my advice, and just keep it. He 'll never want to hear more of it.
Many a hundred crowns have left this on a worse errand, whatever be its
fate.'

'I wouldn't, to save my life! I wouldn't, if it was to keep me from the
galleys!'

'Have your own way, then,' said Kelly sharply; 'I must not loiter here';
and so saying, took the bag from the friar's hand, and moved over toward
where O'Sullivan was standing.

'Come along home with me, friar,' said O'Sullivan, as Kelly wished them
good-night; 'I'll give you a glass of Vermouth, and we 'll have a talk
about the old country.'

CHAPTER X. GABRIEL DE------

'I wish I knew how I could ever repay you, Pippo, for all your kindness
to me,' said Gerald, as he sat one fine evening with the old man at the
door; 'but when I tell you that I am as poor and as friendless in the
world as on that same night when Signor Gabriel found me beside the
lake----'

'Not a whit poorer or more alone in the world than the rest of us,' said
Pippo good-naturedly. 'We have all a rough journey before us in life,
and the least we can do is to help one another.'

The youth grasped the old man's hand and pressed it to his heart.

'Besides,' continued Pippo, 'all your gratitude is owing to Signor
Gabriel himself. Any little comforts you have had here have been of his
procuring. He it was fetched that doctor from Bolseno, and his own hands
carried the little jar of honey from St. Stephano.'

'What a kind heart he has!' cried Gerald eagerly.

'Well,' said Pippo, with a dry, odd smile, 'that's not exactly what
people say of him; not but he can do a kind thing too, just as he can do
anything.'

'Is he so clever, then?' asked Gerald curiously.

'Is he not!' exclaimed Pippo; 'where has he not travelled, what has he
not seen! And then the books he has written--scores of them, they
tell me: he's always writing still--whole nights through; after which,
instead of going to his bed like any one else, he is off for a plunge in
the lake there, though I've told him over and over, that the water that
kills fish can never be healthy for a human being!'

'What a strange nature his must be! And what brings him here?'

'That's _his_ secret, and it would be _mine_ too, if I knew it; for, I
promise you, he 's not one it's over safe to talk about.'

'Where does he come from?'

'He 's French, and that's all I can tell you.'

'It can't be for the _chasse_ he comes here,' said Gerald musingly.
'There's no g