"'That am I, your riverence,' said I, 'and most all of the rigiment are; sure, we were raised in the ould country, and belong, most of us, to County Mayo, and glad we were to come out here to fight for those of the true religion against these Frenchmen, who they say have no religion at all, at all. And how is it you spake the language, your riverence, if I may be so bold as to ask?'"
"Then he told me that he had been at college at Lisbon, where the sons of many Catholic Irish gentlemen were sent to be educated, and that he had learned it from them.
"'And how is it that you are not with your regiment, my man?'
"'I am here to hire rooms for the officers, your riverence, just a place where they can ate a dacent meal in peace and quietness. I have been to the inn, but I cannot for the life of me make the landlord understand. He has got a room that would be just suitable, so I thought I would come to your riverence to explain to you that the rigiment are not heretics, but true sons of the Church. I thought that, being a learned man, I might make shift to make you understand, and that you would maybe go wid me and explain the matter to him.'
"'That will I,' says he; and he wint and jabbered away with the innkeeper, and at last turned to me and said: 'He will let you have a room, seeing that it is for the service of good Catholics and not heretics.'"
"But, you rascal, you know that we are not Catholics."
"Sure, your honour, didn't I say that most all the rigiment were Catholics; I did not say all of them."
"I must go and explain the matter to him, Hoolan. If he calls upon us, as like he may do, he would find out at once that you have desaved him."
"Sure, your honour, if you think that it is necessary, of course it must be done; but would it not be as well to go to the shebeen first and to take possession of the room, and to get comfortably settled down in it before ye gives me away?"
"I think it might be worth while, Tim," O'Grady said, gravely. "What do you say, Terence?"