“Well, sir—­may I never—­I beg pardon—­but any how, the truth is, that ever since I tuck to readin’ them, I feel myself gettin’ as dishonest as if the devil—­”

“Do not name him so, Darby—­it is profane; say the enemy, or Satan, or the tempter.”

“As if the whole three o’ them, then, war at my elbow.  Why, for the last three or four days, I may say, they have cleared me out as clane of honesty as the black boy himself, and it is worse I am gettin’.  Now, sir, it stands to sense, that that’s temptation.”

“Unquestionably; and my great hope and consolation is, that you yourself are conscious of it.  All you have to do now, is to pray unceasingly—­wrestle in prayer, and you will ultimately triumph.  Sing spiritual songs, too; read my tracts with attention; and, in short, if you resist the dev—­hem—­Satan, they will flee from you.  Give that letter to Mr. M’Clutchy, and let me see you on the day after to-morrow—­like a giant refreshed with new strength.”

“Well, now,” said Darby, assuming a more serious look—­“do you know, sir, that I think your words have put new strength into me.  Somehow I feel as if there was a load removed from me.  May the mother of heaven—­hem—­I do, sir; and now, as a proof of it, I wouldn’t feel justified, sir, in leaving you, widout sayin’ a word or two about the same M’Clutchy, who, between you and me—­but I hope it won’t go farther, sir?”

“I don’t think it would be permitted to me to betray confidence—­I humbly think so.  Be not afraid, but speak.”

“Why, sir, he has got a dirty trick of speakin’ disrespectfully of you behind your back.”

“Human weakness, Darby! poor profligate man!  Proceed, what does he say?”

“Why, sir, if it ‘ud be agreeable to you, I’d rather not be goin’ over it.”

“We should know our friends from our enemies, O’Drive; but I forgive him, and shall earnestly pray for him this night.  What did he say?”

“Why he said, sir—­verily, thin, I’m ashamed to say it.”

“Did he speak only of myself?” inquired Solomon, with something like a slight, but repressed appearance of alarm.

“Oh, of nobody else, sir.  Well, then, he said, sir—­but sure I’m only repatin’ his wicked words—­he said, sir, that if you were cut up into the size of snipe shot, there would be as much roguery in the least grain of you, as would corrupt a nation of pickpockets.”

“Poor man!  I forgive him.  Do you not see me smile, Darby?”

“I do, indeed, sir.”

“Well, that is a smile of forgiveness—­of pure Christian forgiveness—­free from the slightest taint of human infirmity.  I am given to feel this delightful state of mind at the present moment—­may He be praised!—­proceed.”

“It is a blessed state, sir, and as you can bear it—­and as I can trust you, what I could not him—­I will go on:—­” he said, “besides, sir, that your example had made the ould boy himself a worse boy now than he had ever been before he ever knew you I—­that in temptin’ you, he got new dodges of wickedness that he was never up to till he met you, and that he’s now receivin’ lessons from you in the shape of a convartin’ parson.”