"Have you ever been to this place, we are going to, Pat?"
"Troth there isn't an inch nor a fut o' ground in all Quaybec that this ould nag and meself didn't explore some time or other."
"Who runs the institution?" Guy queried next.
"The divil a run it iver got as long as I know it," said Pat, as he gathered up his shabby whip, to the accompaniment of some snack of his oily tongue, which succeeded miserably in inducing his languid old mare to stretch her angular supports over more space at a time, "tis allays bin standin in the wan spot since me father was a lad, and that's longer ago nor I can remember, seein' that they put off rearing me up 'till the rest was all grown up an' out o' the way."
Guy could not refrain from smiling at the droll way in which his companion handled a subject, he had learned before, and therefore to-day's experience was nothing new to him, that direct questions will never get direct answers from an illiterate Irishman, and so he resigned himself beforehand to the ordeal he was passing through at present.
By and by however, Pat drew forth from a depository of doubtful cleanliness and respectability, a short, black pipe, that fitted becomingly between his plentiful lips. Then after a moment's hesitation, he said doubtfully, over the sea-green shoulder of his ancient broad-cloth.
"I suppose, sir, you're something of a smoker?"
Taking this as one way of asking a permission to indulge, Guy answered readily. "Indeed I am, Mr. Crowley, that precious weed and myself are not strangers, at all."
"So then, ye carry it about with you, as well as meself?" he said, with a timid chuckle. Guy agreed that he did, just to satisfy him; the next moment the forefinger and thumb of the amusing Pat Crowley, in all their innocence of toilet attentions, were thrust into the depths of his waistcoat pocket, from whence they unearthed a solitary match; instinctively he flourished this on the leg of his baggy trousers, and applied the flame to the empty briar-root, that protruded on its short stem from his substantial mouth; but after a vain puff or two, he flung it impatiently away and replaced the time worn pipe within the flavored precincts of his waistcoat pocket.
Guy, who watched these interesting proceedings in silent amusement, could not subdue the curiosity which prompted him to say.