Then I'm Barney," said he; "that's in all the newspapers in the
metropolis; I'm seventeen weeks in Jervis-street hospital, and four in
the Lunatic, and the devil a better after all; you must be a stranger,
I'm thinking, or you'd know me now."

"Why I do confess, I've only been a few hours in Ireland for the last six
months."

"Ay, that's the reason; I knew you would not be fond of travelling with
me, if you knew who it was."

"Why, really," said I, beginning at the moment to fathom some of the
hints of my companion, "I did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting
you."

"It's pleasure ye call it; then there's no accountin' for tastes,
as Dr. Colles said, when he saw me bite Cusack Rooney's thumb off."

"Bite a man's thumb off!" said I, in a horror.

"Ay," said he with a kind of fiendish animation, "in one chop; I wish
you'd see how I scattered the consultation; begad they didn't wait to
ax for a fee."

Upon my soul, a very pleasant vicinity, though I. "And, may I ask sir,"
said I, in a very mild and soothing tone of voice, "may I ask the reason
for this singular propensity of yours?"

"There it is now, my dear," said he, laying his hand upon my knee
familiarly, "that's just the very thing they can't make out; Colles says,
it's all the ceribellum, ye see, that's inflamed and combusted, and some
of the others think it's the spine; and more, the muscles; but my real
impression is, the devil a bit they know about it at all."

"And have they no name for the malady?" said I.

"Oh sure enough they have a name for it."

"And, may I ask--"

"Why, I think you'd better not, because ye see, maybe I might be
throublesome to ye in the night, though I'll not, if I can help it; and
it might be uncomfortable to you to be here if I was to get one of the
fits."

"One of the fits! Why it's not possible, sir," said I, "you would travel
in a public conveyance in the state you mention; your friends surely
would not permit it?"

"Why, if they knew, perhaps," slily responded the interesting invalid,
"if they knew they might not exactly like it, but ye see, I escaped only
last night, and there'll be a fine hub-bub in the morning, when they find
I'm off; though I'm thinking Rooney's barking away by this time."

"Rooney barking, why, what does that mean?"

"They always bark for a day or two after they're bit, if the infection
comes first from the dog."

"You are surely not speaking of hydrophobia," said I, my hair actually
b