run an' toired
out, an' I'm longing for the toime when I can bid ajoo to the counthry
with its Injins an' Canajians."

"I don't see what you can find to amuse yourself with," said I,
sympathetically.

"Oh," said he, "I have veerious pushoots. I've got me books, an' I
foind imploymint an' amusemint with thim."

And now he began to enlarge on the theme of books, and he went on in
this way till he became eloquent, enthusiastic, and glorious. He
quaffed the limpid and transparent liquid, and its insinuating
influences inspired him every moment to nobler flights of fancy, of
rhetoric, and of eloquence. He began to grow learned. He discoursed
about the Attic drama; the campaigns of Hannibal; the manners and
customs of the Parthians; the doctrines of Zoroaster; the wars of
Hercalius and Chosroes; the Comneni; the Paleologi; the writings of
Snorro Sturlesson; the round towers of Ireland; the Phoenician origins
of the Irish people proved by Illustrations from Plautus, and a hundred
other things of a similar character.

"And what are you engaged upon now?" I asked, at length, as I found
myself fairly lost amid the multiplicity of subjects which he brought
forward.

"Engeeged upon?" he exclaimed, "well--a little of iviry thing, but this
dee I've been busy with a rayconsthruction of the scholastic thaories
rilitiv to the jureetion of the diluge of Juceelion. Have ye ivir
persued the thraitises of the Chubingen school about the Noachic
diluge?"

"No."

"Well, ye'll find it moighty foine an' insthructive raidin'. But in
addition to this, I've been investigarin' the subject of maydyayvil
jools."

"Jools?" I repeated, in an imbecile way.

"Yis, jools," said O'Halloran, "the orjil, ye know, the weeger of
battle."

"Oh, yes," said I, as light burst in upon me; "duels, I understand."

"But the chafe subject that I'm engeeged upon is a very different one,"
he resumed, talking another swallow of the oft-replenished draught.
"It's a thraitise of moine which I ixplict to upsit the thaories of
the miserable Saxon schaymers that desthort the pleen facts of
antiquetee to shoot their own narrow an' disthortid comprayhinsions.
An' I till ye what--whin my thraitise is published, it'll make a
chumult among thim that'll convulse the litherary wurruld."

"What is your treatise about?" I asked, dreamily, for I only half
comprehended him, or rather, I didn't comprehend him at all.

"Oh," said he, "its a foine subject intoirely. It's a