The mayor was turning a long blue pencil over and over, end for end, between his white fingers, making a series of monotonous tappings on his desk. “Can’t you wait till after election?” he said at last. “His time’ll be served out befoore that,” said Malachi, “an’ ph’at good’ll a paardon do ’im thin?” The mayor continued the thoughtful tapping with his long blue pencil. “Well, Alderman,” he said after a while, “I’d rather not issue any pardons before election, if I can help it. These reformers are going to raise hell this spring, sticking their noses into everybody’s business, and--” Malachi’s little eyes contracted until their blue twinkle was almost hidden. “But, Jawn,” he said, “so much the more r’ason why ye’ll want the Firsht in th’ convintion.” “Oh, well,” said the mayor, “if it’s important--” And he pressed a button under his desk. Before his secretary appeared he added: “You say you don’t know what he’s in for?” “I dinnaw,” Malachi replied, “Mallett sint him up befoore I could git over.” “You ought to watch those things more closely, Alderman,” chided the mayor peevishly. * * * * * Malachi Nolan sat at twilight with a glass of hot toddy on the leaf of his desk, and he sipped it with heavy sighs, for he had taken cold out in the March weather, with pores opened by the relaxations of the night before. Through his windows he could see the lights glimmering in the rain that had followed the moist snow of the early morning, and thousands of feet trudging by under rolled-up trousers or skirts held ankle high. At intervals the feet would line up along the curb waiting for North Side cable-cars, and seeing them paddle in the dirty slush, Malachi in the selfish spirit of contrast, more than ever coddled in the warmth of the room, of the toddy over which he smacked his lips, and of the cigar he smoked so slowly and comfortably. As he sat and smoked and sipped, he thought again of Limerick--the breath of spring blows the fragrance of the hawthorne, white upon the bough; he hears the song of the mavis; he is walking homeward along the black path through the bog, and up the green boreen, and there before him is the little cottage, its thatch held down by sticks and stones, a long ash pole propping up its crumbling gable; there is the mud shed with the thills of the old cart sticking out of it; the donkey is standing by, sad as ever; and up the muddy lane little Annie in her bare feet is driving the cows to the byre; and then he sees his mother sitting in the low doorway, all at once he catches his first whiff of the peat smoke, and with the strange spell that odors work upon the memory, it makes him a boy again; again he is sheltered on a rainy day in the mud shed, playing shoot-marbles with Andy Corrigan and Jerry O’Brien; again he is in the little chapel with the leaky roof; he sees all the boys and girls--Mary Cassidy among them--standing on the bare clay floor; he