me Dennis O'Moore. What's _your_ name, ye enterprising
little stowaway?"

I told him. "And where were you going in your boat, and how did you get
upset?" I asked.

He sighed. "It was the old hooker we started in, bad luck to her!"

"Is that the name of the boat you were holding on to?"

"_That_ boat? No! We borrowed _her_--and now ye remind me, I wouldn't
be surprised if Tim Brady was missing her by this, for I had no leisure
to ask his leave at the time, and, as a rule, we take our own coracle in
the hooker--"

"What _is_ a hooker?" I interrupted, for I was resolved to know.

"What's a hooker? A hooker--what a catechetical little chatterbox ye
are! A man can't get a word in edgeways--a hooker's a boat. Ours was a
twenty-ton, half-decked, cutter-rigged sort of thing, built for nothing
in particular, and always used for everything. It was lucky for me we
took Tim Brady's boat instead of the coracle, or I'd be now where--where
poor Barney is. Oh, Barney, Barney! How'll I ever get over it? Why did
ye never learn to swim, so fond of the water as ye were? Why couldn't ye
hold on to me when I got a good grip of ye! Barney, dear, I've a notion
in my heart that ye left your hold on purpose, and threw away your own
life that ye mightn't risk mine. And now I'll never know, for ye'll never
be able to tell me. Tim Brady's boat would have held two as easy as one,
Barney, and maybe the old hooker'd have weathered the storm with a few
more repairs about her, that the squire always intended, as no one knows
better than yourself! Oh, dear! oh, dear! But--Heaven forgive
us!--putting off's been the ruin of the O'Moores from time out of mind.
And now you're dead and gone--dead and gone! But oh, Barney, Barney, if
prayers can give your soul ease, you'll not want them while Dennis
O'Moore has breath to pray!"

I was beginning to discover that one of the first wonders of the world
is that it contains a great many very good people, who are quite
different from oneself and one's near relations. For I really was not
conceited enough to disapprove of my new friend because he astonished
me, though he certainly did do so. From the moment when Barney (whoever
Barney might be) came into his head, everything else apparently went out
of it. I am sure he quite forgot me.

For my own part I gazed at him in blank amazement. I was not used to
seeing a man give way to his feelings in public, still less to seeing a
man cry in company, and least of