ork. A glass of wine with
you."

After we had adjusted this slight misunderstanding we occupied our
seats comfortably before the fire. I wished to give Paddy and Jem
plenty of time to conciliate Strammers, but I must say that the wait
grew irksome. Finally I arose and went into the corridor and peered
into the taproom. There were Paddy and Jem with their victim, the
three of them seated affectionately in a row on a bench, drinking from
quart pots of ale. Paddy was clapping the gardener on the shoulder.

"Strammers," he cried, "I am thinking more of you than of my cousin
Mickey, who was that gay and that gallant it would make you wonder,
although I am truthful in saying they killed him for the peace of the
parish. But he had the same bold air with him, and devil the girl in
the country-side but didn't know who was the lad for her."

Strammers seemed greatly pleased, but Jem Bottles evinced deep
disapproval of Paddy's Celtic methods.

"Let Master Strammers be," said he. "He be a-wanting a quiet draught.
Let him have his ale with no talking here and there."

"Ay," said Strammers, now convinced that he was a great man and a
philosopher, "a quiet draught o' old ale be a good thing."

"True for you, Master Strammers," cried Paddy enthusiastically. "It is
in the way of being a good thing. There you are now. Ay, that's it. A
good thing! Sure."

"Ay," said Strammers, deeply moved by this appreciation, which he had
believed should always have existed. "Ay, I spoke well."

"Well would be no name for it," responded Paddy fervidly. "By gor, and
I wish you were knowing Father Corrigan. He would be the only man to
near match you. 'A quiet draught o' old ale is a good thing,' says
you, and by the piper 'tis hard to say Father Corrigan could have done
it that handily. 'Tis you that are a wonderful man."

"I have a small way o' my own," said Strammers, "which even some of
the best gardeners has accounted most wise and humorous. The power o'
good speech be a great gift." Whereupon the complacent Strammers
lifted his arm and buried more than half his face in his quart pot.

"It is," said Paddy earnestly. "And I'm doubting if even the best
gardeners would be able to improve it. And says you: 'A quiet draught
o' old ale is a good thing,' 'Twould take a grand gardener to beat
that word."

"And besides the brisk way of giving a word now and then," continued
the deluded Strammers, "I am a great man with flowers. Some of the
finest