ne thing came amid my thoughts like a flash of light into darkness,
and that was that Jack, at least, was not crossing my path, nor was he
a dog in my manger; Miss O'Halloran might be his, but she was nothing
to me. Who Miss O'Halloran was, I now fully understood. It was Marion--
Marion with the sombre, sad face, and the piercing, lustrous eyes.

Well, be she who she might, she was no longer standing between Jack and
me. I could regain my lost friend at any rate, I could explain every
thing to him. I could easily anticipate the wild shrieks of laughter
with which he would greet my mistake, but that mattered not. I was
determined to hunt him up. All my late bitter feeling against him
vanished, and I began to feel a kind of longing for his great broad
brow, his boyish carelessness, his never-ending blunders. So at an
early hour I rose, and informed O'Halloran that I had an engagement at
eleven o'clock, and would have to start.

"It's sorry I am," said he, "but I won't deteen ye."

CHAPTER XXVI.

A FEW PARTING WORDS WITH O'HALLORAN.--HIS TOUCHING PARENTAL TENDERNESS,
HIGH CHIVALRIC SENTIMENT, AND LOFTY SENSE OF HONOR.--PISTOLS FOR TWO.--
PLEASANT AND HARMONIOUS ARRANGEMENT.--"ME BOY, YE'RE AN HONOR TO YER
SEX!"

"It's sorry I am," said O'Halloran, "but I won't deteen ye, for I
always rispict an engeegemint."

He stopped and looked at me with a benevolent smile. I had risen from
my chair, and was standing before him.

"Sit down a momint," said he. "There's a subjict I wish to mintion, the
considhereetion of which I've postponed till now."

I resumed my seat in some surprise.

"Me boy," said he, in a tender and paternal voice, "it's now toime for
me to speak to ye about the ayvint of which I was a casual oi-witniss.
I refer to your addhrissis to me woife. Don't intherrupt me. I
comprayhind the whole matter. The leedies are all fond of ye. So they
are of me. Ye're a devvil of a fellow with them--an' so am I. We
comprayhind one another. You see we must have a mayting."

"A meeting!"

"Yis--of coorse. A jool. There's nothing else to be done."

"You understand," said I, "of course, the nature of my awkward mistake,
and the cause of it."

"Don't mintion it. Me ondherstand? Of coorse. Am I an owl? Be dad, I
nivir laughed so much these tin years. Ondherstand! Every bit of it.
But we won't have any expleeneetions about that. What concerns us is
the code of honor, and the jewty of gintlemin. A rigid sinse of