“Look here, Mr. Macartney,” said I; “I want you to do me a favour.  I owe your mother a good turn, and it’ll ease my mind to repay it.  Sit down whilst we’re enjoying your hospitality, and just write her a line, and let me have the pleasure of finding a stamp and putting it in the post with my own hands.”

We argued the point for some time, but Micky found the writing materials at last, and sat down to write.  As he proceeded he seemed to become more reconciled to the task; though he was obviously no great scribe, and followed the sentiments he was expressing with curious contortions of his countenance which it was most funny to behold.  By and by I was glad to see a tear or two drop on to the paper, though I was sorry that he wiped them up with his third finger, and wrote over the place before it had time to dry.

“Murther and ages!  But it’s mighty pleased that she’ll be,” said Mr. Macartney when he had finished.  He looked mighty pleased with himself, and he held the letter out to me.

“Do you mean me to read it?” I asked.

“I did.  And ye can let your friends hear too.”

I read it aloud, wondering as I read.  If pen and ink spoke the truth, Biddy’s own Micky’s heart was broke entirely with the parting from his mother.  Sorra a bit of taste had there been in his food, or a drop of natural rest had he enjoyed for the last fifteen years.  “Five thousand four hundred and seventy-five days—­no less.” (When I reached this skilful adoption of my calculations, I involuntarily looked up.  There sat Mr. Macartney in his rocking-chair.  He was just lighting a short pipe, but he paused in the operation to acknowledge what he evidently believed to be my look of admiration with a nod and a wink.  I read on.) Times were cruel bad out there for a poor boy that lived by his industry, but thank GOD he’d been spared the worst pangs of starvation (I glanced round the pop-shop, but, as Micky himself would have said, No matther!); and didn’t it lighten his heart to hear of his dear mother sitting content and comfortable at her own coffee-stall.  It was murderously hot in these parts, and New York—­bad luck to it—­was a mighty different place from the dear old Ballywhack where he was born.  Would they ever see old Ireland again? (Here a big blot betrayed how much Mr. Macartney had been moved by his own eloquence.) The rest of the letter was rich with phrases both of piety and affection.  How much of the whole composition was conscious humbug, and whether any of it was genuine feeling, I have as little idea now as I had then.  The shallows of the human heart are at least as difficult to sound as its depths, and Micky Macartney’s was quite beyond me.  One thing about the letter was true enough.  As he said, it would “plaze the ould craythur intirely.”

By the time I had addressed it, “Mrs. Biddy Macartney, coffee-seller,” to the care of the Dockgate-keeper, we had not much spare time left in which to stamp and post it, so we took leave of the owner of the pop-shop.  He was now very unwilling to let us go.  He did not ask another question about his mother, but he was consumed with trivial curiosity about us.  Once again he alluded to Biddy.  We were standing outside, and his eye fell upon the row of shining pop-taps—­