uck and a few tricks I've learned. I can't start
a banking-account on that."

"But you can put yourself in the way of winning what can't be bought."

"No--no English army for me, thank you--if that's what you mean."

"It isn't what I mean. In the English army a man's a slave. He can
neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep without being under command. He has to
do a lot of dirty work without having voice in the policy. He's a child
of discipline and order."

"And a damned good thing that would be for most of us!" retorted Dyck.
"But I'm not one of the most."

"I know that. Try a little more of this marsala, Calhoun. It's the best
in the place, and it's got a lot of good stuff. I've been coming to the
Harp and Crown for many years, and I've never had a bad drink all that
time. The old landlord is a genius. He doesn't put on airs. He's a good
man, is old Swinton, and there's nothing good in the drink of France
that you can't get here."

"Well, if that's true, how does it happen?" asked Dyck, with a little
flash of interest. "Why should this little twopenny, one-horse place--I
mean in size and furnishments--have such luck as to get the best there
is in France? It means a lot of trouble, eh?"

"It means some trouble. But let me tell you"--he leaned over the table
and laid a hand on Dyck's, which was a little nervous--"let me speak as
an old friend to you, if I may. Here are the facts. For many a year, you
know as well as I do, ships have been coming from France to Ireland
with the very best wines and liquors, and taking back the very best
wool--smuggled, of course. Well, our little landlord here is the
damnedest rogue of all. The customs never touch him. From the coast
the stuff comes up to Dublin without a check, and, as he's a special
favourite, he gets the best to be had in la belle France."

"Why is he such a favourite?" asked Dyck.

Erris Boyne laughed, not loudly, but suggestively. "When a lady kisses a
man on the lips, of her own free will, and puts her arm around his neck,
is it done, do you think, because it's her duty to do it or die? No,
it's because she likes the man; because the man is a good friend to
her; because it's money in her pocket. That's the case with old Swinton.
France kisses him, as it were, because"--he paused, as though debating
what to say--"because France knows he'd rather be under her own
revolutionary government than under the monarchy of England."

His voice had resonance, and, as he sai