comfort you when you spoke it, for it was
so true and suitable an epithet. A little dwarf he has made of you, all
body and no legs like a bear, a dwarf-bear, of course; and why, if it is
not that he envies you your figure and is jealous of it in a mean and
discreditable way? Sure, he wants to have all the looks and to appear
quite incomparable to the eyes of his beautiful German. So he makes a
dwarf of you, a little bear dwarf--"

Jenny, however, had heard this phrase often enough by now. She
interrupted Wogan hotly, and it seemed her anger was now as much
directed against him as it had been before against O'Toole.

"He is not envious," said she. "A fine friend he has in you, I am
thinking. He has no need to be envious. Captain O'Toole could carry me
to the house in his arms if he wished, which is more than you could do
if you tried till midday to-morrow," and she turned her shoulder to
Wogan, who, in no way abashed by her contempt, cried triumphantly,--

"But he didn't wish. He let you drag through the mud and snow without
so much as a patten to keep you off the ground. Why? Tell me that,
Jenny! Why didn't he wish?"

Jenny was silent.

"You see, if he is not envious, he is at all events a coward," argued
Wogan, "else he would have run his own risks and come in your stead."

"But that would not have served," cried Jenny. It was her turn now to
speak triumphantly. "How could O'Toole have run away with his heiress
and at the same time remained behind in her bed to escape suspicion, as
I am to do?"

"I had forgotten that, to be sure," said Wogan, meekly.

Jenny laughed derisively.

"O'Toole is the man with the head on his shoulders," said she.

"And a pitiful, calculating head it is," exclaimed Wogan. "Think of the
inconvenience of your position when you are discovered to-morrow. Think
of the angry uncle! O'Toole has thought of him and so keeps out of his
way. Here's a nice world, where hulking, shapeless giants like O'Toole
hide themselves from angry uncles behind a dwarf-girl's petticoats. Bah!
We will go back and kick O'Toole."

Wogan rose to his feet. Jenny did not move; she sat and laughed
scornfully.

"_You_ kick O'Toole! You might once, if he happened to be asleep. But he
would take you up by the scruff of the neck and the legs and beat your
face against your knees until you were dead. Besides, what do I care for
an angry uncle! I am well paid to put up with his insults."

"Well paid!" said Wogan, wi