"The devil, I suppose, for I never felt pain like it,--twistin' and
tearin' and torturin' me as if you had a pinchers in my inside, and were
nippin' me to pieces!"

"I 'm glad of it,--heartily glad of it."

"I know you are,--I know you well. 'T is a corpse you 'd like to see me
this minute."

"So that I never set eyes on you, I don't care what becomes of you."

"That 's enough,--enough said. I 'm goin'."

"Go, and be------!"

"No, I won't. I 'll go and earn my livin'; and I 'll have my carakter,
too,--eleven years last Lady-day; and I 'll be paid back to my own
counthry; and I'll have my wages up to Saturday next; and the docther's
bill, here, for all the stuff I tuk since I came in; and when you are
ready with all this, you can ring for me." And with his hands clasped
over his stomach, and in a half-bent position, Joe shuffled out and left
his master to his own reflections.

The world is full of its strange vicissitudes, and in nothing more
remarkably than the way people are reconciled, ignore the past, and
start afresh in life to incur more disagreements, and set to bickering
again. Great kings and kaisers indulge in this pastime; profound
statesmen and politicians do very little else. What wonder, then, if
the declining sun saw the smart tandem slipping along towards the Bagni,
with the O'Shea and his man sitting side by side in pleasant converse!
They were both smoking, and seemed like men who enjoyed their
picturesque drive, and the inspiriting pace they travelled at.

"When I 'll singe these 'cat hairs' off, and trim him a little about the
head, he 'll look twice as well," said Joe, with his eye on the leader.
"It's a pity to see a collar on him."

"We 'll take him down to Rome, and show him off over the hurdles," said
his master, joyfully.

"I was just thinkin' of that this minute; wasn't that strange now?"

"We 'll have to go, for they 're going to break up house here, and go
off to Rome for the winter."

"How will we settle with Pan?" said Joe, thoughtfully.

"A bill, I suppose."

Joe shook his head doubtingly. "I 'm afraid not."

"Go I will, and go I must," said O'Shea, resolutely. "I 'm not going
to lose the best chance I ever had in life for the sake of a beggarly
innkeeper."

"Why would you? Sure, no one would ask you! For, after all, 't is only
drivin' away, if we 're put to it I don't think he 'd overtake us."

"Not if we went the same pace you did this morning, Joe," said O'Shea,
l