home, closed the door of one of the largest houses in the most exclusive
square in Dublin. Whereas Purdy lived in a small, common house in a side
street. Visits there had to be paid surreptitiously.

All the same these were frequent--and for the best of reasons. Mahony
could still see Purdy's plump, red-cheeked English mother, who was as
jolly and happy as her boy, hugging the loaf to her bosom while she cut
round after round of bread and butter and jam, for two cormorant
throats. And the elder boy, long-limbed and lank, all wrist and ankle,
had invariably been the hungrier of the two; for, on the glossy damask
of the big house, often not enough food was set to satisfy the growing
appetites of himself and his sisters.--"Dickybird, can't you see us,
with our backs to the wall, in that little yard of yours, trying who
could take the biggest bite?--or going round the outside: 'Crust first,
and though you burst, By the bones of Davy Jones!' till only a little
island of jam was left?"

Purdy laughed heartily at these and other incidents fished up by his
friend from the well of the years; but he did not take part in the sport
himself. He had not Mahony's gift for recalling detail: to him past was
past. He only became alive and eager when the talk turned, as it soon
did, on his immediate prospects.

This time, to his astonishment, Mahony had had no trouble in persuading
Purdy to quit the diggings. In addition, here was the boy now declaring
openly that what he needed, and must have, was a fixed and steadily
paying job. With this decision Mahony was in warm agreement, and
promised all the help that lay in his power.

But Purdy was not done; he hummed and hawed and fidgeted; he took off