Setting aside the Patagonians, we maintain that two-thirds of mortal humanity were comprised in Neal; and, perhaps, we might venture to assert, that two-thirds of Neal’s humanity were equal to six-thirds of another man’s.  It is right well known that Alexander the Great was a little man, and we doubt whether, had Alexander the Great been bred to the tailoring business, he would have exhibited so much of the hero as Neal Malone.  Neal was descended from a fighting family, who had signalized themselves in as many battles as ever any single hero of antiquity fought.  His father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather, were all fighting men, and his ancestors in general, up, probably, to Con of the Hundred Battles himself.  No wonder, therefore, that Neal’s blood should cry out against the cowardice of his calling; no wonder that he should be an epitome of all that was valorous and heroic in a peaceable man, for we neglected to inform the reader that Neal, though “bearing no base mind,” never fought any man in his own person.  That, however, deducted nothing from his courage.  If he did not fight, it was simply because he found cowardice universal.  No man would engage him; his spirit blazed in vain; his thirst for battle was doomed to remain unquenched, except by whiskey, and this only increased it.  In short, he could find no foe.  He has often been known to challenge the first cudgel-players and pugilists of the parish; to provoke men of fourteen stone weight; and to bid mortal defiance to faction heroes of all grades—­but in vain.  There was that in him which told them that an encounter with Neal would strip them of their laurels.  Neal saw all this with a lofty indignation; he deplored the degeneracy of the times, and thought it hard that the descendant of such a fighting family should be doomed to pass through life peaceably, while so many excellent rows and riots took place around him.  It was a calamity to see every man’s head broken but his own; a dismal thing to observe his neighbors go about with their bones in bandages, yet his untouched; and his friends beat black and blue, whilst his own cuticle remained undiscolored.

“Blur-an’-agers!” exclaimed Neal one day, when half-tipsy in the fair, “am I never to get a bit of fightin’?  Is there no cowardly spalpeen to stand afore Neal Malone?  Be this an’ be that, I’m blue-mowlded for want of a batin’!  I’m disgracin’ my relations by the life I’m ladin’!  Will none o’ ye fight me aither for love, money, or whiskey—­frind or inimy, an’ bad luck to ye?  I don’t care a traneen which, only out o’ pure frindship, let us have a morsel o’ the rale kick-up, ’tany rate.  Frind or inimy, I say agin, if you regard me; sure that makes no differ, only let us have the fight.”