"Well, if that's true, how does it happen?" asked Dyck, with a little
flash of interest. "Why should this little twopenny, one-horse place--
I mean in size and furnishments--have such luck as to get the best there
is in France? It means a lot of trouble, eh?"

"It means some trouble. But let me tell you"--he leaned over the table
and laid a hand on Dyck's, which was a little nervous--"let me speak as
an old friend to you, if I may. Here are the facts. For many a year,
you know as well as I do, ships have been coming from France to Ireland
with the very best wines and liquors, and taking back the very best wool-
-smuggled, of course. Well, our little landlord here is the damnedest
rogue of all. The customs never touch him. From the coast
the stuff comes up to Dublin without a check, and, as he's a special
favourite, he gets the best to be had in la belle France."

"Why is he such a favourite?" asked Dyck.

Erris Boyne laughed, not loudly, but suggestively. "When a lady kisses a
man on the lips, of her own free will, and puts her arm around his neck,
is it done, do you think, because it's her duty to do it or die? No,
it's because she likes the man; because the man is a good friend to her;
because it's money in her pocket. That's the case with old Swinton.
France kisses him, as it were, because"--he paused, as though debating
what to say--"because France knows he'd rather be under her own
revolutionary government than under the monarchy of England."

His voice had resonance, and, as he said these words, it had insistence.

"Do you know, Calhoun, I think old Swinton is right. We suffer here