expressions of a--a--raither endearin' character, that perhaps I may
as well pass."

"No, no," shouted the men, "let's have them all. Out with them,
Paddy!"

"Well, well, av ye _will_ have them, here they be.

"'GALWAY.

"'My own purty darlin' as has bin my most luved sin' the day we wos
marrit, you'll be grieved to larn that the pig's gone to its long
home,'"

Here O'Connor paused to make some parenthetical remarks, with which,
indeed, he interlarded the whole letter.

"The pig, you must know, lads, was an old sow as belonged to me
wife's gran'-mother, an' besides bein' a sort o' pet o' the family,
was an uncommon profitable crature. But to purceed. She goes on to
say,--

"'We waked her' (that's the pig, boys) 'yisterday, and buried her
this mornin'. Big Rory, the baist, was for aitin' her, but I wouldn't
hear of it; so she's at rest, an' so is old Molly Mallone. She wint
away just two minutes be the clock before the pig, and wos burried
the day afther. There's no more news as I knows of in the parish,
except that your old flame Mary got married to Teddy O'Rook, an'
they've been fightin' tooth an' nail ever since, as I towld ye they
would long ago. No man could live wid that woman. But the