"Then, Mr. O'Hara, might I take the liberty to suggest that in honor of the day we are going to celebrate you will give your friends an exhibition of your skill at our entertainment next Saturday night?"
"Arrah, what the divil do you take me for? Is it a show actor you want to make out of me, I dunno?"
"Oh, no, indeed, Mr. O'Hara!" replied Handy, in his most complaisant manner of speech. "I would not undertake that job. But I thought on that eventful occasion——"
"And," broke in McGowan, "if you do, it will make you solid with the boys. You know they like you purty well as it is, but when they hear you are going to take part in the anniversary entertainment you can have anything you want from them."
"Are yez sayrious, I dunno, at all, at all?" inquired Myles, somewhat dubiously.
"Am I?" responded McGowan. "Now, Myles, you know I have always had a great regard for you, and do you think I'd speak as I have done unless I was in earnest?"
O'Hara reflected a moment, then turning to McGowan, said: "Ed, look-a here."
"Yes, Myles, what is it?"
"Bethune ourselves, an' on the level, what d'ye think the owld woman would say?"
"Be tickled to death over it."