Rather than be bothered in this way, up I got, with no little difficulty, to say nothing of the pain from my undressed wound, and crawled towards the door. But Listado had not patience to wait on my snail's pace, so, setting his back to it, he gave a thundering push, sufficient to have forced the gates of Gaza from their hinges, and banged the door wide open. It had only caught on the latch, not having been fastened, after all; but he had overcome the _vis inertiæ_ rather too fiercely, for in spun our gingham-coated friend, with the flight of a Congreve rocket, sliding across the tiled floor on his breast a couple of fathoms, like a log squirred along ice. At length he lost _his way_, and found his tongue. "By the piper, but I'll pay you off for this trick, Master Brail, some fine morning, take Don Lorenzo's word for it. Why the devil did you open the door so suddenly, without telling me?--see, if these cursed tiles have not ground off every button on my waistcoat, or any where else. I must go into old Pierre Duquesné's garden, and borrow some fig leaves, as I am a gentleman." I could scarcely speak for laughing. "The door was on the latch, as you see--it was not fastened, man, at all--but you are so impetuous"---- "Himpetuous!--why, only look at the knees of my breeches--there's himpetuosity for you!--a full quarter of a yard of good duck spoiled, not to name the shreds of skin torn from my knee-pans, big enough, were they dried into parchment, to hold ten credos, and--but that will grow again, so never mind." Here he gathered himself up, and, tying a red silk handkerchief round one knee, a white one round the other, and my black cravat, which he unceremoniously picked off the back of a chair, round his waist, like a bishop's apron; he rose, laughing all the while, and turned right round on me--"There, I am all right now--but I have come to tell you of a miracle, never surpassed since Father O'Shauchnessy cured aunt Katey's old pig of the hystericals--stop! I must tell you about that game--She was, as you see, an ould maid, and after the last twelve farrow, she applied to"-- I laughed--"Which was the old maid? the pig, or"---- "Hold your tongue, and give your potato-trap a holiday.--Didn't I tell you it was my maiden aunt Katey, that brought the litter of pigs to Father O'Shauchnessy?" "The devil she did," quoth I. "To be sure she did," quoth he.--"So said she to him, 'Father,' says she--'Daughter,' says he; and then before she could get in another word--'Whose are them pigs?' says he.--'Moin, moy pigs,' quoth my aunt Katey.--'Your pigs!--all of them?' says Father O'Shauchnessy,--'Every mother's son of them,' says my aunt Katey---'and that is my errand, indeed, Father O'Shauchnessy, for the poor mother of these beautiful little creatures is bewitched entirely.'" "Now, Listado, have done, and be quiet, and tell me your errand," said I, losing patience.