bob and a tanner instead of a bob."

We walked along the North Strand Road till we came to the Vitriol
Works and then turned to the right along the Wharf Road. Mahony
began to play the Indian as soon as we were out of public sight. He
chased a crowd of ragged girls, brandishing his unloaded catapult
and, when two ragged boys began, out of chivalry, to fling stones
at us, he proposed that we should charge them. I objected that the
boys were too small and so we walked on, the ragged troop
screaming after us: "Swaddlers! Swaddlers!" thinking that we were
Protestants because Mahony, who was dark-complexioned, wore
the silver badge of a cricket club in his cap. When we came to the
Smoothing Iron we arranged a siege; but it was a failure because
you must have at least three. We revenged ourselves on Leo Dillon
by saying what a funk he was and guessing how many he would
get at three o'clock from Mr. Ryan.

We came then near the river. We spent a long time walking about
the noisy streets flanked by high stone walls, watching the working
of cranes and engines and often being shouted at for our
immobility by the drivers of groaning carts. It was noon when we
reached the quays and as all the labourers seemed to be eating
their lunches, we bought two big currant buns and sat down to eat
them on some metal piping beside the river. We pleased ourselves
with the spectacle of Dublin's commerce--the barges signalled
from far away by their curls of woolly smoke, the brown fishing
fleet beyond Ringsend, the big white sailingvessel which was
being discharged on the opposite quay. Mahony said it would be
right skit to run away to sea on one of those big ships and even I,
looking at the high masts, saw, or imagined, the geography which