d warehouse near Mike O'Hara's dock
with a fine cellar in it and no wan nosin' round, but it's mesilf is
too knowledgeable to be tellin' ivrything that's in me head, even if
they was time for it. 'We'll be gittin' me shoes first,' I says, 'and
thin we'll be climbin' down to me boat and cross the river,' I says,
'where they ain't room for so manny mosquities.'

"All right,' says he, cheerful, 'though I don't mind thim anny, as I
told ye a bit gone. Come along afore it gits too dark.'

"Was they iver the like of that, and him bein' kidnapped! 'Faith,
maybe it's a bluff he's workin',' thinks I, 'though divil the wan of
me knows why he'd be workin' it.' And whin I'd took him to where I'd
dropped me shoes--oh, wirra, how bad the walkin' was!--I let go of him
entirely whilst I was crammin' thim two feet of mine into thim, to see
would he run ag'in, but keepin' me arm handy to a brick to throw
through him whin he tried it. Och, he niver made a move, and the more
chanct I give him, the peaceabler he stood there waitin' for me. It
was most unsettlin'.

'We'll be goin' down the cliff now,' says I, takin' off me suspinders
and tyin' wan ind of thim in a hard knot around the scrawny little
neck of him to hold him by.

"'Do ye always tie thim up that way?' says he.

"'Yis, sor,' I says; 'thim suspinders has kidnapped nine men, divil a
wan less,' I says.

"'I hope they was nice people,' says he.

"'And why do ye hope that?' I says.

"'Why not?' says he, gintle-like.

"'Don't ye git gay, sor,' says I, 'and don't be goin' so fast whin
it's so steep-like. Faith, it's you is bein' kidnapped, not mesilf.'

"'Yis,' says he, 'I raymimber that.'

"'Oh, ye do?' says I. 'Ye'd better be usin' your brains to walk with
instid of strainin' thim like that. Here! That ain't the way!' I yells
at him as we come to where a side path turned off. And with that me
poor feet slipped on some loose stones, and I would 'a' jerked the
head off him but for the suspinders stretchin'.

"'Guh!' says he, which was about what ye'd expect from him whin he
talked without stoppin' to think it up aforehand. And thin says he:
'Here, me good man, ye'd better be fixin' this. The rope's comin'
loose.'

"'I near dropped the suspinders entirely. 'Holy hiven,' I says to
mesilf, 'he must think we're playin' he was Queen of the May, and me
wantin' to quit and go home! Bedad, they's something behind all this!'
But I tied him up ag'in and we wint on down, with me