The male and female Michael O'Korrigan, my boy, occupied a spacious apartment on the fine, airy, eighth floor of the sumptuous Maison Mulligan in that celebrated Ward, and for several years the course of their true love ran so smoothly that it became hopelessly insipid and exasperating to all the old maids for blocks around. Nothing was ever equal to the peaceful unity of the male and female O'Korrigan; and did Michael find it necessary, in the course of some friendly discussion with a neighbor on the stairs, to call for a hatchet till he broke the ugly nose of the spalpeen, it was the wife of his bosom that handed him his own bit of a stick, and joined in the argument herself with a poker for a referee. But nothing's perfect in this world except the wisdom of owls and Congressmen, and Mrs. O'Korrigan's military virtues and wholesome command of her husband had the slight drawback of a constitutional taste for poteen. Michael expostulated with her by the hair, and remonstrated with her by the shoulders, and plead with her over the head; but all to no purpose; and he was greatly assisted and comforted by a bit of a preacher named Father O'Tod, who took care of everybody's virtue except his own. It was Father O'Tod that sat down beside her quite pious and comfortable, and "Ailey," says he, "it's clane disgusted I am at heart," says he, "to see a wake crature of the hen sex," says he, "a-cackling over a baste of a black bottle as if it was a fresh egg," says he. "And Ailey," says he, "if your husband was anything but a wake-minded bouchal of a man," says he, "it's with a bit of crab-thorn that he'd be persuadin' ye to give it up for good," says he. "Oh, sorra the day," says she, "that I'm not behoolden to yer riverence," says she, "for such illigant advice," says she; "but it's meself that's accountable to somebody else than yerself and Michael O'Korrigan," says she, "for what I do," says she. "Do ye mind that, Father O'Tod?" says she. "And when I'm afther takin' a drop for the good of me health," says she, "I don't bother any one," says she; "but stay shut up in my own room," says she, "and only ask to be let alone," says she. Now it chanced that Mr. O'Korrigan, being invited by Father O'Tod, and especially aggrieved by having one of his best Sunday shoes coolly appropriated as a sort of fanciful leathern case for the aforesaid black bottle, finally resolved to at least recapture his property, and, mayhap, spill the poteen. So he placed the hair of his head in Mrs. O'Korrigan's left hand, and scraped his nose against the nails of her right, and was enjoying himself very much, when Father O'Tod came in, and "Michael agrah," says he, "it's spaichless with horrors I am," says he, "to see ye brawling with yer own wife," says he, "and she a woman," says he. "The marcy of Heaven on me!" says Mike, says he; "but isn't it yer own self," says he, "that's been advisin' me by the year," says he, "to stop her poteen?" says he.