“From Syntax, Phaddhy.”

“And who was Syntax—­do you know, Briney?”

“He was a Roman, Phaddhy, bekase there’s a Latin prayer in the beginning of the book.”

“Ay, was he—­a priest, I’ll warrant him.  Well, Briney, do you mind yer Latin, and get on wid yer larnin’, and when you grow up you’ll have a pair of boots, and a horse of your own (and a good broadcloth black coat, too) to ride on, every bit as good as Father Philemy’s, and may be betther nor Father Con’s.”

From this point, which usually wound up these colloquies between the father and son, the conversation generally diverged into the more spacious fields of science; so that by the time they reached home, Briney had probably given the father a learned dissertation upon the elevation of the clouds above the earth, and told him within how many thousand miles they approached it, at their nearest point of approximation.

“Katty,” said Phaddhy, when he got home, “we’re to have a station here on Thursday next:  ’twas given out from the altar to-day by Father Philemy.”

“Oh, wurrah, wurrah!” exclaimed Katty, overwhelmed at the consciousness of her own incapacity to get up a dinner in sufficient style for such guests—­“wurrah, wurrah!  Phaddhy, ahagur, what on the livin’ earth will we do at all at all!  Why, we’ll never be able to manage it.”

“Arrah, why, woman; what do they want but their skinful to eat and dhrink, and I’m sure we’re able to allow them that, any way?”

“Arrah, bad manners to me, but you’re enough to vex a saint—­’their skinful to eat and dhrink!’—­you common crathur you, to speak that way of the clargy, as if it was ourselves or the laborers you war spaking of.”

“Ay, and aren’t we every bit as good as they are, if you go to that?—­haven’t we sowls to be saved as well as themselves?”

“’As good as they are!’—­as good as the clargy!! Manum a yea agus a wurrah!*—­listen to what he says!  Phaddhy, take care of yourself, you’ve got rich, now; but for all that, take care of yourself.  You had betther not bring the priest’s ill-will, or his bad heart upon us.  You know they never thruv that had it; and maybe it’s a short time your riches might stay wid you, or maybe it’s a short time you might stay wid them:  at any rate, God forgive you, and I hope he will, for making use of sich unsanctified words to your lawful clargy.”

     * My soul to God and the Virgin.

“Well, but what do you intind to do?—–­or, what do you think of getting for them?” inquired Phaddy.

“Indeed, it’s very little matther what I get for them, or what I’ll do either—­sorrow one of myself cares almost:  for a man in his senses, that ought to know better, to make use of such low language about the blessed and holy crathurs, that hasn’t a stain of sin about them, no more than the child unborn!”

“So you think.”

“So I think! aye, and it would be betther for you that you thought so, too; but ye don’t know what’s before ye yet, Phaddhy—­and now take warnin’ in time, and mend your life.”