Deasey had
craved for corpses, but nothing so grim as that had risen to his
whisky-bait until he tried the same old game on Mrs. Geraghty. What
subtle instinct was it that had prompted him to add to the first
unvarying words: "But all that is now past and over, and safe beneath
the mouldering clay!"
At these last words, the Widow Geraghty knew well, the barrier was down
that fences off one human soul from another; all the same, she shook
her trembling head when Deasey drew the cork. At her refusal Deasey was
struck with the most respectful compassion; until that hour he had
never known one single lacerated soul decline this consolation.
"And to look at me!" she wept forthwith, "would you think I could shed
a drop of ruddy gore?"
"No, ma'am," returned Deasey. "To look at you, ye'd think ma'am ye
could never kill a fly!"
And respectfully he passed the peppermints.
"Sometimes," the widow muttered, "I hears it, and it bawling in me
dreams o' night. And the two bright eyes of it, and the little clay
cold feet!" Deasey knew what was coming now, and he twitched in every
vein.
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