Thomas Gallagher.
The letter-box at Ballyblank that night contained these two missives from Macgrabb:—
The Lodge, Dec. 7, 1880.
My dear Mr. McCarthy,—I find on looking over the office books that you are behind with your last half-year’s rent, due Sept. 15. His lordship, as you are aware, is not at all pleased with his father’s action in granting you the lease under which you now hold, and will certainly submit to no infringement of its clauses. I would request, therefore, immediate payment of the amount due. Of course you know the consequences of delay.
Faithfully yours,
George Macgrabb.
Dear Constable,—Let the goose live. By Jingo, I’ve a mind to drop over on Christmas day and test its stuffing.
George.
IV.
THE CONSTABLE’S CHRISTMAS COLLATION.
To the surprise of the agent, Pat McCarthy returned no answer to his note, and to the surprise of the policeman the last addition to its literary feasts appeared to have temporarily disgusted the aquatic bird, for it vanished from the precincts of the barracks, and was seen no more for a fortnight. For a time this mysterious disappearance somewhat annoyed, even if it did not alarm, the dual conspirators, for there was a bare possibility that some hungry laborer on the estate might have killed the bird and tried to eat it, possibly discovering the lost receipt among the other curiosities absorbed into its digestive interior. But when a week passed, and nothing was heard of either the missing dinner which the Ballyblank constabulary had anticipated blunting their teeth on at Christmas, or of the cerulean document obtained by stratagem and lost by accident, the worthy pair began to breathe more freely. Some tramp or wayfarer, no doubt, had deprived the barracks of its treasure.