He always declared that the sweep had shoved the end of the plank from the partition; but when he scrambled to his feet among the soot, sputtering, gasping, and sneezing enough to rend himself, there was Sandy standing gravely by him with a look of earnest and sorrowing condolence on his grimy face. The wife went into fits of laughter over M^cSweeny’s appearance as he stood in the soot, with his face and beard thickly coated with the soft black, and only his well-rubbed eyelids beginning to show white through the sable covering, but she was solemnly rebuked and sworn at by her demure-faced husband. “Eh, sir, to think that the plank should have slippit just when it wasna wanted to slip,” cried Sandy, handing M^cSweeny a sooty rag with which to clean his face and clothes; “but it’ll dae ye nae herm, sir, nae herm. Soot’s a healthy thing, sir—healthier than clean water.” “You—you—ah—ah——choof!—you did that!” cried M^cSweeny, as soon as he could speak, ferociously fixing Sandy with his eye. “You’ll suffer for—ah—ah——choo—oof! Begorra, I’ve a good moind to stick your head in it, and make you swallow a bag of it before I let you out.” “Me, sir!” cried Sandy, in pious horror. “May I never soop another lum if I ever thought o’ sic a thing. See, I’ll gie ye a brush doon, sir. It’s a kind o’ a pity ye had thae licht-coloured troosers on, but they’ll clean at the dyer’s, and never look a whit the waur.” “Don’t thrubble yourself to brush me, for I’m not done wid the hole yet,” savagely responded M^cSweeny; “but for this I’d have let you off aisy, but now, sweet bad luck to you! I’m as black as I can be, and I’ll see to the bottom of this before I stir.” M^cSweeny at the same moment seized a big shovel which he found in one corner of the soot-bin, and deliberately began to spade out the soot into the middle of the kitchen floor, carefully examining every shovelful before he pitched it over the partition. While he was thus engaged bending over a spadeful of the soot, Sandy managed to make a sign to his wife, who stooped to the floor, picked something up, and threw it over into the heap of soot rising in the middle of her kitchen. M^cSweeny was just conscious of some swift movement having taken place, but saw neither the movement nor the direction of the pitch. “What divil’s game are you two up to now?” he suspiciously growled, looking from one to the other. “I’ll have to take yez both. You throw’d something just now—what was it?”