“And what’ll he say when there’s no shot in you?”
“Say! He’ll say what I bid him? Ain’t I Chairman of the Board of Guardians, and doesn’t he owe me ten pounds and more this minute, shop debts. What would he say?
“He’s a gentleman that likes a drop of whisky,” said Peter Walsh.
“I’ll waste no whisky on him. Where’s the use when I can get what I want without?”
Peter Walsh meditated on the situation for a minute or two. Then the full splendour of the plan began to dawn on him.
“The master,” he said, “will be taking down the depositions that you’ll be making in the presence of the sergeant.”
“He will,” said Sweeny, “for there’s no other magistrate in the place only myself and him, and its against the law for a magistrate to take down his own depositions and him maybe dying at the time.”
“There’ll be only myself then to take the strange gentleman to Inishbawn in the boat.”
“And who’s better fit to do it? Haven’t you known the bay since you were a small slip of a boy?”
“I have surely.”