Take 'im in, an' dry 'im.
An' this is 'is boy.

Toast 'im both sides--brown." A large, pleasant fire was blazing on Mike's humble hearth, and with sundry cheerful remarks he placed his guests before it, relieving them of their soaked wrappings.

Then he went to the stable, and fed and groomed his horse, and returned eagerly, to chat with Jim, who sat steaming before the fire, as if he had just been lifted from a hot bath.
"What place is this, Jim ?" said Mr.Benedict.
"This is the half-way house," responded that personage, without looking up.
"Why, this is purgatory, isn't it ?" inquired Benedict.
"Yes, Mike is a Catholic, an' all his folks; an' he's got to stay here a good while, an' he's jest settled down an' gone to housekeepin'." "Is it far to the gulf, now ?" "Twenty mile, and the road is rougher nor a--" "'Ah, it's no twinty mile," responded Mike, "an' the road is jist lovely--jist lovely; an' afore ye start I'm goin' to give ye a drap that 'll make ye think so." They sat a whole hour before the fire, and then Mike mixed the draught he had promised to the poor patient.

It was not a heavy one, but, for the time, it lifted the man so far out of his weakness that he could sleep, and the moment his brain felt the stimulus, he dropped into a slumber so profound that when the time of departure came he could not be awakened.

As there was no time to be lost, a bed was procured from a spare chamber, with pillows; the wagon was brought to the door, and the man was carried out as unconscious as if he were in his last slumber, and tenderly put to bed in the wagon.