"Very well," said Dick, still poking the touch-hole, and examining the point of the pricker as he withdrew it. "And now Murphy wants to know, since the affair is all over and his honour satisfied, what was your brother-in-law's motive in assaulting him this morning, for he himself cannot conceive a cause for it." "Oh, be _aisy_, Tom." "'Pon my soul it's true!" "Why, he sent him a blister--a regular apothecary's blister--instead of some law process, by way of a joke, and Ned wouldn't stand it." Durfy held a moment's conversation with Murphy, who now advanced to the squire, and begged to assure him there must be some mistake in the business, for that he had never committed the impertinence of which he was accused. "All I know is," said the squire, "that I got a blister, which my messenger said you gave him." "By virtue of my oath, squire, I never did it! I gave Andy an enclosure of the law process." "Then it's some mistake that vagabond has made," said the squire. "Come here, you sir!" he shouted to Andy. Now Andy at this moment stood trembling under the angry eye of Dick the Devil, who, having detected a bit of lead on the point of the pricker, guessed in a moment Andy had been at work, and the unfortunate rascal, from the furious look of Dick, had a misgiving that he _had_ made some blunder. "Why don't you come here when I call you?" said the squire. Andy laid down the pistol-case, and sneaked up to the squire. "What did you do with the letter Mr. Murphy gave you for me yesterday?" "I brought it to your honour." "No, you didn't," said Murphy. "You've made some mistake." "Divil a mistake I made," answered Andy, very stoutly. "I wint home the minit you gev it to me." "Did you go home direct from my house to the squire's?" "Yis, sir, I did--I went direct home, and called at Mr. M'Garry's by the way for some physic for the childre." "That's it!" said Murtough; "he changed my enclosure for a blister there; and if M'Garry has only had the luck to send the bit o' parchment to O'Grady, it will be the best joke I've heard this month of Sundays." "He did! he did!" shouted Tom Durfy; "for don't you remember how O'Grady was after M'Garry this morning?" "Sure enough," said Murtough, enjoying the double mistake. "By dad! Andy, you've made a mistake this time that I'll forgive you." "By the powers o' war!" roared Dick the Devil; "I won't forgive him what he did now, though. What do you think?" said he, holding out the pistols, and growing crimson with rage, "may I never fire another shot, if he hasn't crammed a brace of bullets down the pistols before I loaded them; so no wonder you burned prime, Ned." There was a universal laugh at Dick's expense, whose pride in being considered the most accomplished regulator of the duello was well known. "Oh, Dick, Dick! you're a pretty second!" was shouted by all.