Findramore were parched for want of the dew of knowledge; and their
parents and grown brethren met one Saturday evening in Barny Brady's
shebeen-house, to take into consideration the best means for procuring
a resident schoolmaster for the village and neighborhood. It was a
difficult point, and required great dexterity of management to enable
them to devise any effectual remedy for the evil which they felt. There
were present at this council, Tim Dolan, the senior of the village, and
his three sons, Jem Coogan, Brian Murphy, Paddy Delany, Owen Roe O'Neil,
Jack Traynor, and Andy Connell, with five or six others, whom it is not
necessary to enumerate.

"Bring us in a quart, Barny," said Dolan to Brady, whom on this occasion
we must designate as the host; "and let it be rale hathen."

"What do you mane, Tim?" replied the host.

"I mane," continued Dolan, "stuff that was never christened, man alive."

"Thin I'll bring you the same that Father Maguire got last night on his
way home afther anointin' 'ould Katty Duffy," replied Brady. "I'm sure,
whatever I might be afther giving to strangers, Tim, I'd be long sorry
to give _yous_ anything but the right sort."

"That's a gay man, Barny," said Traynor, "but off wid you like a shot,
and let us get it under our tooth first, an' then we'll tell you more
about it--A big rogue is the same Barny," he added, after Brady had gone
to bring in the poteen, "an' never sells a dhrop that's not one whiskey
and five wathers."

"But he couldn't expose it on you; Jack," observed Connell; "you're too