It is to be observed here, that, according as the penitents went to be examined, or to kneel down to confess, a certain sum was exacted from each, which varied according to the arrears that might have been due to the priest. Indeed, it is not unusual for the host and hostess, on these occasions, to be refused a participation in the sacrament, until they pay this money, notwithstanding the considerable expense they are put to in entertaining not only the clergy, but a certain number of their own friends and relations. “Well, stand aside, I'll hear you first; and now, come up here, you young gentleman, that laughed so heartily a while ago at my joke--ha, ha, ha!--come up here, child.” A lad now approached him, whose face, on a first view, had something simple and thoughtless in it, but in which, on a closer inspection, might be traced a lurking, sarcastic humor, of which his Reverence never dreamt. “You're for confession, of course?” said the priest. “_Of coorse_,” said the lad, echoing him, and laying a stress upon the word, which did not much elevate the meaning of the compliance in general with the rite in question. “Oh!” exclaimed the priest, recognizing him when he approached--“you are Dan Fagan's son, and designed for the church yourself; you are a good Latinist, for I remember examining you in Erasmus about two years ago--_Quomodo sehabet corpus tuum, charum lignum sacredotis_” “_Valde, Domine_,” replied the lad, “_Quomodo se habet anima tua, charum exemplar sacerdotage, et fulcrum robustissium Ecclesiae sacrosancte_?” “Very good, Harry,” replied his Reverence, laughing--“stand aside; I'll hear you after Kelly.” He then called up a man with a long melancholy face, which he noticed before to have been proof against his joke, and after making two or three additional and fruitless experiments upon his gravity, he commenced a cross fire of peevish interrogatories, which would have excluded him from the “tribunal” on that occasion, were it not that the man was remarkably well prepared, and answered the priest's questions very pertinently. This over, he repaired to his room, where the work of absolution commenced; and, as there was a considerable number to be rendered sinless before the hour of dinner, he contrived to unsin them with an alacrity that was really surprising. Immediately after the conversation already detailed between his Reverence and Phaddhy, the latter sought Katty, that he might communicate to her the unlucky oversight which they had committed, in neglecting to provide fresh meat and wine. “We'll be disgraced forever,” said Phaddhy, “without either a bit of mutton or a bottle of wine for the gintlemen, and that big thief Parrah More Slevin had both.” “And I hope,” replied Katty, “that you're not so mane as to let any of that faction outdo you in dacency, the nagerly set? It was enough for them to bate us in the law-shoot about the horse, and not to have the laugh agin at us about this.”