five days--no less." (When I reached this
skilful adoption of my calculations, I involuntarily looked up. There
sat Mr. Macartney in his rocking-chair. He was just lighting a short
pipe, but he paused in the operation to acknowledge what he evidently
believed to be my look of admiration with a nod and a wink. I read on.)
Times were cruel bad out there for a poor boy that lived by his
industry, but thank GOD he'd been spared the worst pangs of starvation
(I glanced round the pop-shop, but, as Micky himself would have said, No
matther!); and didn't it lighten his heart to hear of his dear mother
sitting content and comfortable at her own coffee-stall. It was
murderously hot in these parts, and New York--bad luck to it--was a
mighty different place from the dear old Ballywhack where he was born.
Would they ever see old Ireland again? (Here a big blot betrayed how
much Mr. Macartney had been moved by his own eloquence.) The rest of the
letter was rich with phrases both of piety and affection. How much of
the whole composition was conscious humbug, and whether any of it was
genuine feeling, I have as little idea now as I had then. The shallows
of the human heart are at least as difficult to sound as its depths, and
Micky Macartney's was quite beyond me. One thing about the letter was
true enough. As he said, it would "plaze the ould craythur intirely."

By the time I had addressed it, "Mrs. Biddy Macartney, coffee-seller,"
to the care of the Dockgate-keeper, we had not much spare time left in
which to stamp and post it, so we took leave of the owner of the
pop-shop. He was now very unwilling to let us go. He did not ask another
question about his mother, but he was consumed with trivial curiosity
about us. Once again he alluded to Biddy. We were standing outside, and
his eye fell upon the row of shining pop-taps--

"Wouldn't she be the proud woman now, av she could see me!" he cried.

"Why don't you get her out to live with you?" I asked.

He shook his head, "I'm a married man, Mr. ---- bad luck to me, I've
forgotten your name now!"

"I didn't trouble you with it. Well, I hope you'll go and see her before
she dies."

But when I came to think of it, I did not feel sure if that was what I
wished. Not being a woman, how could I balance the choice of pain? How
could I tell if it were better for her to be disappointed with every
ship and every tide, still having faith in her own Micky, and hope of
his coming, or for the tid