tuk us out o' thus, I suppose!"

"Look at yere feet," said Jem, "and tell me what kind of a boat would
live there?"

True enough. The angry waters were hissing, and embracing, and swirling
back, and trying to leap the cliffs, and feeling with all their awful
strength and agility for some channel through which they might reach and
devour the prisoners.

By some secret telegraphy a crowd had soon gathered. One by one, the
"byes" dropped down from the village, and to each in turn Jem had to
tell all he knew about the mermen. Then commenced a running fire of
chaff from every quarter.

"Where are yere banjoes, gintlemin? Ye might as well spind the Sunday
pleasantly, for the sorra a wan o' ye will get off before night."

"Start 'Way down the Suwanee River,' Jem, and we'll give 'em a chorus."

"You're Jem Deady, I suppose," said one of the bailiffs. "Well, Deady,
remember you're a marked mon. I gut yer cherickter last night from a
gentleman as the greatest ruffian amongst all the ruffians of
Kilronan--"

"Yerra, man, ye're takin' lave of yer sinses. Is 't Jem Deady? Jem
Deady, the biggest _omadhaun_ in the village."

"Jem Deady, the greatest _gommal_[9] that ever lived."

"Jem Deady, that doesn't know his right hand from his left."

"Jem Deady, who doesn't know enough to come in out of the wet."

"Jem Deady, the innocent, that isn't waned from his mother ayet."

[Illustration: "Hallo, there!... who the ---- are ye?" (p. 457.)]

During all these compliments Jem smoked placidly. I had forgotten one of
the most serious duties of a novelist--the description of Jem's
toilette. I had forgotten to say that a black pilot coat with velvet
collar, red silk handkerchief, etc., was a veritable Nessus shirt to
Jem. So passionately fond of work was he, and so high an idea had he
conceived on the sacredness and nobleness of work, that integuments
savoring of Sabbath indolence were particularly intolerable to him. He
moved about stiffly in them, was glad to shake them off, and resume his
white, lime-stained, patched, and torn, but oh! such luxuriously easy
garments of every-day life. Then I regret to have to record an act of
supreme vanity, that might be pardonable or venial in a young lady going
to a ball or coming out in her first concert, but was simply shocking in
a middle-aged man going out to Mass on a Sunday morning. Jem Deady
actually _powdered his face_! I do not say that it was violet powder or
that he used a puff. H