hile back, so I bought a bottle of that stuff to keep my hair down while
I was pitching her the yarn. I cornered the lass alone in the MacManus'
drawing-room, went down on my knees and threw off a dandy proposal I had
learnt by heart out of a book. The girl curled about all over the sofa with
emotion, and for a bit I thought my eloquence was doing it. Then I
perceived she was near shaken to pieces with laughter. Couldn't think why
till I happened to catch sight of myself in a mirror and saw that my darned
old hair had come unstuck again and was bobbing up all over my head, not
singly as it is now, but a cockatoo tuft at a time, thanks to 'Florazora.'
I rose up off the MacManus carpet and ran all the way home."

"Still I don't see--" I began.

"Ye never will if ye don't give me a chance to tell ye," said Andy.

"Do ye remember that greasy divil Peter Flynn that owns a draper's shop in
Ballinknock main street? A fat man he is with the flowing locks of a stump
orator, given to fancy waistcoats and a frock-coat--very dressy. Ye'd see
him standing at the shop-door on fair-days, bobbing to the women and
how-dy-doin' the country boys the way he'd tout a vote or two, he being the
leading Sinn Fein organiser down our way now. Anyhow he and his raparees
got after me and the hunt, on account of me evicting a tenant that hadn't
paid a penny of rent for seven years and didn't ever intend to. They hinted
to the decent poor farmers round about that there'd be ricks fired and cows
ripped if they allowed me to hunt their lands, so I got stopped everywhere.
I had land enough of my own to carry on with, so I hunted there till the
foxes and hares gave out, which they precious soon did, seeing that half
the neighbourhood was out shooting, trapping, poisoning and lurching them.

"I bought a stag from a feller in Limerick and chased that for a bit; then
on a 'tween day, when I was away and the deer out grazing in the demesne,
somebody slipped a brace of Mauser bullets into it, and that form of
diversion was likewise at an end. As far as I could see an animal wouldn't
stand a ten minutes' chance in my country unless it were an armadillo.

"I wrote to the War Office, asking them could they kindly oblige me with
the loan of a lively little tank for pursuing purposes, but got no answer.
I guess WINSTON had a liver on him that morning. So there was nothing for
it but to give up the hounds. I went and broke the sad news to Patsey Mike,
who was mi