em--ha, ha,
ha!"

"More power to you, Vaynus," exclaimed Keenan; "you're worth a thousand
pounds, quarry weight."

"I am inclined to think, Mr. Keenan," said the schoolmaster, "that you
are in the habit occasionally of taking slight liberties wid the haythen
mythology. Little, I'll be bound, the divine goddess of beauty ever
dreamt she'd find a representative in Teddy Phats."

"Bravo! masther," replied Keenan, "you're the boy can do--only that
English is too tall for me. At any rate," he added, approaching the
worthy preceptor, "take a spell o' this--it's a language we can all
understand."

"You mane to say, Darby," returned the other, "that it's a kind of
universal spelling-book amongst us, and so it is--an alphabet aisily
larned. Your health, now and under all circumstances! Teddy, or
Thaddeus, I drink to your symmetry and inexplicable proportions; and
I say for your comfort, my worthy distillator, that if you are not so
refulgent in beauty as Venus, you are a purer haythen."

"Fwhat a bloody fwhine _Bairlha_ man the meeisther is," said Teddy, with
a grin. "Fwhaicks, meeisthur, your de posey of Tullyticklem, spishilly
wid Captain Fwhiskey at your back. You spake de Bairlha up den jist all
as one as nobody could understand her--ha, ha, ha!"

The master, whose name was Finigan, or, as he wished to be called,
O'Finigan, looked upon Teddy and shook his head very significantly.

"I'm afraid, my worthy distallator," he proceeded, "that the proverb
which says '_latet anguis in herba_,' is not inapplicable in your
case. I think I can occasionally detect in these ferret-like orbs
that constitute such an attractive portion of your beauty, a passing
scintillation of intelligence which you wish to keep _a secretis_, as
they say."

"Mr. Finigan," said Keenan, who had now returned to his friends, "if
you wouldn't be betther employed to-morrow, you'd be welcome to the
weddin'."

"Many thanks, Mr. Keenan," replied Finigan; "I accept your hospitable
offer wid genuine cordiality. To-morrow will be a day worthy of a white
mark to all parties concerned. Horace calls it chalk, which is probably
the most appropriate substance with which the records of matrimonial
felicity could be registered, _crede experto_."

"At any rate, Misther Finigan, give the boys a holiday to-morrow, and be
down wid us airly."

"There is not," replied Finigan, who was now pretty well advanced, "I
believe widin the compass of written or spoken langua