"Because," replied the squire, "if you found out who he was, you'd be
hanged for cannibalism."

"I really don't understand you, Mr. Folliard. Excuse me, but it would
seem to me that something has put you into no very agreeable humor
to-day."

"You don't understand me! Why, Sir Robert," replied the other, "I know
you so well that if you heard the name of your rival you would first
kill him, then powder him, and, lastly, eat him. You are such a terrible
fellow that you care about no man's life, not even about mine."

Now it was to this very point that the calculating baronet wished to
bring him. The old man, he knew, was whimsical, capricious, and in the
habit of taking all his strongest and most enduring resolutions from
sudden contrasts produced by some mistake of his own, or from some
discovery made to him on the part of others.

"As to your life, Mr. Folliard, let me assure you," replied Sir Robert,
"that there is no man living prizes it, and, let me add, you character
too, more highly than I do; but, my dear sir, your life was never in
danger."

"Never in danger! what do you mean, Sir Robert? I tell you, sir, that
the murdering miscreant, the Red Rapparee, had a loaded gun levelled at
me last evening, after dark."

"I know it," replied the other; "I am well aware of it, and you were
rescued just in the nick of time."