have here the
material of saints; and yet--look now at that wretched Deady! I don't
mind his insolence, but the shifty dishonesty of the fellow."

"Let him alone! By this time he is stung with remorse for what he said.
Then he'll make a general confession to his wife. She'll flay him with
her tongue for having dared to say a disrespectful word to God's
minister. Then he'll go on a desperate spree for a week to stifle
conscience, during which orgies he'll beat his wife black and blue;
finally, he'll come to you, sick, humbled, and repentant, to apologize
and take the pledge for life again. That's the programme."

"'T is pitiful," said the young priest.

But the following Sunday he recovered all his lost prestige and secured
immortal fame at the football match between the "Holy Terrors" of
Kilronan and the "Wolfe Tones" of Moydore. For, being asked to "kick
off" by these athletes, he sent the ball up in a straight line seventy
or eighty feet, and it struck the ground just three feet away from where
he stood. There was a shout of acclamation from the whole field, which
became a roar of unbounded enthusiasm when he sent the ball flying in a
parabola, not six feet from the ground, and right to the hurdles that
marked the opposite goal. The Kilronan men were wild about their young
curate, and under his eye they beat their opponents hollow; and one
admirer, leaning heavily on his _caman_, was heard to say:--

"My God, if he'd only lade us!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: "A hundred thousand welcomes, Lord."]

[Footnote 4: A famous Irish architect.]

CHAPTER XIII

"ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN"

In pursuing my course of lectures to my young curate--lectures which he
returned with compound interest by his splendid example of zeal and
energy--I put into his hands the following lines, addressed by that
gentle saint, Francis de Sales, to some one in whom he had a similar
interest:--

"Accustom yourself to speak softly and slowly, and to go--I mean
walk--quite composedly; to do all that you do gently and quietly,
and you will see that in three or four years you will have quite
regulated this hasty impetuosity. But carefully remember to act
thus gently and speak softly on occasions when the impetuosity is
not urging you, and when there is no appearance of danger of it,
as, for example, when sitting down, rising up, eating, when you
speak to N. N., etc.; and in fact everywhere and in e