t
(his thumb).

The magistrate set his ear with the air of a man who had experience in
discriminating such sounds. "Hartigan," said he, "you'll condescend to
kiss the book, sir, if you please: there's a hollowness in that smack,
my good fellow, that can't escape me."

"Not kiss it, your honor? why, by this staff in my hand, if ever a man
kissed"--

"Silence! you impostor," said the curate; "I watched you closely, and am
confident your lips never touched the book."

"My lips never touched the book!--Why, you know I'd be sarry to
conthradict either o' yez; but I was jist goin' to obsarve, wid
simmission, that my own lips ought to know best; an' don't you hear them
tellin' you that they did kiss it?" and he grinned with confidence in
their faces.

"You double-dealing reprobate!" said the parish priest, "I'll lay my
whip across your jaws. I saw you, too, an' you did not kiss the book."

"By dad, an' maybe I did not, sure enough," he replied: "any man may
make a mistake unknownst to himself; but I'd give my oath, an' be the
five crasses, I kissed it as sure as--however, a good thing's never
the worse o' bein' twice done, gintlemen; so here goes, jist to satisfy
yez;" and, placing the book near, his mouth, and altering his position
a little, he appeared to comply, though, on the contrary, he touched
neither it nor his thumb. "It's the same thing to me," he continued,
laying down the book with an air of confident assurance; "it's the same
thing to me if I kissed it fifty times over, which I'm ready to do if
that doesn't satisfy yez."

As every man acquitted himself of the charges brought against him,
the curate immediately took down his name. Indeed, before the
clearing commenced, he requested that such as were to swear would stand
together within the ring, that, after having sworn, he might hand each
of them a certificate of the fact, which they appeared to think might be
serviceable to them, should they happen to be subsequently indicted for
the same crime in a court of justice. This, however, was only a plan to
keep them together for what was soon to take place.

The detections of thumb kissing were received by those who had already
sworn, and by several in the outward crowd, with much mirth. It is but
justice, however, to the majority of those assembled to state, that they
appeared to entertain a serious opinion of the nature of the ceremony,
and no small degree of abhorrence against those who seemed to trifle
w