“I admit—why, you blockhead, does not the letter itself prove as much?”
“Well, then, I know the scoundrel who sent you this letter.”
“I grant you he is a scoundrel, Harry; nobody, I assure you, despises his tools more than I do, as in general every man does who is forced to make use of them. Go on.”
“The man who sent you that letter was Hycy Burke.”
“Very likely,” replied the cool old Still-Hound; “But I did not think he would ever place us—”
“You, sir, if you please.”
“Very well, me, sir, if you please, under such an important obligation to him. How do you know, though, that it was he who sent it?”
His nephew then related the circumstance of his meeting with Nanny Peety, and the discovery he had made through her of the letter having been both written and sent by Hycy to the post-office. In order, besides, to satisfy his relative that the getting up of the still was a plan concocted by Hycy to ruin M'Mahon, through the, medium of the fine, he detailed as much of Hycy's former proposal to him as he conveniently could, without disclosing the part which he himself had undertaken to perform in this concerted moment.
“Well, Harry,” replied the old fellow after a pause, “he's a d—d scoundrel, no doubt; but as his scoundrelism is his own, I don't see why we should hesitate to avail ourselves of it. With respect, however, to M'Mahon, I can assure you, that I was informed of his intention to set up a Still a good while before I made the capture, and not by anonymous information either. Now, what would you say if both I and Fethertonge knew the whole plot long before it was put in practice?”
As he spoke, he screwed his hard keen features into a most knavish expression.