“'Mighty; and may you break your neck going home, Mick! Your brother Tiddy was transported in the East Indies; your father wouldn't fight for his faction; your aunt had a child, that was sent to the foundling, at Dublin; your cousin Jim is a tithe-proctor:--you're a bad set, egg and bird:--your sister's husband is a swaddler; and your own father's mother-in-law's first cousin hung a priest, Mick: moreover--' “'Hould your tongue, you villain!' says I, levelling my gun at him. 'Hould your tongue, or Til blow you to atoms!' “'Who cares for you?' says he. 'Didn't you steal the shot your gun is loaded wid?--Answer me that.' “'I will,' says I, pulling the trigger, and knocking his house from the ledge, plump into the sea. “'I've done for you now, ould gentleman, I think,' says I. “'No, you haven't, Mick,' says he, peeping out of his shell, as he was falling; 'you've done just what I wanted. A grate big bird carried me up where you found me; he couldn't open me though, and left me there where I was; and instid of having done for me, you've sint me home, Mick,' says he, 'to my own bed, you blackguard; for which I'm mighty obliged,--and bad luck to you, Mick!' says he, as he sunk in the sea:--and from that day to this, meeself never set eyes on the little man in the oysther-shells,--though it's often I drame about him, and of what he said to me above on the crag there.” [Illustration: 206] TIMBERLEG TOE-TRAP. As I mentioned Pierce Veogh, 'while ago, when I was telling you of Mick Maguire--'twas he gave Mick the gun--himself it was then--and as I may mention him again two or three times, or may be oftener, before I've done telling you of my Neighbours, I'll just let you know a little who and what Pierce was. At three-and-twenty, he came into a fine fortune; his father died then; he'd neither chick nor child but Pierce, and a fine boy he was, but too wild from his cradle to come to much good, 'twas thought. The father was a miserly curmudgeon in many things, and wouldn't live among us much; but kept Pierce here, with a private tutor and a few people, as long as Pierce would let him: but when the boy grew big, he'd no mind to be staying at home all his days,--and no blame to him,--so he wint off; and the father came back then, and lived at The Beg,--so we call his place,--till he died.