l. The father in vain attempted
to inoculate him with a love of labor; but Phelim would not receive the
infection. His life was a pleasanter one. Sometimes, indeed, when he
wanted money to treat the girls at fairs and markets, he would prevail
on himself to labor a week or fortnight with some neighboring farmer;
but the moment he had earned as much as he deemed sufficient, the spade
was thrown aside. Phelim knew all the fiddlers and pipers in the barony;
was master of the ceremonies at every wake and dance that occurred
within several miles of him. He was a crack dancer, and never attended a
dance without performing a horn-pipe on a door or a table; no man could
shuffle, or treble, or cut, or spring, or caper with him. Indeed it was
said that he could dance "Moll Roe" upon the end of a five-gallon keg,
and snuff a mould candle with his heels, yet never lose the time. The
father and mother were exceedingly proud of Phelim, The former, when he
found him grown up, and associating with young men, began to feel a kind
of ambition in being permitted to join Phelim and his companions, and
to look upon the society of his own son as a privilege. With the girls
Phelim was a beauty without paint. They thought every wake truly a scene
of sorrow, if he did not happen to be present. Every dance was doleful
without him. Phelim wore his hat on one side, with a knowing but
careless air; he carried his cudgel with a good-humored, dashing spirit,
precisely in accordance with the character of a man who did not care a
traneen whether he drank with you as a friend or fought with you as a
foe. Never were such songs heard as Phelim could sing, nor such a
voice as that with which he sang them. His attitudes and action were
inimitable. The droop in his eye was a standing wink at the girls;
and when he sang his funny songs, with what practised ease he gave the
darlings a roguish chuck under the chin! Then his jokes! "Why, faix,"
as the fair ones often said of him, "before Phelim speaks at all, one
laughs at what he says." This was fact. His very appearance at a wake,
dance, or drinking match, was hailed by a peal of mirth. This heightened
his humor exceedingly; for say what you will, laughter is to wit what
air is to fire--the one dies without the other.

Let no one talk of beauty being on the surface. This is a popular error,
and no one but a superficial fellow would defend it Among ten thousand
you could not get a more unfavorable surface than P