"Pat Mulroony, lately from Tipperary, Ireland, may it plase yer honor."
"Haow did you—how was it you came to find me, if I may be allowed to inquire?" asked Smith, peering round in his face.
"I was jist thraveling through the forest, when I spied the shmoke of fire, and says I to meself, says I, 'There's ayther some graan youngster, or a band of haythen, as doesn't care who saas their camp-fire,' and with that, I pokes around in the wood till I spies you cookin' your legs over the blaze, when I knows by the swate expression of yer countenance, that ye was a gintleman, and, bedad, I finds I was right."
"What might you be doing? What's your business?" pursued Smith, laboring under a great curiosity.
"Faith, I'm an adventoorer, as the convict said. I've been wanderin' in these parts for siveral wakes, without catchin' glimpse of a white skin, till I came upon you."
"That ain't what I mean. What brought you out here in the first place?"
"Me legs," replied the Irishman, decidedly.
"Just so, just so; if you've no objection, I'd like to know your motive, not meaning any offence at all."
"Begorrah, but ye're axin' too much," replied Pat, with a shake of his head. "Niver ye mind the indoocement that I has for taking to the woods. If I may be so bold, what was the same motive that brought yerself here?"
"Nothing in particular—nothing in particular," replied Smith, as if the subject was distasteful to him.