“That is—not the king’s picture in your pocket, to keep the divil out of it,” continued Mark Antony.
“The devil in my pocket, and the king to keep him out—I do not understand at all,” said the Frenchman, with a sigh.
“Oh,” cried the fosterer, in despair, “it’s all useless knocking sense into the head of a foreigner. What a loss it is the man does not speak Irish, and I’d make him comprehend me in a jiffy. I was just mentioning, that as these guerillas had cleaned him out, he would be all the better of five or six dollars till he got home, poor fellow. But why are ye riding the dark gentleman’s horse? Lord, what a figure! If I ever get hanged for horse-stealing, it will be for borrowing such another. But where’s that Mister Empecinado, as they call him?”
“Trotting as briskly to the mountains as a thick-winded French troop-horse will carry him,” I replied.
“Do you mean the one you rode?”
“I mean it;—we have made an exchange.”
“An exchange?” The fosterer gwe a whistle. “So it was jockeying you were? Well, God sees I never suspected that Mister Diez was in the line, and fancied that he used halters on two-legged animals only. Did you stand a knock?—and what did he allow ye for the old trooper?”
“Nothing.”
“‘Well, let me see if he’s all right. You offered him eighty?—and you’ll pay the money if anybody leaves you a fortune.”
“Eighty!—Pshaw! Look again, Mark.”