"Phil, do ye remimber that May mornin' when ye broke through the vines av the Hermit's Cave? I know now how the pityin' face av the Christ looked to the man who had been blind. I know how the touch av his hands felt to them as had been lepers. They was made free and safe. Wake as I was that sorry mornin' I had one thought before me brain wint dark, the thought that I might some day help you aven a little. I felt that way in me wakeness thin. To-day in me strength I feel it a hundred times more. Ye may not nade me, but whin ye do, I'm here. Whin I was a poor lost orphan boy, worth nothin' to nobody, you risked life an' limb to drag me back from the agony av a death by inches. And now, while I'm only a rid-headed Irishman, I can do a dale more thinkin' and I know a blamed lot more 'n this blessed little burg iver drames of. They ain't no bloodhound on your track, but a ugly octopus of a devilfish is gittin' its arms out after you. They's several av 'em. Don't forgit, Phil; I know I'd die for your sake." "O'mie, I believe you, but don't be uneasy about me. You know me as well as anybody in this town. What have I to fear?" "Begorra, there was niver a purer-hearted boy than you iver walked out of a fun-lovin', rollickin' boyhood into a clane, honest manhood. You can't be touched." Just then the evening stage swung by and swept up the hill. "Look at the ould man, now, would ye? Phil, he's makin' fur Bar'net's. Bet some av your rich kin's comin' from the East, bringing you their out-av-style clothes, an' a few good little books and Sunday-school tracts to improve ye." There was only one passenger in the stage, a woman whose face I could not see. That evening O'mie went to Judson at closing time. "Mr. Judson, I want a lave of absence fur a week or tin days," he said. "What for?" Judson was the kind of man who could never be pleasant to his employees, for fear of losing his authority over them. "I want to go out av town on business," O'mie replied. "Whose business?" snapped Judson. "Me own," responded O'mie calmly. "I can't have it. That's it. I just can't have my clerks and underlings running around over the country taking my time." "Then I'll lave your time here whin I go," O'mie spoke coolly. He had always been respectful toward his employer, but he had no servile fear of him. "I just can't allow it," Judson went on. "I need you here." O'mie was the life of the business, the best asset in the store. "It may be a slack time, but I can't have it; that's it, I just can't put up with it. Besides," he simpered a little, in spite of himself, "besides, I'm likely to be off a few days myself, just any time, I can get ready for a step I have in mind, an important step, just any minute, but it's different with some others, and we have to regard some others, you know; have to let some others have their way once in a while. We'll consider it settled now. You are to stay right here."