"He'll not do ut again," sez I, for I was fightin' mad.

'Kape away from a man that has been a thrifle crossed in love till the
fever's died down. He rages like a brute beast.

'I wint up to the man in the veranda, manin', as sure as I sit, to
knock the life out av him. He slipped into the open. "Fwhat are you
doin' philanderin' about here, ye scum av the gutter?" sez I polite,
to give him his warnin', for I wanted him ready.

'He niver lifted his head, but sez, all mournful an' melancolius, as
if he thought I wud be sorry for him: "I can't find her," sez he.

'"My troth," sez I, "you've lived too long--you an' your seekin's an'
findin's in a dacint married woman's quarters! Hould up your head, ye
frozen thief av Genesis," sez I, "an' you'll find all you want an'
more!"

'But he niver hild up, an' I let go from the shoulther to where the
hair is short over the eyebrows.

'"That'll do your business," sez I, but it nearly did mine instid. I
put my bodyweight behind the blow, but I hit nothing at all, an' near
put my shoulther out. The Corp'ril man was not there, an' Annie Bragin,
who had been watchin' from the veranda, throws up her heels, an' carries
on like a cock whin his neck's wrung by the dhrummer-bhoy. I wint back
to her, for a livin' woman, an' a woman like Annie Bragin, is more
than a p'rade-groun' full av ghosts. I'd niver seen a woman faint
before, an' I stud like a shtuck calf, askin' her whether she was dead,