n.

There was at this time one person who cordially disliked Gerard,
probably the only one in Grey Town. This was Molly Healy, and she had
great difficulty to find a reason for her antipathy to the sporting
editor of "The Mercury." After her first meeting with Gerard, she
expressed her sentiments to Kathleen O'Connor unreservedly, as was her
way.

"I couldn't bear to have that man near me," she said.

Kathleen was, in those days, perfectly unbiassed in her opinion of
Gerard. He was to her merely a new acquaintance, but she found him
pleasant and well-informed. Laughingly, she asked:

"Why not?"

"He is too spick and span for me," said Molly, "and altogether too
smiling. He has got no soul."

These sentiments she cherished doggedly, and expressed on every
occasion, to his face and behind his back. As the romance began to take
possession of Kathleen, she found it hard not to resent Molly's
criticism. Mrs. Quirk went so far as to scold Molly relentlessly for her
expressions of dislike, but the girl only laughed at her:

"Sure, you are too young and innocent. You don't know the wickedness
there is in the world. But I have been taking lessons from every
guttersnipe and old good-for-nought in the town. There's wickedness in
Gerard's eye, and in his nose too."

Desmond O'Connor was a particular friend of his brother scribe, but the
acquaintance was not for the boy's good. Gerard taught him to drink more
than he should, and to gamble for money that he could not afford to
lose. While these facts were unknown in the semi-retirement of "Layton,"
they speedily came to Molly Healy's ears. She acted with a customary
impulse that was imprudent with such a nature as Desmond O'Connor's. One
morning on his way to "The Mercury" office he was stopped by Molly.

"Desmond," she said, "what is this I am hearing of you?"

Desmond met her laughingly, for he seldom took Molly Healy seriously.

"Something wonderful?" he said.

"Something you should be ashamed of! Look there at old Mason."

She pointed to where an old man was crossing the road, a dilapidated
wreck of humanity, for Mason was the champion drunkard of Grey Town.

"It is such an old man as that you will become," said Molly.

Desmond flushed crimson at her words, and he turned in repressed fury on
her.

"Mind your own business," he said. "Reform your old age pensioners, and
kindly allow me to look after myself."

Therewith he went on his way, leaving her to look af