“What do I care for what we haven't got,” Kitty said to him one night when some economies in the small household were being discussed. “I'm better off than half the women who stop at my door in their carriages. I got two arms, and I can sleep eight hours when I get the chance, and John loves me and so does Bobby and so does my big white horse Jim. There ain't one of them women as knows what it is to work for her man and him to work for her.” All the other married couples he had seen had pulled apart, or lived apart—mentally, at least. These two seemed bound together heart and soul.
More than once he contrived to stop at the Studio Building, where both of the old fellows were almost always to be found sitting side by side, and, picking them up bodily, he had set them down on hard chairs in a rathskeller on Sixth Avenue, where they had all dined together, the old fellows warmed up with two beers apiece. This done, he had escorted them back, seen them safely up-stairs, and returned to his lodgings.
It was after one of these mild diversions that, before going to his room, he pushed open the door of the Clearys' sitting-room with a cheery “May I come in, Mistress Kitty?”
“Oh, but I'm glad to see ye!” was the joyous answer. “I was sayin' to myself: 'Maybe ye'd come in before he went.' Here's Father Cruse I been tellin' ye about—and, Father, here's Mr. O'Day that's livin' wid us.”
A full-chested man of forty, in a long black cassock, standing six feet in his stockings, his face alight with the glow of a freshly kindled pleasure, rose from his chair and held out his hand. “The introduction should be quite unnecessary, Mr. O'Day,” he exclaimed in the full, sonorous voice of a man accustomed to public speaking. “You seem to have greatly attached these dear people to you, which in itself is enough, for there are none better in my parish.”
Felix, who had been looking the speaker over, taking in his thoughtful face, deep black eyes, and more especially the heavy black eyebrows that lay straight above them, felt himself warmed by the hearty greeting and touched by its sincerity. “I agree with you, Father, in your praise of them,” he said as he grasped the priest's hand. “They have been everything to me since my sojourn among them. And, if I am not mistaken, you and I have something else in common. My people are from Limerick.”
“And mine from Cork,” laughed the priest as he waved his hand toward his empty chair, adding: “Let me move it nearer the table.”
“No, I will take my old seat, if you do not mind. Please do not move, Mr. Cleary; I am near enough.”
“And are you an importation, Father, like myself?” continued Felix, shifting the rocker for a better view of the priest.
“No. I am only an Irishman by inheritance. I was brought up on the soil, born down in Greenwich village—and a very queer old part of the town it is. Strange to say, there are very few changes along its streets since my boyhood. I found the other day the very slanting cellar door I used to slide on when I was so high! Do you know Greenwich?”