ssed to have any dignity
to maintain.

When Malone's raillery became rather too offensive, which it soon did,
they joined, in an attempt to turn the tables on him by asking him how
many boys had shouted "Irish Peter!" after him as he came along the road
that day (Malone's name was Peter--the Rev. Peter Augustus Malone);
requesting to be informed whether it was the mode in Ireland for
clergymen to carry loaded pistols in their pockets, and a shillelah in
their hands, when they made pastoral visits; inquiring the signification
of such words as vele, firrum, hellum, storrum (so Mr. Malone invariably
pronounced veil, firm, helm, storm), and employing such other methods of
retaliation as the innate refinement of their minds suggested.

This, of course, would not do. Malone, being neither good-natured nor
phlegmatic, was presently in a towering passion. He vociferated,
gesticulated; Donne and Sweeting laughed. He reviled them as Saxons and
snobs at the very top pitch of his high Celtic voice; they taunted him
with being the native of a conquered land. He menaced rebellion in the
name of his "counthry," vented bitter hatred against English rule; they
spoke of rags, beggary, and pestilence. The little parlour was in an
uproar; you would have thought a duel must follow such virulent abuse;
it seemed a wonder that Mr. and Mrs. Gale did not take alarm at the
noise, and send for a constable to keep the peace. But they were
accustomed to such demonstrations; they well knew that the curates never
dined or took tea together without a little exercise of the sort, and
were quite easy as to consequences, knowing that these clerical quarrels
were as harmless as they were noisy, that they resulted in nothing, and
that, on whatever terms the curates might part to-night, they would be
sure to meet the best friends in the world to-morrow morning.

As the worthy pair were sitting by their kitchen fire, listening to the
repeated and sonorous contact of Malone's fist with the mahogany plane
of the parlour table, and to the consequent start and jingle of
decanters and glasses following each assault, to the mocking laughter of
the allied English disputants, and the stuttering declamation of the
isolated Hibernian--as they thus sat, a foot was heard on the outer
door-step, and the knocker quivered to a sharp appeal.

Mr. Gale went and opened.

"Whom have you upstairs in the parlour?" asked a voice--a rather
remarkable voice, nasal in tone, abr