“I am now pressin' your inexpressibles,” replied Neal; “but, be my sowl, Mr. O'Connor, it's not your inexpressibles I'm thinkin' of. I'm not the ninth part of what I was. I'd hardly make paddin' for a collar now.”
“Are you able to carry a staff still, Neal?”
“I've a light hazel one that's handy,” said the tailor; “but where's the use of carryin' it, whin I can get no one to fight wid. Sure I'm disgracing my relations by the life I'm leadin'. I'll go to my grave widout ever batin' a man, or bein' bate myself; that's the vexation. Divil the row ever I was able to kick up in my life; so that I'm fairly blue-mowlded for want of a batin'. But if you have patience——”
“Patience!” said Mr. O'Connor, with a shake of the head, that was perfectly disastrous even to look at; “patience, did you say, Neal?”
“Ay,” said Neal, “an', be my sowl, if you deny that I said patience, I'll break your head!”
“Ah, Neal,” returned the other, “I don't deny it—for though I am teaching philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics, every day in my life, yet I'm learning patience myself both night and day. No, Neal; I have forgotten to deny anything. I have not been guilty of a contradiction, out of my own school, for the last fourteen years. I once expressed the shadow of a doubt about twelve years ago, but ever since I have abandoned even doubting. That doubt was the last expiring effort at maintaining my domestic authority—but I suffered for it.”
“Well,” said Neal, “if you have patience, I'll tell you what afflicts me from beginnin' to endin'.”
“I will have patience,” said Mr. O'Connor, and he accordingly heard a dismal and indignant tale from the tailor.
“You have told me that fifty times over,” said Mr. O'Connor, after hearing the story. “Your spirit is too martial for a pacific life. If you follow my advice, I will teach you how to ripple the calm current of your existence to some purpose. Marry a wife. For twenty-five years I have given instructions in three branches, viz.—philosophy, knowledge, and mathematics—I am also well versed in matrimony, and I declare that, upon my misery, and by the contents of all my afflictions, it is my solemn and melancholy opinion, that, if you marry a wife, you will, before three months pass over your concatenated state, not have a single complaint to make touching a superabundance of peace and tranquillity, or a love of fighting.”
“Do you mean to say that any woman would make me afeard?” said the tailor, deliberately rising up and getting his cudgel. “I'll thank you merely to go over the words agin till I thrash you widin an inch o' your life. That's all.”