his service. A new butler would
come and he'ld think he was a made man, old MacCarthy was that well
known and that well liked all over the counthry. He'ld wait once at
dinner and then down he'ld go to the cellar for wine. Sometimes he'ld
come back wid the wine and oftener he'ld come back widout it, but
every time he'ld say: 'Mr. MacCarthy, sir, it's much obliged to you I
am for all your kindness, but I'll have to be lavin' your service
to-morrow.' And nobody could see the why of it.

"And at long last there was young Jack Leary, that had been all his
life in old MacCarthy's stable, and he knew how the old man was bad
off for a butler, and he made bold to ask for the place. 'If I make ye
me butler,' says the old man, 'will ye go into the cellar and bring
the wine when I ask ye, and make no throuble about it?'

"'Is that all?' says Jack; 'sure, yer honor, I'ld be glad to spend all
me time, day and night, in the cellar, only ye might be wantin' me
somewhere else now and then.'

"'Then look sharp,' says old MacCarthy, 'for there's gintlemin comin'
to dinner to-day. Wait on the table the best ye know how, and at the
end of it, when I ring the bell three times, do ye go to the cellar
and bring plenty of wine, and let's have no more nonsinse about it.'

"'Niver say it twice,' says Jack; 'yer honor can depind on me.'

"Well, ye may belave I was listenin' to all this, for I wasn't in the
cellar all the time. 'His honor may say it twice,' says I to meself,
'or as many times as he likes, but you'll never go into that cellar
twice, Jack, me fine boy.'

"So Jack went about his work, and the dinner went all well enough,
till late in the evenin', when old MacCarthy rang the bell three
times, and off started Jack for the cellar, wid a basket to bring back
the wine. 'It's the silly lot they war,' says he to himself, 'thim
butlers, that they'ld be afraid to go to the cellar and bring back a
bit of a basket full of wine. The only thing I don't like about it is
that I can't bring it back in me skin instead of in the basket.'

"He was thinkin' like this in his mind as he went down the long, dark
stairs wid his candle, and you may depend I was ready for him, by the
time he got to the bottom. So no sooner did he touch the key to the
lock than I give him a sort of a laugh and a scream that set the empty
wine bottles that stood outside the door a-dancin' together. Jack was
a good bold boy, sure enough, and he got the key into the lock an