my skinful of good stiff stirabout that's worth a shipload of it. Drink
it yourselves--I'm no gintleman."

"Arrah, when did you find that out, Misther Burke?" she shouted back
again.

"To his friends and acquaintances it is anything but a recent disco
very," added Hycy; and each complimented the observation of the other
with a hearty laugh, during which the object of it went out to the
fields to join the men.

"I'm afraid it's no go, mother," proceeded the son, when breakfast was
finished--"he won't stand it. Ah, if both my parents were of the
same geometrical proportion, there would be little difficulty in this
business; but upon my honor and reputation, my dear mother, I think
between you and me that my father's a gross abstraction--a most
substantial and ponderous apparition."

"An' didn't I know that an' say that too all along?" replied his mother,
catching as much of the high English from him as she could manage:
"however, lave the enumeration of the mare to me. It'll go hard or I'll
get it out of him."

"It is done," he replied; "your stratagetic powers are great, my dear
mother, consequently it is left in your hands."

Hycy, whilst in the kitchen, cast his eye several times upon the
handsome young daughter of Peety Dhu, a circumstance to which we owe the
instance of benevolent patronage now about to be recorded.