of my companion's heart.

"Are you ill, sir?" said I, in a voice of some anxiety.

"You might say that," replied he--"if you knew who you were talking to
--although maybe you've heard enough of me, though you never saw me till
now."

"Without having that pleasure even yet," said I, "it would grieve me to
think you should be ill in the coach."

"May be it might," briefly replied the unknown, with a species of meaning
in his words I could not then understand. "Did ye never hear tell of
Barney Doyle?" said he.

"Not to my recollection."

"Then I'm Barney," said he; "that's in all the newspapers in the
metropolis; I'm seventeen weeks in Jervis-street hospital, and four in
the Lunatic, and the devil a better after all; you must be a stranger,
I'm thinking, or you'd know me now."

"Why I do confess, I've only been a few hours in Ireland for the last six
months."

"Ay, that's the reason; I knew you would not be fond of travelling with
me, if you knew who it was."

"Why, really," said I, beginning at the moment to fathom some of the
hints of my companion, "I did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting