some thing unusually anxious about the style of the poor
fellow's request that made me hesitate in the refusal. "It's not myself
that would be craving the favor, but a poor dead cousin o' mine, heaven
rest his sowl!" "And how can the granting of such a request benefit
your departed relation, Barney?" quoth I, not a little puzzled by
the strangeness of the application. "Sure, that's mighty _dare_
of comprehension, your honor. Teddy O'Rafferty was my own mother's
brother's son, and devil o' like o' him there was in all Kilgobbin: we
went to ould Father O'Rourke's school together when we were spalpeens,
and ate our _paraters_ and butter-milk out o' the same platter; many's
the scrape we've been in together: bad luck to the ould schoolmaster,
for he flogged all the _larning_ out o' poor Teddy, and all the liking
for't out of Barney O'Finn, that's myself, your honor--so one dark night
we took advantage of the moon, and having joined partnership in property
put it all into a Limerick silk handkerchief, with which we made
the best of our way to Dublin, travelling stage arter stage by the
ould-fashioned conveyance, Pat Adam's ten-toed machine. Many's the drap
we got on the road to drive away care. All the wide world before us, and
all the fine family estate behind,--pigs, poultry, and relations,--divil
a tenpenny did we ever touch since. It's not your honor that will be
angry to hear a few family misfortins," said Barney, hesitating to
proceed with his narration, "Give me my hat, fellow," said ~25~~I, "and
don't torture me with your nonsense."-- "May be it an't nonsense your
honor means?" "And why not, sirrah?"--"Bekase it's not in your nature
to spake light o' the dead." Up to this point, my attention had been
divided between the Morning Chronicle which lay upon my breakfast table,
and Barney's comical relation; a glance at the narrator, however, as he
finished the last sentence, convinced me that I ought to have treated
him with more feeling. He was holding my hat towards me, when the pearly
drop of affliction burst uncontrollably forth, and hung on the side of
the beaver, like a sparkling crystal gem loosed from the cavern's
roof, to rest upon the jasper stone beneath. I would have given up my
Mastership of Arts to have recalled that word nonsense: I was so
touched with the poor fellow's pathos.--" Shall I tell your onor the
_partikilars_?" "Ay, do, Barney, proceed."--"Well, your onor, we worked
our way to London togither--ha