awlin' round on top me head.

"I was startin' for the other ind of the boat, but it come over me
strong to slip up behind thim and listen was he plannin' anny
divilment against me with the other man. Och, it was a hard thing to
bring mesilf to, but whativer ilse I am, I'm not after bein' anny
coward.

"Bedad, they was but talkin' of thim new tunnels under the river, and
him not even mentionin' he was bein' kidnapped! Wirra, wirra, and
afore I was half way down the boat, he come runnin' after me excusin'
himsilf for leavin' me, and the rist of the way over he talked tunnels
to me, sociable and entertainin', till I could feel thim runnin' all
through me.

"They was no chanct to slip away from him in the crowd gittin' off,
but whin we come to thim freight tracks just outside the ferry-house,
the gates begun droppin' for a train, and, waitin' till the last
minute, I sprung from him to git across and let the train come atween
us, with him held back by it while I was disappearin' into the whole
of New York. So help me, the little omadhawn, like as not readin' ivry
thought in me head, grabbed me back and spoiled it all, neat plan as
it was.

"'Ye might 'a' been killed and ruined the kidnappin'!' he says,
anxious like he was me own mother.

"'Don't let me catch ye hangin' back that way a'gin!' I says,
pretendin' I was uncommon mad, which I was. 'Whin that big gomach of a
train is gone,' I says, 'see that ye stick close by me and try no
foolishness. We're goin' to take the subway to where we git off,' says
I, meanin' to dodge him at the subway and grab a surface car to
whereiver it wint. 'Come along now, and be quick with ye.'

"But they wasn't no chanct to dodge him, and inside of ten minutes the
two of us was settin' side by side in a subway car like both of us
wanted to. He was gittin' cheerfuller ivry minute, and the cheerfuller
he got, the more I fell to wishin' I'd niver seen the likes of him. He
didn't look like anny human annyhow, and I begun prayin' the saints he
wasn't, for if he _was_, thin they wasn't _anny_ answer to him. 'Tare
and ages!' the thought come to me sudden, 'he's a detective, he is,
and may the divil dance on the skinny back of him till they's snow a
foot deep where the both of thim belongs! Sure, it's all plain now,
ivrything he's been doin', and why wasn't I thinkin' of it whin I
begun this kidnappin'--may I niver hear the word ag'in and bad scran
to it!'

"And thin, at the next station, in c