CHAPTER IV

AT 'TRINITY'


It was while the two young men were seated at breakfast that the post
arrived, bringing a number of country newspapers, for which, in one shape
or other, Joe Atlee wrote something. Indeed, he was an 'own correspondent,'
dating from London, or Paris, or occasionally from Rome, with an easy
freshness and a local colour that vouched for authenticity. These journals
were of a very political tint, from emerald green to the deepest orange;
and, indeed, between two of them--the _Tipperary Pike_ and the _Boyne
Water_, hailing from Carrickfergus--there was a controversy of such
violence and intemperance of language, that it was a curiosity to see the
two papers on the same table: the fact being capable of explanation, that
they were both written by Joe Atlee--a secret, however, that he had not
confided even to his friend Kearney.

'Will that fellow that signs himself Terry O'Toole in the _Pike_ stand
this?' cried Kearney, reading aloud from the _Boyne Water_:--

'"We know the man who corresponds with you under the signature of Terry
O'Toole, and it is but one of the aliases under which he has lived since
he came out of the Richmond Bridewell, filcher, forger, and false witness.
There is yet one thing he has never tried, which is to behave with a little
courage. If he should, however, be able to persuade himself, by the aid