sant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel,
unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather
concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with
the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred million years
the coal seam of the sister island would be played out and if, as
time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all he could
personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies,
equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly
advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries even
though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of
whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish
soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in
fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee
of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous
invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as
being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was
prearranged as the lookeron, a student of the human soul if anything,
the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper,
who probably wasn't the other person at all, he (B.) couldn't help
feeling and most properly it was better to give people like that the
goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have
anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their
felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming
forward and turning queen's evidence or king's now like Denis or Peter
Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he disliked
those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though such
criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any
shape or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it (while inwardly
remaining what he was) a certain kind of admiration for a man who
had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his
political convictions (though, personally, he would never be a party to
any such thing), off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south,
have her or swing for her, when the husband frequently, after some words
passed between the two concerning her relations with the other lucky
mortal (he having had the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on
his adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptia