Murphy's story was received with acclamation by all but the little man.

“That is all a pack of nonsense,” said he.

“Well, you're welcome to it, sir,” said Murphy, “and if I had greater nonsense you should have it; but seriously, sir, I again must beg you to remember that the country all around here abounds in enchantment; scarcely a night passes without some fairy frolic; but, however you may doubt the wonderful fact of the cat speaking, I wonder you are not impressed with the points of moral in which the story abounds—”

“Fiddlestick!” said the miniature snarler.

“First, the little touch about the corn monopoly —then maternal vanity chastised by the loss of the child's toe—then Tom's familiarity with his cat, showing the danger arising from a man making too free with his female domestics—the historical point about the penal laws—the fatal results of letting the cat out o' the bag, with the curious final fact in natural history.”

[Footnote: Handy Andy was written when the “vexed question” of the “Corn Laws” was the all-absorbing subject of discussion.]

“It's all nonsense,” said the little man, “and I am ashamed of myself for being such a fool as to sit—alistening to such stuff instead of going to bed, after the fatigue of my journey and the necessity of rising early to-morrow, to be in good time at the polling.”

“Oh! then you're going to the election, sir?” said Murphy.

“Yes, sir—there's some sense in that—and you, gentlemen, remember we must be all up early—and I recommend you to follow my example.”

The little man rang the bell—the bootjack and slippers were called for, and, after some delay, a very sleepy-looking gossoon entered with a bootjack under his arm, but no slippers.

“Didn't I say slippers?” said the little man.

“You did, sir.”

“Where are they, sir?”

“The masther says there isn't any, if you plaze, sir.”

“No slippers! and you call this an inn? Oh!—well, 'what can't be cured must be endured'—hold me the bootjack, sir.”

The gossoon obeyed—the little man inserted his heel in the cleft, but, on attempting to pull his foot from the boot, he nearly went heels over head backward. Murphy caught him and put him on his legs again. “Heads up, soldiers,” exclaimed Murtough; “I thought you were drinking too much.”

“Sir, I'm not intoxicated!” said the mannikin, snappishly. “It is the fault of that vile bootjack—what sort of a thing is that you have brought?” added he in a rage to the gossoon.

“It's the bootjack, sir; only one o' the horns is gone, you see,” and he held up to view a rough piece of board with an angular slit in it, but one of “the horns,” as he called it, had been broken off at the top, leaving the article useless.

“How dare you bring such a thing as that?” said the little man, in a great rage.

“Why, sir, you ax'd for a bootjack, sure, and I brought you the best I had—and it's not my fault it's bruk, so it is, for it wasn't me bruk it, but Biddy batin' the cock.”

“Beating the cock!” repeated the little man in surprise. “Bless me! beat a cock with a bootjack!—what savages!”

“Oh, it's not the hen cock I mane, sir,” said the gossoon, “but the beer cock—she was batin' the cock into the barrel, sir, wid the bootjack, sir.”

“That was decidedly wrong,” said Murphy; “a bootjack is better suited to a heel-tap than a full measure.”

“She was tapping the beer, you mean?” said the little man.

“Faix, she wasn't tapping it at all, sir, but hittin' it very hard, she was, and that's the way she bruk it.”

“Barbarians!” exclaimed the little man; “using a bootjack instead of a hammer!”

“Sure the hammer was gone to the priest, sir; bekase he wanted it for the crucifixion.”

“The crucifixion!” exclaimed the little man, horrified; “is it possible they crucify people?”

“Oh no, sir!” said the gossoon, grinning, “it's the picthure I main, sir—an illigant picthure that is hung up in the chapel, and he wanted a hammer to dhrive the nails—”

“Oh, a picture of the crucifixion,” said the little man.

“Yes, sure, sir—the alther-piece, that was althered for to fit to the place, for it was too big when it came down from Dublin, so they cut off the sides where the sojers was, bekase it stopt out the windows, and wouldn't lave a bit o' light for his riverence to read mass; and sure the sojers were no loss out o' the alther-piece, and was hung up afther in the vesthery, and serve them right, the blackguards. But it was sore agen our will to cut off the ladies at the bottom, that was cryin' and roarin'; but great good luck, the head o' the Blessed Virgin was presarved in the corner, and sure it's beautiful to see the tears runnin' down her face, just over the hole in the wall for the holy wather—which is remarkable.”

The gossoon was much offended by the laughter that followed his account of the altar-piece, which he had no intention of making irreverential, and suddenly became silent, with a muttered “More shame for yiz;” and as his bootjack was impracticable, he was sent off with orders for the chamber-maid to supply bed candles immediately.

The party soon separated for their various dormitories, the little man leaving sundry charges to call them early in the morning, and to be sure to have hot water ready for shaving, and, without fail, to have their boots polished in time and left at their room doors;—to all which injunctions he severally received the answer of—“Certainly, sir;” and as the bed-room doors were slapped-to, one by one, the last sound of the retiring party was the snappish voice of the indefatigable little man, shouting, ere he shut his door,—“Early—early—don't forget, Mistress Kelly—early!”

A shake-down for Murphy in the parlour was hastily prepared; and after Mrs. Kelly was assured by Murtough that he was quite comfortable, and perfectly content with his accommodation, for which she made scores of apologies, with lamentations it was not better, &c., &c., the whole household retired to rest, and in about a quarter of an hour the inn was in perfect silence.

Then Murtough cautiously opened his door, and after listening for some minutes, and being satisfied he was the only watcher under the roof, he gently opened one of the parlour windows and gave the preconcerted signal which he and Dick had agreed upon. Dick was under the window immediately, and after exchanging a few words with Murtough, the latter withdrew, and taking off his boots, and screening with his hand the light of a candle he carried, he cautiously ascended the stairs, and proceeded stealthily along the corridor of the dormitory, where, from the chambers on each side, a concert of snoring began to be executed, and at all the doors stood the boots and shoes of the inmates awaiting the aid of Day and Martin in the morning. But, oh! innocent calf-skins—destined to a far different fate—not Day and Martin, but Dick the Devil and Company are in wait for you. Murphy collected as many as he could carry under his arms and descended with them to the parlour window, where they were transferred to Dick, who carried them directly to the horse-pond which lay behind the inn, and there committed them to the deep. After a few journeys up and down stairs, Murtough had left the electors without a morsel of sole or upper leather, and was satisfied that a considerable delay, if not a prevention of their appearance at the poll on the morrow, would be the consequence.

“There, Dick,” said Murphy, “is the last of them,” as he handed the little man's shoes out of the window,—“and now, to save appearances, you must take mine too—for I must be without boots as well as the rest in the morning. What fun I shall have when the uproar begins—don't you envy me, Dick? There, be off now: but hark 'e, notwithstanding you take away my boots, you need not throw them into the horse-pond.”

“'Faith, an' I will,” said Dick, dragging them out of his hands; “'t would not be honourable, if I didn't—I'd give two pair of boots for the fun you'll have.”

“Nonsense, Dick—Dick, I say—my boots!”

“Honour!” cried Dick, as he vanished round the corner.

“That devil will keep his word,” muttered Murphy, as he closed the window—“I may bid good bye to that pair of boots—bad luck to him!” And yet the merry attorney could not help laughing at Dick making him a sufferer by his own trick.

Dick did keep his word; and after, with particular delight, sinking Murphy's boots with the rest, he, as it was preconcerted, returned to the cottage of Barny, and with his assistance drew the upset gig from the ditch, and with a second set of harness, provided for the occasion, yoked the servant's horse to the vehicle and drove home.

Murphy, meanwhile, was bent on more mischief at the inn; and lest the loss of the boots and shoes might not be productive of sufficient impediment to the movements of the enemy, he determined on venturing a step further. The heavy sleeping of the weary and tipsy travellers enabled him to enter their chambers unobserved, and over the garments they had taken off he poured the contents of the water-jug and water-bottle he found in each room, and then laying the empty bottle and a tumbler on a chair beside each sleeper's bed, he made it appear as if the drunken men had been dry in the night, and, in their endeavours to cool their thirst, had upset the water over their own clothes. The clothes of the little man, in particular, Murphy took especial delight in sousing more profusely than his neighbour's, and not content with taking his shoes, burnt his stockings, and left the ashes in the dish of the candlestick, with just as much unconsumed as would show what they had been. He then retired to the parlour, and with many an internal chuckle at the thought of the morning's hubbub, threw off his clothes and flinging himself on the shake-down Mrs. Kelly had provided for him, was soon wrapt in the profoundest slumber, from which he never awoke until the morning uproar of the inn aroused him. He jumped from his lair and rushed to the scene of action, to soar in the storm of his own raising; and to make it more apparent that he had been as great a sufferer as the rest, he only threw a quilt over his shoulders and did not draw on his stockings. In this plight he scaled the stairs and joined the storming party, where the little man was leading the forlorn hope, with his candlestick in one hand and the remnant of his burnt stocking between the finger and thumb of the other.

“Look at that, sir!” he cried, as he held it up to the landlord.

The landlord could only stare.

“Bless me!” cried Murphy, “how drunk you must have been to mistake your stocking for an extinguisher!”

“Drunk, sir—I wasn't drunk!”

“It looks very like it,” said Murphy, who did not wait for an answer, but bustled off to another party who was wringing out his inexpressibles at the door of his bed-room, and swearing at the gossoon that he must have his boots.

“I never seen them, sir,” said the boy.

“I left them at my door,” said the man.

“So did I leave mine,” said Murphy, “and here I am barefooted—it is most extraordinary.”

“Has the house been robbed?” said the innocent elector.

“Not a one o' me knows, sir!” said the boy; “but how could it be robbed and the doors all fast this mornin'?”

The landlady now appeared, and fired at the word “robbed!”

“Robbed, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Kelly; “no, sir—no one was ever robbed in my house—my house is respectable and responsible, sir—a vartuous house—none o' your rantipole places, sir, I'd have you to know, but decent and well behaved, and the house was as quiet as a lamb all night.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Kelly,” said Murphy—“not a more respectable house in Ireland—I'll vouch for that.”

“You're a gentleman, Misther Murphy,” said Mrs. Kelly, who turned down the passage, uttering indignant ejaculations in a sort of snorting manner, while her words of anger were returned by Murphy with expressions of soothing and condolence as he followed her down-stairs.

The storm still continued above, and while there they shouted and swore and complained, Murphy gave his notion of the catastrophe to the landlady below, inferring that the men were drunk and poured the water over their own clothes. To repeat this idea to themselves he re-ascended, but the men were incredulous. The little man he found buttoning on a pair of black gaiters, the only serviceable decency he had at his command, which only rendered his denuded state more ludicrous. To him Murphy asserted his belief that the whole affair was enchantment, and ventured to hope the small individual would have more faith in fairy machinations for the future; to which the little abortion only returned his usual “Pho! pho! nonsense!”

Through all this scene of uproar, as Murphy passed to and fro, whenever he encountered the landlord, that worthy individual threw him a knowing look; and the exclamation of, “Oh, Misther Murphy—by dad!” given in a low chuckling tone, insinuated that the landlord not only smoked but enjoyed the joke.

“You must lend me a pair of boots, Kelly!” said Murtough.

“To be sure, sir—ha! ha! ha!—but you are the quare man, Misther Murphy—”

“Send down the road and get my gig out of the ditch.”

“To be sure, sir. Poor devils! purty hands they got into,” and off went the landlord, with a chuckle.

The messengers sent for the gig returned, declaring there was no gig to be seen anywhere.

Murphy affected great surprise at the intelligence—again went among the bamboozled electors, who were all obliged to go to bed for want of clothes; and his bitter lamentations over the loss of his gig almost reconciled them to their minor troubles.

To the fears they expressed that they should not be able to reach the town in time for polling that day, Murphy told them to set their minds at rest, for they would be in time on the next.

He then borrowed a saddle as well as the pair of boots from the landlord, and the little black mare bore Murphy triumphantly back to the town, after he had securely impounded Scatterbrain's voters, who were anxiously and hourly expected by their friends. Still they came not. At last, Handy Andy, who happened to be in town with Scatterbrain, was despatched to hurry them, and his orders were not to come back without them.

Handy, on his arrival at the inn, found the electors in bed, and all the fires in the house employed in drying their clothes. The little man, wrapped in a blanket, was superintending the cooking of his own before the kitchen grate; there hung his garments on some cross sticks suspended by a string, after the fashion of a roasting-jack, which the small gentleman turned before a blazing turf fire; and beside this contrivance of his swung a goodly joint of meat, which a bouncing kitchen wench came over to baste now and then.

Andy was answering some questions of the inquisitive little man, when the kitchen maid, handing the basting-ladle to Andy, begged him to do a good turn and just to baste the beef for her, for that her heart was broke with all she had to do, cooking dinner for so many.

Andy, always ready to oblige, consented, and plied the ladle actively between the troublesome queries of the little man; but at last, getting confused with some very crabbed questions put to him, Andy became completely bothered, and lifting a brimming ladle of dripping, poured it over the little man's coat instead of the beef.

A roar from the proprietor of the clothes followed, and he implanted a kick at such advantage upon Andy, that he upset him into the dripping-pan; and Andy, in his fall, endeavouring to support himself, caught at the suspended articles above him, and the clothes, and the beef, and Andy, all swam in gravy.