"Thim ruins was right on the edge of the Palisades, and 'twas me endeavor to keep him atween me and the cliff so he couldn't make for the open. Up and down we wint, scramblin', running and crawlin', first to wan ind of thim crumblin' walls and thin back ag'in to the other, me always hemmin' him in and headin' him off, but niver quite catchin' him, and thim piles of loose brick hurtin' me sock-feet cruel, me havin' dropped me shoes whin I tried to grab him. They wasn't much light left, but all to wanct I saw him goin' right up in the air, and whin I come up he was just climbin' over the edge of that wan second-story room. Faith, for a minute I was thinkin' he _was_ a ghost, but he hadn't no more than landed whin he begun draggin' up after him a long board with slats nailed to it what some boys must 'a' left there for a ladder. Me hand just missed the ind of it, me foot slippin' on top a pile of bricks and rollin' me down over the sharp corners of thim. "I wint all round that second-story room, mostly crawlin'--och, me poor feet, it was perishin' with the pain of thim I was!--but niver a way of gittin' up to him, and him likely to drop down on the off side and run like a rabbit if I took me attention off him. So I wint scramblin' back where I'd be atween him and the road and set down on a pile of bricks. He'd been layin' flat on his stommick, gittin' his wind back in him, but prisintly he clumb up on his knees and throwed a brick at me. "'Ye young gomeral,' I says, 'if ye do that ag'in, I'll shoot a hole in ye!' "He wint behind a bit of brick wall and throwed another. If iver I go annywheres ag'in without a gun, may the divil fly away with me! So I wint behind a bit of wall mesilf. And there he was. [Illustration: "PARDON ME," HE SAID, "BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT FOR?"] "Of course, I was ragin', and I begun tossin' bricks back at him. Hiven knows they was enough of thim! Whin he'd throwed about twinty, doin' no harm with thim, thim little arms of his wore out, and I kept just enough of thim goin' to make him nervous-like without hurtin' him, wonderin' in between would it be safe to go after me poor shoes and could I git thim on if I did, me feet bein' swelled surprisin'. Sure, the little spalpeen owed me ivrything he had about him! "All to wanct a grand idea come to me. I would kidnap me little gintleman and hold him for wan of thim ransoms! 'Sure,' I says to mesilf, 'they're kidnappin' boys all the time, and it's the tidy sum a grown man would be bringin' me, though it's the little wan he is and part wore out.' "'I say, sor,' I calls up to him, polite, from behind me wall, and droppin' a whole brick closer to him than common, 'wouldn't it be after bein' more pleasant for ye to come down willin',' I says, 'than to have wan of thim bricks search the head of ye for brains and turn the corpse over to me? To say nothin' of the mosquities,' I says. "'They niver bite me,' he says, trembly-like, from behind his bit of a wall.