“Ay, but what the sorra will I do for a suit o’ clo’es?” observed Phelim.  “I could never go near her in these breeches.  My elbows, too, are out o’ this ould coat, bad luck to it!  An’ as for a waistcoat, why, I dunna but it’s a sin to call what I’m wearin’ a waistcoat at all.  Thin agin—­why, blood alive, sure I can’t go to her barefooted, an’ I dunna but it ’ud be dacenter to do that same, than to step out in sich excuses for brogues as these.  An’ in regard o’ the stockins’, why, I’ve pulled them down, strivin’ to look dacent, till one ‘ud think the balls o’ my legs is at my heels.”

“The sorra word’s in that but thruth, any how,” observed the father; “but what’s to be done?  For we have no way of gettin’ them.”

“Faith, I don’t know that,” said Phelim.  “What if we’d borry?  I could get the loan of a pair of breeches from Dudley Dwire, an’ a coat from Sam Appleton.  We might thry Billy Brady for a waistcoat, an’ a pair of stockings.  Barny Buckram-back, the pinsioner, ‘ud lend me his pumps; an’ we want nothing now but a hat.”

“Nothin’ under a Caroline ‘ud do, goin’ there,” observed the father.

“I think Father O’Hara ‘ud oblige me wid the loan o’ one for a day or two;” said Phelim; “he has two or three o’ them, all as good as ever.”

“But, Phelim,” said the father, “before we go to all this trouble, are you sure you could put your comedher on Miss Pattherson?”

“None o’ your nonsense,” said Phelim, “don’t you know I could?  I hate a man to be puttin’ questions to me, when he knows them himself.  It’s a fashion you have got, an’ you ought to dhrop it.”

“Well thin,” said the father, “let us set about it to-morrow.  If we can borry the clo’es, thry your luck.”

Phelim and the father, the next morning, set out each in a different direction, to see how far they could succeed on the borrowing system.  The father was to make a descent on Dudley Dwire for the breeches, and appeal to the generosity of Sam Appleton for the coat.  Phelim himself was to lay his case before the priest, and to assail Buckram-back, the pensioner, on his way home, for the brogues.

When Phelim arrived at the priest’s house, he found none of the family up but the housekeeper.  After bidding her good morrow, and being desired to sit down, he entered into conversation with the good woman, who felt anxious to know the scandal of the whole parish.

“Aren’t you a son of Larry Toole’s, young man?”

“I am, indeed, Mrs. Doran.  I’m Phelim O’Toole, my mother says.”

“I hope you’re comin’ to spake to the priest about your duty.”

“Why, then, be gorra, I’m glad you axed me, so I am—­for only you seen the pinance in my face, you’d never suppose sich a thing.  I want to make my confishion to him, wid the help o’ Goodness.”

“Is there any news goin’, Phelim?”

“Divil a much, barrin’ what you hard yourself, I suppose, about Frank Fogarty, that went mad yesterday, for risin’ the meal on the poor, an’ ate the ears off himself afore anybody could see him.”