“Ah,” returned Dan, with another, “and I am not a comic actor on my way to a salary of a hundred a week. We all of us want the other boy's cake.” The O'Kelly was another frequent visitor of ours. The attic in Belsize Square had been closed. In vain had the O'Kelly wafted incense, burned pastilles and sprinkled eau-de-Cologne. In vain had he talked of rats, hinted at drains. “A wonderful woman,” groaned the O'Kelly in tones of sorrowful admiration. “There's no deceiving her.” “But why submit?” was our natural argument. “Why not say you are going to smoke, and do it?” “It's her theory, me boy,” explained the O'Kelly, “that the home should be kept pure--a sort of a temple, ye know. She's convinced that in time it is bound to exercise an influence upon me. It's a beautiful idea, when ye come to think of it.” Meanwhile, in the rooms of half-a-dozen sinful men the O'Kelly kept his own particular pipe, together with his own particular smoking mixture; and one such pipe and one such tobacco jar stood always on our mantelpiece. In the spring the forces of temptation raged round that feeble but most excellently intentioned citadel, the O'Kelly's conscience. The Signora had returned to England, was performing then at Ashley's Theatre. The O'Kelly would remain under long spells of silence, puffing vigorously at his pipe. Or would fortify himself with paeans in praise of Mrs. O'Kelly. “If anything could ever make a model man of me”--he spoke in the tones of one whose doubts are stronger than his hopes--“it would be the example of that woman.” It was one Saturday afternoon. I had just returned from the matinee. “I don't believe,” continued the O'Kelly, “I don't really believe she has ever done one single thing she oughtn't to, or left undone one single thing she ought, in the whole course of her life.” “Maybe she has, and you don't know of it,” I suggested, perceiving the idea might comfort him. “I wish I could think so,” returned the O'Kelly. “I don't mean anything really wrong,” he corrected himself quickly, “but something just a little wrong. I feel--I really feel I should like her better if she had.”