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friend, calling into his dressing room to put on his Ulster coat, so that his stage dress would not be observed.
    When they entered the tavern the bar-keeper was busy settling his glasses, and had his back turned to them. Mons took off his Ulster and sat down, there being no one but themselves present except a drunken shoemaker, whom Mons knew, and a beggarman who followed them in.
    When the bar-keeper turned round Jerry met the most repulsive face he had ever seen - a face so drawn and twisted, with nose and lips so eaten away with some strange canker, that it resembled more the ghastly front of a skull than the face of a living man. Jerry was shocked, but in the meantime Mons called for the beer, which was brought and soon drunk.
    Mons then said  — 
    ‘Grinnell, this is our new carpenter.’
    ‘Glad to see you, sir. Welcome to London. I understand you’re Irish. You beat us there in one thing, at all events.’
    ‘What is that?’ said Jerry.
    “Your whisky. We can get none like it; but I tell you what, I’ll give you some liquor you never tasted, I’ll be bound. And as you’re a stranger I’ll make it a present to you.’
    ‘No, no,’ said Jerry.
    ‘Take it,’ whispered Mons. ‘He’ll be offended if you don’t.’
    Grinnell produced a bottle of labelled ‘Gift’ from the shelf, and poured out two half tumblers full and handed one to each.
    ‘That’s what I give for my hansel,’ said Grinnell. ‘What do you think of it?’
    ‘Capital,’ said Jerry, after tasting it. ‘What is it called. I see ‘Gift’ on the bottle?’
    ‘No, that’s not its name. I put that on it to show my customers that when I give it I mean civility and not commerce. It’s a decoction I make myself.’
    Just then a boy ran across from the theatre and said - ‘Mr Mons, you’re wanted. Your scene is on.’ Mons tried to put his hand into his pocket, but could not as his tights had no pockets. He said to Jerry as he went out - ‘I’ve got no money with me. Will you pay for the beer and I’ll give it you when you come back to the theatre.’ ‘All right,’ said Jerry, and he took out his purse. As he opened it he saw Parnell’s picture, and then it struck him that his new life was beginning but badly, drinking in the middle of the day.
    He paid the money and went quickly out of the public house without looking behind him.

CHAPTER 5
    HOW THE NEW LIFE BEGAN
    When Jerry got back to the theatre the place did not somehow look the same; there was too much tarnished gilding, he thought, and too little reality. Although the place seemed very old and dirty - so old and so dirty that after looking about him for a little time he felt that there was room and opportunity for all his skill and energy - there was something so cheering in this prospect of hard work that he forgave the dirt and the age, and longed to get into active service.
    The rehearsal did not take much longer, and then the various actors and employes dispersed. Mons came over to Jerry and asked him to come to his dressing-room for a moment. Jerry was anxious to get home, and said so.
    ‘You need not fear,’ said Mons. ‘I shan’t detain you a minute. I only want to give you what you paid for me.’
    ‘Nonsense, man,’ said Jerry, who felt almost insulted, for, like all Irishmen, he had one virtue which too often leans to vice’s side - generosity, and considered that hospitality was involved in the question of ‘who pays?’
    Of all the silly ideas that ever grew in the minds of a people, feeding on their native generosity of disposition, this idea is the most silly. Let any man but think honestly how honour or hospitality can be involved in the mere payment of a few pence, and then ask himself the question in his heart of what difference there is to him between the nobler virtues of his soul and the pride of superabundant coinage. Jerry O’Sullivan was no fool, and often reasoned with himself on the subject; but still the prejudice of habit was too