“An’ that’s th’ Sassenach jealousy av thim!” he would say. “An’ who was this Justinian? Who, indade, but a thievin’ Roman imp’ror who shtole his laws from King Boru just as th’ Dagoes now are shtealin’ th’ jobs at th’ mines from th’ Irish an’ Welsh lads to whom they belong av r-rights.” After this I said no more; I did not explain that Justinian and his Pandects and the others of his grand body of civil law were in existence five centuries before the martyred Boru was born. That discovery would have served no purpose beyond my parent’s exasperation and earned for myself as well as the world’s historians naught save a cataract of hard words. You marvel, perhaps, why I dwell with such length on the memory of my father--a poor, blind, ignorant miner of coal! I loved the old man; and to this day when my hair, too, is gray and when I may win my wealth and count my wealth and keep my wealth with any of the land, I recall him as the only man for whom I ever felt either love or confidence or real respect. Yes; I heard much of the blood of the truculent yet wise Boru; also of younger ancestors who fought for the Stuarts against Cromwell, against Monmouth, against William; and later in both the “Fifteen” and in the “Forty-five.” Peculiarly was I made to know of my mother’s close connection by blood with the house of that brave Sarsfield “who,” as my father explained, “fairly withstud th’ Dootchman at th’ Boyne; an’ later made him quit befure th’ walls av Limerick.” There was one tradition of the renowned Sarsfield which the old gentleman was peculiarly prone to relate, and on the head of him who distrusted the legend there was sure to fall a storm. That particular tale concerned the Irish soldier and the sword of Wallace wight. “Thish William Wallace,” my father was wont to say as he approached the myth, “was a joint (giant), no less. He was nine fut ’leven inches tall an’ his soord was eight fut foore inches long. It’s in Stirlin’ Cashtle now, an’ there niver was but one man besides Wallace who cud handle it. Th’ Black Douglas an’ all av thim Scotchmen thried it an’ failed. Whin, one day, along comes Gin’ral Patrick Sarsfield--a little bit av a felly, only five fut siven inches tall--an’ he tuk that soord av William Wallace in one hand an’, me son, he made it whishtle.” But I must press to my first crime of cards or your patience will desert. During those summer months on Tom’s Run when the mines were open and my father and his mates of the pick and blast were earning their narrow pay, it was the habit of himself and four or five other gentlemen of coal to gather in the Toni’s Run Arms when Saturday evening came on, and relax into that amusement dear to Ireland as “forty-five.” Usually they played for a dime a corner; on occasional rich evenings the stakes mounted dizzily to two-bits, though this last was not often. Now I was preyed on by a desire to make one at this Saturday contention, but my father would never consent.