“When Jack brought the filly home, the dark fellow, his master, if dark before, was a perfect thunder-cloud this night: bedad, he was nothing less than near bursting with vexation, bekaise the thieving ould sinner intended to have Jack's head upon the hook, but he fell short in his reckoning now as well as before. Jack sung 'Love among the Roses,' and the 'Black Joke,' to help him into better timper. “'Jack,' says he, striving to make himself speak pleasant to him, 'you've got two difficult tasks over you; but you know the third time's the charm--take care of the next.' “'No matter about that,' says Jack, speaking up to him stiff and stout, bekase, as the dog tould him, he knew he had a friend in coort--'let's hear what it is, any how.' “'To-morrow, then,' says the other, 'you're to rob a crane's nest, on the top of a beech-tree which grows in the middle of a little island in the lake that you saw yesterday in my demesne; you're to have neither boat, nor oar, nor any kind of conveyance, but just as you stand; and if you fail to bring me the eggs, or if you break one of them,--look here!' says he, again pointing to the odd hook, for all this discoorse took place in the bloody room. “'Good again,' says Jack; 'if I fail I know my doom.' “'No, you don't, you spalpeen,' says the other, getting vexed with him entirely, 'for I'll roast you till you're half dead, and ate my dinner off you after; and, what is more than that, you blackguard, you must sing the 'Black Joke' all the time for my amusement.' “'Div'l fly away with you,' thought Jack, 'but you're fond of music, you vagabone.' “The next morning Jack was going round and round the lake, trying about the edge of it, if he could find any place shallow enough to wade in; but he might as well go to wade the say, and what was worst of all, if he attempted to swim, it would be like a tailor's goose, straight to the bottom; so he kept himself safe on dry land, still expecting a visit from the 'lovely crathur,' but, bedad, his good luck failed him for wanst, for instead of seeing her coming over to him, so mild and sweet, who does he obsarve steering at a dog's trot, but his ould friend the smoking cur. 'Confusion to that cur,' says Jack to himself, 'I know now there's some bad fortune before me, or he wouldn't be coming acrass me.' “'Come home to your breakfast, Jack,' says the dog, walking up to him, 'it's breakfast time.' “'Ay,' says Jack, scratching his head, 'it's no matter whether I do or not, for I bleeve my head's hardly worth a flat-dutch cabbage at the present speaking.' “'Why, man, it was never worth so much,' says the baste, pulling out his pipe and putting it in his mouth, when it lit at once. “'Take care of yourself,' says Jack, quite desperate,--for he thought he was near the end of his tether,--'take care of yourself, you dirty cur, or maybe I might take a gintleman's toe from your tail.'