unnecessary noise as he stamped down the
staircase to send a farmhand to Slow Down Ranch; and he also thought
that Orlando Guise showed discretion of manner and look in a moment of
delicacy and difficulty. He knew, however, that, as the children say,
"Things must happen."

CHAPTER VII. "THE ZOOLYOGICAL GARDEN"

Patsy Kernaghan regarded Tralee as a kind of Lost Paradise, for the
most part because it had passed from the hands of a son of the Catholic
Church into those of the "prayin' Methodys," as he called them, and also
because he had a "black heart ag'in" Joel Mazarine.

The spark was struck in him with some vigour one day at Tralee. It was
caused by the flamboyant entrance of Mrs. Guise into the front garden,
as the Young Doctor was getting into his buggy for the return journey
to Askatoon, after attending Orlando, whose enforced visit to Tralee had
already extended over a week.

"Aw, Doctor dear," said Patsy, as Orlando's mother fluttered into the
garden like a gorgeous hen with wings outspread, her clothes a riot of
contradictory colours, all of them insistently bright, "d'ye know what
this place is--this terry firmy on which we stand, that's wan mile wan
way, an' half a mile the other? Ye don't? Well, I'll tell ye: it's
a zoolyogical gardin. Is it like a human bein' she is, the dear ould
wumman there? Isn't she just some gay ould bird from the forests of
the Equaytor, wherivir it is? Look at the beautiful little white curls
hanging down her cheek, tied with ribbon-pink ribbon too--an' the bonnet
on her head! Did ye iver see anything like it outside a zoolyogical
gardin? Isn't it like the topknot of some fine old parakeet from
Pernambukoko--and oh, Father Rainbow, the maginta dress of her! Now
I tell you, Doctor dear, I tell you the truth, what I know! She wears
hoops, she does, the same as y'r grandmother used to. An' the bit of
rose ribbon round her waist, hanging down behind--now I ask y'r anner,
is it like a wumman at all? See the face of her, with the little
snappin' eyes an' the yellow beak of a nose, an' the sunset in her
cheeks that's put on wid a painter's brush! Look at her trippin' about!
Floatin'--shure, that's what she's doin'! If you listened hard, you'd
hear her buzzin'. It's the truth I tell ye. D'ye follow me?"

The Young Doctor liked talking to Patsy Kernaghan better than to any
other person in Askatoon. He was always sure to be stimulated by a new
point of view, but he never failed to p