He had a couple of mighty good dogs,
which he lent freely, being a good-natured fellow. He liked good living
and jolly young fellows, and was popular among the officers, who used to
pop in freely enough at his reverence's green hall-door whenever they
wanted a loan of his dogs, or to take counsel of the ghostly father
(whose opinion was valued more highly even than Toole's) upon the case
of a sick dog or a lame nag.
Well, one morning--only a few weeks before--Devereux and Toole together
had looked in on some such business upon his reverence--a little
suddenly--and found him eating a hare!--by all the gods, it
_was_--hare-pie in the middle of Lent!
It was at breakfast. His dinner was the meal of an anchorite, and who
would have guessed that these confounded sparks would have bounced into
his little refectory at that hour of the morning? There was no room for
equivocation; he had been caught in the very act of criminal
conversation with the hare-pie. He rose with a spring, like a
Jack-in-a-box, as they entered, and knife and fork in hand, and with
shining chops, stared at them with an angry, bothered, and alarmed
countenance, which increased their laughter.
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