upon the subject of his habiliments, which certainly were in a very dilapidated state.  An Irishman, however, never despairs.  If he has not apparel of his own sufficiently decent to wear on his wedding-day, he borrows from a friend.  Phelim and his father remembered that there were several neighbors in the village, who would oblige him with a suit for the wedding; and as to the other necessary expenses, they did what their countrymen are famous for—­they trusted to chance.

“We’ll work ourselves out of it some way,” said Larry.  “Sure, if all fails us, we can sell the goats for the weddin’ expenses.  It’s one comfort that Paddy Donovan must find the dinner; an’ all we have to get is the whiskey, the marriage money, an’ some other thrifies.”

“They say,” observed Phelim, “that people have more luck whin they’re married than whin they’re single.  I’ll have a bout at the marriage, so I will; for worse luck I can’t have, if I had half a dozen wives, than I always met wid.”

* This is another absurd opinion peculiar to the Irish, and certainly one of the most pernicious that prevail among them.  Indeed, I believe there is no country in which so many absurd maxims exist.

“I’ll go down,” observed Larry, “to Paddy Donovan’s, an’ send him to the priest’s to dive in your names to be called to-morrow.  Faith, it’s well that you won’t have to appear, or I dunna how you’d get over it.”

“No,” said Phelim, “that bill won’t pass.  You must go to the priest yourself, an’ see the curate:  if you go near Father O’Hara, it ’ud knock a plan on the head that I’ve invinted.  I’m in the notion that I’ll make the ould woman bleed agin.  I’ll squeeze as much out of her as I’ll bring me to America, for I’m not overly safe here; or, if all fails, I’ll marry her, an’ run away wid the money.  It ’ud bring us all across.”

Larry’s interview with the curate was but a short one.  He waited on Donovan, however, before he went, who expressed himself satisfied with the arrangement, and looked forward to the marriage as certain.  As for Phelim, the idea of being called to three females at the same time, was one that tickled his vanity very much.  Vanity, where the fair sex was concerned, had been always his predominant failing.  He was not finally determined on marriage with any of them; but he knew that should he even escape the three, the eclat, resulting from so celebrated a transaction would recommend him to the sex for the remainder of his life.  Impressed with this view of the matter, he sauntered about as usual; saw Foodie Flattery’s daughter, and understood that her uncle had gone to the priest, to have his niece and worthy Phelim called the next day.  But besides this hypothesis, Phelim had another, which, after all, was the real one.  He hoped that the three applications would prevent the priest from calling him at all.

The priest, who possessed much sarcastic humor, on finding the name of Phelim come in as a candidate for marriage honors with three different women, felt considerably puzzled to know what he could be at.  That Phelim might hoax one or two of them was very probable, but that he should have the effrontery to make him the instrument of such an affair, he thought a little too bad.