“Oh! It wouldn't do to-morrow, at all. Be dodda, no! Five shillins, your dinner, an' a quart of sthrong beer!—Aha! But you must give me a shillin' or two, to buy a sword; for the Square's goin' to make me a captain: thin I'll be grand! an' I'll make you a sargin'.”
This seemed a windfall to Phelim. The unpleasant dilemma in which Sally Flattery had placed him, by the fabricated account of her father's imprisonment, made him extremely anxious to see Foodie himself, and to ascertain the precise outrage for which he had been secured. Here then was an opportunity of an interview with him, and of earning five shillings, a good dinner, and a quart of strong beer, as already specified.
“Art,” said he, “give me the letther, an' I'm the boy that'll soon do the job. Long life to you, Art! Be the contints o' the book, Art, I'll never pelt you or vex you agin, my worthy; an' I'll always call you captain!” Phelim immediately commenced his journey to M———, which was only five miles distant, and in a very short time reached the jail, saw the jailer, and presented his letter.
The latter, on perusing it, surveyed him with the scrutiny of a man whose eye was practised in scanning offenders.
Phelim, whilst the jailer examined him, surveyed the strong and massy bolts with which every door and hatchway was secured. Their appearance produced rather an uncomfortable sensation in him; so much so, that when the jailer asked him his name, he thought it more prudent, in consequence of a touch of conscience he had, to personate Art for the present, inasmuch as he felt it impossible to assume any name more safe than that of an idiot.
“My name is Art Maguire,” said he in reply to the jailer. “I'm messenger to Square S——, the one he had was discharged on Friday last. I expect soon to be made groom, too.”
“Come this way,” said the jailer, “and you shall have an answer.”
He brought Phelim into the prison-yard, where he remained for about twenty minutes, laboring under impressions which he felt becoming gradually more unpleasant. His anxiety was not lessened on perceiving twenty or thirty culprits, under the management of the turnkeys, enter the yard, where they were drawn up in a line, like a file of soldiers.
“What's your name?” said one of the turnkeys.
“Art Maguire,” replied Phelim.