im, but,
he added--

"I'll tell you what we can do, Art--come into partnership wid me, for I
think as we're gettin' an so well together, it 'ud be a pity, almost a
sin, to part; join me, and I'll give you one-third of the business,"--by
which he meant the profits of it.

"Begad," replied Art, laughing, "it's as much for the novelty of the
thing I'm doin' it as any thing else; I think it 'ud be like a dhrame to
me, if I was to find myself and my family as we wor before." And so they
parted.

It is unnecessary here to repeat what we have already detailed
concerning the progress of his early prosperity; it is sufficient, we
trust, to tell our readers that he rose into rapid independence, and
that he owed all his success to the victory that he had obtained over
himself. His name was now far and near, and so popular had he become,
that no teetotaller would employ any other carpenter. This, at length,
began to make him proud, and to feel that his having given up drink,
instead of being simply a duty to himself and his family, was altogether
an act of great voluntary virtue on his part.

"Few men," he said, "would do it, an' may be, afther all, if I hadn't
the ould blood in my veins--if I wasn't one of the great Fermanagh
Maguires, I would never a' done it."

He was now not only a vehement Teetotaller, but an unsparing enemy to
all who drank even in moderation; so much so, indeed, that whenever
a man came to get work done with him, the first question he asked him
was--"Are you a Teetotaller?" If the man answered "No," his reply was,
"Well, I'm sorry for that, bekase I couldn't wid a safe conscience do
your work; but you can go to Owen Gallagher, and he will do it for you
as well as any man livin'."

This, to be sure, was the abuse of the principle; but we all know that
the best things may be abused. He was, in fact, outrageous in defence of
Teetotalism; attended all its meetings; subscribed for Band-money; and
was by far the most active member in the whole town of Ballykeerin. It
was not simply that he forgot his former poverty; he forgot himself.
At every procession he was to be seen, mounted on a spanking horse,
ridiculously over-dressed--the man, we mean, not the horse--flaunting
with ribands, and quite puffed up at the position to which he had raised
himself.

This certainly was not the humble and thankful feeling with which he
ought to have borne his prosperity. The truth, however, was, that Art,
in all this par