Entering one morning after the delivery of a telegram which had cost him a pretty long walk, Phil proceeded to the boys’ hall, and took his seat at the end of the row of boys who were awaiting their turn to be called for mercurial duty. Observing a very small telegraph-boy in a scullery off the hall, engaged in some mysterious operations with a large saucepan, from which volumes of steam proceeded, he went towards him. By that time Phil had become pretty well acquainted with the faces of his comrades, but this boy he had not previously met with. The lad was stooping over a sink, and carefully holding in the contents of the pan with its lid, while he strained off the boiling water.
“Sure I’ve not seen you before?” remarked Phil.
The boy turned up a sharp-featured, but handsome and remarkably intelligent face, and, with a quick glance at Phil, said, “Well, now, any man might know you for an Irishman by your impudence, even if you hadn’t the brogue.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Phil, with an amused smile.
“Mean!” echoed the boy, with the most refined extract of insolence on his pretty little face; “I mean that small though I am, surely I’m big enough to be seen.”
“Well,” returned Phil, with a laugh, “you know what I mean—that I haven’t seen you before to-day.”
“Then w’y don’t you say what you mean? How d’you suppose a man can understand you unless you speak in plain terms? You won’t do for the GPO if you can’t speak the Queen’s English. We want sharp fellows here, we do. So you’d better go back to Owld Ireland, avic cushla mavourneen—there, put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
Whether it was the distraction of the boy’s mind, or the potent working of his impertinence, we know not, but certain it is that his left hand slipped somehow, and a round ball, with a delicious smell, fell out of the pot. The boy half caught it, and wildly yet cleverly balanced it on the lid, but it would have rolled next moment into the sink, if Phil had not made a dart forward, caught it like a football, and bowled it back into the pot.
“Well done! splendidly done!” cried the boy, setting down his pot. “Arrah! Pat,” he added, mocking Phil’s brogue, and holding out his hand, “you’re a man after my own heart; give me your flipper, and let us swear eternal friendship over this precious goblet.”
Of course Phil cheerfully complied, and the friendship thus auspiciously begun afterwards became strong and lasting. So it is all through the course of life. At every turn we are liable to meet with those who shall thenceforth exercise a powerful influence on our characters, lives, and affections, and on whom our influence shall be strong for good or evil.