"Well, and what 'ud you say if I showed you a baste ov mine," says his
Riv'rence, "that, instead ov fasting till first mass is over only, fasts
out the whole four-and-twenty hours ov every Wednesday and Friday in the
week as reg'lar as a Christian?"

"O, be asy, Masther Maguire," says the Pope.

"You don't b'lieve me, don't you?" says his Riv'rence; "very well, I'll
soon show you whether or no." And he put his knuckles in his mouth, and
gev a whistle that made the Pope stop his fingers in his ears. The
aycho, my dear, was hardly done playing wid the cobwebs in the cornish,
when the door flies open, and in jumps Spring. The Pope happened to be
sitting next the door, betuxt him and his Riv'rence, and, may I never
die, if he didn't clear him, thriple crown and all, at one spring.
"God's presence be about us!" says the Pope, thinking it was an evil
spirit come to fly away wid him for the lie that he had told in regard
ov his mule (for it was nothing more nor a thrick that consisted in
grazing the brute's teeth): but, seeing it was only one ov the greatest
beauties ov a greyhound that he'd ever laid his epistolical eyes on, he
soon recovered ov his fright, and began to pat him, while Father Tom ris
and went to the sideboord, where he cut a slice ov pork, a slice ov
beef, a slice ov mutton, and a slice ov salmon, and put them all on a
plate thegither. "Here, Spring, my man," says he, setting the plate down
afore him on the hearthstone, "here's your supper for you this blessed
Friday night." Not a word more he said nor what I tell you; and, you may
believe it or not, but it's the blessed truth that the dog, afther jist
tasting the salmon, and spitting it out again, lifted his nose out o'
the plate, and stood wid his jaws wathering, and his tail wagging,
looking up in his Riv'rence's face, as much as to say, "Give me your
absolution, till I hide them temptations out o' my sight."

"There's a dog that knows his duty," says his Riv'rence; "there's a
baste that knows how to conduct himself aither in the parlor or the
field. You think him a good dog, looking at him here: but I wisht you
seen him on the side ov Sleeve-an-Eirin! Be my soul, you'd say the hill
was running away from undher him. O, I wisht you had been wid me," says
he, never letting on to see the dog stale, "one day, last Lent, that I
was coming from mass. Spring was near a quarther ov a mile behind me,
for the childher was delaying him wid bread and butther at the