find yet. You're mighty 'cute 'bout other folks, though when the
spirits was under yer very noses, and you searched the houses through
'twas knowed to be stowed in, you couldn't lay hold on a single cask.
'Tis true we mayn't have nabbed the men, but by jingo if 't has come to
us bein' made fools of by the women!"

"There, now, stash it there!" said his older comrade, who had no wish
to see a quarrel ensue. "So far as I can see, there's no cause for
bounce 'twixt either o' us; though only you give us a chance of getting
near to them, sergeant," he said, turning to the soldier, "and I'll
promise you shall make it all square with this pretty lass you fancy
while her lover's cutting capers under Tyburn tree."

"'A chance?'" repeated his companion, despondingly: "where's it to come
from, and the only one we'd got cut away from under us by those Hart
chaps?"

"How so? where's the Hart off to, then?" asked the sergeant.

"Off to Port Mellint," said the man addressed. "Nothing but a hoax, I
fancy, but still she was bound to go;" and so saying he tossed off the
remainder of his grog and began making a movement, saying, as he did
so, to his somewhat quarrelsomely-disposed shipmate, "Here, I say,
Bill, come 'long down to the rendezvoos with me, and if there's nothin'
up for to-night what d'ye say to stepping round to Paddy Burke's? He's
asked us to come ever so many times, you know."

"Paddy Burke?" said the sergeant. "What! do you know him? Why, if
you're going there, I'll step so far with you."