nd annyways, it's nervous it's makin' me.'

"'Do you _have_ to set that way?' says he, comin' closer.

"'Indeed and I do,' I says, 'though it's mortal wearin'. But whin ye
are makin'--' and just there I makes a grab at him. But, och,
blathers, if his brains was slow, his feet was quick, and away he
wint, me after him, divil-racketty.

"Thim ruins was right on the edge of the Palisades, and 'twas me
endeavor to keep him atween me and the cliff so he couldn't make for
the open. Up and down we wint, scramblin', running and crawlin', first
to wan ind of thim crumblin' walls and thin back ag'in to the other,
me always hemmin' him in and headin' him off, but niver quite catchin'
him, and thim piles of loose brick hurtin' me sock-feet cruel, me
havin' dropped me shoes whin I tried to grab him. They wasn't much
light left, but all to wanct I saw him goin' right up in the air, and
whin I come up he was just climbin' over the edge of that wan
second-story room. Faith, for a minute I was thinkin' he _was_ a
ghost, but he hadn't no more than landed whin he begun draggin' up
after him a long board with slats nailed to it what some boys must 'a'
left there for a ladder. Me hand just missed the ind of it, me foot
slippin' on top a pile of bricks and rollin' me down over the sharp
corners of thim.

"I wint all round that second-story room, mostly crawlin'--och, me
poor feet, it was perishin' with the pain of thim I was!--but niver a
way of gittin' up to him, and him likely to drop down on the off side
and run like a rabbit if I took me attention off him. So I wint
scramblin' back where I'd be atween him and the road and set down on a
pile of bricks. He'd been layin' flat on his stommick, gittin' his
wind back in him, but prisintly he clumb up on his knees and throwed a
brick at me.

"'Ye young gomeral,' I says, 'if ye do that ag'in, I'll shoot a hole
in ye!'

"He wint behind a bit of brick wall and throwed another. If iver I go
annywheres ag'in without a gun, may the divil fly away with me! So I
wint behind a bit of wall mesilf. And there he was.

[Illustration: "PARDON ME," HE SAID, "BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT FOR?"]

"Of course, I was ragin', and I begun tossin' bricks back at him.
Hiven knows they was enough of thim! Whin he'd throwed about twinty,
doin' no harm with thim, thim little arms of his wore out, and I kept
just enough of thim goin' to make him nervous-like without hurtin'
him, wonderin' in between would it be s