"And, you graceful sprig of juvenility, have you the conscience to think
that I'd undhertake to fill what you carry on your showlders on the
same terms that I'd take for replenishing the head of a rasonable youth?
Would you be so unjust in all the principles of correct erudition as to
expect that, my worthy Man-mountain?"

"I don't expect it," said Frank; "all that's in your head wouldn't fill
the corner of mine, if you go accordin' to size; but I'll pay you for
tachin' me as much as you know yourself, an' the more I larn the less
pains you'll have wid me."

Franky, however, made an amazing progress--so very rapid, indeed, that
in about three years from that day he found himself in Maynooth, and
in three years more was an active curate, to whom that very teacher
appeared as slavishly submissive as if he had never ridiculed his
vulgarity or ungainly dimensions. Poor Frank, however, in consequence of
the rapid progress he made, and of the very short interval which elapsed
from the period of his commencing Latin until that of his ordination,
was assigned by the people the lowest grade in learning. The term used
to designate the rank which they supposed him to hold, was both humorous
and expressive.

"Franky," they would say, "is no finished priest in the larnin'; he's
but a _scowdher_."

Now a _scowdher_ is an oaten cake laid upon a pair of tongs placed over
the greeshaugh, or embers, that are spread out for the purpose of baking
it. In a few minutes the side first laid down is scorched: it is
then turned, and the other side is also scorched; so that it has the