sez she.—­’We’ll git out, Mrs. Magovern,’ sez I.—­’We will, Mrs. Haley,’ sez she.  Thin came the gintleman that first had the dure in his hand.  ‘What’s the matther, ladies?’ sez he.—­’This isn’t the Washington Market, sur,’ sez I.—­’It is not, ma’am,’ sez he, ’but the city is a great place,’ sez he, ‘an’ it’s not aisy to go everywhere at wonst,’ sez he; ‘an’ if yez will have patience,’ sez he, ‘ye’ll git there,’ sez he.  ‘Git in, ladies,’ sez he, ‘an’ pay yer fares.’  Wid all the houses there’s in the city, an’ all the sthrates there’s in it, faith, it was no good at all to thry to foind our way alone; but thim wur false paple—­they niver took us to the Washington Market at all; an’ it was all the day we wint up to the top o’ the city and down to the bottom o’ the city, and spinding our money at it.  An’ sez I, ’Mrs. Magovern, it would be better for us if we wint home,’ sez I.—­’It would, Mrs. Haley,’ sez she; an’ we come down to the boat, an’ it was two hours agin befoor the boat would go, an’ thin we come home; an’ it’s toired we are, an’ it’s an’ awful place, the city is.”

Haley’s statements could seldom be relied on, but his untruth fulness was never a matter of self-interest, but rather of amiability.  He desired to tell you whatever you desired to know, and to tell it as you would like to hear it, even if facts were so perverse as to be contrary.

One day I wanted to do an errand in the village, and called for the horse and carriage.  Haley brought them to the door.  As I took the reins I remembered that it was noon and the horse’s dinner-time:  “Did the horse have his dinner, Haley?”

“I just gave it to him, ma’am; and an ilegint dinner he had.”

“Why did you feed him just when I was about to drive him?”

“Oh, well, it’s not much he got.”

“He should have had nothing.”

“Faith, me lady, I ownly showed it to him.”

There were no more respectable people in The Lane than John Godfrey and his family.  His pretty little wife with an anxious face tenderly watched over an ever-increasing family of daughters, till on one most providential occasion the expected girl turned out to be a boy, and I went with my sisters to congratulate the happy mother.  “What will you name the little fellow, Mrs. Godfrey?” I asked, sympathetically.

The poor woman looked up with a smile, saying weakly, “John Pathrick, miss—­John afther the father, an’ Pathrick afther the saint.”

The following year the same unexpected luck brought another boy, and again we young girls, being much at leisure, carried our congratulations:  “What will be the name of this little boy, Mrs. Godfrey?”

“Pathrick John, miss—­Pathrick afther the saint, an’ John afther the father.”

A confused sense of having heard that sentence before came over me.  “Why, Mrs. Godfrey,” I said, “was not that the name of your last child?”

“To be shure, miss.  Why would I be trating one betther than the other?”