Down rushed Mick, to hurry the cook--bang, twang! went the bell as he spoke. "Oh, listen to him!" said Mick: "for the tendher mercy o' Heaven, make haste!" The cook transferred the bones from the gridiron to a hot dish. "Oh, murther, but they're smoked!" said Mick. "No matther," said the cook, shaking her red elbow furiously; "I'll smother the smoke with the pepper--there!--give them a good dab o' musthard now, and sarve them hot!" Away rushed Mick, as the bell was rattled into fits again. While the cook had been broiling bones for O'Grady below, he had been grilling Furlong for himself above. In one of the pauses of the storm, the victim ventured to suggest to his tormentor that all the mischief that had arisen might have been avoided, if O'Grady had met him at the village, as he requested of him in one of his letters. O'Grady denied all knowledge of such a request, and after some queries about certain portions of the letter, it became manifest it had miscarried. "There!" said O'Grady; "there's a second letter astray; I'm certain they put my letters astray on purpose. There's a plot in the post-office against me; by this and that, I'll have an inquiry. I wish all the post-offices in the world were blown up; and all the postmasters hanged, postmaster-general and all--I do--by the 'ternal war, I do--and all the mail coaches in the world ground to powder, and the roads they go on into the bargain--devil a use in them but to carry bad news over the universe--for all the letters with any good in them are lost; and if there's a money enclosure in one, that's sure to be robbed. Blow the post-office, I say--blow it, and sink it!" It was at this moment Mick entered with the broiled bones, and while he was in the room, placing glasses on the table, and making the necessary arrangements for making "screeching hot punch," he heard O'Grady and Furlong talking about the two lost letters.