f you abandoned all thoughts of a wife, you would
get heroic again?--that is, would you, take once more to the love of
fighting?"

"There is no doubt but I would," said the tailor: "If I miss the wife,
I'll kick up such a dust as never was seen in the parish, an' you're
the first man that I'll lick. But now that I'm in love," he continued,
"sure, I ought to look out for the wife."

"Ah! Neal," said the schoolmaster, "you are tempting destiny: your
temerity be, with all its melancholy consequences, upon your own head."

"Come," said the tailor, "it wasn't to hear you groaning to the tune of
'Dhrimmind-hoo,' or 'The ould woman rockin' her cradle,' that I came;
but to know if you could help me in makin' out the wife. That's the
discoorse."

"Look at me, Neal," said the schoolmaster, solemnly; "I am at this
moment, and have been any time for the last fifteen years, a living
caveto against matrimony. I do not think that earth possesses such a
luxury as a single solitary life. Neal, the monks of old were happy men:
they were all fat and had double chins; and, Neal, I tell you, that all
fat men are in general happy. Care cannot come at them so readily as
at a thin man; before it gets through the strong outworks, of flesh
and blood with which they are surrounded, it becomes treacherous to its
original purpose, joins the cheerful spirits it meets in the system, and
dances about the heart in all the madness of mirth; just like a sincere
ecclesiastic, who comes to lecture a good fellow against drinking, but
who forgets his lecture over his cups, and is laid under the table with
such success, that he either never comes to finish his lecture, or
comes often; to be laid under the table, Look at me Neal, how wasted,
fleshless, and miserable, I stand before you. You know how my garments
have shrunk in, and what a solid man I was before marriage. Neal,
pause, I beseech you: otherwise you stand a strong chance of becoming a
nonentity like myself."

"I don't care what I become," said the tailor; "I can't think that you'd
be so: unsonable as to expect that any of the Malones; should pass
out of the world widout either bein' bate or marrid. Have rason, Mr.
O'Connor, an' if you can help me to the wife, I promise to take in your
coat the next time--for nothin'."

"Well, then," said Mr. O'Connor, "what-would you think of the butcher's
daughter, Biddy Neil? You have always had a thirst for blood, and here
you may have it gratified in an