Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/33



LL the years of unremitting toil came back to him in panoramic fragments. He had always managed to clothe and feed himself, with a little left over for amusements. At half past six in the morning, summer and winter and spring, he was up and off for the day's work (with that cheerful and optimistic spirit which has been at once millstones and eagle wings to the Irish). … A fortune! Was he really awake? Wait a moment. He stared at the slate-colored doves that were sailing over and about the church spires near by, at the broad silver highway by which the great ships went down to the sea, at the blue mists of morning still hanging against the Jersey heights. Up from the street, deep down below, came the dull thunder of the Elevated. There was not the least doubt of it; he was wide awake; he could see and he could hear. Twenty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-six dollars and thirty-one cents!

"Say, would you just as soon say that all over again—slow?" he asked in a voice which he knew was his, because he could feel it coming out of his throat; beyond that it was wholly unrecognizable.

Mr. Bell laughed happily as he reached for