"Whoo, by the powers!" shouted Shamus, at last thrown off his guard
by the surpassing joy derived from this intelligence, as well as by
the effects of the ale; and at the same time he jumped up, cutting
a caper with his legs, and flourishing his shillalah.

"Why, what's the matter with you?" asked his friend, glancing at
him a frowning and misgiving look.

"We ax pardon, sir." Shamus rallied his prudence. "An', sure,
sorrow a thing is the matter wid me, only the dhrop, I believe,
made me do it, as it ever and always does, good luck to it for the
same. An' isn't what we were spaking about the biggest raumaush
[Footnote: Nonsense.] undher the sun, sir? Only it's the laste bit
in the world quare to me how you'd have the dhrame about your own
country, that you didn't see for so many years, sir--for twenty
long years, I think you said, sir?" Shamus had now a new object in
putting his sly question.

"If I said so, I forgot," answered the publican, his suspicions
of Shamus at an end. "But it is about twenty years, indeed, since
I left Ireland."

"And by your speech, sir, and your dacency, I 'll engage you were
in a good way in the poor place afore you left it?"

"You guess correctly, friend." (The publican gave way to vanity.)
"Before misfortunes came over me, I possessed, along with a good
hundred acres besides, the very ground that the old ruin I saw in
the foolish dream I told you stands upon."