Be this as it may, since he had
regenerated his own character, the world was just as ready to take him
up as it had been to lay him down.
Nothing in life gives a man such an inclination for active industry as
to find that he is prospering; he has then heart and spirits to work,
and does work blithely and cheerfully; so was it with Art. He and his
employer were admirably adapted for each other, both being extremely
well-tempered, honest, and first-rate workmen. About the expiration of
the first twelve months, Art had begun to excite a good deal of interest
in the town of Ballykeerin, an interest which was beginning to affect
Owen Gallagher himself in a beneficial way. He was now pointed out to
strangers as the man, who, almost naked, used to stand drunk and begging
upon the bridge of Ballykeerin, surrounded by his starving and equally
naked children. In fact, he began to get a name, quite a reputation for
the triumph which he had achieved over drunkenness; and on this account
Owen Gallagher, when it was generally known in the country that Art
worked with him, found his business so rapidly extending, that he was
obliged, from time to time, to increase the number of hands in his
establishment. Art felt this, and being now aware that his position in
life was, in fact, more favorable for industrious exertion than ever,
resolved to give up journey work, and once more, if only for the
novelty of the thing, to set up for himself.
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