deliver any letters to my address to the bearer. This I gave to a
cabman, instructing him to drive to the postoffice and bring my mail to
the house I had marked, returning myself to the commercial room to
watch. In a few minutes I saw the cabman drive to the house, and seeing
no one waiting there, he turned and drove slowly down the street past
the hotel, holding up at arm's length a letter to attract my
notice--which it did to my two detectives walking along a short distance
behind him, on the hotel side of the street, with noses elevated and
eyes peering everywhere.

"'Well,' I thought, 'this is getting to be hot, and it is time for me to
leave Cork.' I was now fully aroused to a sense of my danger. No one
happening to be in the commercial room for the moment, I left my hat on
the sofa, and wearing the Scotch cap, slipped downstairs just as they
were past the hotel, following them until I came to where the cab was
waiting with my luggage. I ordered the driver to take me to a canal-boat
wharf, where I dismissed him; then, with bag in hand, I walked across
the canal bridge, stopped in a small shop and hired a smaller boy to go
for a jaunting car, and a few minutes later I was rolling to the
northward.

"On the road I threw some small coins to poor-looking people, who then,
as now, comprised among their numbers the most honest patriots and the
truest-hearted sons of Erin.

"Seeing me throwing the pence to the poor folk, cabby took it into his
head that I must be a priest--a good criterion of the estimation in
which the benevolence of the fathers is held by their own people. And I
may here remark that all the Catholic priests I have known, occupying
the post of chaplain, were without exception faithful and entirely
devoted to the duties of their holy calling. I had no intention of
traveling as a priest, and when I told the driver as much he would not
believe it, but insisted that I was really a priest traveling incognito;
therefore, when we stopped at a small wayside tavern, about twelve miles
from Cork and two to Fermoy, he privately informed the mistress that I
was a priest who did not want the fact to become known. Accordingly the
good woman treated me with marked attention during my short stay. It was
then nearly sunset, and as I did not wish the cabman to get back to Cork
until late at night, I kept him eating and drinking until dark, when I
paid the bill and started him homeward, uproariously rejoicing. I then
s