TIM CALLIGAN'S GRAVE-MONEY I "'T was a fool's notion to get tipped out of a boat anywhere," said Tim Calligan to his circle of fellow pensioners at the Dartbank poor-farm, "me that's been on the water like a bubble from the day me mother weaned me, saints rest her soul, and she as decent a woman as ever was born in County Cork." Tim was relating the oft-told tale of his escape from drowning, a story of which they were fond, and which he delighted to tell. The old man had a fertile Celtic fancy, and his narrations were luxuriant with exuberant growth. "So there was meself drownin' like a blind kitten in a pond,--and many 's the litter of 'em I'd sent to the cat's Purgatory by the way of that very river, saving that the Purgatory of cats there ain't any, having no souls, by the token that having nine lives they'd belike have nine souls, and being so many they'd crowd good Christian souls in Paradise,--blessings on the holy saints for previnting it. "No more could I make me head stay out of water," Tim went on, "than if it was a stone. 'Good-by, Tim, me boy,' sez I to meself. 'Ye're gone this time,' sez I, 'and I'll miss nothing in not being at yer wake, by the token that there won't be no wake; and ef there was,' sez I, still to meself, 'there could be nothing to drink but water here in this cursed stream.' And down I went again, like a dasher in a churn. 'Holy St. Bridget,' thinks I, 'how far 'll it be to the bottom of this ondecent river. Likely it goes clean through to Chiny,' thinks I, 'and one of them bloody, onbelaving heathen 'll be grabbing me presently with his mice-eating hands. But it's better being pulled out by a heretic heathen than staying in and soaking.' With that up again I goes, like a shellaly at a fair; and it was like fire flashing in me eyes. Sez I to meself: 'That 'll be Widdy Malony's bit of a house,' sez I, spaking always in me mind because of the floods of water in me mouth. 'It'll be burning to the very ground,' sez I, 'and me missing all the fun of it. The blessed saints help the poor woman, turned out of house and home to get bite and sup for her children like a chipmunk, and every one of them taking after Dennis, and I might have married her meself long ago if they was fewer, for I'd want a ready-made family small,' sez I to meself, plunking up and down in the water like a dumpling in the broth. ''T is pitiful to think of her house burning down over her head,' sez I, 'and she never to know the man might have made her Mis' Calligan's down here drowning in plain sight of the very flames of it, and she nor nobody doing one thing to save him, praise be to the handiworks of God. Faith, and 't would be better for the both of us if she had more water and meself more fire,' sez I in me mind. And all the time 't was no fire, but just the blessed sun I'd never see again, barring I had n't got saved, and it shining and flashing in the eyes of me from the widdy's windows."