“You’re a fool, Teddy,” said Hogan; “let them drink themselves; blind—­this liquor’s paid for; an’ if they lose or spill it by the ’way, why, blazes to your purty mug, don’t you know they’ll have to pay for another cargo.”

Teddy immediately took the hint.

“Barney Brogan,” he shouted to a lubberly-looking, bullet-headed cub, half knave, half fool, who lived about such establishments, and acted as messenger, spy, and vidette; “listen hedher! bring Darby Keenan dere dat bottle, an’ let ’em drink till de grace o’ God comes on ’em—­ha, ha, ha!”

“More power to you, Vaynus,” exclaimed Keenan; “you’re worth a thousand pounds, quarry weight.”

“I am inclined to think, Mr. Keenan,” said the schoolmaster, “that you are in the habit occasionally of taking slight liberties wid the haythen mythology.  Little, I’ll be bound, the divine goddess of beauty ever dreamt she’d find a representative in Teddy Phats.”

“Bravo! masther,” replied Keenan, “you’re the boy can do—­only that English is too tall for me.  At any rate,” he added, approaching the worthy preceptor, “take a spell o’ this—­it’s a language we can all understand.”

“You mane to say, Darby,” returned the other, “that it’s a kind of universal spelling-book amongst us, and so it is—­an alphabet aisily larned.  Your health, now and under all circumstances!  Teddy, or Thaddeus, I drink to your symmetry and inexplicable proportions; and I say for your comfort, my worthy distillator, that if you are not so refulgent in beauty as Venus, you are a purer haythen.”

“Fwhat a bloody fwhine Bairlha man the meeisther is,” said Teddy, with a grin.  “Fwhaicks, meeisthur, your de posey of Tullyticklem, spishilly wid Captain Fwhiskey at your back.  You spake de Bairlha up den jist all as one as nobody could understand her—­ha, ha, ha!”

The master, whose name was Finigan, or, as he wished to be called, O’Finigan, looked upon Teddy and shook his head very significantly.

“I’m afraid, my worthy distallator,” he proceeded, “that the proverb which says ‘latet anguis in herba,’ is not inapplicable in your case.  I think I can occasionally detect in these ferret-like orbs that constitute such an attractive portion of your beauty, a passing scintillation of intelligence which you wish to keep a secretis, as they say.”

“Mr. Finigan,” said Keenan, who had now returned to his friends, “if you wouldn’t be betther employed to-morrow, you’d be welcome to the weddin’.”

“Many thanks, Mr. Keenan,” replied Finigan; “I accept your hospitable offer wid genuine cordiality.  To-morrow will be a day worthy of a white mark to all parties concerned.  Horace calls it chalk, which is probably the most appropriate substance with which the records of matrimonial felicity could be registered, crede experto.”

“At any rate, Misther Finigan, give the boys a holiday to-morrow, and be down wid us airly.”