'Oh, it's game you're makin',' says the colonel, growin' as white as a sheet. 'The _game is mine_, sure enough,' says the owld fellow, grinnin', with a terrible laugh. 'That's not a sand-rope at all,' says the colonel. 'Isn't it?' says the divil, hittin' him acrass the face with the ind iv the rope, and the sand (for it _was_ made of sand, sure enough) went into one of his eyes, and made the tears come with the pain. 'That bates all I ever seen or heerd,' says the colonel, sthrivin' to rally and make another offer; 'is there anything you _can't_ do?' 'Nothing you can tell me,' says the divil, 'so you may as well leave off your palaverin' and come along at wanst.' 'Will you give me one more offer,' says the colonel. 'You don't desarve it,' says the divil; 'but I don't care if I do'; for you see, sir, he was only playin' wid him, and tantalising the owld sinner. 'All fair,' says the colonel, and with that he ax'd him could he stop a woman's tongue. 'Thry me,' says Owld Nick. 'Well then,' says the colonel, 'make my lady's tongue be quiet for the next month and I'd thank you.' 'She'll never trouble you agin,' says Owld Nick; and with that the colonel heerd roarin' and cryin', and the door of his room was thrown open and in ran his daughter, and fell down at his feet, telling him her mother had just dhropped dead. The minit the door opened, the divil runs and hides himself behind a big elbow-chair; and the colonel was frekened almost out of his siven sinses by raison of the sudden death of his poor lady, let alone the jeopardy he was in himself, seein' how the divil had _forestalled_ him every way; and after ringin' his bell and callin' to his sarvants and recoverin' his daughter out of her faint, he was goin' away wid her out of the room, whin the divil caught howld of him by the skirt of the coat, and the colonel was obleeged to let his daughter be carried out by the sarvants, and shut the door afther them. 'Well,' says the divil, and he grinn'd and wagg'd his tail, all as one as a dog when he's plaised; 'what do you say now?' says he. 'Oh,' says the colonel, 'only lave me alone until I bury my poor wife,' says he, 'and I'll go with you then, you villain,' says he. 'Don't call names,' says the divil; 'you had better keep a civil tongue in your head,' says he; 'and it doesn't become a gintleman to forget good manners.' 'Well, sir, to make a long story short, the divil purtended to let him off, out of kindness, for three days antil his wife was buried; but the raison of it was this, that when the lady his daughter fainted, he loosened the clothes about her throat, and in pulling some of her dhress away, he tuk off a goold chain that was on her neck and put it in his pocket, and the chain had a diamond crass on it (the Lord be praised!) and the divil darn't touch him while he had _the sign of the crass_ about him.