into my pockets, but they were completely untenanted.  I rushed home to our lodgings, where I had left Ned Davis; he, I knew, had received a guinea the day before, upon which I rested my hopes of deliverance.  I found him fencing with his walking-stick with an imaginary antagonist, whom he had in his mind pinned against a closet-door.  I related to him the sudden move the manager had made, and told him, in the most doleful voice conceivable, that I was not possessed of a single penny.  As soon as I had finished, he dropped into a chair, and burst into a long-continued fit of laughter, and then looked in my face with the most provoking mock gravity, and asked—­

“What’s to be done then?  How are we to get out of this?”

“Why,” said I, “that guinea which you got yesterday!”

“Ho! ho! ho! ho!” he shouted.  “The guinea is gone.”

“Gone!” I exclaimed; and I felt my knees began to shake under me.  “Gone—­where—­how.”

“I gave it to the wife of that poor devil of a scene-shifter who broke his arm last week; he had four children, and they were starving.  What could I do but give it to them?  Had it been ten times as much they should have had it.”

I don’t know what reply I made, but it had the effect of producing another fit of uncontrollable laughter.

“Why do you laugh,” said I, rather angrily.

“Who the devil could help it;” he replied; “your woe-begone countenance would make a cat laugh.”

“Well,” said I, “we are in a pretty dilemma here.  We owe our landlady fifteen shillings.”

“For which she will lay an embargo on our little effects—­three black wigs and a low-comedy pair of breeches—­this must be prevented.”

“But how?” I inquired.

“How? never mind; but order dinner directly.”

“Dinner!” said I; “don’t awaken painful recollections.”

“Go and do as I tell you,” he replied.  “Order dinner—­beef-steak and oyster-sauce.”

“Beef-steak!  Are you mad”—­but before I could finish the sentence, he had put on his hat and disappeared.

“Who knows?” thought I, after he was gone, “he’s a devilish clever fellow, something may turn up:”  so I ordered the beef-steaks.  In less than an hour, my friend returned with exultation in his looks.

“I have done it!” said he, slapping me on the back; “we shall have plenty of money to-morrow.”

I begged he would explain himself.

“Briefly then,” said he, “I have been to the billiard-room, and every other lounging-place about town, where I circulated, in the most mysterious manner, a report that a celebrated German doctor and philosopher, who had discovered the secret of resuscitating the dead, had arrived in Loughrea.”

“How ridiculous!” I said.

“Don’t be in a hurry.  This philosopher,” he added, “is about to give positive proof that he can perform what he professes, and it is his intention to go into the churchyard to-night, and resuscitate a few of those who have not been buried more than a twelvemonth.”