These preliminary amusements being now over, Mickey is conducted to the dance-house, where he is carefully installed in the best chair, and immediately the dancing commences. It is not my purpose to describe an Irish dance here, having done it more than once elsewhere. It is enough to say that Mickey is now in his glory; and proud may the young man be who fills the honourable post of his companion, and sits next him. He is a living storehouse of intelligence, a travelling directory for the parish--the lover’s text-book--the young woman’s best companion; for where is the courtship going on of which he is not cognizant? where is there a marriage on the tapis, with the particulars of which he is not acquainted? He is an authority whom nobody would think of questioning. It is now, too, that he scatters his jokes about; and so correct and well trained is his ear, that he can frequently name the young man who dances, by the peculiarity of his step. “Ah ha! Paddy Brien, you’re there? Sure I’d know the sound of your smoothin’-irons any where. Is it thrue, Paddy, that you wor sint for down to Errigle Keerogue, to kill the clocks for Dan M’Mahon? But, nabuklish! Paddy, what’ll you have?” “Is that Grace Reilly on the flure? Faix, avourneen, you can do it; devil o’ your likes I _see_ any where. I’ll lay Shibby to a penny trump that you could dance your own namesake--the _Calleen dhas dhun_, the bonny brown girl--upon a spider’s cobweb, widout breakin’ it. Don’t be in a hurry, Grace dear, to tie the knot; _I’ll_ wait for you.” Several times in the course of the night a plate is brought round, and a collection made for the fiddler: this was the moment when Mickey used to let the jokes fly in every direction. The timid he shamed into liberality, the vain he praised, and the niggardly he assailed by open hardy satire; all managed, however, with such an under-current of good humour, that no one could take offence. No joke ever told better than that of the broken string. Whenever this happened at night, Mickey would call out to some soft fellow, “Blood alive, Ned Martin, will you bring me a candle?--I’ve broken a string.” The unthinking young man, forgetting that he was blind, would take the candle in a hurry, and fetch it to him. “Faix, Ned. I knew you wor jist fit for’t; houldin’ a candle to a dark man! Isn’t he a beauty, boys?--look at him, girls--as cute as a pancake.” It is unnecessary to say, that the mirth on such occasions was convulsive. Another similar joke was also played off by him against such as he knew to be ungenerous at the collection. “Paddy Smith, I want a word wid you. I’m goin’ across the counthry as far as Ned Donnelly’s, and I want you to help me along the road, as the night is dark.” “To be sure, Mickey. I’ll bring you over as snug as if you wor on a clane plate, man alive!” “Thank you, Paddy; throth you’ve the dacency in you; an’ kind father for you, Paddy. Maybe I’ll do as much for you some other time.”