"D'you mean to say that idiotic fool has taken Miss Grimshaw out in the dinghy?" cried Michael French, letting himself down from the saddle.
"To blazes with Doolan! What the--what the--what the--did he mean not telling me!"
"I don't know, sorr. Here he is himself. Micky, come here! The master wants to speak wid you."
Mr. Doolan, who was passing across the yard with a tin basin of fowls' food--it had a wooden handle, and he was holding it by the handle--approached, deaf to what Moriarty said, but answering his gesture.
"What did you mean by letting Mr. Giveen take the young lady out in the dinghy without telling me, you old fool?" asked his master.
"Sure, he tould me not to tell you, sorr," creaked Micky.
"To the devil with you!" cried Mr. French, giving the tin basin a kick that sent the contents flying into Micky's face, spattering it with meal and soaked bread and finely chopped bits of meat till it looked like a new form of pudding. "Off with you, and clean your face, and not another word out of you, or I'll send you flying after the basin. Come on with me, Moriarty, down to the cove, till we see if we can get sight of them."
"Think of the fool letting the girl go out with that egg-headed ass of a Dick!" grumbled French, half to himself and half to Moriarty, as he made down the Devil's Keyhole, followed by the other. "He's been hanging after her for the last week, popping in at all hours of the day, and as sure as he gets a girl into the boat close with him, he's sure to be making a fool of himself, and maybe upsetting her, and the both of them drowned. Not that he'd matter; not that he'd drown, either, for that bladder of a head of his would keep him afloat. Do you see any sight of them, Moriarty?"
They had reached the shore, and Moriarty, standing on a rock and shading his eyes, was looking over the sea.
"Come on to the cove. He's sure to come back there, if he ever comes back. If you can't see them from there, they must have gone down the coast to the caves. I tell you what it is, Moriarty, relations or no relations, I'm not going to have that chap hanging round the premises any longer. He comes to Drumgool, and he sits and reads a newspaper, and he pretends to be a fool, and all the time he's taking everything in, and he goes off and talks about everything he sees, and I believe it's him and his talk that's knocked my bargain with old Shoveler over those pigs. He heard me say I'd take two pounds less than I was asking Shoveler, and to-day the old chap was 'stiff as a rock.'"