Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TOMMY AND THOMAS IT was while Harry Lossing was at the High School that Mrs. Carriswood first saw Tommy Fitzmaurice. He was not much to see, a long lad of sixteen who had outgrown his jackets and was not yet grown to his ears. At this period Mrs. Fitzmaurice was his barber, and she, having been too rash with the shears in one place, had snipped off the rest of his curly black locks "to match;" until he showed a perfect convict's poll, giving his ears all the better chance, and bringing out the rather square contour of his jaws to advantage. He had the true Irish-Norman face; a skin of fine texture, fair and freckled, high cheekbones, straight nose, and wide blue eyes that looked to be drawn with ink, because of their sharply pencilled brows and long, thick, black lashes. But the feature that Mrs. Carriswood noticed was Tommy's mouth, a flexible and At this period Mrs. Fitzmaurice was his barber. delicately cut mouth, of which the lips moved lightly in speaking and seldom were quite in repose. " The genuine Irish orator's mouth," thought Mrs. Carriswood. Tommy, however, was not a finished orator, and Mrs. Carriswood herself deigned to help him with his graduating oration ; Tommy delivering the aforesaid oration from memory, on the stage of the Grand Opera House, to a warm-hearted and perspiring audience of his towns-people, amid tremendous applause and not the slightest prod- dings of conscience. Really the speech deserved the applause ; Mrs. Carriswood, who had heard half the eloquence of the world, spent three evenings on it ; and she has a good memory. Her part in the affair always amused her ; though, in fact, it came to pass easily. She had the great fortune of the family. Being a widow with no children, and the time not being come when philanthropy bec...