“Ah, Neal,” returned the other, “I don’t deny it—­for though I am teaching philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics, every day in my life, yet I’m learning patience myself both night and day.  No, Neal; I have forgotten to deny anything.  I have not been guilty of a contradiction, out of my own school, for the last fourteen years.  I once expressed the shadow of a doubt about twelve years ago, but ever since I have abandoned even doubting.  That doubt was the last expiring effort at maintaining my domestic authority—­but I suffered for it.”

“Well,” said Neal, “if you have patience, I’ll tell you what afflicts me from beginnin’ to endin’.”

“I will have patience,” said Mr. O’Connor, and he accordingly heard a dismal and indignant tale from the tailor.

“You have told me that fifty times over,” said Mr. O’Connor, after hearing the story.  “Your spirit is too martial for a pacific life.  If you follow my advice, I will teach you how to ripple the calm current of your existence to some purpose.  Marry a wife.  For twenty-five years I have given instructions in three branches, viz.—­philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics—­I am also well versed in matrimony, and I declare that, upon my misery, and by the contents of all my afflictions, it is my solemn and melancholy opinion, that, if you marry a wife, you will, before three months pass over your concatenated state, not have a single complaint to make touching a superabundance of peace and tranquillity, or a love of fighting.”

“Do you mean to say that any woman would make me afeard?” said the tailor, deliberately rising up and getting his cudgel.  “I’ll thank you merely to go over the words agin till I thrash you widin an inch o’ your life.  That’s all.”

“Neal,” said the schoolmaster, meekly, “I won’t fight; I have been too often subdued ever to presume on the hope of a single victory.  My spirit is long since evaporated:  I am like one, of your own shreds, a mere selvage.  Do you not know how much my habiliments have shrunk in, even within the last five years?  Hear me, Neal; and venerate my words as if they proceeded from the lips of a prophet.  If you wish to taste the luxury of being subdued—­if you are, as you say, blue-moulded for want of a beating, and sick at heart of a peaceful existence—­why, marry a wife.  Neal, send my breeches home with all haste, for they are wanted, you understand.  Farewell!”

Mr. O’Connor, having thus expressed himself, departed, and Neal stood, with the cudgel in his hand, looking at the door out of which he passed, with an expression of fierceness, contempt, and reflection, strongly blended on the ruins of his once heroic visage.