‘A where the devil’s that blackguard little French wazel gone to?’ exclaimed O’Flaherty, for the first time perceiving that his captive had escaped.  ‘Kokang Modate!  Do you hear me, Kokang Modate!’ he shouted.

’But really, Sir, you must be so good as to place before me, before me, Sir, clearly, the—­the cause of this unhappy dispute, the exact offenth, Thir, for otherwithe—­’

’Cause, to be sure! and plenty iv cause.  I never fought a jewel yet, Puddock, my friend—­and this will be the ninth—­without cause.  They said, I’m tould, in Cork, I was quarrelsome; they lied; I’m not quarrelsome; I only want pace, and quiet, and justice; I hate a quarrelsome man.  I tell you, Puddock, if I only knew where to find a quarrelsome man, be the powers I’d go fifty miles out of my way to pull him be the nose.  They lied, Puddock, my dear boy, an’ I’d give twenty pounds this minute I had them on this flure, to tell them how damnably they lied!’

‘No doubt, Thir,’ said Puddock, ’but if you pleathe I really mutht have a dithtinct answer to my—­’

‘Get out o’ that, Sorr,’ thundered O’Flaherty, with an awful stamp on the floor, as the ‘coquin maudit,’ O’Flaherty’s only bit of French, such as it was, in obedience to that form of invocation, appeared nervously at the threshold, ’or I’ll fling the contints of the r-r-oo-oo-oom at your head, (exit Monsieur, again).  Be gannies! if I thought it was he that done it, I’d jirk his old bones through the top of the window.  Will I call him back and give him his desarts, will I, Puddock!  Oh, ho, hone! my darlin’ Puddock, everything turns agin me; what’ll I do, Puddock, jewel, or what’s to become o’ me?’ and he shed some more tears, and drank off the greater part of the beverage which he had prepared for Puddock.

’I believe, Sir, that this is the sixth time I’ve ventured to ask a distinct statement from your lips, of the cauthe of your dithagreement with Mr. Nutter, which I plainly tell you, Thir, I don’t at prethent underthtand, said Puddock, loftily and firmly enough.

‘To be sure, my darlin’ Puddock,’ replied O’Flaherty, ’it was that cursed little French whipper-snapper, with his monkeyfied intherruptions; be the powers, Puddock, if you knew half the mischief that same little baste has got me into, you would not wondher if I murthered him.  It was he was the cause of my jewel with my cousin, Art Considine, and I wanting to be the very pink of politeness to him.  I wrote him a note when he came to Athlone, afther two years in France, and jist out o’ compliment to him, I unluckily put in a word of French:  come an’ dine, says I, and we’ll have a dish of chat.  I knew u-n p-l-a-t (spelling it), was a dish, an’ says I to Jerome, that pigimy (so he pronounced it) you seen here at the door, that’s his damnable name, what’s chat in French—­c-h-a-t—­spelling it to him; “sha,” says he; “sha?” says I, “spell it, if you plase,” says I; “c-h-a-t,” says he, the stupid old