looked significantly at Denis. His Reverence, however, was seldom at a
loss.

"What would you take him to be worth, Mike?" he asked; "remember he's
but badly trained, and I'm sure it will cost me both money and trouble
to make anything dacent out of him."

"If you got him somewhere between five and twenty and thirty guineas, I
would say you have good value for your money, plase your Reverence. What
do you say, Denis--am I near it?"

"Why, Mike, you know as much about a horse as you do about the
Pentateuch or Paralipomenon. Five and twenty guineas, indeed! I hope you
won't set your grass as you would sell your horses."

"Why, thin, if your Reverence ped ready money for him, I maintain he
was as well worth twenty guineas as a thief's worth the gallows; an'
you know, sir, I'd be long sorry to differ wid you. Am I near it now,
Docthor?"

"Denis got for the horse more than that," said his Reverence, "and he
may speak for himself."

"Thrue for you, sir," replied Denis; "I surely got above twenty guineas
for him, an' I'm well satisfied wid the bargain."

"You hear that now, Mike--you hear what he says."

"There's no goin' beyant it," returned Mike; "the proof o' the puddin'
is in the atin,' as we'll soon know, Mave--eh, Docthor?"

"I never knew Mave to make a bad one," said the priest, "except upon the
day Friar Hennessy dined with me here--my curate was sick, and I had
to call in the Friar to assist me at confession; however, to do Mave
justice, it was not her fault, for the Friar drowned the pudding, which
was originally a good one, with a deluge of strong whiskey."

"'It's too gross,' said the facetious Friar, in his loud, strong
voice--'it's too gross, Docthor Finnerty, so let us spiritualize it,
that it may be Christian atin, fit for pious men to digest,' and then he
came out with his thundering laugh--oigh, oigh, oigh, oigh! but he had
consequently the most of the pudding to himself, an' indeed brought the
better half of it home in his saddle-bags."

"Faix, an' he did," said Mave, "an' a fat goose that he coaxed Mary to
kill for him unknownst to us all, in the coorse o' the day."

"How long is he dead, Docthor?" said Denis; "God rest him any way, he's
happy!"

"He died in the hot summer, now nine years about June last; and talking
about him, reminds me of a trick he put on me about two years before his
death. He and I had not been on good terms for long enough before that
time; but as the curate I had w