night-gowns at the windows, faith, I well-nigh choked."

"Have you spoken to Ryan about this absurd suspicion, O'Grady?"

"I spoke to him, but I might as well have spoke to a brick wall. Divil a
thing could I get out of him. How did you manage it at all, lad?"

"How could I manage it?" Terence said, indignantly. "No, no, O'Grady; I
know you did make some remark about that scare at Athlone, and said it
would be fun to have one here. I was a little shocked at hearing such a
thing from, as you often say, a superior officer, and it certainly appears
to me that it was you who first broached the idea. So I have much more
right to feel a suspicion that you had a hand in the carrying of it out
than for you to suspect me."

"Well, Terence," O'Grady said, in an insinuating way, "I won't ask you any
questions now, and maybe some day when you have marched away from this
place, you will tell me the ins and outs of the business."

"Maybe, O'Grady, and perhaps you will also confess to me how you managed
to bring the scare about."

"Go along wid you, Terence, it is yourself knows better than anyone else
that I had nothing to do with it, and I will never forgive you until you
make a clean breast of it to me."

"We shall see about it," Terence laughed. "Anyhow, if you allude to the
subject again, I shall feel it my duty to inform the colonel of my reasons
for suspecting that you were concerned in spreading those false reports
last night."