"How did they lose the license at all?" said Mrs. M'Evoy; "I thought there wasn't a house in Carrow Cross but had one."
"It was taken from them over some little mistake about selling potheen," replied Dr. Hickey, courteously applying the broken neck of the bottle to Mrs. M'Evoy's tumbler. "The police came to search the house, and old Lynch, that was in bed upstairs, heard them, and threw a two-gallon jar of potheen out of the top back window, to break it. The unlucky thing was that there was a goose in the yard, and it was on the goose it fell."
"The creature!" said Miss M'Evoy, "was she killed?"
"Killed to the bone, as they say," replied the Doctor; "but the trouble was, that on account of falling on the goose the jar wasn't broken, so the bobbies got the potheen."
"Supposing they summons you now for the porter!" said Mrs. M'Evoy, facetiously, casting her eye through the open window into the bare sunshiny street.
"They'll have summonses enough at Carrow Bay to keep them out of mischief," returned Dr. Hickey. "It's a pity now, Major, you didn't patronise the Sports. They might have put you on judging the cakes with Mrs. M'Evoy."
"Why then, the one they put on with me was the man they had judging the vegetables," said Mrs. M'Evoy, after a comfortable pull at the contraband porter. "'That's a fine weighty cake,' says me lad, weighing a sponge-cake on his hand. 'We'll give that one the prize.'"
"I wish you brought it here with you," said her daughter, "as weighty as it was."
"They put me judging the row-boats," said Dr. Hickey, "but after the third race I had to give up, and put five stitches in one of the men that was in the mark-boat."
I said that the mark-boat ought to have been a fairly safe place.