"Like? Sure, it was like a Leprachaun; and what else would it be
like?"

"What like vas that?" persisted the voice.

"It was like a little man no bigger than a big forked radish, an' as
green as a cabbidge. Me a'nt had one in her house down in
Connaught in the ould days. O musha! musha! the ould days, the
ould days! Now, you may b'lave me or b'lave me not, but you could
have put him in your pocket, and the grass-green head of him
wouldn't more than'v stuck out. She kept him in a cupboard, and
out of the cupboard he'd pop if it was a crack open, an' into the
milk pans he'd be, or under the beds, or pullin' the stool from
under you, or at some other divarsion. He'd chase the pig--the
crathur!--till it'd be all ribs like an ould umbrilla with the fright,
an' as thin as a greyhound with the runnin' by the marnin; he'd
addle the eggs so the cocks an' hens wouldn't know what they wis
afther wid the chickens comin' out wid two heads on them, an'
twinty-seven legs fore and aft. And you'd start to chase him, an'
then it'd be main-sail haul, and away he'd go, you behint him, till
you'd landed tail over snout in a ditch, an' he'd be back in the
cupboard."

"He was a Troll," murmured the Dutch voice.

"I'm tellin' you he was a Leprachaun, and there's no knowin' the
divilments he'd be up to. He'd pull the cabbidge, maybe, out of the
pot boilin' on the fire forenint your eyes, and baste you in the
face with it; and thin, maybe, you'd hold out your fist to him, and