shot,
and let us get it under our tooth first, an' then we'll tell you more
about it--A big rogue is the same Barny," he added, after Brady had gone
to bring in the poteen, "an' never sells a dhrop that's not one whiskey
and five wathers."

"But he couldn't expose it on you; Jack," observed Connell; "you're too
ould a hand about the pot for that. Warn't you in the mountains last
week?"

"Ay: but the curse of Cromwell upon the thief of a gauger,
Simpson--himself and a pack o' redcoats surrounded us when we war
beginnin' to double, and the purtiest runnin' that ever you seen was
lost; for you see, before you could cross yourself, we had the bottoms
knocked clane out of the vessels; so that the villains didn't get a hole
in our coats, as they thought they would."

"I tell you," observed O'Neil, "there's a bad pill* somewhere about us."

* This means a treacherous person who cannot depended
upon.

"Ay, is there, Owen," replied Traynor; "and what is more, I don't think
he's a hundhre miles from the place where we're sittin' in."

"Faith, maybe so Jack," returned the other.

"I'd never give into that," said Murphy. "'Tis Barny Brady that would
never turn informer--the same thing isn't in him, nor in any of his
breed; there's not a man in the parish I'd thrust sooner."

"I'd jist thrust him," replied Traynor, "as far as I could throw a cow
by the tail. Arrah, what's the rason that the gauger never looks next
or near his place, an' it's well known that he sells poteen widout a
license, though he goes past his door wanst a week?"

"What the h---- is keepin' him at all?" inquired one of Dolan's sons.

"Look at him," said Traynor, "comin' in out of the garden; how much
afeard he is! keepin' the whiskey in a phatie ridge--an' I'd kiss the
book that he brought that bottle out in his pocket, instead of diggin'
it up out o' the garden."

Whatever Brady's usual habits of _christening_ his poteen might have
been, that which he now placed before them was good. He laid the bottle
on a little deal table with cross legs, and along with it a small
drinking glass fixed in a bit of flat circular wood, as a substitute for
the original bottom, which had been broken. They now entered upon the
point, in question, without further delay.

"Come, Tim," said Coogan, "you're the ouldest man, and must spake
first."

"Troth, man," replied Dolan, "beggin' your pardon, I'll dhrink
first--healths apiece, your sowl; success boys--g