The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-19
CHAPTER xxxIv.

The Fortunes of Billy Bryan.
 It was Billy Bryan who first en- 1 frightened Dick Finnan upon the mys-
 tery of what Phil and Vida did with
 their adjacent hands when he rowed
 them about in the autumn evenings under the bird cliffs of Rough Isle. Billy was on long leave" and the first twilight he took stroke" while
 Dick obediently went back to bow" It was chillish night in May, and on the western coast of the Carrick, when the wind blows up from the At lantic. it can be cold as January-even hough Kintyre and the Islands keep the sea down to a gentle "lapper" of wavelets against the boats timbers. In spite of the most careful adjust
 ment of the flannel-lined waterproof rug, before the return of the party, Billy had got his facts down to fine point"
 "Ydu see. Dicky" he said, just here lies the differ between a man of prof itable experience and a man of none.
 The man of profitable experience Che said expayrience)-that's me. The man of none-that's you If it had been
 out on the Skerry now, you would have
 seen the first puff of the Atlantic fog
 pouring through Paddy's Slap tthe north channeD, or the topsails of
 brigantine sagging westwards for the Solway ports, and likely to pass too near the Wolf. But with two young people, one boy and t'other girl. In the
 stern of boat-that's my job. Dicky.
 being as I have said, a man of expe- rience from my youth up-though hav- in never, as it were, proceeded to eX-
 tremities before priest or parson."
 What do you mean by not proceed ing to extremities. Billy?" demanded
 Dick Finnan, not at all well pleased
 at Billy''s description of him, but att tempting to put an unstruck match to
 his pipe to hide it.
 Why, always lightin' out for foreign
 parts the day before ye felt that ye
 must ax the girl to marry ye. Dicky! That's what I mean" explained the
 man of experience from his youth up. q saw nothing wrong in the boat" said Dick, failing to light up for the third time, and stamping the remnants of the match into the sea-weed as if l it had been the fault of Messrs. Bryant
 and May.
 1 Wrong? No-who talked O wrong you ould fool, Dicky?" cried Billy;;"only | these two young 'uns are fixin' it up | to get marriedr'
 "Marriedw gasped Dick ''christened
 ye mean, ye red-headed Fenian" 1 Married, I said, Dicky. = And they | don't Know IL yet, mats the beauty
 of it, " chuckled the man of experi-
 ence. "It minds me of Little Molly
 Molloy that I used to hold the hand of 1 in GO. She tied up wid ships car | penter owing to my being lost in the passage to Milford-fell overheard in l the night twas reported by the second mate-a great friend of mine. There
 was fine mournings. they say-head-
 aches all through Tipperary!"
 Still Billy Bryan had not proved his
 case. At G1ebe End Cottage Dick Fin
 nan had known too many come and
 go. His little girl knew better" Af-
 ter Vic Morris, indeed, who could hope
 to succeed?
 But Billy only shrugged his sh oul- ders and poured forth the full bouquet of his wisdom like wine-c -cask from which the spigot has been removed. l with girls ye never can rightly 1 tell" he said; "'tis not as wid us. Of a dozen girls in row a man will take
 the prettiest or the one that gives his 1 narves tug like usin' the curb for l the first time to a restive beast. Or maybe he will only take the one he can 1 get if the rest won't have him. Or, | like as not, the one that flatters him | the most. But at all events, he will know the one he wants, and will have her if he can. |
 Now, with a woman 1t is just con trariwise. It isn't the handsomest they want-praise be! Or little Molly Mol Joy would never have fancied me