“Ah, it’s easy getting into scrapes,” I significantly rejoined, glancing at his oakum heap and his prison garb; “the difficulty is to get out of them.”
“Sure, I know what ye mane, sur,” he returned, with a slight flush of shame, “but since I’ve been in here I’ve got a mighty load off me sowl, and, if I’m spared to get out, please the Lord, I’ll never take it on again.”
I thought of a certain road being paved with good intentions, but said nothing. There was one chance in a thousand that Pat’s might hold good. Even if the thought only comforted him in his seclusion, a blessing was gained.
I questioned him further on the matter he had placed before me, and learned that the information had reached him through a newly-incarcerated prisoner. I could not but admire through the whole revelation the quick intelligence of Micky in piecing together facts which to anyone else would have indicated nothing. From the mere excited exclamation of old Corny, and that of the sister in the Court-room, he had gathered that it had been intended to trap him and save the porter’s son. He knew that as well as if I had revealed to him the whole particulars of my interview with Corny. I began to envy Micky his quickness. But though he was just the man to thirst for revenge, I did not think that he would interfere with the old street porter, and it is probable I said so to Pat at the time, and his warning would speedily have been forgotten but for the curious events which followed.
A month or two after my interview with Pat his father was accosted while on his stance by a well-dressed man having the appearance of a commercial traveller, and asked to carry a rather heavy portmanteau to a certain address. The job was executed with alacrity, and liberally paid for. A few days later the same man hired Corny, after dark, to carry a box to another part of the town, paid him with the same liberality, and told him he might need him again soon.
The occasion came only two days later. The man, who was well dressed, and always carried an ivory handled umbrella in his hand and a cigar in his mouth, stopped the old porter on the street, and in an off-hand way asked him if he could carry some crystal and china from a house at the south side to an address at the opposite end of the city. Of course the porter was eager and willing.
“The only awkward thing is that I won’t be there till nearly nine o’clock,” said the man; “would that be too late for you?”
“Sorra a bit, sur,” was the ready response. “Any hour will suit me, more by token there’s no wan likely to be needing me so late.”
Punctually at the hour named, Corny appeared at the place—a common stair in Clerk Street. As he was ascending the stair in search of the name furnished by his employer, that gentleman appeared descending the stair, and carrying in his arms a good-sized square parcel.
“I was beginning to think you had forgotten me,” he pleasantly observed to the old porter, “and was afraid I should have to send the things over in a cab, at the risk of getting half of them broken.”