ty, along wid
a good wife, to your brother Ned--Neddy I ought to call him, out of
compliment to you--ha! ha! ha!"

"Proceed, Mr. Burke, you are pleased to be facetious."

"To your brother Ned--Neddy--having them, and maybe along wid them the
same, wife too?"

"No, not exactly; but out of respect to your wishes.

"What's that?" said the old man, staring at him with a kind of comic
gravity--"out of respect to my wishes!"

"That's what I've said," replied the son. "Proceed."

His father looked at' him again, and replied, "Proceed yourself---it was
you introduced the subject. I'm now jack-indifferent about it."

"All I have to say," continued Hycy, "is that I withdraw my ultimate
refusal, Mr. Burke. I shall entertain the question, as they say; and
it is not improbable but that I may dignify the fair Katsey with the
honorable title of Mrs. Burke."

"I wish you had spoken a little sooner, then," replied his father,
"bekaise it so happens that Gerald Cavanagh an' I have the match between
her and your brother Ned as good as made."

"My brother Ned! Why, in the name of; all that's incredible, how could
that be encompassed?"

"Very aisily," said his father, "by the girl's waitin' for him. Ned is
rather young! yet, I grant you; he's nineteen, however, and two years
more, you know, will make him one-and-twenty--take him out o' chancery,
as they say."

"Very good, Mr. Burke, very good; in that case I have no more to say."

"Well," pursued the father, in the same dry, half-comic, half-sarcastic
voice, "but what do you intend to do with yourself?"

"As to that," replied Hycy, who felt that the drift of the conversation
was setting in against him, "I shall take due time to consider."

"What height are you?" asked the father, rather abruptly.

"I can't see, Mr. Burke, I really can't see what my height has to do
with the question."

"Bekaise," proceeded the other, "I have some notion of putting you into
the army. You spoke of it wanst yourself, remimber; but then there's an
objection even to that."

"Pray, what is the objection, Mr. Burke?"

"Why, it's most likely you'd have to fight--if you took to the milintary
trade."

"Why, upon my word, Mr. Burke, you shine in the sarcastic this evening."

"But, at any rate, you must take your chance for that. You're a fine,
active young fellow, and I suppose if they take to runnin' you won't be
the last of them."

"Good, Mr. Burke--proceed, though."

"An accordingly I h