sixth time I've ventured to ask a
distinct statement from your lips, of the cauthe of your dithagreement
with Mr. Nutter, which I plainly tell you, Thir, I don't at prethent
underthtand, said Puddock, loftily and firmly enough.

'To be sure, my darlin' Puddock,' replied O'Flaherty, 'it was that
cursed little French whipper-snapper, with his monkeyfied
intherruptions; be the powers, Puddock, if you knew half the mischief
that same little baste has got me into, you would not wondher if I
murthered him. It was he was the cause of my jewel with my cousin, Art
Considine, and I wanting to be the very pink of politeness to him. I
wrote him a note when he came to Athlone, afther two years in France,
and jist out o' compliment to him, I unluckily put in a word of French:
come an' dine, says I, and we'll have a dish of chat. I knew u-n p-l-a-t
(spelling it), was a dish, an' says I to Jerome, that pigimy (so he
pronounced it) you seen here at the door, that's his damnable name,
what's _chat_ in French--c-h-a-t--spelling it to him; "sha," says he;
"sha?" says I, "spell it, if you plase," says I; "c-h-a-t," says he, the
stupid old viper. Well, I took the trouble to write it out, "un plat de
chat;" "is that right?" says I, showing it to him. "It is, my lord,"
says he, looking at me as if I had two heads. I never knew the manin' of
it for more than a month afther I shot poor Art through the two calves.
An' he that fought two jewels before, all about cats, one of them with a
Scotch gentleman that he gave the lie to, for saying that French cooks
had a way of stewing cats you could not tell them from hares; and the
other immadiately afther, with Lieutenant Rugge, of the Royal Navy, that
got one stewed for fun, and afther my Cousin Art dined off it, like a
man, showed him the tail and the claws. It's well he did not die of it,
and no wondher he resented my invitation, though upon my honour, as a
soldier and a gentleman, may I be stewed alive myself in a pot, Puddock
my dear, if I had the laste notion of offering him the smallest
affront!'

'I begin to despair, Sir,' exclaimed Puddock, 'of receiving the
information without which 'tis vain for me to try to be useful to you;
once more, may I entreat to know what _is_ the affront of which you
complain?'

'You don't know; raly and truly now, you don't know?' said O'Flaherty,
fixing a solemn tipsy leer on him.

'I tell you _no_, Thir,' rejoined Puddock.

'And do you mean to tell me you d