ted out:

"A great sermon, is it? P'raps it was and p'raps it wasn't. It took him
a long time to tell a man what he knew before."

"And what might that be?" asked McFarquhar.

"That he was goin' fast to the Divil."

This McFarquhar could not deny and so he fell into disappointed silence.
He began to fear that the minister might possibly fail with Ould
Michael, after all. I frankly acknowledged the same fear and tried to
make him see that for men like Ould Michael, and the rest, preaching of
that kind could do little good. With this position McFarquhar warmly
disagreed, but as the week went by he had to confess that on Ould
Michael the minister had no effect at all, for he kept out of his way
and demoted himself to Paddy Dougan as far as we would allow him.

Then McFarquhar began to despair and to realize how desperate is the
business of saving a man fairly on the way to destruction. But help came
to us--"a mysterious dispensation of Providence," McFarquhar called it.
It happened on the Queen's birthday, when Grand Bend, in excess of loyal
fervor, was doing its best to get speedily and utterly drunk. In other
days Ould Michael had gloried beyond all in the display of loyal spirit;
but to-day he sat, dark and scowling, in Paddy Dougan's barroom.
McFarquhar and I were standing outside the door keeping an eye, but not
too apparently, upon Ould Michael's drinking.

A big German from the tie-camps, who had lived some years across the
border, and not to his advantage, was holding forth in favor of liberty
and against all tyrannous governments. As Paddy's whisky began to tell
the German became specially abusive against Great Britain and the
Queen. Protests came from all sides, till, losing his temper, the
German gave utterance to a foul slander against Her Majesty's private
life. In an instant Ould Michael was on his feet and at the bar.

"Dhrink all around!" he cried. The glares were filled and all stood
waiting. "Gentlemen," said Ould Michael, in his best manner; "I give you
Her Gracious Majesty the Queen, God bless her!" With wild yells the
glasses were lifted high and the toast drunk with three times three. The
German, meantime, stood with his glass untouched. When the cheers were
over he said, with a sneer:

"Shentlemen, fill ub!" The order was obeyed with alacrity.

"I gif you, 'our noble selfs,' and for de Queen" (using a vile epithet),
"she can look after her ownself." Quick as thought Ould Michael raised
his