him. It was a calamity to see every man's head broken but his own;
a dismal thing to observe his neighbours go about with their bones
in bandages, yet his untouched, and his friends beat black and
blue, whilst his own cuticle remained unscoloured.

"Blur an' agers!" exclaimed Neal one day, when half tipsy in the
fair, "am I never to get a bit o' figtin'? Is there no cowardly
spalpeen to stand afore Neal Malone? Be this an' be that, I'm
blue-mowlded for want of a batin'! I'm disgracin' my relations
by the life I'm ladin'! Will none o' ye fight me aither for love,
money, or whisky, frind or inimy, an' bad luck to ye? I don't care
a traneen which, only out o' pure frindship, let us have a morsel
o' the rale kick-up,'t any rate. Frind or inimy, I say agin, if you
regard me; sore THAT makes no differ, only let us have the fight."

This excellent heroism was all wasted; Neal could not find a single
adversary. Except he divided himself like Hotspur, and went to
buffets one hand against the other, there was no chance of a fight;
no person to be found sufficiently magnanimous to encounter the
tailor. On the contrary, every one of his friends--or, in other
words, every man in the parish--was ready to support him. He was
clapped on the back until his bones were nearly dislocated in his
body, and his hand shaken until his arm lost its cunning at the
needle for half a week afterward. This, to be sure, was a bitter
business, a state of being past endurance. Every man was his
friend--no man was his enemy. A desperate position for any person
to find himself in, but doubly calamitous to a martial tailor.

Many a dolourous complaint did Neal make upon the misfortune of
having none to wish him ill; and what rendered this hardship doubly