“My name is Art Maguire,” said he in reply to the jailer.  “I’m messenger to Square S——­, the one he had was discharged on Friday last.  I expect soon to be made groom, too.”

“Come this way,” said the jailer, “and you shall have an answer.”

He brought Phelim into the prison-yard, where he remained for about twenty minutes, laboring under impressions which he felt becoming gradually more unpleasant.  His anxiety was not lessened on perceiving twenty or thirty culprits, under the management of the turnkeys, enter the yard, where they were drawn up in a line, like a file of soldiers.

“What’s your name?” said one of the turnkeys.

“Art Maguire,” replied Phelim.

“Stand here,” said the other, shoving him among the prisoners.  “Keep your head up, you villain, an’ don’t be ashamed to look your friends in the face.  It won’t be hard to identify you, at any rate, you scoundrel.  A glimpse of that phiz, even by starlight, would do you, you dog.  Jack, tell Mr. S. to bring in the gintlemen—­they’re all ready.”

Phelim’s dismay on finding himself under drill with such a villainous crew was indescribable.  He attempted to parley with the turnkey, but was near feeling the weight of his heavy keys for daring to approach a man placed in authority.

While thus chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy, three gentlemen, accompanied by the jailer, entered the yard, and walked backward and forward in front of the prisoners, whose faces and persons they examined with great care.  For a considerable time they could not recognize any of them; but just as they were about to give up the scrutiny, one of the gentlemen approached Phelim, and looking narrowly into his countenance, exclaimed,

“Here, jailer, this man I identify.  I can-not be mistaken in his face; the rough visage and drooping eye of that fellow put all doubt as to his identity out of question.  What’s his’ name?”

“He gives his name, sir, as Arthur Maguire.”

“Arthur what, sir?” said another of the turnkeys, looking earnestly at Phelim.  “Why, sir, this is the fellow that swore the alibis for the Kellys—­ay, an’ for the Delaneys, an’ for the O’Briens.  His name is Phelim O’Toole; an’ a purty boy he is, by all report.”

Phelim, though his heart sank within him, attempted to banter them out of their bad opinion of him; but there was something peculiarly dismal and melancholy in his mirth.

“Why, gintlemen—­ha, ha!—­be gorra, I’d take it as a convanience—­I mane, as a favor—­if you’d believe me that there’s a small taste of mistake here.  I was sent by Square S. wid a letter to Mr. S-----t, an’ he gave me fifty ordhers to bring him back an answer this day.  As for Phelim O’Toole, if you mane the rascal that swears the alibis, faith, I can’t deny but I’m as like him, the villain, as one egg is to another.  Bad luck to his ‘dhroop,’ any how; little I thought that it would ever bring me into throuble--ha, ha, ha!  Mr. S------t, what answer have you for the Square, sir?  Bedad, I’m afeard I’ll be late.”