The officers
have refused, so has Toole, _you_ won't undertake it, and it's too late
to go into town. I defy it to come to anything. Jest be said be me, Dan
Loftus, and let sleeping dogs lie. Here I am, an old experienced
observer, that's up to their tricks, with my eye upon them. Go you to
bed--lave them to me--and they're checkmated without so much as seeing
how we bring it to pass.'
Dan hesitated.
'Arrah! go to your bed, Dan Loftus, dear. It's past eleven
o'clock--they're nonplussed already; and lave _me_--me that understands
it--to manage the rest.'
'Well, Sir, I do confide it altogether to you. I know I might, through
ignorance, do a mischief.'
And so they bid a mutual good-night, and Loftus scaled his garret stair
and snuffed his candle, and plunged again into the business of two
thousand years ago.
'Here's a purty business,' says the priest, extending both his palms,
with a face of warlike importance, and shutting the door behind him
with what he called 'a cow's kick;' 'a jewel, my dear Pat, no less;
bloody work I'm afeared.'
Mr. Mahony, who had lighted a pipe during his entertainer's absence,
withdrew the fragrant tube from his lips, and opened his capacious mouth
with a look of pleasant expectation, for he, like other gentlemen of his
day--and, must we confess, not a few jolly clerics of my creed, as well
as of honest Father Roach's--regarded the ordeal of battle, and all its
belongings, simply as the highest branch of sporting.
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