"It's meself," said he, "that'll nivir be intimidected. Don't I know what a mob is? An' if I didn't, wouldn't I feece thim all the seeme? An' afther all I don't moind tellin' _you_ that it wasn't disrispict. It was only a kind of abstraction, an' I wasn't conscious that it was the national anthim, so I wasn't. I'd have stood up, if I'd knowed it. But whin those divils began reelin' at me, I had to trait thim with scarrun and contimpt. An' for me--I haven't much toime to live, but what I have ye've seeved for me." "Oh, nonsense, don't talk about that," said I, modestly. "Sorr," said he, "I'm very well aware that I'm under deep obleegeetions, an' I owe ye a debt of grateechood. Consequintly, I insist on bein' greetful. I hold iviry British officer as me personal inimy; but, in you, sorr, I'm sinsible of a ginirous frind. Te've seeved me loife, so ye have, an' there's no doubt about it. We'll weeve politics. I won't spake of the Finians. Phaylim O'Halloran isn't the man that'll mintion onsaisonable politics, or dwell upon uncongainal thames, so he isn't." "Well," said I, "Mr. O'Halloran, since you've introduced yourself, I must give you my humble address. I'm Lieutenant Macrorie." "Macrorie?" said he. "Macrorie," said I, "of the Bobtails, and I assure you I'm very happy to make your acquaintance." We walked along arm-in-arm in the most friendly manner, chatting about things in general. I found my companion to be very intelligent and very well informed. He had travelled much. He expressed himself fluently on every subject, and though his brogue was conspicuous, he was evidently a gentleman, and very well educated too. I gathered from his conversation that he had studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and that he had been leading a desultory sort of life in the United States for twenty years or so. Ho had been in Canada for something less than a year, and was anxious to get back to a more southern clime. Chatting thus, and arm-in-arm, we walked along. I had nothing to do, and so I went with my new-found friend, with a vague idea of seeing him safe home. Of course such an idea was preposterous, for he could have got home just as well without me, but I had taken a fancy to my new acquaintance, and found a strange charm in his conversation. He talked incessantly and on many subjects. He discoursed on theology, literature, science, the weather, the army, the navy, music, painting, sculpture, photography, engraving, geology, chemistry, and on a thousand other arts and sciences, in all of which he showed himself deeply versed, and far beyond my depth. He had a brogue, and I had none, but as for intellectual attainments I was only a child in comparison with him. At length we reached a house where he stopped. "I'm infeenetely obloiged to ye," said he. "And now, won't ye koindly condiscind to step in and parteek of me hospitalitee? It'll give me shuprame deloight."