ed unfortunate Skinadre by the neck, as he spoke, and almost at
the same moment forced him to project his tongue about three inches
out of his mouth, causing his face at the same time to assume, by the
violence of the act, an expression of such comic distress and terror, as
it was difficult to look upon with gravity.

"Is it thrue," he repeated, in a voice of thunder, "that you've dared to
do so scoundrelly an act, an' she, the unfortunate creature, famishing
wid hunger herself?"

While he spake, he held Skinadre's neck as if in a vice--firm in the
same position--and the latter, of course, could do nothing more than
turn his ferret eyes round as well as he could, to entreat him to relax
his grip.

"Don't choke him, Tom," exclaimed Hacket, who came forward, to
interpose; "you'll strangle him; as Heaven's above, you will."

"An' what great crime would that be?" answered the other, relaxing his
awful grip of the miser. "Isn't he an' every cursed meal-monger like
him a curse and a scourge to the counthry--and hasn't the same counthry
curses and scourges enough widhout either him or them? Answer me now,"
he proceeded, turning to Skinadre, "why did you send her away widout the
food she wanted?"

"My heart bled for her; but--"

"It's a lie, you born hypocrite--it's a lie--your heart never bled for
anything, or anybody."

"But you don't know," replied the miser, "what I lost by--"

"It's a lie, I say," thundered out the gigantic young fellow, once more
seizing the unfortunate meal-monger by the throat, when out again went
his tongue, like a piece of machinery touched by a spring, and again
were the red eyes now almost starting out of his head, turned round,
whilst he himself was in a state of suffocation, that rendered his
appearance ludicrous beyond description--"it's a lie, I say, for you
have neither thruth nor heart--that's what we all know."

"For Heaven's sake, let the man go," said Hacket, "or you'll have his
death to answer for "--and as he spoke he attempted to unclasp the young
man's grip; "Tom Dalton, I say, let the man go."

Dalton, who was elder brother to the lover of Mave Sullivan, seized
Hacket with one of his hands, and spun him like a child to the other end
of the room.

"Keep away," he exclaimed, "till I settle wid him--here now, Skinadre,
listen to me--you refused my father credit when we wanted it, although
you knew we were honest--you refused him credit when we were turned out
of our place, a