yer honer; indeed I wouldn't thin, av' the masther would only let me
hould my tongue." And he looked across at me, deprecating my anger.

"Mr. Green!" said Mr. O'Conor.

"Yes, yer honer. It's all along of his honer's thick shoes;" and
Larry, stepping backwards towards the door, lifted them up from some
corner, and coming well forward, exposed them with the soles
uppermost to the whole table.

"And that's not all, yer honer; but they've squoze the very toes of
me into a jelly."

There was now a loud laugh, in which Jack and Peter and Fanny and
Kate and Tizzy all joined; as too did Mr. O'Conor--and I also myself
after a while.

"Whose boots are they?" demanded Miss O'Conor senior, with her
severest tone and grimmest accent.

"'Deed then and the divil may have them for me, Miss," answered
Larry. "They war Mr. Green's, but the likes of him won't wear them
agin afther the likes of me--barring he wanted them very particular,"
added he, remembering his own pumps.

I began muttering something, feeling that the time had come when I
must tell the tale. But Jack with great good nature, took up the
story and told it so well, that I hardly suffered in the telling.

"And that's it," said Tom O'Conor, laughing till I thought he would