mopping out a rusty drain with it. It was quite normal, every hair on end and pointing in a different direction.

"Well, what of Florazora?" I asked. "It's evident she has never entered into your life, at any rate."

"That's all you know about it," said Andy. "They're sitting up for me with blunderbusses and brickbats at home, and 'Florazora' is the cause."

"But how?" I asked.

"Ye'll discover if ye'll let me speak for a half a minute. I may admit to you I was very sweet on a little girl that was staying with the MacManuses a while back, so I bought a bottle of that stuff to keep my hair down while I was pitching her the yarn. I cornered the lass alone in the MacManus' drawing-room, went down on my knees and threw off a dandy proposal I had learnt by heart out of a book. The girl curled about all over the sofa with emotion, and for a bit I thought my eloquence was doing it. Then I perceived she was near shaken to pieces with laughter. Couldn't think why till I happened to catch sight of myself in a mirror and saw that my darned old hair had come unstuck again and was bobbing up all over my head, not singly as it is now, but a cockatoo tuft at a time, thanks to 'Florazora.' I rose up off the MacManus carpet and ran all the way home."

"Still I don't see—" I began.

"Ye never will if ye don't give me a chance to tell ye," said Andy.

"Do ye remember that greasy divil Peter Flynn that owns a draper's shop in Ballinknock main street? A fat man he is with the flowing locks of a stump orator, given to fancy waistcoats and a frock-coat—very dressy. Ye'd see him standing at the shop-door on fair-days, bobbing to the women and how-dy-doin' the country boys the way he'd tout a vote or two, he being the leading Sinn Fein organiser down our way now. Anyhow he and his raparees got after me and the hunt, on account of me evicting a tenant that hadn't paid a penny of rent for seven years and didn't ever intend to. They hinted to the decent poor farmers round about that there'd be ricks fired and cows ripped if they allowed me to hunt their lands, so I got stopped everywhere. I had land enough of my own to carry on with, so I hunted there till the foxes and hares gave out, which they precious soon did, seeing that half the neighbourhood was out shooting, trapping, poisoning and lurching them.

"I bought a stag from a feller in Limerick and chased that for a bit; then on a 'tween day, when I was away and the deer out grazing in the demesne, somebody slipped a brace of Mauser bullets into it, and that form of diversion was likewise at an end. As far as I could see an animal wouldn't stand a ten minutes' chance in my country unless it were an armadillo.

"I wrote to the War Office, asking them could they kindly oblige me with the loan of a lively little tank for pursuing purposes, but got no answer. I guess Winston had a liver on him that morning. So there was nothing for it but to give up the hounds. I went and broke the sad news to Patsey Mike, who was mixing stirabout at the time. 'Oh, God save us, don't be doing that, Sor,' says he. 'Hoult hard a day or so and I'll be afther findin' some little object to hunt, that them dirthy blagyards won't shoot at all.'

"Two mornings later he turned up, dragging something in an oat-sack.

"I have it here that'll course out before the houn's like a shootin'-star,' says he.

"'What is it?' says I.

"The rogue put his hand in the sack and drew out a yellow mongrel dog.

"'Where did ye get that?' says I.

"'Shure didn't I borry it?' says he.

"'And who did ye borrow it from?' says I.

"'From Misther Flynn, no less,' says he. ''Tis his little foxey pet dog.'

"'Does Mr. Flynn know you borrowed it from him?' says I.

"'Begob that he does not,' says he. 'Mr. Flynn is beyond in Youghal and I borryed it in the dark dead of night over the yard wall. Faith, he'll run home like a flick of lightning, he's that scared, the same dog.'

"'Ye did well,' said I; 'but will the hounds chase him?'

"'That they will, Sor. What with foxes one day, stags the next and hares the next, there's sorra a born thing they wouldn't hunt given there's smell enough in it,' says the lad. 'Have ye the laste little trace of aniseed in the house that you could drench the crature with the way the houn's would folly him?'

"Divil a drop of aniseed or anything else had I on the place, and I stood there scratching my ear with my crop wondering what to do, when suddenly I remembered that relic of my courting days, 'Florazora.' 'I have it,' I said; 'I've got something that'll fix that hare all right.'

"I fetched the bottle and rubbed a handful or so of the stuff well into Mr. Flynn's pet dog and let him go with a flip of my whip lash to help him on his way. He lit out for home as though the devil had kicked him, yelling blue murder and laying a trail of flowers and honey across the country so thick you could pretty nigh eat it. I gave him a fair start, then laid the hounds on and we had a five-mile point, going like a steeplechase all the way. Flynn lives in a lonely house about half a mile out of Ballinknock, and the 'bag-man' got home to it and through the wee dog-hole into the yard with just six inches to spare.

"Patsey went over the wall and borrowed the dog three times after that. It was no trouble at all. Flynn was still away in Youghal, and his housekeeper was that deaf Gabriel would have to announce the Crack of Doom to her on his fingers. But it was too good to last. On the fourth day we were nearing Flynn's house, the dog leading the pack by not fifty yards, when I saw him cut across a field to the left, while the hounds tumbled into a little boreen that runs up from the railway-station and went streaking down it singing out as if they were on a breast-high scent and in view.

"'Begob,' says I to Patsey, 'they've changed; they're running a hare, I believe.'

"'Tis a hare in a frock-coat then, Sor,' says he, pointing with his whip.

"Sure enough it was a man they were after. I saw him then galloping down the boreen for dear life, coat-tails flying, hair streaming, terror in his big white face. Flynn! I did my damdest, but I had no hope of stopping them, not in that little lane. When I came out on the high-road I found what was left of the politician half-way up a telegraph post, like a treed cat, screeching and scrambling and calling on the Saints, with old Actress swinging by her teeth to the tails of his shirt, Cruiskeen ripping the trousers off him a leg at a time, and the rest of the pack leaping under him like the surf of the sea.

"I nearly rolled off my mare with laughter, though well I knew the screeching scarecrow up the pole would have me drawn and quartered for that day's work. I whipped the hounds off in the end, took 'em by road to Fermoy that same evening and boxed 'em to my brother-in-law in Carlow. 'Twas fortunate I did, for my kennels were burnt to the ground that night."

Andy sighed, drained his glass and gazed regretfully at the bottom.

"H-m, ye-es, but there's still a point I would like cleared up," said I. "What made the pack change and chase Flynn?"

"Appears he was strongly addicted to 'Florazora' too," said Andy.

Patlander.

Odd Job Man (to Gardener, discussing dinner which has been sent them from the house). "Nasty bit o' mutton this, ain't it?"

Gardener. "'Tain't mutton—it's pork."

Odd Job Man. "Is it? I 'ope it is. I'm very fond of a bit o' pork."