r charity won't you beat this man away? he's
taking advantage of my darkness."

The pretender, seeing that he was having the best of it, thanked the
people for their sympathy and protection, and went on with the poem,
Moran listening for a time in bewildered silence. After a while Moran
protested again with:

"Is it possible that none of yez can know me? Don't yez see it's
myself; and that's some one else?"

"Before I proceed any further in this lovely story," interrupted the
pretender, "I call on yez to contribute your charitable donations to
help me to go on."

"Have you no sowl to be saved, you mocker of heaven?" cried Moran, put
completely beside himself by this last injury. "Would you rob the poor
as well as desave the world? O, was ever such wickedness known?"

"I leave it to yourselves, my friends," said the pretender, "to give
to the real dark man, that you all know so well, and save me from that
schemer," and with that he collected some pennies and half-pence.
While he was doing so, Moran started his _Mary of Egypt_, but the
indignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabour him, when
they fell back bewildered anew by his close resemblance to himself.
The pretender now called to them to "just give him a grip of that
villain, and he'd soon let him know who the imposhterer was!" They led
him over to Moran, but instead of closing with him he thrust a few
shillings into his hand, and turning to the crowd explained to them he
was indeed but an actor, and that he had just gained a wager, and so
departed amid much enthusiasm, to eat the supper he had won.

In April 1846 word was sent to the priest that Michael Moran was
dying. He found him at 15 (now 14-1/2) Patrick Street, on a straw bed,
in a room full of ragged ballad-singers come to cheer his last
moments. After his death the ballad-singers, with many fiddles and the
like, came again and gave him a fine wake, each adding to the
merriment whatever he knew in the way of rann, tale, old saw, or
quaint rhyme. He had had his day, had said his prayers and made his
confession, and why should they not give him a hearty send-off? The
funeral took place the next day. A good party of his admirers and
friends got into the hearse with the coffin, for the day was wet and
nasty. They had not gone far when one of them burst out with "It's
cruel cowld, isn't it?" "Garra'," replied another, "we'll all be as
stiff as the corpse when we get to the berrin-ground." "Bad ce