BROWN'S FINANCIAL RESOURCES


"There, Tom, how's that? Does it droop as much as the one on the
other side?"

Tom Kelcey, aged fourteen, squinted critically at the long festoon of
ground-pine between the centre of the chimney-breast and the angle of the
dingy old oak-beamed ceiling.

"Drop her a couple of inches, Misther Brown," he suggested. "No, not so
much. There, that's the shtuff. Now you've got her, foine and dandy."

Brown stepped down from the chair on which he had been standing, and
stood off with Tom to view the effect.

"Yes, that's exactly right," said he, "thanks to your good eye. The room
looks pretty well, eh? Quite like having a dinner party."

"It's ilegant, Misther Brown, that's what it is," said a voice in the
doorway behind them. "Tom bhoy, be afther takin' the chair back to the
kitchen for him."

Mrs. Kelcey, mother of Tom, and next-door neighbour to Brown, advanced
into the room. She was laden with a big basket, which Brown, perceiving,
immediately took from her.

"Set it down careful, man," said she. "The crust on thim pies is that
delicate it won't bear joltin'. I had the saints' own luck with 'em this