Such a scheme was easier to be accomplished than might at first be supposed, for more reasons than one. To begin with, when O'Rourke met Oliver on the second night to unfold his plans and concert measures with him, one of the first things the vagabond told my friend was that he must by no means appear to be concerned in my sending away. "It will not do for me to be seen in the matter, Quin," he said on that occasion, on which, because of its importance, they were now closeted in a private room of the house where they had encountered each other overnight; "it will not do. Fortune has caused me to be mixed up before in one or two unpleasant jobs with the Lord Mayor's myrmidons--the devil shoot them!--and I must keep quiet awhile. But that matters not, if you are to be trusted. For see, now, see! The _Dove_ saileth the instant the wind shifts into the east, which it seems like enough to do at any moment. Therefore must you be ready with the freight which we would have. The captain, a right honest man, will send you word overnight at change of wind that he will up-anchor at dawn, and that, as dawn breaks, you must be alongside of him. He will see that the boy answers to my description--though I have said he is a year or so older than he actually is, so as to make him appear more worth the money--and, when he is aboard, you will receive the payment. Thus, Quin, you will have pouched one hundred and twenty guineas, and my lord will stand thy friend." "Since the wind shifts, or seems like to shift ere long," Oliver replied, fooling him to the end, "let us conclude. Pay me the remaining seventy five pieces and I will have him ready at any moment." "Nay, nay, softly," the other answered. "Thou wouldst not trust me too far, I guess, therefore neither must I be too confident. Yet listen! I shall not be on the quay when you put off to the _Dove_, but one who has served me before will be. An honest gentleman he is, too, just back from England where he hath been employed nosing out a Jacobite plot in the north, and to him you will show the lad, whereon he will pay you the guerdon and give you also a letter from my lord which will hold you harmless." "Is he known to any of us, or to--to, well! to the law and its officers?" "To none. He hath but just arrived and knows not a soul in Dublin except me and one or two of my friends." "So be it," said Oliver, well enough pleased to think that this "honest gentleman" would not know the difference between me and my cousin. "So be it. Now, it will be best that the boy should be drugged ere I set out with him--is it not so?--and wrapped in some long cloak so that----"