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But the tinkering of the poor verses brought Paul and his father finally together, and from that hour onward they were friends. And now the mind of the Exile turned to the episode of Norah MacMulty grotesque, pitiable, laughable. Paul had pssed his seventeenth birthday, and reckoned himself a man. He was in love again, but tentatively. He had read 'Don Juan, and had learned a thing or two.
'I can tell you something you've forgotten, said Paul. 'I don't care what you've done; you're God's child, and while there's life there's hope. 'Ye're not a man yet, said Norah MacMulty; 'but if ever ye mean to be one, hould your tongue an' go. 'I don't mind hurting you if I can do you any good by it. 'Ye can do me no good, nor yourself neither.
'I can't earn full wages yet, but I can get two-thirds anywhere. I can make eighteen shillings a week, and I can live on half of it. You can have the other half, and there will be no need, then You will find something to do in time sewing, or ironing, or something and then it will be easier for us both. 'Ye're mad! said Norah MacMulty. 'No, said Paul, 'I'm not mad.
'Faith, she said, 'I'm just past two-an'-twinty. 'Tis an agein' life, an' I look more; but 'tis God's truf I'm tellin' ye. 'Very likely, said the assistant, towelling his hands. 'I'll go now, said Norah MacMulty. 'I'm a trifle unsteady with the shakin', but the drink's out of me, worse luck! and I'll be able to walk.
'Oh, you're coming round, are you? asked the assistant; 'didn't expect it. That's a pretty nasty crack you've got. 'Twill take more than that to kill Norah MacMulty, said the young woman, struggling into a sitting posture, and beginning mechanically to arrange her disordered dress. 'The MacMultys is a fine fightin' famly, and it runs in the blood to take a cracked skull quite kindly.
'This poor creature fell at the corner yonder and cut her head terribly. I fetched young Marley to her from Dr. Hervey's, and he has seen to her. She wants to get home. 'I'll take the other side, said Armstrong, and the three lurched slowly along in the dimness. 'Ye're good people, Norah MacMulty said when they had brought her to her door.
He obeyed her, and the episode of Norah MacMulty came to a close. 'Paul, said the Solitary, waking for a moment from the dream in which these old things acted themselves again before him, 'you were always a fool, but the folly of that time was better than to-day's.
When the day's work was over and he was free, he dressed and walked into the street He roamed up and down it from end to end, and several times he diverged from it to pace the road in which Norah MacMulty lived, and to linger about the house into which he had helped her. He had something to say to Norah MacMulty, but he caught no sight of her. He went home, and to bed.
He sat kicking his heels against the valance of the bed, and thinking. May Gold, Norah MacMulty, the dreadful hour of the lost innocence, Claudia, Annette, Gertrude what an incredible list of follies for one man to have committed! He grew intensely bitter and self-disdainful. There was no answer for the letter of the heart-wounded Gertrude.
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