u forgive him then, aroon?' said the priest.

'Och, bother! forgive him, to be sure I do. _That's_ supposin', mind, I
don't recover; but if I _do_----.'

'Och, pacible, pacible, my son,' said Father Roach, patting his arm, and
soothing him with his voice. It was the phrase he used to address to his
nag, Brian O'Lynn, when Brian had too much oats, and was disagreeably
playful. 'Nansinse, now, can't you be pacible--pacible my son--there
now, pacible, pacible.'

Upon his two supporters, and followed by his little second, this
towering sufferer was helped, and tumbled into the coach, into which
Puddock, Toole, and the priest, who was curious to see O'Flaherty's last
moments, all followed; and they drove at a wild canter--for the coachman
was 'hearty'--over the green grass, and toward Chapelizod, though Toole
broke the check-string without producing any effect, down the hill,
quite frightfully, and were all within an ace of being capsized. But
ultimately they reached, in various states of mind, but safely enough,
O'Flaherty's lodgings.

Here the gigantic invalid, who had suffered another paroxysm on the way,
was slowly assisted to the ground by his awestruck and curious friends,
and entered the house with a groan, and roared for Judy Carroll with a
curse, and invoked Jerome, the _cokang modate_, with horrible
vociferation. And as among the hushed exhortations of the good priest,
Toole and Puddock, he mounted the stairs, he took occasion over the
banister, in stentorian tones, to proclaim to the household his own
awful situation, and the imminent approach of the moment of his
dissolution.

CHAPTER XVII.

LIEUTENANT PUDDOCK RECEIVES AN INVITATION AND A RAP OVER THE KNUCKLES.

The old gentlemen, from their peepholes in the Magazine, watched the
progress of this remarkable affair of honour, as well as they could,
with the aid of their field-glasses, and through an interposing crowd.

'By Jupiter, Sir, he's through him!' said Colonel Bligh, when he saw
O'Flaherty go down.

'So he is, by George!' replied General Chattesworth; 'but, eh, which is
he?'

'The _long_ fellow,' said Bligh.

'O'Flaherty?--hey!--no, by George!--though so it is--there's work in
Frank Nutter yet, by Jove,' said the general, poking his glass and his
fat face an inch or two nearer.

'Quick work, general!' said Bligh.

'Devilish,' replied the general.

The two worthies never moved their glasses; as each, on his inquisitive
face, wore