y. "You will take chances, you will run
risks, _hein?_ My friend, you do not stir out of this house this night
without _me_!" He stared, as well he might, but I folded my arms and
stared back. Let him leave me, bent on such an errand? I to sit at
home idly, awaiting the issue, whatever it might be?

"I mean it, John Flint. I am going with you. Was it not I, then, who
saved those tools and had them ready to your hand? Whatever happens to
you now happens to me as well. It is quite useless for you to argue,
to scowl, to grind the teeth, to swear like that. And it will be
dangerous to try to trick me: I am going!"

For he was protesting, violently and profanely. His profanity was so
sincere, so earnest, so heartfelt, that it mounted into heights of
real eloquence. Also, he did everything but knock me down and lock me
indoors.

"Whatever happens to you happens to me," I repeated doggedly, and I
was not to be moved. I had a hazy notion that somehow my being with
him might protect him in case of any untoward happening, and minimize
his risks.

I ran into his bedroom and clapped his best hat on my head, leaving my
biretta on his bed; and I put on his new dark overcoat over my
cassock. Both the borrowed garments were too big for me, the hat
coming down over my ears, the coat-sleeves over my hands. I being as
thin as a peeled willow-wand, and the clothes hanging upon me as on a
clothes-rack, I dare say I cut a sad and ludicrous figure enough.
Flint, standing watching me with his burglarious bundle under his arm,
gave an irrepressible chuckle and his eyes crinkled.

"Parson," said he solemnly, "I've seen all sorts and sizes and colors
and conditions of crooks, up and down the line, in my time and
generation, but take it from me you're a libel and an outrage on the
whole profession. Why, you crazy he-angel, you'd break their hearts
just to look at you!" And he grinned. At a moment like that, he
grinned, with a sort of gay and light-hearted _diablerie_. They are a
baffling and inexplicable folk, the Irish. I suppose God loves the
Irish because He doesn't really know how else to take them.

"It will break my own heart, and possibly my mother's and Mary
Virginia's will break to keep it company, if anything evil happens to
you this night," said I, severely. I was in no grinning humor, me.

He reached over and carefully buttoned, with one hand, the too-big
collar about my throat. For a moment, with that odd, little-boy
gesture