ve
played the mischief with Mike's garments.

"I'm thinking this is a little different, Mr. Noxon, from last night."

"It is, and I hope it will always stay that way."

Mike was astonished and looked questioningly at the fellow.

"Phwat might ye be maaning?" he asked, lowering his voice.

Noxon tried to speak, but his voice broke. He snatched out his
handkerchief from the side pocket of his coat and pressed it to his eyes.
Then his breast heaved and he broke into sobbing.

The heart of Mike melted at the sight. He had never dreamed of anything
like this. Enmity and resentment gave way to an anguish of sympathy for
the fellow. He longed to say something comforting, but could not think of
a word, and remained mute. Very soon the youth regained his self-control.
Dropping his handkerchief in his lap, and with eyes streaming, he
exclaimed from the very depths of his despair:

"Oh, why didn't that man aim better and kill me! I'm not fit to live! I'm
the worst villain unhanged! I am lost--damned, and a curse to those who
love me!"

Mike pulled himself together sufficiently to reply:

"I don't think ye're quite all them things. Cheer up! cheer up, old
fellow!"

Noxon did not speak, but slowly swayed his head from side to side, like
one from whom all hope had departed. Mike drew a chair beside him, and as
tenderly as a mother lifted the white hand from where it lay on the
handkerchief, and held it in his own warm grasp.

"Noxy, me bye, Mike Murphy is yer frind through thick and thin--don't ye
forget _that_--and I'm going to see ye through this if I have to break a
thrace in trying."

"_You!_" repeated the despairing one, looking up in Mike's honest blue
eyes. "No one can save a wretch like me. I'm not worth saving!"

"Ye forget there's One to whom the same is aisy, me bye. Ye feel down in
the mouth jest now, as Jonah did respicting the whale, but bimeby this
fog will clear away and the sun will shine forth again. I've been in some
purty bad scrapes mesilf and He niver desarted me. Why, it ain't two
hours, since He raiched out His hand, grabbed me by the neck and saved me
from drowning. I tell ye, Noxy, that He won't fail ye."

"But you never did what I have done."

The Irish youth bent his head as if recalling his past life.

"I can't say that I did, but I'm the meanest scamp that iver
lived--barring yersilf," he added, with the old twinkle in his eyes.
"Come, now, be a man and we'll have ye out of this scrape