little hoofs on it."

A loud burst of laughter was O'Shea's reply, and for several seconds he
could not control his mirth.

"Do you know what you're smoking! It's Russian camomile!"

"Maybe it is."

"I got it to make a bitter mixture."

"It's bitther, sure enough, but it has a notion of tobacco too."

O'Shea again laughed out, and longer than before.

"It's just a chance that you were n't poisoned," said he, at last.
"Here--here's a cigar for you, and a real Cuban, too, one that young
Heathcote never fancied would grace your lips."

Joe accepted the boon without acknowledgment; indeed, he scrutinized
the gift with an air of half-depreciation.

"You don't seem to think much of a cigar," said O'Shea, testily.

"When I can get no betther," said Joe, biting off the end.

O'Shea frowned and turned away. It was evident that he had some
difficulty in controlling himself, but he succeeded, and was silent. The
effort, however, could not be sustained very long, and at last he said,
but in a slow and measured tone,--

"Shall I tell you a home-truth, Master Joe?"

"Yes, if you like."

"It is this, then: it is that same ungracious and ungrateful way with
which you, and every one like you in Ireland, receive benefits, disgusts
every stranger."

"Benefits!"

"Yes, benefits,--I said benefits."

"Sure, what's our own isn't benefits," rejoined Joe, calmly.

"Your own? May I ask if the contents of that bag were your own?"

"'T is at the devil I 'm wishin' it now," said Joe, putting his hand on
his stomach. "Tis tearing me to pieces, it is, bad luck to it!"

O'Shea was angry, but such was the rueful expression of Joe's face that
he laughed out again.

"Now he's goin' lame if you like!" cried Joe, with a tone of triumph
that said, "All the mishaps are not on _my_ side."

O'Shea pulled up, and knowing, probably, the utter inutility of
employing Joe at such a moment, got down himself to see what was amiss.

"No, it's the off leg," cried Joe, as his master was carefully examining
the near one.

"I suppose he must have touched the frog on a sharp stone," said O'Shea,
after a long and fruitless exploration.

"I don't think so," said Joe; "'t is more like to be a dizaze of the
bone,--one of thim dizazes of the fetlock that's never cured."

A deeply uttered malediction was O'Shea's answer to the pleasant
prediction.

"I never see one of them recover," resumed Joe, who saw his advantage;
"but the baste will do man