d out suddenly:

"'Bye, Joe."

Mr. Henchy waited a few moments and then nodded in the direction of the
door.

"Tell me," he said across the fire, "what brings our friend in here?
What does he want?"

"'Usha, poor Joe!" said Mr. O'Connor, throwing the end of his cigarette
into the fire, "he's hard up, like the rest of us."

Mr. Henchy snuffled vigorously and spat so copiously that he nearly put
out the fire, which uttered a hissing protest.

"To tell you my private and candid opinion," he said, "I think he's a
man from the other camp. He's a spy of Colgan's, if you ask me. Just go
round and try and find out how they're getting on. They won't suspect
you. Do you twig?"

"Ah, poor Joe is a decent skin," said Mr. O'Connor.

"His father was a decent, respectable man," Mr. Henchy admitted. "Poor
old Larry Hynes! Many a good turn he did in his day! But I'm greatly
afraid our friend is not nineteen carat. Damn it, I can understand a
fellow being hard up, but what I can't understand is a fellow sponging.
Couldn't he have some spark of manhood about him?"

"He doesn't get a warm welcome from me when he comes," said the old man.
"Let him work for his own side and not come spying around here."

"I don't know," said Mr. O'Connor dubiously, as he took out
cigarette-papers and tobacco. "I think Joe Hynes is a straight man.
He's a clever chap, too, with the pen. Do you remember that thing he
wrote...?"

"Some of these hillsiders and fenians are a bit too clever if ask me,"
said Mr. Henchy. "Do you know what my private and candid opinion is
about some of those little jokers? I believe half of them are in the pay
of the Castle."

"There's no knowing," said the old man.

"O, but I know it for a fact," said Mr. Henchy. "They're Castle
hacks.... I don't say Hynes.... No, damn it, I think he's a stroke above
that.... But there's a certain little nobleman with a cock-eye--you know
the patriot I'm alluding to?"

Mr. O'Connor nodded.

"There's a lineal descendant of Major Sirr for you if you like! O, the
heart's blood of a patriot! That's a fellow now that'd sell his country
for fourpence--ay--and go down on his bended knees and thank the
Almighty Christ he had a country to sell."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" said Mr. Henchy.

A person resembling a poor clergyman or a poor actor appeared in the
doorway. His black clothes were tightly buttoned on his short body
and it was impossible to say whether he wore