SIR PEARCE. What! That--that--that bosthoon!

MRS O'FLAHERTY [hilariously]. Let your honor alone for finding
the right word! A big bosthoon he is indeed, your honor. Oh, to
think of the times and times I have said that Miss Agnes would be
my lady as her mother was before her! Didn't I, Dinny?

SIR PEARCE. And now, Mrs. O'Flaherty, I daresay you have a great
deal to say to Dennis that doesn't concern me. I'll just go in
and order tea.

MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh, why would your honor disturb yourself? Sure I
can take the boy into the yard.

SIR PEARCE. Not at all. It won't disturb me in the least. And
he's too big a boy to be taken into the yard now. He has made a
front seat for himself. Eh? [He goes into the house.]

MRS O'FLAHERTY. Sure he has that, your honor. God bless your
honor! [The General being now out of hearing, she turns
threateningly to her son with one of those sudden Irish changes
of manner which amaze and scandalize less flexible nations, and
exclaims.) And what do you mean, you lying young scald, by
telling me you were going to fight agen the English? Did you take
me for a fool that couldn't find out, and the papers all full of
you shaking hands with the English king at Buckingham Palace?

O'FLAHERTY. I didn't shake hands with him: he shook hands with
me. Could I turn on the man in his own house, before his own
wife, with his money in my pocket and in yours, and throw his