nes, an' then
you kick them out o' doors, as you did him."

"Exactly," said the hardened miscreant, "that's the way we live; when we
get the skin off the cat, then we throw out the carcass."

"Why, dang it, man," said Whiskey, "would you expect honest Barney here,
or his still honester ould rip of a father, bad as they are, to give us
drink for nothing?"

"Now," said Finnigan, who had not yet spoken, "yez are talkin' about Art
Maguire, and I'll tell yez what I could do; I could bend my finger that
way, an' make him folly me over the parish."

"And how could you do that?" asked Whiskey.

"By soodherin' him--by ticklin' his empty pride--by dwellin' on the ould
blood of Ireland, the great Fermanagh Maguires--or by tellin' him that
he's betther than any one else, and could do what nobody else could."

"Could you make him drunk to-night?" asked Shannon.

"Ay," said Toal, "an' will, too, as ever you seen him in your lives; only
whin I'm praisin' him do some of you oppose me, an' if I propose any
thing to be done, do you all either support me in it, or go aginst me,
accordin' as you see he may take it."

"Well, then," said Mooney, "in ordher to put you in spirits, go off,
Barney, an' slip a glass o' whiskey a piece into this cordial, jist to
tighten it a bit--ha, ha, ha!"

"Ay," said Tom Whiskey, "till we dhrink success to teetotalism, ha, ha,
ha!"

"Suppose you do him in the cordial," said Shannon.

"Never mind," replied Toal; "I'll first soften him a little on the
cordial, and then make him tip the punch openly and before faces, like a
man."

"Troth, it's a sin," observed Moonoy, who began to disrelish the
project; "if it was only on account of his wife an' childre."

Toal twisted his misshapen mouth into still greater deformity at this
observation--

"Well," said he, "no matter, it'll only be a good joke; Art is a dacent
fellow, and afther this night we won't repate it. Maybe," he continued
"I may find it necessary to vex him, an' if I do, remember you won't let
him get at me, or my bread's baked."

This they all promised, and the words were scarcely concluded, when Art
entered and joined them. As a great portion of their conversation did
not bear upon the subject matter of this narrative, it is therefore
unnecessary to record it. After about two hours, during which Art had
unconsciously drunk at least three glasses of whiskey, disguised in
cordial, the topic artfully introduced by Toal was the Temperance