‘Why, I had that card in my hand the night Mr. Nutter went off.’

‘Well?—­go on.’

’’Twas in the hall at the Mills, Sir; I knew it again at the Barracks the minute I seen it.’

’Why, ’tis a printed card—­there’s hundreds of them—­how d’ye know one from t’other, wisehead?’

’Why, Sir, ’twas how this one was walked on, and the letter M. in Mary was tore across, an’ on the back was writ, in red ink, for Mrs. Macnamara, and they could not read it down at the Barracks, because the wet had got at it, and the end was mostly washed away, and they thought it was MacNally, or MacIntire; but I knew it the minute I seen it.’

’Well, my tight little fellow, and what the dickens has all that to do with the matter?’ asked Toole, growing uneasy.

‘The dickens a much, I believe, Sir; only as Mr. Nutter was goin’ out he snatched it out o’ my hand—­in the hall there—­and stuffed it into his pocket.’

’You did not tell that lying story, did you, about the town, you mischievous young spalpeen?’ demanded the doctor, shaking his disciple rather roughly by the arm.

‘No—­I—­I didn’t—­I did not tell, Sir—­what is it to me?’ answered the boy, frightened.

’You didn’t tell—­not you, truly.  I lay you a tenpenny-bit there isn’t a tattler in the town but has the story by rote—­a pretty kettle o’ fish you’ll make of it, with your meddling and lying.  If ’twas true, ’twould be another matter, but—­hold your tongue;—­how the plague are you to know one card from another when they’re all alike, and Mrs. Macnamara, Mrs. Macfiddle.  I suppose you can read better than the adjutant, ha, ha!  Well, mind my words, you’ve got yourself into a pretty predicament; I’d walk twice from this to the county court-house and back again, only to look at it; a pleasant cross-hackling the counsellors will give you, and if you prevaricate—­you know what that is, my boy—­the judge will make short work with you, and you may cool your heels in gaol as long as he pleases, for me.’

‘And, look’ee,’ said Toole, returning, for he was going out, as he generally did, whenever he was profoundly ruffled; ’you remember the affidavit-man that was whipped and pilloried this time two years for perjury, eh?  Look to it, my fine fellow.  There’s more than me knows how Mr. Nutter threatened to cane you that night—­and a good turn ’twould have been—­and ’twouldn’t take much to persuade an honest jury that you wanted to pay him off for that by putting a nail in his coffin, you young miscreant!  Go on—­do—­and I promise you’ll get an airing yet you’ll not like—­you will.’

And so Toole, with a wag of his head, and a grin over his shoulder, strutted out into the village street, where he was seen, with a pursed mouth, and a flushed visage, to make a vicious cut or two with his cane in the air as he walked along.  And it must be allowed that Master Jimmey’s reflections were a little confused and uncomfortable, as he pondered over the past and the future with the pestle in his fingers and the doctor’s awful words ringing in his ears.