“He is in a bad mess now, however,” continued his nephew.

“Why, is there worse to come?”

“This same Nanny Peety, you must know, is a relative, it seems, to Bat Hogan’s wife.  For some time past there has come a strange man named Vincent, and his wife, to reside in the neighborhood, and this fellow in conjunction with the Hogans, was managing some secret proceedings which no one can penetrate.  Now, it appears that Hogan’s wife, who has been kept out of this secret, got Nanny Peety to set her father to work in order to discover it.  Peety, by the advice of Hogan’s wife, called in Teddy Phat’s—­”

“What’s that?  Teddy Phats?  Now, by the way, Harry, don’t abuse poor Teddy.  You will be surprised, Hal, when I tell you that he and I have played into each other’s hands for years.  Yes, my boy, and I can assure you that, owing to him, both Fethertonge and I were aware of Hycy’s Burke’s plot against M’Mahon long before he set it a-going.  The fellow, however, will certainly be hanged yet.”

“Faith, sir,” replied Harry, “instead of being hanged himself, he’s likely to hang others.  In consequence of an accidental conversation which Teddy Phats, and Finigan the tippling schoolmaster had, concerning Vincent, the stranger I spoke of, who, it appears, lives next to Finigan’s school-house, Teddy discovered, through the pedagogue, who, by the way, is abroad at all hours, that the aforesaid Vincent was in the habit of going up every night to the most solitary part of the mountains, but for what purpose, except upon another distillation affair, he could not say.”

The old gauger or supervisor, as he now considered himself, became here so comically excited—­or, we should rather say, so seriously excited—­that it was with difficulty the nephew could restrain his laughter.  He moved as if his veins had been filled with quicksilver, his eyes brightened, and his naturally keen and knavish-looking features were sharpened, as it were, into an expression so acutely sinister, that he resembled a staunch old hound who comes unexpectedly upon the fresh slot of a hare.

“Well,” said he, rubbing his hands—­“well, go on—­what happened?  Do you hear, Harry?  What happened?  Of course they’re at the distillation again.  Don’t you hear me, I say?  What was the upshot?”

“Why, the upshot was,” replied the other, “that nothing of sufficient importance has been discovered yet; but we have reason to suppose that they’re engaged in the process of forgery or coining, as they were in that of illicit distillation under the patronage of the virtuous Hycy Burke, or Hycy the accomplished, as he calls himself.”

“Tut, tut!” exclaimed Clinton, disappointed—­“so after all, there has been nothing done?”

“Oh, yes, there has been something done; for instance, all these matters have been laid before Mr. Vanston, and he has had two or three interviews with Chevydale, in whose estimation he has exonerated young M’Mahon from the charge of bribery and ingratitude.  Fethertonge holds such a position now with his employer that an infant’s breath would almost blow him out of his good opinion.”