Having thus expressed herself, she left her father, Phelim, and Larry, to digest her sentiments, and immediately went home.

Donovan, who was outrageous at this contempt of his authority, got his hat with the intention of compelling her to return and retract, in their presence, what she had said; but the daughter, being the more light-footed of the two, reached home before he could overtake her, where, backed by her mother, she maintained her resolution, and succeeded, ere long, in bringing the father over to her opinion.

During this whole scene in Larry’s, Fool Art sat in that wild abstraction which characterizes the unhappy class to which he belonged.  He muttered to himself, laughed—­or rather chuckled—­shrugged his shoulders, and appeared to be as unconscious of what had taken place as an automaton.  When the coast was clear he rose up and plucking Phelim’s skirt, beckoned him towards the door.

“Phelim,” said he, when they had got out, “would you like to airn a crown?”

“Tell me how, Art?” said Phelim.

“A letther from, the Square to the jailer of M------ jail.  If you bring
back an answer, you’ll get a crown, your dinner, an’ a quart o’ strong
beer.”

“But why don’t you bring it yourself, Art?”

“Why I’m afeard.  Sure they’d keep ma in jail, I’m tould, if they’d catch me in it.  Aha!  Bo dodda, I won’t go near them:  sure they’d hang me for shootin’ Bonypart.—­Aha!”

“Must the answer be brought back today, Art?”

“Oh!  It wouldn’t do to-morrow, at all.  Be dodda, no!  Five shillins, your dinner, an’ a quart of sthrong beer!—­Aha!  But you must give me a shillin’ or two, to buy a sword; for the Square’s goin’ to make me a captain:  thin I’ll be grand! an’ I’ll make you a sargin’.”

This seemed a windfall to Phelim.  The unpleasant dilemma in which Sally Flattery had placed him, by the fabricated account of her father’s imprisonment, made him extremely anxious to see Foodie himself, and to ascertain the precise outrage for which he had been secured.  Here then was an opportunity of an interview with him, and of earning five shillings, a good dinner, and a quart of strong beer, as already specified.

“Art,” said he, “give me the letther, an’ I’m the boy that’ll soon do the job.  Long life to you, Art!  Be the contints o’ the book, Art, I’ll never pelt you or vex you agin, my worthy; an’ I’ll always call you captain!” Phelim immediately commenced his journey to M------, which was only five miles distant, and in a very short time reached the jail, saw the jailer, and presented his letter.

The latter, on perusing it, surveyed him with the scrutiny of a man whose eye was practised in scanning offenders.

Phelim, whilst the jailer examined him, surveyed the strong and massy bolts with which every door and hatchway was secured.  Their appearance produced rather an uncomfortable sensation in him; so much so, that when the jailer asked him his name, he thought it more prudent, in consequence of a touch of conscience he had, to personate Art for the present, inasmuch as he felt it impossible to assume any name more safe than that of an idiot.