"Good avening, Misther Moore. Oh, it's yourself, Mistress d.y.k.e? The top of the afternoon, darling. I just dropped in for a moment to tell yez the news."

"Ah," said Moore, hopefully, "the rent has been lowered, I suppose?"

"You will have your joke, Misther Moore," chuckled the landlady, sitting down in the chair Moore placed for her.

"And you 'll have your rent, eh, Mrs. Malone?"

"Tom," said Bessie, "do be still. What is the news, Mrs. Malone?"

"You are a couple of gossips," declared Moore, sitting on the table between Bessie and the old woman. "Oh, well, scandal is the spice of life they say."

"Well," began Mrs. Malone, in a tone appropriate to the importance of her story, "it seems that Sweeny, who kapes the grocery next door but two, has been having throuble with his darter."

"My, oh, my!" exclaimed Moore, properly horrified at the unfilial behavior of the young person mentioned.

"Hush, Tom,"

"Why don't he spank the girl?" demanded the poet. "If my daughter--"

"Tom!" said Bessie, giving him a reproving pinch.

"Well, I mean if ever I have a daughter."

"When you have will be time enough to tell about her, won't it, Mrs.

Malone."

"Faith," said that hopeful old female, "I luvs to hear young couples planning for the future."

"Go on out of that," said Moore, shaking with laughter, while Bessie was visibly discomposed. "You make me blush, Mrs. Malone."

"I niver t'ought I 'd do thot," observed the landlady. "I t'inks that must be one of your k.u.mp'ny manners. Howiver, to continyer."

"I would if I were you, Mrs. Malone."

"Well how can I, if yez kape on bletherin'?"

"I 'm silent as the grave, Mrs. Malone."

"Jane Sweeny is the purtiest gal in the neighborhood--"

"Bar one, Mrs. Malone, bar one," interrupted Moore.

"Prisent company is always accepted," said the landlady, politely wagging her frilled cap till it creaked in its starchy immaculateness.

"If you had been here a few moments ago, you would have heard it refused," said Bessie, ruefully.

"Who is interrupting now?" demanded Moore in wrathful tones.

"Well, the la.s.sie has took up kapin k.u.mp'ny on the sly wid some strange laddybuck, whom n.o.body knows a t'ing about, and will hardly look at the dairyman's son Ike, wid whom she has been thrainin' these t'ree years."

"The faithless hussy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the poet, in scathing condemnation.

"Hush!" said Bessie, now scenting a love story, and correspondingly interested.

"So Isaac--that's the son of the dairyman, you know--"

"I 'm satisfied on that point, if the dairyman is," observed Moore, wickedly.

Bessie took a pin from her dress.

"I 'll punch you with this if you don't behave, Tom Moore."

"Is that a joke, Bessie?"

"Yes, you 'll think so."

"Well, I won't be able to see the point of it if you perforate me. Go on, Mrs. Malone."

"So he swore he 'd get even--"

"The dairyman? Oh, then he _did_ have his doubts after all? Whom did he suspect, Mrs. Malone?"

Moore leaped off the table just in time to escape a vicious thrust from the pin, as Mrs. Malone, good-naturedly indifferent to his interruption, continued her recital.

"Ike thracked the fine fellow home, or at least as far as he could, and though he lost sight of him without locatin' his house, he learned beyond all doubtin' that he is a great gentleman of wealth and fashion."

"Ike is? I 'll have to look him up if that is so," said Moore, pleasantly. "Evidently the dairyman was right to be suspicious, and what does Mrs. Dairyman say now?"

"I 'm not talkin' about Ike," replied Mrs. Malone, scornfully. "It's the strange lad who is the rich man."

"Oh, I see, Mrs. Malone. I thought you had discovered the reason for the dairyman's suspicions. Now I think he was quite unreasonable to have his doubts."

"Go on, Mrs. Malone. I think it is delightfully romantic," said Bessie, paying no attention to the remarks of her lover.

"Romantic!" repeated Moore, in a disgusted tone. "Sure, put a bit of a scoundrel after a la.s.s of lower station and instead of shouting for the watch she always says 'How romantic!'

"You will have to leave the room, if you speak again before Mrs. Malone has finished her story," said Bessie, severely.

"So, by hook or by crook, who should get wind of Misther Gay Spark, but Sweeny himself."

Mrs. Malone paused dramatically, that the awful news of the situation should have time to take effect.

"Oh, dear!" said Bessie, "how terrible for poor Jane. Do tell me the rest without delay. I 'm getting so excited."

"I 'll not sleep to-night, thinking of it," declared Moore. "Really, Mrs. Malone, you do wrong to harrow up our feelings in this thrilling manner. Well, Jennie is discovered, and then--?"

"Then Sweeny learned that the unknown gintilman was to meet her to-night."