'Yes, the beautiful city.'
'Some of our most eminent literary worthies came from Cork.'
'Well, I'm not one of them—my father was, though, in a way. He kept a classical and mathematical school which was well supported, and called himself a philomath, whatever that meant. My mother was a big-hearted, kind woman who never sent a beggar empty-handed from her door, and believed her husband the most learned man the world ever saw. But if she worshipped her husband, she adored her son.'
'She was a woman,' sententiously remarked O'Hara.
'That's it, I suppose,' resumed O'Hoolohan with a sigh. 'Of course she must have been,' he added, after thinking a little, as if a new revelation had dawned upon him. 'Anyhow, he wasn't as good a boy as he ought to have been, and 'tis sorry he is to-day to have to own it. Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk. To get on with my tale. I raked and I rambled—I may as well make a clean breast of it—and in the end I took a liking to a cavalry uniform I saw in Ballincollig, and I 'listed. My father paid the smart-money, my mother cried, and I was lugged home. Then they bound me to a saddler. After a month I 'listed again: he bought me off again, and the old game of tears from the mother and promises of repentance from the hopeful youth, and stern majesty from the father, was repeated. Six months after, the quicksilver got up in my constitution again. I determined not to be balked this time, so I went to the old fellow, said I was going to 'list, and wouldn't be bought out.
'"Mother'll buy you out," says he.
'"I'll 'list again," says I; "see who'll get tired of that trick first."
'"She prevailed on you to leave off your soldiering notions twice before," said he again.
'"The third time has the charm," was my answer.
'He reflected awhile: "Well, if you will be a soldier, I suppose it's wrong to bar such a fine fellow the chance of getting a bullet in his head."