"And he 's laving the crayture without givin' him a farden!" cried one of the mob, who suddenly saw all the glorious fabric of a carouse and a drunken bout disappear like a mirage. "Oh, the 'tarnal vagabond" shouted another, more indignantly; "to desart the child that a-way,--and he that won the race for him!" "Will yez see the little crayture wronged?" said another, who appeared by his pretentious manner to be a practised street orator. "Will yez lave the dissolute orphan--" he meant "desolate"--"to be chayted out of his pater money? Are yez men at all? or are yez dirty slaves of the bloody 'stokessy that's murderin' ould Ireland'?" "We'll take charge of the orphan, and of you too, my smart fellow, if you don't brush off pretty lively!" said a policeman, as, followed by two others, he pushed through the crowd with that cool determination that seems to be actually an instinct with them. Then, laying a strong hand on my collar, he went on: "How did you come by that mare, my lad?" "She belongs to Captain De Courcy, of the Royal Hospital," said I, doing my utmost to seem calm and collected. "We know that already; what we want to hear is, what brought you here with her? It was n't Captain De Courcy's orders?" "No, sir. I was told to hold her for him, and--and--" "And so you rode off with her,--out with it, it saves time, my lad. Now, let me ask you another question: Have you any notion of the crime you have just committed? Do you know that it amounts to horse-stealing? And do you know what the penalty is for that offence?" "No, sir; I know neither one nor the other," said I, resolutely; "and, if I did, it doesn't matter much. As well to live upon prison diet as to starve in the streets!" "He's a bad 'un; I told ye that!" remarked another of the policemen. "Take him off, Grimes!" and so, amid a very general but subdued murmur of pity and condolence from the crowd, I was dragged away on one side, while the mare was led off on another. It was a terrible tumble down, from being a hero to an embryo felon; from being cheered by the populace, to being collared by a policeman! As we went along towards Dublin on a jaunting-car, I was regaled by interesting narratives of others who had begun life like myself, and took an abrupt leave of it in a manner by no means too decorous. The peculiarity of anecdote which pertains to each profession was strongly marked in these officers of the law; and they appeared to have studied the dark side of human nature with eyes the keenest and most scrutinizing.