s--betther than fightin' me? Considher before ye answer.'

More than ever puzzled, Learoyd turned round two or three times, felt
an arm, kicked tentatively, and answered, 'Ah'm fit.' He was
accustomed to fight blindly at the bidding of the superior mind.

They sat them down, the men looking on from afar, and Mulvaney
untangled himself in mighty words.

'Followin' your fools' scheme I wint out into the thrackless desert
beyond the barricks. An' there I met a pious Hindu dhriving a
bullock-kyart. I tuk ut for granted he wud be delighted for to convoy
me a piece, an' I jumped in----'

'You long, lazy, black-haired swine,' drawled Ortheris, who would have
done the same thing under similar circumstances.

''Twas the height av policy. That naygur-man dhruv miles an' miles--as
far as the new railway line they're buildin' now back av the Tavi
River. "'Tis a kyart for dhirt only," says he now an' again
timoreously, to get me out av ut. "Dhirt I am," sez I, "an' the
dhryest that you ever kyarted. Dhrive on, me son, an' glory be wid
you." At that I wint to slape, an' took no heed till he pulled up on
the embankmint av the line where the coolies were pilin' mud. There
was a matther av two thousand coolies on that line--you remimber that.
Prisintly a bell rang, an' they throops off to a big pay-shed.
"Where's the white man in charge?" sez I to my kyart-dhriver. "In the
shed," sez he, "engaged on a riffle."--"A fwhat?" sez I. "Riffle," sez
he. "You take ticket. He take money. You get nothin'."--"Oho!" sez I,
"that's fwhat the shuperior an' cultivated man calls a raffle, me
misbeguided child av darkness an' sin. Lead on to that raffle, though
fwhat the mischief 'tis doin' so far away from uts home--which is the
charity-bazar at Christmas, an' the Colonel's wife grinnin' behind the
tea-table--is more than I know." Wid that I wint to the shed an' found
'twas pay-day among the coolies. Their wages was on a table forninst a
big, fine, red buck av a man--sivun fut high, four fut wide, an' three
fut thick, wid a fist on him like a corn-sack. He was payin' the
coolies fair an' easy, but he wud ask each man if he wud raffle that
month, an' each man sez, "Yes," av course. Thin he wud deduct from
their wages accordin'. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould cigar-box
full av gun-wads an' scatthered ut among the coolies. They did not
take much joy av that performince, an' small wondher. A man close to
me picks up a black gunwad an' sings out,