the difference?'

After prolonged barging he got a glass of whisky, took off his hat
before he tasted it, to say a prayer for my future, and then sat
down with it on a bench in the corner.

I was served in turn, and we began to talk about horses and racing,
as there had been races in Arklow a day or two before. I alluded to
some races I had seen in France, and immediately the publican's
wife, a young woman who had just come in, spoke of a visit she had
made to the Grand Prix a few years before.

'Then you have been in France?' I asked her.

'For eleven years,' she replied.

'Alors vous parlez Francais, Madame?'

'Mais oui, Monsieur,' she answered with pure intonation.

We had a little talk in French, and then the old man got his can
filled with porter--the evening drink for a party of reapers who
were working on the hill--bought a pennyworth of sweets, and went
back down the road.

'That's the greatest old rogue in the village,' said the publican,
as soon as he was out of hearing; 'he's always making up to all who
pass through the place, and trying what he can get out of them. The
other day a party told me to give him a bottle of XXX porter he was
after asking for. I just gave him the dregs of an old barrel we had