hot out of a gun."

"It's Mr. Murphy!" whispered Ruth, almost as much overcome with laughter
as Agnes herself.

Neale O'Neil was frankly amazed; but in a moment he, like the girls,
jumped to the right conclusion. The cobbler had run to the rescue of his
pet. He had seized it by the ears as it was trying to crowd under the
fence, and tugged, too. When old Billy Bumps had released his pigship,
the latter had bowled the cobbler over.

Mr. Con Murphy possessed a vocabulary of most forceful and picturesque
words, well colored with the brogue he had brought on his tongue from
"the ould dart." Mr. Murphy's "Irish was up" and when he got his breath,
which the pig had well nigh knocked out of him, the little old cobbler
gave his unrestrained opinion of the power that had shot the pig under
the fence.

Ruth could not allow the occurrence to end without an explanation. She
ran to the fence and peered over.

"Oh, Mr. Murphy!" she cried. "You're not really hurt?"

"For the love av mercy!" ejaculated the cobbler. "Niver tell me that
_youse_ was the one that pushed the pig through the fince that har-rd
that he kem near flyin' down me t'roat? Ye niver could have done it,
Miss Kenway--don't be tillin' me. Is it wan o' thim big Jarmyn guns
youse have got in there, that the pa-apers do be tillin' erbout?"

He was a comical looking old fellow at best, and out here at this early
hour, with only his trousers slipped on over his calico nightshirt, and
heelless slippers on his feet, he cut a curious figure indeed.

Mr. Con Murphy was a red-faced man, with a fringe of sandy whiskers all
around his countenance like a frame, having his lips, chin and cheeks
smoothly shaven. He had no family, lived alone in the cottage, and
worked very hard at his cobbler's bench.

"Why, Mr. Murphy!" cried Ruth. "Of course _I_ didn't push your pig
through the fence."

"It was Billy Bumps," giggled Agnes.

"Who is that, thin?" demanded Mr. Murphy, glaring at Neale O'Neil. "That
young felley standin' there, I dunno?"

"No. I only cracked your pig over the nose with this fence paling," said
the boy. "I wonder you don't keep the pig at home."

"Oh, ye do, do ye?" cried the little Irishman. "Would ye have me lock
him into me spare bedroom?"

"I would if he were mine--before I'd let him be a nuisance to the
neighbors," declared Neale O'Neil.

"Oh, Neale!" interposed Ruth. "You mustn't speak so. Of course the pig
is annoying----"

"He's a nuisance. A