business, his son could. And he proposed that the
particulars of the notes should not be communicated
to his son, who was then employed in
his department of the Bank, but should be
put away under lock and key; and that if
his son's ingenuity should enable him to
discover from these ashes what notes had really
been put in the stocking, and the two lists
should tally, the man should be paid the lost
amount. To this prudent proposal the Bank
of Ireland readily assented; being extremely
anxious that the man should not be a loser;
but, of course, deeming it essential to be
protected from imposition.

The son readily undertook the delicate
commission proposed to him. He detached the
fragments from the stocking with the utmost
care, on the fine point of a penknife; laid the
whole gently in a basin of warm water; and
presently saw them, to his delight, begin to
unfold and expand like flowers. By and by,
he began to "teaze them" with very light
touches of the ends of a camel's-hair pencil,
and so, by little and little, and by the most
delicate use of the warm water, the camel's-
hair pencil, and the penknife, got the various
morsels separate before him, and began to
piece them together. The first piece laid
down was faintly recognisable by a
practised eye as a bit of the left-hand bottom
corner of a twenty pound note; then came a
bit of a five; then of a ten; then more bits of
a twenty; then more bits of a five and ten;
then, another left-hand bottom corner of a
twenty––so there were two twenties––! and so
on, until, to the admiration and astonishment
of the whole Bank, he noted down the exact
amount deposited in the stocking, and the
exact notes of which it had been composed.
Upon this––as he wished to see and divert
himself with the man on his return––he
provided himself with a bundle of corresponding
new, clean, rustling notes, and awaited his
arrival.

He came exactly as before, with the same
blank staring face, and the same inquiry,
"Can you do anything for me, Sir!"

"Well," said our friend, "I don't know.
Maybe I can do something. But I have
taken a great deal of pains, and lost a great
deal of time, and I want to know what you
mean to give me!"

"Is it give, Sir? Thin, is there anything
I wouldn t give for my eighty-sivin pound
tin, Sir; and it's murdered I am by ould
Phillips."

"Never mind him; there were two twenties,
were there not?"

"Oh, holy mother, Sir, there was! Two
most illigant twenties! and Ted Conner and
Phalim––which Reilly––"

He faltered, and stopped as our friend, with
much ostentatious rustling of the crisp paper,
produced a new twenty, and then the other
twenty, and then a ten, and then a five, and
so forth. Meanwhile, the man, occasionally
murmuring an exclamation of surprise, or a
protestation of gratitude, but gradually
becoming vague and remote in the latter as
the notes re-appeared, looked on, staring,
evidently inclined to believe that they were
the real lost notes, reproduced in that state
by some chemical process. At last they
were all told out, and in his pocket, and he
still stood staring and muttering, "Oh holy
Mother, only to think of it! Sir, it's bound
to you for ever that I am!"–––but more
vaguely and remotely now than ever.

"Well," said our friend, "what do you
propose to give me for this?"

After staring and rubbing his chin for
some time longer, he replied with the
unexpected question:

"Do you like bacon?"

"Very much," said our friend.

"Thin it's a side as I 'll bring your honor
to-morrow morning, and a bucket of new
milk––and ould Phillips––"

"Come," said our friend, glancing at a
notable shillelah the man had under his
arm, "let me undeceive you. I don't want
anything of you, and I am very glad you have
got your money back. But I suppose you 'd
stand by me, now, if I wanted a boy to help
me in any little skirmish?"

They were standing by a window on the
top storey of the Bank, commanding a court-
yard, where a sentry was on duty. To our
friend's amazement, the man dashed out of
the room without speaking one word, suddenly
appeared in the courtyard, performed a war-
dance round this astonished soldier who was
a modest young recruit made the shillelah
flutter, like a wooden butterfly, round his
musket, round his bayonet, round his head,
round his body, round his arms, inside and
outside his legs, advanced and retired, rattled
it all round him like a firework, looked up at
the window, cried out with a high leap in the
air, "Whooroo! Thry me!"––vanished––and
never was beheld at the Bank again from
that time forth.

This day is Published, Price 5s. 6d., neatly Bound in Cloth,
THE FIRST VOLUME
OF
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

Publishing Monthly, Price 2d., Stamped, 3d.,
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF
CURRENT EVENTS.

This Monthly Supplement of Household Words, containing
a history of the previous month, is issued regularly with the
Magazines.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.