A Knight of the Nineteenth Century

When he entered the main street, a light that glimmered from the top of a tall building suggested how he might obtain that kind of oil which, cast upon the domestic billows that so often raged in his fourth-floor back room, was most effective in producing a little temporary smoothness.

Since the weather was always fouler within his domestic haven than without, and on this occasion threatened to be at its worst, Pat at one time half decided not to run into port at all; but the glimmer of the light already mentioned suggested another course.

Although the night was far spent, Pat still longed for a "wink o' slape" before going to his work, and, in order to enjoy it, knew that he must obtain the means of allaying the storm, which was not merely brewing, but which, from the lateness of the hour, had long been brewed. In his own opinion, the greenness of his native isle had long ago faded from his mental and moral complexion, and he did not propose that any stray dollars, which by any shrewdness or artifice could be diverted into his pocket, should get by him.

Since his wife had developed into a huge, female divinity, at whose shrine it seemed probable that he would eventually become a human sacrifice, and whose wrath, in the meantime, it was his daily task to appease, Pat had gradually formed the habit of making a sort of companion of himself. In accordance with his custom, therefore, he stopped under the high window from whence gleamed the light, for the sake of a little personal counsel.

"Now, Pat," he muttered, "if yees had gone home at nine o'clock, yees wudn't be afeared to go home now; and if yees go home now widout a dollar more or less, the ould 'ooman will make yer wish yees had set on the curbstone the rest o' the night. They sez some men has no bowels o' marcies; and after what I've seen the night, and afore the night, too, I kin belave that Boss Arnot's in'ards were cast at the same foundry where he gets his mash-shines. He told me that I must spake nary a word about what I've seen and heard, and if I should thry to turn an honest penny by givin' a knowin' wink or two where they wud pay for the same, that 'ud be the ind of Pat M'Cabe at the big office. And yet they sez that them as buys news is loike them that takes stolen goods--moighty willin' to kape dark about where they got it, so that they kin get more next time. That's the iditor of the 'Currier' in yon high room, and p'raps he'll pay me as much for a wink and a hint the night as I'll get for me day's work termorrow. Bust me if I don't thry him, if he'll fust promise me to say it any one axes him that he niver saw Pat M'Cabe in his loife," and the suddenly improvised reporter climbed the long stairways to where the night editor sat at his desk.