t know, is a relative, it seems, to Bat
Hogan's wife. For some time past there has come a strange man named
Vincent, and his wife, to reside in the neighborhood, and this fellow in
conjunction with the Hogans, was managing some secret proceedings which
no one can penetrate. Now, it appears that Hogan's wife, who has been
kept out of this secret, got Nanny Peety to set her father to work in
order to discover it. Peety, by the advice of Hogan's wife, called in
Teddy Phat's--"

"What's that? Teddy Phats? Now, by the way, Harry, don't abuse poor
Teddy. You will be surprised, Hal, when I tell you that he and I have
played into each other's hands for years. Yes, my boy, and I can assure
you that, owing to him, both Fethertonge and I were aware of Hycy's
Burke's plot against M'Mahon long before he set it a-going. The fellow,
however, will certainly be hanged yet."

"Faith, sir," replied Harry, "instead of being hanged himself, he's
likely to hang others. In consequence of an accidental conversation
which Teddy Phats, and Finigan the tippling schoolmaster had, concerning
Vincent, the stranger I spoke of, who, it appears, lives next to
Finigan's school-house, Teddy discovered, through the pedagogue, who, by
the way, is abroad at all hours, that the aforesaid Vincent was in
the habit of going up every night to the most solitary part of the
mountains, but for what purpose, except upon another distillation
affair, he could not say."

The old gauger or supervisor, as he now considered himself, became
here so comically excited--or, we should rather say, so seriously
excited--that it was with difficulty the nephew could restrain his
laughter. He moved as if his veins had been filled with quicksilver,
his eyes brightened, and his naturally keen and knavish-looking features
were sharpened, as it were, into an expression so acutely sinister, that
he resembled a staunch old hound who comes unexpectedly upon the fresh
slot of a hare.

"Well," said he, rubbing his hands--"well, go on--what happened? Do you
hear, Harry? What happened? Of course they're at the distillation again.
Don't you hear me, I say? What was the upshot?"

"Why, the upshot was," replied the other, "that nothing of sufficient
importance has been discovered yet; but we have reason to suppose that
they're engaged in the process of forgery or coining, as they were in
that of illicit distillation under the patronage of the virtuous Hycy
Burke, or Hycy the accomplished,