Education is all very fine and large.... Mr. Cotter might take a

pick of that leg mutton," he added to my aunt.


"No, no, not for me," said old Cotter.


My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table.


"But why do you think it's not good for children, Mr. Cotter?" she

asked.


"It's bad for children," said old Cotter, "because their mind are so

impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it

has an effect...."


I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance

to my anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile!

It was late when I fell asleep. Though I was angry with old Cotter

for alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning

from his unfinished sentences. In the dark of my room I imagined

that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the

blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey

face still followed me. It murmured, and I understood that it

desired to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some

pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for

me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice and I

wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so

moist with spittle. But then I remembered that it had died of

paralysis and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve the

simoniac of his sin.


The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little

house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop,

registered under the vague name of Drapery . The drapery

consisted mainly of children's bootees and umbrellas; and on

ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying:

Umbrellas Re-covered . No notice was visible now for the shutters

were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the doorknocker with ribbon.

Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned

on the crape. I also approached and read:


July 1st, 1895

The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine's Church,

Meath Street), aged sixty-five years.

R.  I.  P.


The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was

disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would

have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him

sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his

great-coat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High

Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his

stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his

black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to

do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he

raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke

dribbled through his fingers over the front of his coat. It may have

been these constant showers of snuff which gave his ancient

priestly garments their green faded look for the red handkerchief,

blackened, as it always was, with the snuff-stains of a week, with

which he tried to brush away the fallen grains, was quite

inefficacious.


I wished to go in and look at him but I had not the courage to

knock. I walked away slowly along the sunny side of the street,

reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shop-windows as I

went. I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a

mourning mood and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a

sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his

death. I wondered at this for, as my uncle had said the night

before, he had taught me a great deal. He had studied in the Irish

college in Rome and he had taught me to pronounce Latin

properly.