life exposed to a thousand risks; he has neither family nor connections
interested in him; were he to be found dead on the roadside to-morrow,
there is neither father nor brother, nor uncle nor cousin, to take up
the inquiry how he met his fate. The coroner would earn his guinea or
two, and there would be the end of it!"

"Did he ever do you a bad turn, Mr. Linton?" asked Keane, while he fixed
his cold eyes on Linton with a stare of insolent effrontery.

"Me! injure me? Never. He would have shown me many a favor, but I would
not accept of such. How came you to ask this question?"

"Because you seem so interested about his comin' home safe to-morrow
evening," said Tom, with a dry laugh.

"So I am!" said Linton, with a smile of strange meaning.

"An' if he was to come to harm, sorry as you 'll be, you couldn't help
it, sir?" said Keane, still laughing.

"Of course not; these mishaps are occurring every day, and will continue
as long as the country remains in its present state of wretchedness."

Keane seemed to ponder over the last words, for he slouched his hat
over his eyes, and sat with clasped hands and bent-down head for several
minutes in silence. At last he spoke, but it was in a tone and with a
manner whose earnestness contrasted strongly with his former levity.

"Can't we speak openly, Mr. Linton, would n't it be best for both of us
to say fairly what's inside of us this minit?"

"I 'm perfectly ready," said Linton, seating himself beside him; "I
do not desire anything better than to show my confidence in a man of
courage like yourself."

"Then let us not be losin' our time," said the other, gruffly. "What's
the job worth? that's the chat. What is it worth?"

"You are certainly a most practical speaker," said Linton, laughing in
his own peculiar way, "and clear away preliminaries in a very summary
fashion."

[Illustration: 240]

"If I'm not worth trustin' now," replied the other, doggedly, "ye 'd
betther have nothin' to say to me."

"I did not mean that, nor anything like it, Tom. I was only alluding to
your straightforward, business-like way of treating a subject which less
vigorously minded men would approach timidly and carefully."

"Faix, I 'd go up to him bouldly, if ye mane that!" cried the other, who
misconceived the eulogy passed upon his candor.

"I know it,--well I know it," said Linton, encouraging a humor he had
thus casually evoked; for in the bloodshot eyes and flushed cheeks of
th