Doreen declared that of such details she could of course know nothing, to which the giant retorted that there were hosts of reasons in favour of the pike. The Hessian and Hanoverian mercenaries who were being slowly drafted into Ireland were experienced only in the orthodox mode of warfare. The courage of armies is so uncertain that they are often disconcerted and panic-stricken by a style of fighting to which they are unaccustomed. 'See here!' the giant said, drawing a paper from his pocket and presenting it to Terence. 'This is a model by which thousands are being made all over the country. Long, flat, ugly no doubt--but easily forged. Could ye improve on that?' Now Terence, had he been wise, would have refused the challenge, sapiently declining to know anything of the model pike, for the giant was bent somehow on securing him--but, intoxicated by the enthusiasm of his pretty cousin, whose cairngorm eyes, under their long lashes, were as usual making sad havoc of his judgment, he took the design and thought he could improve upon it. Cassidy's muddle-headedness stood in the way of his understanding, and the young councillor was forced to sketch out a new design, with elaborate instructions as to how it might be hammered out with a maximum of wounding power and a minimum of labour. Of course 'it was just the thing,' Cassidy declared, delighted, and brought down his sledge-hammer palm upon the other's shoulder. 'We'll have to crimp you?' he vowed, with a peal of merriment in which Doreen softly joined, 'and so gain a gineral, as the Sassanagh gains sailors. Ye'll be with us some day, Masther Terence, see if you aren't!' And now, too, he declared that he must have more advice about these said pikes--there was terrible difficulty in storing them as they were made. He had an audacious idea. What did Master Terence think of it? Some of the gentry from the Staghouse were, he was informed, constantly on the prowl in search of such information as might be bartered against good living; for Major Sirr laid it down as an initial axiom, that a member of his battalion who remained silent beyond a certain limit of time was to be cashiered as incompetent. It was literally a case of 'singing for supper,' and one of the simplest methods of obtaining credit with the town-major was to discover and denounce a depot of concealed weapons.