“Amberitious,” pronounced Teddy with a grand sort of air; “and it means, he told me, wanting to be something more than you wor by nater.”

“Faith, and that’s it, Teddy:  that’s the very moral uv what I wants to see in yees.  Well, the masther said if the b’y was as amberitious an’ as ’anest as his mother afore him (that’s me, yer see, Teddy),”—­

“Yes, yes, mother, I know.  Well?”

“That he’d make a man uv him that should be a pride an’ a support to the owld age uv me, an’ a blissin’ to the day I med up my mind to eddicate him.  That wor two year ago, Teddy Ginniss; an’, so far, hasn’ the gintleman done by yees as niver yer own daddy could?  Hasn’ he put yees to the readin’ an’ the writin’ an’ the joggerphy—­ picters, an’ the nate figgers that yees puts on me washin’—­bills, till it’s proud I am to hand ’em to the gintlefolks, an’ say, ’If ye plaze, the figgers is pooty plain.  It’s me b’y made ’em’?  Now till me, Teddy, hasn’ the shquire done all this by yees, an’ give yees the fifty dollars by the year, all the same as if he give ye nothin’ else?”

“He has so, mother.”

“An’ whin I wanted to wash for him widout a cint uv charge, an’ towld him it was jist foon to rinshe out his bit things, bekase he is that good—­natered an’ quite that there’s niver the fust roobin’ to do to ’em, he says,—­

“‘An’ if I let yees do ’em widout charge, I’d as lieve wear the shirt of Misther Nessus;’ an’ more by token, Teddy Ginniss, I told ye iver and oft to look in the big books an’ see who was Misther Nessus, an’ what about his shirt.”

“Faith and ye did, mother; but I never could find him yet.  Some day I’ll ask the master,” said Teddy with a puzzled look.

“An’ so he pays me what I ax, an’ it isn’ for the likes uv him to be knowin’ what the others ud charge; an’, whin he gives me forty cints the dozen, he thinks, the poor innercint! that it’s mooch as I would ax uv any one.  Now, Teddy b’y, isn’ all I’ve towld ye God’s truth? and haven’t ye heerd it as many times as yees are days owld out uv yer own moother’s lips?”

“Faith and I have, mother.”

“An’ wud yer moother till yees a lie, or bid yees do what wasn’t plazin’ to God, Teddy?”

“Sure she wouldn’t; and I’ll lick the first fellow that’ll say she would, if he was as big as Goliah in the Bible,” said Teddy, doubling up his fist, and nodding fiercely.

“Thin, Teddy Ginniss, we cooms to this; an’ it’s not the first time, nor yet the last, we’ll coom to it.  If iver ye can do yer masther a service, be it big or be it little; if iver the stringth, or the coorage, or the life itself, of yees, or thim as is dear to yees, ud sarve him or plaze him,—­I bid yees now to give it him free an’ willin’ as ye’d give it to God.  An’ so ye mind me, it’s my blissin’ an’ the blissin’ uv yer dead father that’s iver wid ye; an’ so ye fail me, it’s the black curse uv disobedience, an’ yer moother’s brukken heart, that shall cling to yees for iver and iver, while life shall last.  Do ye mind that, b’y?”