“All right,” said O’Leary briskly, as seizing my manuscript with both hands he hurled it on the blazing turf fire; and then grasping the poker, stood guard over it, exclaiming as he did so,--“Touch it, and by the beard of the Prophet I’ll brain you. Now, there it goes, blazing up the chimney. Look how it floats up there! I never expected to travel like that anyhow. Eh, Hal? Your work is a brilliant affair, isn’t it?-- and as well puffed as if you entertained every newspaper editor in the kingdom? And see,” cried he, as he stamped his foot upon the blaze, “the whole edition is exhausted already--not a copy to be had for any money.” We threw ourselves back in our chair, and covered our face with our hands. The toil of many a long night, of many a bright hour of sun and wind, was lost to us for ever, and we may be pardoned if our grief was heavy. “Cheer up, old fellow,” said he, as the last flicker of the burning paper expired. “You know the thing was bad: it couldn’t be other. That d----d fly-away harum-scarum style of yours is no more adapted to a work of real merit, than a Will-o’-the-wisp would be for a light-house. Another jug, Peter--bring two. The truth is, Hal, I was not so averse to the publication of my life as to the infernal mess you’d have made of it. You have no pathos, no tenderness--damn the bit.” “Come, come,” said we: “it is enough to burn our manuscript, but, really, as to playing the critic in this fashion----” “Then,” continued he, “all that confounded folly you deal in, laughing at the priests--Lord bless you, man! they have more fun, those fellows, than you, and a score like you. There’s one Father Dolan here would tell two stories for your one; ay, better than ever you told.” “We really have no ambition to enter the lists with your friend.” “So much the better--you’d get the worst of it; and as to knowledge of character, see now, Peter Mahoon there would teach you human nature; and if I liked myself to appear in print--” “Well,” said we, bursting out into a fit of laughter, “that would certainly be amusing.” “And so it would, whether you jest or no. There’s in that drawer there, the materials of as fine a work as ever appeared since Sir John Carr’s Travels; and the style is a happy union of Goldsmith and Jean Paul-- simple yet aphoristic--profound and pleasing--sparkling like the can before me, but pungent and racy in its bitterness. Hand me that oak box, Hal. Which is the key? At this hour one’s sight becomes always defective. Ah, here it is look there!” We obeyed the command, and truly our amazement was great, though possibly not for the reason that Mr. O’Leary could have desired; for instead of anything like a regular manuscript, we beheld a mass of small scraps of paper, backs of letters, newspapers, magazines, fly-leaves of books, old prints, &c., scrawled on, in the most uncouth fashion; and purporting from the numbers appended to be a continued narration of one kind or other. “What’s all this?” said we.