"I never saw the weeks yet that didn't pass if you waited
long enough! And I wouldn't say but that you mightn't go home before
you're out of our hands entirely."
Father Sweeny received these consolations with an unpropitiated grunt.
His large face, with its broad cheeks and heavy double-chins, that was
usually of a sanguine and all pervasive beefy-red, now hung in pallid
purple folds, on which dark bristles, that were as stiff as those on
the barrel of a musical box, told that the luxury of shaving had
hitherto been withheld. There are some professions that tend more than
others to grade the men that follow them into distinct types. The Sea
is one of these, the Church, and pre-eminently the Church of Rome, is
another. The ecclesiastical types vary no less than the nautical ones,
and neither need here be enumerated. It is sufficient to say that
Father Sweeny, when in his usual robust health, in voice, in
appearance, and in manner, provoked, uncontrollably, a comparison with
a heavy and truculent black bull.
"'Tis highly inconvenient to me to be boxed up in bed this way, at
this time," said Father Sweeny, with a small hot eye upon his
attendant nun that would have said instantly to any one less entirely
kind, religious, and painstaking, that he had no immediate need of her
services; "Sister Maria Joseph, I wonder would you be so kind as to
bring me the paper? I didn't see it to-day at all.
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