Behind him, Mahony, when he reached home, closed the door of one of the largest houses in the most exclusive square in Dublin.

Whereas Purdy lived in a small, common house in a side street.

Visits there had to be paid surreptitiously.
All the same these were frequent--and for the best of reasons.

Mahony could still see Purdy's plump, red-cheeked English mother, who was as jolly and happy as her boy, hugging the loaf to her bosom while she cut round after round of bread and butter and jam, for two cormorant throats.

And the elder boy, long-limbed and lank, all wrist and ankle, had invariably been the hungrier of the two; for, on the glossy damask of the big house, often not enough food was set to satisfy the growing appetites of himself and his sisters.--"Dickybird, can't you see us, with our backs to the wall, in that little yard of yours, trying who could take the biggest bite ?--or going round the outside: 'Crust first, and though you burst, By the bones of Davy Jones!' till only a little island of jam was left ?" Purdy laughed heartily at these and other incidents fished up by his friend from the well of the years; but he did not take part in the sport himself.