“Neal,” said the wife, on perceiving him dressed, “where are you bound for?”

“Faith, for life,” replied Neal, with a mitigated swagger; “and I’d as soon, if it had been the will of Provid—­”

He paused.

“Where are you going?” asked the wife, a second time.

“Why,” he answered, “only to the dance at Jemmy Connolly’s; I’ll be back early.”

“Don’t go,” said the wife.  “I’ll go,” said Neal, “if the whole counthry was to prevent me.  Thunder an’ lightnin,’ woman, who am I?” he exclaimed, in a loud but rather infirm voice; “arn’t I Neal Malone, that never met a man who’d fight him!  Neal Malone, that was never beat by man!  Why, tare-an-ounze, woman!  Whoo!  I’ll get enraged some time, an’ play the divil?  Who’s afeard, I say?”

“Don’t go,” added the wife a third time, giving Neal a significant look in the face.

In about another half-hour, Neal sat down quietly to his business, instead of going to the dance!

Neal now turned himself, like many a sage in similar circumstances, to philosophy; that is to say—­he began to shake his head upon principle, after the manner of the schoolmaster.  He would, indeed, have preferred the bottle upon principle; but there was no getting at the bottle, except through the wife; and it so happened that by the time it reached him, there was little consolation left in it.  Neal bore all in silence; for silence, his friend had often told him, was a proof of wisdom.

Soon after this, Neal, one evening, met Mr. O’Connor by chance upon a plank which crossed a river.  This plank was only a foot in breadth, so that no two individuals could pass each other upon it.  We cannot find words in which to express the dismay of both, on finding that they absolutely glided past one another without collision.

Both paused, and surveyed each other solemnly; but the astonishment was all on the side of Mr. O’Connor.

“Neal,” said the schoolmaster, “by all the household gods, I conjure you to speak, that I may be assured you live!”

The ghost of a blush crossed the churchyard visage of the tailor.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “why the devil did you tempt me to marry a wife.”

“Neal,” said his friend, “answer me in the most solemn manner possible—­throw into your countenance all the gravity you can assume; speak as if you were under the hands of the hangman, with the rope about your neck, for the question is, indeed, a trying-one which I am about to put.  Are you still ‘blue-moulded for want of beating?’”

The tailor collected himself to make a reply; he put one leg out—­the very leg which he used to show in triumph to his friend; but, alas, how dwindled!  He opened his waistcoat, and lapped it round him, until he looked like a weasel on its hind legs.  He then raised himself up on his tip toes, and, in an awful whisper, replied, “No!!! the devil a bit I’m blue-mowlded for want of a batin.”