"No one can tell how anything is to finish," said Tom Durfy; "here we came out to have a duel, and, in the end, it turned out a hunt."
"I am glad you were not in at my death, however," said Murphy, who seemed particularly happy at not being killed.
"You lost no time in firing, Murtough," said one of his friends.
"And small blame to me, Billy," answered Murphy; "Egan is a capital shot, and how did I know but he might take it into his head to shoot me?—for he's very hot when roused, though as good-natured a fellow in the main as ever broke bread; and yet I don't think, after all, he'd have liked to do me much mischief either; but, you see, he couldn't stand the joke he thought I played him."
"Will you tell us what it was?" cried another of the party, pressing forward, "for we can't make it out exactly, though we've heard something of it—wasn't it leeches you sent to him, telling him he was a blood-sucking villain?"
A roar of laughter from Murtough followed this question. "Lord, how a story gets mangled and twisted!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "Leeches! what an absurdity! No, it was——"
"A bottle of castor oil, wasn't it, by way of a present of noyeau?" said another of the party, hurrying to the front to put forward his version of the matter.
A second shout of laughter from Murphy greeted this third edition of the story. "If you will listen to me, I'll give you the genuine version," said Murtough, "which is better, I promise you, than any which invention could supply. The fact is, Squire Egan is enraged against O'Grady, and applied to me to harass him in the parchment line, swearing he would blister him; and this phrase of blistering occurred so often, that when I sent him over a bit o' parchment, which he engaged to have served on my bold O'Grady, I wrote to him, 'Dear Squire, I send you the blister;' and that most ingenious of all blunderers, Handy Andy, being the bearer, and calling at M'Garry's shop on his way home, picked up from the counter a real blister, which was folded up in an inclosure, something like the process, and left the law-stinger behind him."
"That's grate!" cried Doyle.
"Oh, but you have not heard the best of it yet," added Murphy. "I am certain the bit of parchment was sent to O'Grady, for he was hunting M'Garry this morning through the town, with a cudgel of portentous dimensions—put that and that together."