er and
stitches, his recent tinkerhood was politely ignored, or treated as an
escapade excusable in a youth of spirit. Had not his father owned a farm
and seven cows in the county Limerick, and had not he himself three
times returned the price of his ticket to America to a circle of adoring
and wealthy relatives in Boston? His position in the kitchen and yard
became speedily assured. Under his _regime_ the hounds were valeted as
they had never been before. Lily herself (newly washed, with "blue" in
the water) was scarcely more white than the concrete floor of the kennel
yard, and the puppies, Ruby and Remus, who had unaccountably developed a
virulent form of mange, were immediately taken in hand by the
all-accomplished tinker, and anointed with a mixture whose very
noisomeness was to Patsey Crimmeen a sufficient guarantee of its
efficacy, and was impressive even to the Master, fresh from much anxious
study of veterinary lore.

"He's the best man we've got!" said Freddy proudly to a dubious uncle,
"there isn't a mortal thing he can't put his hand to."

"Or lay his hands on," suggested the dubious uncle. "May I ask if his
colleagues are still within a mile of the place?"

"Oh, he hates the very sight of 'em!" said Freddy hastily, "cuts 'em
dead whenever he sees 'em."

"It's no use your crabbing him, George," broke in Mrs. Alexander, "we
won't give him up to you! Wait till you see how he has mended the lock
of the hall door!"

"I should recommend you to buy a new one at once," said Sir George Ker,
in a way that was singularly exasperating to the paragon's proprietors.

Mrs. Alexander was, or so her friends said, somewhat given to vaunting
herself of her paragons, under which heading, it may be admitted,
practically all her household were included. She was, indeed, one of
those persons who may or may not be heroes to their valets, but whose
valets are almost invariably heroes to them. It was, therefore,
excessively discomposing to her that, during the following week, in the
very height of apparently cloudless domestic tranquillity, the housemaid
and the parlour-maid should in one black hour successively demand an
audience, and successively, in the floods of tears proper to such
occasions, give warning. Inquiry as to their reasons was fruitless. They
were unhappy: one said she wouldn't get her appetite, and that her
mother was sick; the other said she wouldn't get her sleep in it, and
there was things--sob--going on--