I had to ring twice before anybody came. The servants, I well knew, were putting the dinner on the table. At last a man entered the room, dressed in rather shabby black, whom I afterwards learned to be the butler. “What is your name, my friend?” said I, determined to make an ally of the man. “My name? Why Larry sure, yer honer. And the masther is out of his sinses in a hurry, becase yer honer don’t come down.” “Is he though? Well now, Larry; tell me this; which of all the gentlemen in the house has got the largest foot?” “Is it the largest foot, yer honer?” said Larry, altogether surprised by my question. “Yes; the largest foot,” and then I proceeded to explain to him my misfortune. He took up first my top-boot, and then the shooting-boot—in looking at which he gazed with wonder at the nails;—and then he glanced at my feet, measuring them with his eye; and after this he pronounced his opinion. “Yer honer couldn’t wear a morsel of leather belonging to ere a one of ’em, young or ould. There niver was a foot like that yet among the O’Conors.” “But are there no strangers staying here?” “There’s three or four on ’em come in to dinner; but they’ll be wanting their own boots I’m thinking. And there’s young Misther Dillon; he’s come to stay. But Lord love you—” and he again looked at the enormous extent which lay between the heel and the toe of the shooting apparatus which he still held in his hand. “I niver see such a foot as that in the whole barony,” he said, “barring my own.” Now Larry was a large man, much larger altogether than myself, and as he said this I looked down involuntarily at his feet; or rather at his foot, for as he stood I could only see one. And then a sudden hope filled my heart. On that foot there glittered a shoe—not indeed such as were my own which were now resting ingloriously at Ballyglass while they were so sorely needed at Castle Conor; but one which I could wear before ladies, without shame—and in my present frame of mind with infinite contentment. “Let me look at that one of your own,” said I to the man, as though it were merely a subject for experimental inquiry. Larry, accustomed to obedience, took off the shoe and handed it to me. My own foot was immediately in it, and I found that it fitted me like a glove. “And now the other,” said I—not smiling, for a smile would have put him on his guard; but somewhat sternly, so that that habit of obedience should not desert him at this perilous moment. And then I stretched out my hand.