ng away his time in a back parlour, behind a bonnet shop, than
minding the interests of the county. 'Pension'--ha!--wants it sure
enough;--take care, O'Grady, or, by the powers, I'll be at you. You
may baulk all the bailiffs, and defy any other man to serve you with a
writ; but, by jingo! if I take the matter in hand, I'll be bound I'll
get it done. 'Stephen's Green--big ditch--where I used to hunt
water-rats.' Divil sweep you, Murphy, you'd rather be hunting
water-rats any day than minding your business. He's a clever fellow
for all that. 'Favourite bitch--Mrs. Egan.'--Aye! there's the end of
it--with his bit o' po'thry, too! The divil!"

The squire threw down the letter, and then his eye caught the other
two that Andy had purloined.

"More of that stupid blackguard's work!--robbing the mail--no less!--that
fellow will be hanged some time or other. Egad, may be they'll hang him
for this! What's best to be done? May be it will be the safest way to
see whom they are for, and send them to the parties, and request they
will say nothing: that's it."

The squire here took up the letters that lay before him, to read their
superscriptions; and the first he turned over was directed to Gustavus
Granby O'Grady, Esq., Neck-or-nothing Hall, Knockbotherum. This was
what is called a curious coincidence. Just as he had been reading all
about O'Grady's intended treachery to him, here was a letter to that
individual, and with the Dublin post-mark too, and a very grand seal.

The squire examined the arms; and, though not versed in the mysteries
of heraldry, he thought he remembered enough of most of the arms he had
seen to say that this armorial bearing was a strange one to him. He
turned the letter over and over again, and looked at it back and front,
with an expression in his face that said, as plain as countenance could
speak, "I'd give a trifle to know what is inside of this." He looked at
the seal again: "Here's a--goose, I think it is, sitting on a bowl with
cross-bars on it, and a spoon in its mouth: like the fellow that owns
it, may be. A goose with a silver spoon in its mouth--well, here's the
gable-end of a house, and a bird sitting on the top of it. Could it be
Sparrow? There is a fellow called Sparrow, an under-secretary at the
Castle. D----n it! I wish I knew what it's about."

The squire threw down the letter as he said, "D----n it!" but took it up
again in a few seconds, and catching it edgewise between his forefinger