Now witness a stern guardian of the peace, who but a moment ago had in his mind the thought of "landin' a bit of a thief," leaning forward to take a breath of the flowers. "Grand," he agreed. The larger man took off his hat before he bent to inhale. "Dain-tee!" he cried, with an enthusiastic shake of his red head; then to a half-dozen small loiterers who were straining to hear, "There! there! Run along now, children dear! Ye're wanted at the telephone!" "I'll be tellin' certain folks a few things relatin' t' the sellin' o' this or that on the street," now observed the policeman, vaguely. "Eh, Father Pat?" "I'll be glad t' go along with ye," returned the other, "and if things 're as bad as they look t' be, then it's Patrick Mungovan that'll do a bit o' rakin'!" He settled the straw hat. "Just where d' y' live, young man?" asked the policeman. Johnnie had guessed from the tone of the priest that a "rakin'" was something not altogether pleasant; had concluded, too, that it would fall to the lot of Big Tom. So he gave the address gladly, and as his two new friends stepped forward, was himself ten feet away in a flash, and--going in the wrong direction! "Here, now! Here!" called the officer after him, at once stern and suspicious. "Don't ye be leadin' _me_ no wild goose chase!" Johnnie having halted, the other came up to him and seized him by one big sleeve. "Ye tell me one thing, and ye start the opp'site! How's that?" "I guess I don't know where I am," admitted Johnnie. "Y' see, I don't git out much, and so I don't know my way good." "Now, what could be honester, Clancy?" chided the bigger man. "Shure, ye can see by the color o' his skin that he's a shut-in.--So, now, square about, little flower peddler, but, oh, go easy! easy! That is, if ye want me t' go along, or, shure, big as I am, and fat----" "Ye're _not_ fat, Father!" denied Clancy. They were all under way now, with Johnnie in the middle. "Well, solid then," amended the other, breathing hard. "Shure, it's me that cuts up a big piece of cloth when it comes t' clothes, which is deceivin' enough, since I'm back from the war. For what's a man--and never mind his size--if his lungs is gone? or goin'?" Johnnie turned upward a troubled look. "Did y' git hurt in the war?" he asked. "Well, maybe ye wouldn't call it hurt, exactly," answered the Father. "Shure, they didn't let out anny of the blood of me, but 'twould've been better, I'm thinkin', if they had. No, lad dear, they sent me over a whiff of the gas, the wind bein' right for the nasty business, and I had the bad taste t' swallow it." As they fared along, Johnnie kept up a steady chatter in a manner that was obviously friendly and cheerful, this in order to make passersby understand that his return was in the nature of another triumph, and that he had not been arrested. As for his look and carriage, they were those of a proud boy.