flattered himself that he should look as well
as another. It would have been hard
measure, too, to have kept poor Phil out of the
situation; since, whether peculiarly adapted
for it or no, he was certainly fit for nothing
else. At all events, Phil got it at last; and,
for some time, managed to retain it without
any irredeemable disaster. If a note or two
went a little wrong occasionally, it was of no
consequence, at least to my uncle's ears; and
that same infirmity of his prevented, I
suppose, the whispers that were in circulation
about Phil's letting out the organ by the
hour on week days to young amateurs, who
practised upon it Boyne Water and Croppies
Lie Down. Once, however— and, as ill-luck
would have it, when the bishop himself was
in the chair, and a very full congregation
present—Misther Philip O'Brallagan, Doctor
of Music (a degree which he had
conferred upon himself without any expense or
bother whatsoever), came to very decided
grief during the anthem. His touch had
been unusually vigorous and powerful up
to a certain point; and, if a discordant thump or
two did occur, the good bishop—who was,
unhappily, musical—bore it with a meek and
unruffled spirit out of love for the Dean; while
the congregation durst not so much as smile,
with the O'Brallagan minor canons frowning
down upon them from their stalls, and the
O'Brallagan beadle and pew-opener ready to
turn them out of chapel upon the instant for
the least contempt of their relative. On a
sudden, however, when the voices of the
choir were at highest pitch, and waiting
there, at some inconvenience, for the music
to let them down again, the organ was struck
utterly dumb; its speech not dying away
decently with a wail, but cut off incontinently
like an unpaid-for water supply. The
bellows worked away below with praiseworthy
perseverance; but they might just
as well have devoted their energies to an
empty pea-shooter. A dull, soughing sound,
like the wind among reeds, alone was heard,
and the deep inspiration of the singers as
they took in their fresh air upon compulsion,
when they could hold on to the note no
longer. The Dean, whose ears were affected
by the cessation of the anthem, which always
sounded in them like a chorus of enthusiastic
bumble-bees, turned up his neck almost to
dislocation towards the organ-loft. So did
the bishop; so did the congregation; so
their riverences the O'Brallagans, but with a
characteristic confidence that the explanation
of the phenomenon would be presently
afforded in the execution of some piece of
the most exquisite and harmonious delicacy.

Presently, from between the red curtains
which ordinarily veiled the organist of
Ballygibbooney from view, there was put forth
a booted leg; anon, after a little pause, as
if the operation was a difficult one, a second;
finally—while these legs attempted a sort of
accompaniment with their heels,  outside—
there was heard an unmelodious bumping, as
though the musician were sitting upon the
keys; which turned out, indeed, to be the
true state of the case.

Poor Phil was obliged to be taken out of
chapel at once by four of his sorrowing
relatives. He was very much intoxicated, and
was found in that reversed position to which
I have alluded endeavouring in vain to
perform the remainder of the anthem upon the
organ-stool. All his subsequent protestations
and apologies were of no avail, though backed
by the whole O'Brallagan interest, in reconciling
his august relative to his retaining the
post of organist at Ballygibbooney. The
Doctor of Music sank very rapidly in his
profession from that moment, and it is even
whispered, went about the country for a very
considerable time with his eyes shut, and
playing upon the accordion, with a faithful
little dog, with a saucer in his mouth, to lead
his faltering steps and collect the halfpence.
Upon the office of valet-de-chambre in the
Dean's household falling vacant, my revered
uncle was induced to offer it to the wandering
minstrel; and thenceforward, until that
catastrophe happened to his master which I
am about to describe, Phil occupied the post
of confidential servant with apparent fidelity
and submission.

When the Manchester Exhibition was
opened, the Dean of Ballygibbooney, who was
ever a patron of the arts and sciences,
departed with his suite for the capital of cotton,
intending to stay therein a week or two.

My uncle never moved without a
considerable train of O'Brallagans, nor ever
indeed took an undignified step in any direction.
He would put on his shovel-hat and
gaiters on the slightest provocation; even
when he had better have gone without,
and, so attired, would look every inch so
like a dean that one might easily have
imagined he was an actor, playing that rôle,
rather than the very dignitary himself. His
tastes, too, were especially aristocratic and
magnificent, and he openly confessed that,
admiring the Exhibition, as he did in
all respects, the particular object therein
which he himself desired to see, was that
collection of jewels and gold ornaments lent
for the present occasion by the Hastings
family, but formerly belonging to the
Maharajah Jamsetsee Singh. These treasures were,
as may well be imagined, most religiously
guarded; a small body of Manchester police
being told off for their peculiar protection;
although they otherwise lay as open as the
rest of the objects of vertu, with nothing but
a little plate-glass between them and the
delighted sightseers.

On the morning after his arrival, the Dean
of Ballygibbooney visited the Exhibition in
all his usual pomp, with gaiters, shovel-
hat, and semi-episcopal cast of countenance.
In his hand he held a plan of the edifice,
by which he was enabled, without inquiry,