Page:Shiana - Peadar Ua Laoghaire.djvu/49

Rh purse, and of the Black Man, and of all the adventures of the previous day. No sooner did he move than he felt a weight in the pocket of his waistcoat. He put in his hand. What should be there but the purse!

"Now, did any Christian ever see such a thing as that?" said he, and he pulled it out. He put his hand in his breeches' pocket. There were the two hundred pounds, no more and no less!

"Well!" said he, "if this business hasn't beaten all the wonders I ever saw! It couldn't have been in my possession unknown to me! Search? There never was searching like it! Everything except putting my fingers out through the corners of the pockets! Search! Didn't I search them, if ever pockets were searched! Empty? They were as empty—as empty as ever they were, and that was enough for them. They couldn't be more empty. Well, then, where was the money while I was searching? Where did it go to? Where did it stay while it was away? Who brought it back? What is the meaning of the whole business? That is the question. That is the difficulty. What good is it to me to have a heavy fat purse in my pocket and two hundred pounds in cash, and then for me to go to the fair, and that it should be in the power of every mean little wretch of a thimble-rigger to abuse me before the neighbours, and to call me a 'little yellow shoemaker,' and to reproach me with 'brown patches,' and 'stout awls,' and 'smelly shoes,' and to proclaim it before the whole fair that there wasn't a penny in my pocket? If every man lives up to his bargain, it isn't a child's bargain they usually make. And if that's the bargain about