“Yes!” “Ah!” and Kelly bent his heavy brows. “Wur there anything mention av Martin an’ meself?” “I didn’t hear nobody mentioned.” “Humph!” Kelly bit the nail of his thumb viciously and spat over the stair rail. Then, after a pause, longer than the first, he said: “How is the toide?” “I don’t know.” “Tim Burns says it’s on the stan’,” said Kelly. “An’ whin it goes down, he’ll go out wid it.” They waited in silence after this; Rosie’s sobs had ceased, the clergyman was reciting the litany for the dying, and the others were giving the responses. And then their voices were hushed; there was a stir in the room; the door opened and Mary came out. “Mr. Murphy,” said she, “will you hurry over to O’Connor’s and tell him to come, at once?” Chapter V “_He’d strop up his razor, graceful an’ nice, An’ then from your face he’d carve off a slice. Your life from the gallows! Ye couldn’t be vexed, When Tecumsha O’Riley’s calling out ‘next.’_” COMIC SONG. SCHWARTZ’S barber shop stood almost within the shadow of the church tower. The gas light streamed through his plate window and across the sidewalk; a row of customers lined up along the wall, waiting their turn in the chair; the fat proprietor stropped a razor and conversed with a short man who stood at the stove rubbing a freshly reaped chin. A large aired man, with a dyed moustache, was pulling a pair of kid gloves over hands too large for them. He wore a light overcoat, a silk hat, a flower in his buttonhole and seemed to sweat importance. This was Squire Moran, thrice elected to the minor judiciary and a power in the ward. “Ach!” exclaimed Schwartz, “dot vas too pad, Misder Purns.” “It’s gittin’ a bit wurried I am,” said the little man; “for what kin a body be doin’ wit’out a bit av wurk.” “Sure I t’ought, Squire,” said Clancy, the grocer, who lay back in the barber’s chair, tucked about with towels, “that yez wur goin’ till give Tim a job in the water daypartment.” “There’s many a slip, Clancy,” quoth his honour, struggling with the gloves. “I’m not the only duck in the pond, ye know; and it’s Tim’s own fault that he ain’t in the department long ago.” “How’s that?” queried the grocer. “McQuirk’s against him,” answered Moran. Mr. Burns looked downhearted; the others nodded sagaciously as though the reason given was all sufficient. “I almost got down on my knees to him,” went on the magistrate, “but he said no; so what can I do?” “What’s he sore on Tim for?” asked Goose McGonagle who, in a bright scarlet tie, sat near the wash-stand. “I wouldn’t vote for O’Connor,” Burns hastened to say. “Sure Gartenheim did me a favour wanst; an’ wud yez have me go back on a friend?” A murmur went around the room.