ull on a
pitch-black noight whin 'tis rainin'? Och hone! but me stomach's that
empty, gin I don't put on me shoes me lungs'll lake trou the soles o' me
fate, and gin I do, me shoes they're that sopped, I'll cough them
up--o-whurra-r-a! whurra-a! but will I iver see Old Oireland agin,--I
don't know!"

Bart shut off the light, slipped on his shoes, and drawing a coat over
his pajamas lighted the oil stable lantern, hung it with its back toward
me, on a long hook that reached down from one of the rafters, and bore
down upon Larry, whose face was instantly wreathed in puckered smiles
at the sight of a fellow-human who, though big, evidently had no
intention of being aggressive.

"Well, Larry McManus," said Bart, cheerfully, "how came you in this barn
so far away from Oireland a night like this?"

"Seein' as yer another gintleman o' the road in the same ploice, what
more loike than the misfortune's the same?" replied he, lengthening his
lower lip and stretching his stubby chin, which he scratched cautiously.
Then, as he raised his eyes to Bart's, he evidently read something in
his general air, touselled and tanned as he was, that shifted his
opinion at least one notch.

"Maybe, sor, you're an actor mon, sor, that didn't suit the folks in the
town beyant, sor, but I'd take it as praise, so I would, for shure
they're but pigs there,--I couldn't stop wid thim meself! Thin agin,
mayhap yer jest a plain gintleman, a bit belated, as it were,--a little
belated on the way home, sor,--loike me, sor, that wus moinded to be in
Kildare, sor, come May-day, and blessed Peter's day's nigh come about
an' I'm here yit!"

"You are getting on the right scent, Larry," said Bart, struggling with
laughter, and yet, as he said after, not wishing possibly to huff this
curious person. "I hope I'm a gentleman, but I'm not tramping about;
this is my barn, in which my wife and I are sleeping, so if I were you,
I wouldn't take off that shirt until I can find you a dry one!"

The change that came over the man was comical. In a lightning flash he
had fastened the few buttons in his blouse that it had taken his
fumbling fingers several moments to unloose, and dropping one hand to
his side, he held it there rigid as he saluted with two fingers at the
brim of an imaginary hat; while his roving eye quickly took in the
various motley articles of furniture of our camp,--a small kitchen table
with oil-stove and tea outfit of plain white ware, some plates