“‘Why, thin,’ says Ned Magavran, who-was his body servant at the time, ’bad luck to you, you spalpeen, what a question do you ax, and you have eyes in your head!’ says he—­’hard feeling to you!’ says he, ’you vagabone, don’t you see I’m my master’s?’

“The Englishman laughed.  ‘I know that, Paddy,’ says he—­for they call us all Paddies in England, as if we had only one name among us, the thieves; ‘but I wish to know his name,’ says the Englishman.

“‘You do!’ says Ned; ‘and by the powers!’ says he, ’but you must first tell me which side of the head you’d wish to hear it an.’

“‘Oh! as for that,’ says the Englishman—­not up to him, you see——­’I don’t care much, Paddy, only let me hear it, and where he lives.’

“‘Just keep your ground, then,’ says Ned, ’till I light off this blood-horse of mine’—­he was an ould garron that was fattened up, not worth forty shillings—­’this blood-horse of mine,’ says Ned, ’and I’ll tell you.’

“So down he gets, and lays the Englishman sprawling in the channel.

“’ Take that, you vagabone! says he, and it’ll larn you to call people by their right names agin:  I was christened as well as you, you spalpeen!’

“All this time the lady was looking out of the windy, breaking her heart laughing at Ned and the servant; but, behould!—­she knew a thing or two, it seems; for, instead of sending a man at all at all, what does she do but sends her own maid—­a very purty girl, who comes up to Ned, putting the same question to him.

“‘What’s his name, avourneen?’ says Ned, melting, to be sure, at the sight of her ’Why, then, darling, who could refuse you anything?—­but, you jewel! by the hoky, you must bribe me or I’m dumb,’ says he.

“‘How could I bribe you?’ says she, with a sly smile—­for Ned himself was a well-looking young fellow at the time.

“‘I’ll show you that,’ says Ned, ’if you tell me where you live; but, for fraid you forget it—­with them two lips of your own, my darling.’

“‘There, in that great house,’ says the maid; ’my mistress is one of the beautifullest and richest young ladies in London, and she wishes to know where your master could be heard of.’

“‘Is that the house?’ says Ned, pointing to it.

“‘Exactly’, says she:  ‘that’s it.’  ‘Well, acushla,’ says he, ’you’ve a purty and an innocent-looking face; but I’m tould there’s many a trap in London well baited.  Just only run over while I’m looking at you, and let me see that purty face of yours smiling at me out of the windy that that young lady is peeping at us from.’

“This she had to do.

“‘My master,’ thought Ned, while she was away, ’will aisily find out what kind of a house it is, any how, if that be it.’

“In a short time he saw her in the windy, and Ned then gave her a sign to come down to him.

“‘My master,’ says he, ’never was afeard to show his face, or tell his name to any one—­he’s a Squire Fowler,’ says he—­’a Sarjen-major in a great militia regiment:  he shot five men in his time; and there’s not a gentleman in the country he lives in that dare say Boo to his blanket.  And now, what’s your name,’ says Ned, ’you flattering little blackguard you?’