The inquest on Joel Mazarine was ended presently, and Nolan Doyle and
the Young Doctor set out to tell Louise that a "low man," once her
husband, had paid a high price for all that he had bought of the fruits
of life out of due season.

CHAPTER XVIII. YOUTH HAS ITS WAY

"Aw, Doctor dear, there's manny that's less use in the wurruld than
Chinamen, and I'd like to see more o' them here-away," remarked Patsy
Kernaghan to the Young Doctor in the springtime of another year.
"Stren'th of mind is all right, but stren'th of fingers is better
still."

"You're a bloodthirsty pagan, Patsy," returned the Young Doctor.

"Hell to me sowl, then, didn't Li Choo pull things straight? I'm not
much of a murd'ring man meself--I haven't the stren'th with me fingers,
but there's manny a time I'd like to do what Li Choo done.... Shure, I
don't want to be sp'akin' ill of the dead, but look at it now. There was
ould Mazarine, breakin' the poor child's heart, as fine a fella as iver
trod the wurruld achin' for her, and his life bein' spoilt by the goin's
on at Tralee. Then in steps the Chinky and with stren'th of mind and
stren'th of fingers puts things right."

"No, no, Patsy, you've got bad logic and worse morals in your head. As
you say, things were put right, but trouble enough came of it."

"Divils me darlin', Doctor, it was bound to come all right some time.
Shure, wasn't it natural the child should be all crumpled up like and
lose her head for a while? Wasn't it natural she should fight out agin'
takin' the property the leviathin left her, whin she knew there was
another will he'd spoke on a paper to the lawyer the night he died,
though he hadn't signed it? And isn't it so that yourself it was talked
her round!"

The Young Doctor waved a hand reprovingly, but Patsy continued:

"Now, lookin' back on it, don't ye think it was clever enough what you
said till her? 'Do justice to yourself and to others, little lady,' sez
you. 'Be just--divide the place up; give two-thirds of it away to the
children of Joel's first two wives and keep one-third, which is yours by
law in anny case. For why should it be that you should give iverythin'
and get nothin'? He had the best of you-of your girlhood and your
youth,' sez you. 'Shure y'are entitled to bread and meat, and a roof
over you, as a wife, and as one that got nothin' from your married life
of what ought to be got by honest girls like you, or by anny woman, if
it comes to that,' sez