No, sir, to the divil I pitch them both; they
could never indite such a document. Your health, Mr. Hycy--_propino
tibi_, I say; and you are right, _ille ego_--it's a a fact; I am the
man, sir--I acknowledge the charge."
This admission having been made, we need scarcely add that an
explanation was at at once given by Finigan of the motive which had
induced him to write the letter.
"On laving the kemp," said he, "and getting into the open air--_sub
diu_, Mr. Hycy--I felt a general liquidation of my whole bodily
strength, with a strong disposition to make short excursions to the
right or to the left rather than hold my way straight a-head, with, I
must confess, an equal tendency to deposit my body on my mother earth
and enact the soporiferous. On passing Gerald Cavanagh's kiln, where
the Hogans kennel, I entered, and was greeted wid such a chorus of
sternutation as you might expect from a pigsty in midsummer, and made me
envy the unlicked young savages who indulged in it. At the period spoken
of neither you nor they had come in from the kemp. Even this is but a
dim recollection, and I remember nothing more until I overheard your
voice and theirs in dialogue as you were about to depart. After you
went, I heard the dialogue which I hinted at in the letter, between
Teddy Phats and them; and knowing my position and the misbegotten satyrs
by whom I was surrounded, I patiently waited until they were asleep,
when I quietly took my departure.
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