ece missing from
the tail, and is about to take it off for a closer inspection
when the publican enters with the whiskey._

DRISCOLL (_as he places the whiskey upon the table_)
This is your drink, stranger, and believe me, you
couldn't get a better drop of whiskey in the whole
United Kingdom, not even if you went to the King's
palace itself for it.

LOGAN
'Tis good, you say.

DRISCOLL
None better, and wonderful stuff to put heart into a
man.

LOGAN (_drinks it off_)
'Tis the good flavor it has surely. (_Pauses awhile_)
I think I'll have another, for 'tis plenty of heart I'll
be wantin' before the day goes to its close.

DRISCOLL
'Tis easy to feel plucky in the mornin', but 'tis a
brave man who can feel happy at the heel of day,
especially if he has an uneasy conscience and an
empty stomach.

LOGAN
Hunger plays the devil with us all. A man with an
empty stomach, an empty purse, and an empty house,
except for a scoldin' wife, can never be happy.

DRISCOLL
That's so, but if that's all you have to contend with,
you haven't much to worry about. Sure I thought
by your looks and the way you spoke that you might
have killed a man and had the bloodhounds after
you.

LOGAN
A man's conscience is worse than having bloodhounds
after him, if he has to spend months in idleness through
no fault of his own, and no one to look for sympathy
from but a scoldin' wife.

DRISCOLL
The Lord protect us from scoldin' wives, anyway.
They're the scourge of Hell. But there are worse
things than being married to a wife with no control
over her temper. You might be like the thief who
broke into the house of Michael Cassily and stole his
grandfather's watch and chain and silver candlestick.

LOGAN
And when did all this happen?

DRISCOLL
During the small hours of the mornin'.

LOGAN
That was a damnable thing to do.

DRISCOLL
'Twas more foolish than anythin' else, because, if
Michael Cassily should ever lay hands upon the man
who stole his belongings, he'd shoot at him the way
you'd shoot at a rabbit in a ditch and kill him as dead
as one of Egypt's kings.

LOGAN
The Lord save us! You don't mean what you say.

DRISCOLL
I do, and every word of it. And a sure shot he is too.
Indeed 'tis said that nothing in the sky or on the land
could escape him when he has a gun in his hand.

LOGAN
I heard before comin' to this town that he was a very
quiet and inoffensive man.

DRISCOLL
And so he is a quiet man when he's lef