“What is all this about, Larry?” said his master, turning to him. “I insist upon knowing.”

“Och thin, Mr Green, yer honer, I wouldn’t be afther telling agin yer honer; indeed I wouldn’t thin, av’ the masther would only let me hould my tongue.” And he looked across at me, deprecating my anger.

“Mr Green!” said Mr O’Conor.

“Yes, yer honer. It’s all along of his honer’s thick shoes”; and Larry, stepping backwards towards the door, lifted them up from some corner, and coming well forward, exposed them with the soles uppermost to the whole table.

“And that’s not all, yer honer; but they’ve squoze the very toes of me into a jelly.”

There was now a loud laugh, in which Jack and Peter and Fanny and Kate and Tizzy all joined; as too did Mr O’Conor—and I also myself after a while.

“Whose boots are they?” demanded Miss O’Conor senior, with her severest tone and grimmest accent.

“ ’Deed then and the divil may have them for me, miss,” answered Larry. “They war Mr Green’s, but the likes of him won’t wear them agin afther the likes of me—barring he wanted them very particular,” added he, remembering his own pumps.

I began muttering something, feeling that the time had come when I must tell the tale. But Jack, with great good nature, took up the story, and told it so well that I hardly suffered in the telling.

“And that’s it,” said Tom O’Conor, laughing till I thought he would have fallen from his chair. “So you’ve got Larry’s shoes on—”

“And very well he fills them,” said Jack.

“And it’s his honer that’s welcome to ’em,” said Larry, grinning from ear to ear now that he saw that “the masther” was once more in a good humour.

“I hope they’ll be nice shoes for dancing,” said Kate.

“Only there’s one down at the heel I know,” said Tizzy.

“The servant’s shoes!” This was an exclamation made by the maiden lady, and intended apparently only for her brother’s ear. But it was clearly audible by all the party.

“Better that than no dinner,” said Peter.

“But what are you to do about the dancing?” said Fanny, with an air of dismay on her face which flattered me with an idea that she did care whether I danced or no.

In the meantime Larry, now as happy as an emperor, was tripping round the room without any shoes to encumber him as he withdrew the plates from the table.

“And it’s his honer that’s welcome to ’em,” said he again, as he pulled off the table-cloth with a flourish. “And why wouldn’t he, and he able to folly the hounds betther nor any Englishman that iver war in these parts before—anyways so Mick says!”

Now Mick was the huntsman, and this little tale of eulogy from Larry went far towards easing my grief. I had ridden well to the hounds that day, and I knew it.

There was nothing more said about the shoes, and I was soon again at my ease, although Miss O’Conor did say something about the impropriety of Larry walking about in his stocking feet. The ladies, however,