which, to his boyish ideas, seemed high and enviable." This speech Mr.
O'Shea delivered in a tone by which he occasionally turned to rehearse
oratorical effects, and which, by some strange sympathy, always appeared
to please his follower. "Yes, Joe," continued he, "as the poet says,
'The child is father of the man.'"

"You mane the man is father of the child," broke in Joe.

"I do not, booby; I meant what I have said, and what Wordsworth said
before me."

"The more fool he, then. It's nobody's father he 'd be. Arrah! that's
the way you always spoil a fine sintiment with something out of a poet.
Poets and play-actors never helped a man out of a ditch!"

"Will you marry this Smithers, if that be her name?" said O'Shea,
angrily.

"For the place--"

"I mean as much."

"I would, if I was treated--'raysonable,'" said he, pausing for a moment
in search of the precise word he wanted.

Mr. O'Shea sighed heavily; his exchequer contained nothing but promises;
and none knew better than his follower what such pledges were worth.

"It would be the making of you, Joe," said he, after a brief silence,
"if I was to marry this heiress."

"Indeed, it might be," responded the other.

"It would be the grand event of _your_ life, that's what it would be.
What could I not do for you? You might be land-steward; you might be
under-agent, bailiff, driver,--eh?"

"Yes," said Joe, closing his eyes, as if he desired to relish the vision
undisturbed by external distractions.

"I have always treated you as a sort of friend, Joe,--you know that."

"I do, sir. I do, indeed."

"And I mean to prove myself your friend too. It is not the man who has
stuck faithfully by me that I 'd desert. Where's my dressing-gown?"

"She was torn under the arm, and I gave her to be mended; put this
round you," said he, draping a much-befrogged pelisse over his master's
shoulders.

"These are not my slippers, you stupid ass!"

"They are the ould ones. Don't you remember shying one of the others,
yesterday, at the organ-boy, and it fell in the river and was lost?"

Mr. O'Shea's brow darkened as he sat down to his meal. "Tell Pan," said
he, "to send me up some broth and a chop about seven. I must keep the
house to-day, and be indisposed. And do you go over to Lucca, and raise
me a few Naps on my 'rose-amethyst' ring. Three will do; five would be
better, though."

Joe sighed. It was a mission he had so often been charged with and never
came well out