hip's pardon, but me little
dog is dead."

"Well?" said Mrs. Alexander, fixing a gaze of clear grey rectitude upon
him.

"Me lady," continued the tinker, reverentially but firmly, "'twas afther
he was run by thim dogs yestherday, and 'twas your ladyship's dog that
finished him. He tore the throat out of him under the bed!" He pointed
an accusing forefinger at Bismarck, whose lambent eyes of terror glowed
from beneath the valance of the sofa.

"Nonsense! I saw your dog; he was twice my dog's size," said Bismarck's
mistress decidedly, not, however, without a remembrance of the blood on
Bismarck's nose. She adored courage, and had always cherished a belief
that Bismarck's sharklike jaws implied the possession of latent
ferocity.

"Ah, but he was very wake, ma'am, afther he bein' hunted," urged the
tinker. "I never slep' a wink the whole night, but keepin' sups o' milk
to him and all sorts. Ah, ma'am, ye wouldn't like to be lookin' at him!"

The tinker was a very good-looking young man, almost apostolic in type,
with a golden red aureole of hair and beard and candid blue eyes. These
latter filled with tears as their owner continued:--

"He was like a brother for me; sure he follied me from home. 'Twas he
was dam wise! Sure at home all me mother'd say to him was, "Where's the
ducks, Captain?" an' he wouldn't lave wather nor bog-hole round the
counthry but he'd have them walked and the ducks gethered. The pigs
could be in their choice place, wherever they'd be he'd go around them.
If ye'd tell him to put back the childhren from the fire, he'd ketch
them by the sleeve and dhrag them."

The requiem ceased, and the tinker looked grievingly into his hat.

"What is your name?" asked Mrs. Alexander sternly. "How long is it since
you left home?"

Had the tinker been as well acquainted with her as he was afterwards
destined to become, he would have been aware that when she was most
judicial she was frequently least certain of what her verdict was going
to be.

"Me name's Willy Fennessy, me lady," replied the tinker, "an' I'm goin'
the roads no more than three months. Indeed, me lady, I think the time
too long that I'm with these blagyard thravellers. All the friends I
have was poor Captain, and he's gone from me."

"Go round to the kitchen," said Mrs. Alexander.

The results of Willy Fennessy's going round to the kitchen were
far-reaching. Its most immediate consequences were that (1) he mended
the ventilator of the k