d my arm. He took it. The door
was not far away. We started to go out. The people fell back, and made
way for us. After all, they were a good enough lot, and had only
yielded to a kind of panic. All mobs, I suppose, are insane. The very
fact of a mob involves a kind of temporary insanity. But these fellows
had come to their senses, and so I had no difficulty in making my way
through them along with my companion. We got out into the street
without any difficulty. My new friend held my arm, and involuntarily
made a turn to the right on leaving the door of the hall. Thus we
walked along, and for some time we walked in silence.

At length the silence was broken by my companion.

"Well--well--well!" he ejaculated--"to think of me, walking with a
British officer-arrum-in-arrum!"

"Why not?" said I.

"Why not?" said he, "why there's ivlry reason in loife. I'm a Fenian."

"Pooh!" said I, "what's the use of bothering about politics? You're a
man, and a confoundedly plucky fellow too. Do you think that I could
stand there and see those asses pitching into you? Don't bother about
politics."

"An' I won't," said he. "But at any reet, I feeced them. An Oirishman
niver sirrinders to an inimy. I feeced them, I did--an' I expressed
meself in shootable sintimints."

The rich Leinster accent of my companion showed his nationality more
plainly than even his own explicit statement. But this did not at all
lessen the interest that I took in him. His sensitiveness which had
been so conspicuous, his courage which had shone so brightly, and his
impressive features, all combined to create a feeling of mingled regard
and respect for my new acquaintance.

"By Jove!" I cried, "I never saw a pluckier fellow in my life. There
you were, alone, with a mad mob howling at you."

"It's meself," said he, "that'll nivir be intimidected. Don't I know
what a mob is? An' if I didn't, wouldn't I feece thim all the seeme?
An' afther all I don't moind tellin' _you_ that it wasn't disrispict.
It was only a kind of abstraction, an' I wasn't conscious that it was
the national anthim, so I wasn't. I'd have stood up, if I'd knowed it.
But whin those divils began reelin' at me, I had to trait thim with
scarrun and contimpt. An' for me--I haven't much toime to live, but
what I have ye've seeved for me."

"Oh, nonsense, don't talk about that," said I, modestly.

"Sorr," said he, "I'm very well aware that I'm under deep
obleegeetions, an' I owe ye a debt of