“I’m goin’ over there,” he declared, with profane emphasis, “to kill all the damned English I can before they kill me.”

His interlocutor gravely wrote this reply down in Mr. O’Leary’s exact language and proceeded to the other questions.  When the application was completed, Dirty Dan certified to the correctness of it, and was then smilingly informed that he had better go back where he came from, because his application for a passport was denied.  Consumed with fury, the patriot thereupon aired his opinion of the Government of the United States, with particular reference to its representative then present, and in the pious hope of drowning his sorrows, went forth and proceeded to get drunk.

When drunk, Mr. O’Leary always insisted, in the early stages of his delirium, on singing Hibernian ballads descriptive of the unflinching courage, pure patriotism and heroic sacrifices of the late Owen Roe O’Neill and O’Donnell Abu.  Later in the evening he would howl like a timber-wolf and throw glasses, and toward morning he always fought it out on the floor with some enemy.  Of course, in the sawmill towns of the great Northwest, where folks knew Mr. O’Leary and others of his ilk, it was the custom to dodge the glasses and continue to discuss the price of logs.  Toward Dirty Dan, however, New York turned a singularly cold shoulder.  The instant he threw a glass, the barkeeper tapped him with a “billy”; then a policeman took him in tow, and the following morning, Dirty Dan, sick, sore, and repentant was explaining to a police judge that he was from Port Agnew, Washington, and really hadn’t meant any harm.  He was, therefore, fined five dollars and ordered to depart forthwith for Port Agnew, Washington, which he did, arriving there absolutely penniless and as hungry as a cougar in midwinter.  He fled over to the mill kitchen, tossed about five dollars worth of ham and eggs and hot biscuit into his empty being, and began to take stock of life.  Naturally, the first thing he recalled in mind was The Laird’s remark that Donald planned to make him foreman of the loading-sheds and drying-yards; so he wasted no time in presenting himself before Donald’s office door.  To his repeated knocking there was no reply, so he sought Mr. Daney.

“Hello, Dan!  You back?” Daney greeted him.  “Glad to see you.  Looking for Mr. Donald?”

“Yes, sor; thank you, sor.”

“Mr. Donald is ill in the company’s hospital.  We’re afraid, Dan, that he isn’t going to pull through.”

“Glory be!” Mr. O’Leary gasped, horrified on two counts.  First, because he revered his young boss, and, second, because the latter’s death might nullify his opportunity to become foreman of the loading-sheds and drying-yard.  “Sure, what’s happened to the poor bhoy?”

Before Daney could answer, a terrible suspicion shot through the agile and imaginative O’Leary brain.  In common with several million of his countrymen, he always voiced the first thought that popped into his head; so he lowered that member, likewise his voice, peered cunningly into Andrew Daney’s haggard face, and whispered: