The squire threw down the letter as he said "d—n it," but took it up again in a few seconds, and, catching it edgewise between his fore-finger and thumb, gave a gentle pressure that made the letter gape at its extremities; and the squire, exercising that sidelong glance which is peculiar to postmasters, waiting-maids, and magpies who inspect marrow-bones, peeped into the interior of the epistle, saying to himself as he did so, "All's fair in war, and why not in electioneering?" His face, which was screwed up to the scrutinizing pucker, gradually lengthened as he caught some words that were on the last turn-over of the sheet, and so could be read thoroughly, and his brow darkened into the deepest frown as he scanned these lines: "As you very properly and pungently remark, poor Egan is a bladder—a mere bladder." "I am a bladdher? by Jasus!" said the squire, tearing the letter into pieces and throwing it into the fire. "And so, Misther O'Grady, you say I'm a bladdher!" and the blood of the Egans rose as the head of that pugnacious family strided up and down the room: "I'll bladdher you, my buck,—I'll settle your hash!"
Here he took up the poker, and made a very angry lunge at the fire, that did not want stirring, and there he beheld the letter blazing merrily away. He dropped the poker as if he had caught it by the hot end, as he exclaimed, "What the d—l shall I do? I've burnt the letter!" This threw the squire into a fit of what he was wont to call his "considering cap;" and he sat with his feet on the fender for some minutes, occasionally muttering to himself what he began with,—"What the d—l shall I do? It's all owing to that infernal Andy—I'll murder that fellow some time or other. If he hadn't brought it, I shouldn't have seen it—to be sure, if I hadn't looked; but then the temptation—a saint couldn't have withstood it. Confound it! what a stupid trick to burn it. Another here, too—must burn that as well, and say nothing about either of them;" and he took up the second letter, and, merely looking at the address, threw it into the fire. He then rang the bell, and desired Andy to be sent to him. As soon as that ingenious individual made his appearance, the squire desired him with peculiar emphasis to shut the door, and then opened upon him with,
"You unfortunate rascal!"
"Yis, your honour."
"Do you know that you might be hanged for what you did to-day?"
"What did I do, sir?"
"You robbed the post-office."
"How did I rob it, sir?"
"You took two letters you had no right to."
"It's no robbery for a man to get the worth of his money."