The Monmouth inquirer., 1923-08-02

thing important; though he pointed at
the place where the mules certainly
were not.
Here" he added. "git ycur lamp
goin' and be after them. Nivver mind
them Polack women and kids. They'll
take care Of themselves. Wen be the
week gettin' the mules back, II they
20 much farther"
He held out match without troub-
ling to light it. Finnegan performed
this duty for himself.
Riley got the three others who had
come down with hini to join the hunt,
If he was conscious that one of the
men he bossed was his boss, he gave
no signs of it. And the meekest Of the
others was a personified declaration
OF mutiny beside the meekness Of Fin
negan.
For there hours they chased mules
through the winding galleries OF that
mine. 1t was not until the last of the
beasts was securely tied back in his
stall that the superintendent ventur-
ed even to speak to the foreman; and
then it was with the Difference due to
age and experience, if not strictly in
line with their relative positions And
it was on what he thought a subject
safely removed from the personal.
The babies had ceased to howl, or
even to wall Also they had ceased to
cough Round eyed, round mouthed,
they gazed in silence at the dirnly
seen mules. Nor whoop nor gasp, nor
wheeze nor rafting, aspiration came
from their gaping mouths.
THE cure really seems to have
worked Mr. Riley,"' Finnegan remark
ed taking pains not to give emphasis
to the Mister"
1T wouldn't of worked if they was
Irish kids Riley asserted.
"How's that?" Finnegan asked.
"Sure, it's the mules what cured
'em. Them young ones know they're
beaten. That's cause they're foreign
ers." Riley expounded,
'"Then" -Finnegan mildly limited in
interrogative tone-'you don't think
the air down here had anything to do
with it?''
.Air, nothin'." grunted Riley. I'll
them babies was Irish they'd be
whoopin' so loud by this time you
couldn't hear mule brayiH in yer
ear. An Irishman'd never own to it
he was beaten by the divvil himself.
Had the young foreman been more
wont to boast his Celtic descent, it
might not have taken SO long for the
point of this to percolate to his brain,
But 1t had got there by the time he
had Joined the last load of mamas and
babes and reached the top of the shaft.
Riley had gone up before, and stood
waiting. Finnegan looked him in the
face, and spoke with an intensity hard
ly warranted by his convictions on the
subject:
1.-THE air down there certainly is
good for whooping cough.'
1t is not outside the range of posi-
bility that Riley was pleased with this
token his boss was still entitled to
membership in the ancient order. Per
haps it was only his own Inheritance
from the ould sod that prompted him:
IF you think SO, and if We think We
could keep 'em from startin' up thin
mules again, I'll let you take down
that last dozen what was left, he sair.
"Riley," he Numbered. 'if you want
them in that mine. you take them
down there. I'll see the last blinkety
BANKED kid cough its double dashed
head to Hades and farther. and won't
discharge you! I'll forget your age and
chuck you head foremost down that
hole If yoa do. Before I'd take another
bunch of them down there I'd"
But as was stated in the beginning.
for further information in regard to
the cure the