we want you. Kate here can
drop in, as if by accident, an' give the hand word."

"Well, then, good-night--stay, give me a glass of whiskey before I go;
and, before I do go, listen. You know the confidence I place in every
one of you on this occasion?"

"We do," replied Philip; "no doubt of it."

"Listen, I say. I swear by all that a man can swear by, that if a soul
of you ever breathes--I hope, by the way, that these young savages are
all asleep--"

"As sound as a top," said Bat, "everyone o' them."

"Well, if a single one of you ever breathes my name or mentions me to
a human being as in any way connected, directly or indirectly, with the
business in which we are engaged, I'll make the country too hot to hold
you--and you need no ghost to tell you how easily I could dispose of you
if it went to that."

Kate, when he had repeated these words, gave him a peculiar glance,
which was accompanied by a short abrupt laugh that seemed to have
something derisive in it.

"Is there anything to be laughed at in what I am saying, most amiable
Mrs. Hogan?" he asked.

Kate gave either a feigned or a real start as he spoke.

"Laughed at!" she exclaimed, as if surprised; "throth I wasn't thinkin
of you at all, Mr. Hycy. What wor you sayin'?"

"That if my name ever happens to be mentioned in connection with
this business, I'll send the whole kit of you--hammers, budgets,
and sothering-irons--to hell or Connaught; so think of this now, and
goodnight."

"There goes as d----d vagabond," said Ned, "as ever stretched hemp; and
only that it's our own business to make the most use we can out of him,
I didn't care the devil had him, for I don't like a bone in his skin."

"Why," said Philip, "I see what he's at now. Sure enough he'll put the
copin'-stone on Bryan. M'Mahon at any rate--that, an' if we can get the
house and place out of him--an' what need we care?"

"Send us to hell or Connaught," said Kate; "well, that's not bad--ha!
ha! ha!"

"What are you neigherin' at?" said her husband; "and what set you
a-caoklin' to his face a while ago?"

She shook her head carelessly. "No matther," she replied, "for a raison
I had."

"Would you let me know your raison, if you plaise?"

"If I plaise--ay, you did well to put that in, for I don't plaise to let
you know any more about it. I laughed bekaise I liked to laugh; an' I
hope one may do that 'ithout being brought over the coals about it. Go
to bed, an' give me another glass o' w