, Mrs. O'Rafferty, I'll never see his face again. He's gone off
in one of those American ships, believe me, and he'll be kilt or
drownded or something by this time."

This was too much for Terry. Darting forward, he sprang upon his
mother with a suddenness that would have startled a far less excitable
person, and clasping her tight about the neck, cried,--

"I'm nayther kilt nor drownded, mother darlin', but as well as I ever
was. See if I'm not."

Poor Mrs. Ahearn! The shock was really more than she could stand, and
she fainted dead away on the door-step, with Terry and Mrs. O'Rafferty
doing their best to hold her up.

But she soon regained her senses, and then ensued a scene of rejoicing
such as only a crowd of warm-hearted Irish