“Sure,” said Jerry, “this is not breaking the pledge—it's only for a wager.”
“No matther,” said Art; “it's a thing I won't do.”
“I'll tell you what, Jerry,” said Toal, “I'll hould you another pound now, that I do a thing to-night that Art won't do; an' that, like your own wager, every one in the room can do.”
“Done,” said the other, taking out the pound note, and placing it in Mooney's hand—Toal following his example.
“Scaddhan,” said Toal, “go an' bring me two tumblers of good strong punch. I'm a Totaller as well as Art, boys. Be off, Scaddhan.”
“By Japers,” said Tom Whiskey, as if to himself—looking at the same time as if he were perfectly amazed at the circumstance—“the little fellow has more spunk than Maguire, ould blood an' all! Oh, holy Moses; afther that, what will the world come to!”
Art heard the soliloquy of Whiskey, and looked about him with an air of peculiar meaning. His pride—his shallow, weak, contemptible pride, was up, while the honest pride that is never separated from firmness and integrity, was cast aside and forgotten. Scaddhan came in, and placing the two tumblers before Toal, that worthy immediately emptied first one of them, and then the other.
“The last two pounds are yours,” said Jerry; “Mooney, give them to him.”
Art, whose heart was still smarting under the artful soliloquy of Tom Whiskey, now started to his feet, and exclaimed—
“No, Jerry, the money's not his yet. Barney, bring in two tumblers. What one may do another may do; and as Jerry says, why it's only for a wager. At any rate, for one o' my blood was never done out, and never will.”