Page:Life's Handicap - Kipling (1891).djvu/213

 'Reputation of your grandmother's pig!' said Dan.

'Well, an' he had a good reputation tu; so it's all right. Mulcahy must see his way to clear out behind him, or he'd not ha' come so far, talkin' powers of darkness.'

'Did you hear anything of a regimental coortmartial among the Black Boneens, these days? Half a company of 'em took one of the new draft an' hanged him by his arms with a tent-rope from a third-story verandah. They gave no reason for so doin', but he was half dead. I'm thinking that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was a friend of Mulcahy's, or a man in the same trade. They'd a deal better ha' taken his beer,' returned Dan reflectively.

'Better still ha' handed him up to the Colonel,' said Horse Egan, 'onless—but sure the news wud be all over the counthry an' give the reg'ment a bad name.'

'An' there'd be no reward for that man—he but went about talkin',' said the Kerry man artlessly.

'You speak by your breed,' said Dan, with a laugh. 'There was never a Kerry man yet that wudn't sell his brother for a pipe o' tobacco an' a pat on the back from a p'liceman.'

'Praise God I'm not a bloomin' Orangeman,' was the answer.

'No, nor never will be,' said Dan. 'They breed men in Ulster. Would you like to thry the taste of one?'

The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The odds of battle were too great. 'Then you'll not even give Mulcahy a—a strike for his money,' said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what he called 'trouble' of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity.

Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with long strides, to the mess-room, the men following. The room was empty. In a corner, cased like the King of