“Champagne, did you say?”
“Yes, yes; I keep a little of everything in the house, though I don’t make use of much of it”—
Here he was moving to touch the button, to call some one into the room; I stopped him, telling him I did not taste champagne or anything like it for the last eighteen years. He expressed himself, as glad, and shook hands with me.
“That hand of yours, Mr. Crimmins,” said I, “doesn’t feel as if it had ever done much work in its life, or, as if it had been ever fashioned for any rough work.” (For a very large man his hand is very small, and his fingers remarkably long and slender.) Smiling, he said I was not the first person that noticed that; adding—“I had not occasion to do much rough hand work in Ireland. I was born at the Cork side of the boundary line, in Dromina; but I lived in Limerick since I was one year old; my mother was born at the Limerick side, in Drumcolloher. She is buried in Drumcolloher; my father is buried in Tullilease. My people had their three farms on the banks of the River Deel—a river that runs through the boundary line of two counties—between Dromina, Milford, and Tullilease in Cork, and Drumcolloher in Limerick; they were large buyers of cattle, and instead of my doing any work on the farm, I used to attend the fairs and markets and attend to the shipping of the cattle to England. So largely were we in this business, that if we missed attending a fair, a dulness in the market would be felt. Coming home from the fair in the evening, to the question asked: ‘What kind of a market had ye at the fair to-day?’ the answer may be heard—‘Indeed, the market was rather slack to-day; there were none of the Crimminses at the fair.’ I had a great friend here in New York, Mr. Crimmins, who knew your people well at home”—
“Who is he? Who was he?”
“Oh, he’s dead; all my friends are getting dead; he was John D. O’Brien of Drumcolloher, who did business down in Vandewater street.
“Oh, I knew him well, and knew his grandfather better. His grandfather, Big Daniel O’Brien, was the last man I parted with when I was leaving Ireland. He put his arms around me and embraced me—lamenting that his best comrade was going away from him.
“The last time I was in Ireland—nine or ten years ago—I was in to see John O’Brien’s brothers, next door to the Victoria Hotel in Cork”—
“I was in there too, Mr. Crimmins. One of the brothers, Michael, was the treasurer of my lecture committee in Cork City, three years ago.”