'To be sure, my darlin' Puddock,' replied O'Flaherty, 'it was that cursed little French whipper-snapper, with his monkeyfied intherruptions; be the powers, Puddock, if you knew half the mischief that same little baste has got me into, you would not wondher if I murthered him. It was he was the cause of my jewel with my cousin, Art Considine, and I wanting to be the very pink of politeness to him. I wrote him a note when he came to Athlone, afther two years in France, and jist out o' compliment to him, I unluckily put in a word of French: come an' dine, says I, and we'll have a dish of chat. I knew u-n p-l-a-t (spelling it), was a dish, an' says I to Jerome, that pigimy (so he pronounced it) you seen here at the door, that's his damnable name, what's _chat_ in French--c-h-a-t--spelling it to him; "sha," says he; "sha?" says I, "spell it, if you plase," says I; "c-h-a-t," says he, the stupid old viper. Well, I took the trouble to write it out, "un plat de chat;" "is that right?" says I, showing it to him. "It is, my lord," says he, looking at me as if I had two heads. I never knew the manin' of it for more than a month afther I shot poor Art through the two calves. An' he that fought two jewels before, all about cats, one of them with a Scotch gentleman that he gave the lie to, for saying that French cooks had a way of stewing cats you could not tell them from hares; and the other immadiately afther, with Lieutenant Rugge, of the Royal Navy, that got one stewed for fun, and afther my Cousin Art dined off it, like a man, showed him the tail and the claws. It's well he did not die of it, and no wondher he resented my invitation, though upon my honour, as a soldier and a gentleman, may I be stewed alive myself in a pot, Puddock my dear, if I had the laste notion of offering him the smallest affront!' 'I begin to despair, Sir,' exclaimed Puddock, 'of receiving the information without which 'tis vain for me to try to be useful to you; once more, may I entreat to know what _is_ the affront of which you complain?' 'You don't know; raly and truly now, you don't know?' said O'Flaherty, fixing a solemn tipsy leer on him. 'I tell you _no_, Thir,' rejoined Puddock. 'And do you mean to tell me you did not hear that vulgar dog Nutter's unmanly jokes?' 'Jokes!' repeated Puddock, in large perplexity, 'why I've been here in this town for more than five years, and I never heard in all that time that Nutter once made a joke--and upon my life, I don't think he could make a joke, Sir, if he tried--I don't, indeed, Lieutenant O'Flaherty, upon my honour!' And rat it, Sir, how can I help it?' cried O'Flaherty, relapsing into pathos. 'Help what?' demanded Puddock. O'Flaherty took him by the hand, and gazing on his face with a maudlin, lacklustre tenderness, said:--