Mr. Rooney, bewildered, took consolation in liquid form, agreed with several people that he was hardly treated, then his pink coat gleaming in the dusk, he squared up to Mr. James Rourke to demand satisfaction.
"I'll show ye, ye Germin thraitor," he said bitterly, rolling the word on his tongue. "I'll show ye to drug horses!"
"Will some friend counsel Dan Rooney not to put up a fight?" said Rourke with reserve. "Seein' that he has more dhrink taken than I have meself, an' that his faytures will be concayled on him for a week if he thries it on."
Further pleasantries concerning the fact that James was afraid, and a rider to the effect that "Perhaps if Daniel Rooney's present features were hidden he would look all the better" from Rourke being exchanged, Rooney broke loose from restraining friends and rushed forward, his arms going like windmills and his face aflame. Rourke shortened matters by knocking him down scientifically.
From behind an enlarging nose Mr. Rooney, on the ground, considered that this was another bit of treachery, for he found that giddiness prevented him from getting up.
"Maybe the hippodromic sirringe in his hand," he gulped, "pricked into the nose on me face."
A voice suggested that if this was the case Dan Rooney should immediately get up and show them how fast he could run away, Dan, completing the crowd's good-humour by endeavouring—he was now exceedingly drunk—to gallop on his hands and knees, and finally being removed to an inside trap, where he swayed as a stricken pink flower and groaned drearily.
Darby drove over to Rourke's house next day to find the owner gaily gravelling the little path in front of the house, and whistling cheerily. Darby had come to buy the little dun; he wanted a handy horse and would have bought him before if he had not been afraid of his lack of pace.
James Rourke leant upon his shovel and rubbed his chin.
"If ye like to buy him for what he is," he said slowly, "a nate plodding fair and square little hunther, ye're welcome; but as a horse with great speed, no, Mr. Dillon. Ye're too big a friend to trade that way."