The next day the tailor took in his clothes; and from time to time continued to adjust them to the dimensions of his shrinking person. The schoolmaster and he, whenever they could steal a moment, met and sympathised together. Mr. O’Connor, however, bore up somewhat better than Neal. The latter was subdued in heart and in spirit, thoroughly, completely, and intensely vanquished. His features became sharpened by misery, for a termagant wife is the whetstone on which all the calamities of a henpecked husband are painted by the devil. He no longer strutted as he was wont to do, he no longer carried a cudgel as if he wished to wage a universal battle with mankind. He was now a married man. Sneakingly, and with a cowardly crawl, did he creep along, as if every step brought him nearer to the gallows. The schoolmaster’s march of misery was far slower than Neal’s, the latter distanced him. Before three years passed he had shrunk up so much that he could not walk abroad of a windy day without carrying weights in his pockets to keep him firm on the earth which he once trod with the step of a giant. He again sought the schoolmaster, with whom, indeed, he associated as much as possible. Here he felt certain of receiving sympathy; nor was he disappointed. That worthy but miserable man and Neal often retired beyond the hearing of their respective wives, and supported each other by every argument in their power. Often have they been heard in the dusk of evening singing behind a remote hedge that melancholy ditty, “Let us _both_ be unhappy together,” which rose upon the twilight breeze with a cautious quaver of sorrow truly heartrending and lugubrious. “Neal,” said Mr. O’Connor on one of those occasions, “here is a book which I recommend to your perusal; it is called ‘The Afflicted Man’s Companion’; try if you cannot glean some consolation out of it.” “Faith,” said Neal, “I’m forever oblaged to you, but I don’t want it. I’ve had ‘The Afflicted Man’s Companion’ too long, and not an atom o’ consolation I can get out of it. I have _one_ o’ them, I tell you; but, be my sowl, I’ll not undertake _a pair_ o’ them. The very name’s enough for me.” They then separated.