“It’s this much to me,” Bernard retorted, not with entire good-temper, “that O’Daly isn’t dead at all.” Major Snaffle’s eyebrows went up still further, with a little jerk. He hesitated for a moment, then said: “I hope you know the importance of what you are saying. We don’y like to be fooled with.” “The fooling has been done by these who started the story that he was murdered,” remarked Bernard. “One must always be prepared for that--at some stage of a case--among these Irish,” said the resident magistrate. “I’ve only been in Ireland two years, but I know their lying tricks as well as if I’d been born among them. Service in India helps one to understand all the inferior races.” “I haven’t been here even two months,” said the young man from Houghton County, “but so far as I can figure it out, the Irishmen who do the bulk of the lying wear uniforms and monkey-caps like paper-collar boxes perched over one ear. The police, I mean.” “We won’t discuss _that_,” put in the major, peremptorily. “Do you know where O’Daly is?” “Yes, sir, I do,” answered Bernard. “Where?” “You wouldn’t know if I told you, but I’ll take you to the place--that is, if you’ll let me talk to your prisoners first.” Major Snaffle turned the proposition over in his mind. “Take me to the place,” he commented at last; “that means that you’ve got him hidden somewhere, I assume.” Bernard looked into the shrewd, twinkling eyes with a new respect. “That’s about the size of,” he assented. “Hra-m! Yes. That makes a new offense of it, with _you_ as an accessory, I take it--or ought I to say principal?” Bernard was not at all dismayed by this shift in the situation. “Call it what you like,” he answered. “See here, major,” he went on, in a burst of confidence, “this whole thing’s got nothing to do with politics or the potato crop or anything else that need concern you. It’s purely a private family matter. In a day or two, it’ll be in such shape that I can tell you all about it. For that matter, I could now, only it’s such a deuce of a long story.” The major thought again. “All right,” he said. “You can see the prisoners in my presence, and then I’ll give you a chance to produce O’Daly. I ought to warn you, though, that it may be all used against you, later on.” “I’m not afraid of that,” replied Bernard. A minute later, he was following the resident magistrate up a winding flight of narrow stone stairs, none too clean. A constable, with a bunch of keys jingling in his hand, preceded them, and, at the top, threw open a heavy, iron-cased door. The solitary window of the room they entered had been so blocked with thick bars of metal that very little light came through. Bernard, with some difficulty, made out two figures lying in one corner on a heap of straw and old cast-off clothing. “Get up! Here’s some one to see you!” called out the major, in the same tone he had used to the constables while they were helping on the overcoat.