Play--play has been my ruin; that and beauty' (here he gave a leer which made him, I must confess, look anything but handsome; besides, his rouged cheeks were all beslobbered with the tears which he had shed on receiving me).

'The women have made a fool of me, my dear Redmond.

I am a soft-hearted creature, and this minute, at sixty-two, have no more command of myself than when Peggy O'Dwyer made a fool of me at sixteen.' ''Faith sir,' says I, laughing, 'I think it runs in the family!' and described to him, much to his amusement, my romantic passion for my cousin, Nora Brady.

He resumed his narrative.
'The cards now are my only livelihood.

Sometimes I am in luck, and then I lay out my money in these trinkets you see.