"Fwhere in Hiven's name is the maskyrade at?" he queried sourly. "An' do yez riprisint Wild Bill Hickox—rest his sowl—or th' 'Pache Kid—th' divil burn him!"
Tom glanced down at his ancient regalia of worn leather chaps, spurs, and the old forty-one that sagged from his right hip, and grinned.
"Guns is coming into style again out our way," he replied. "All the best families wears 'em. There's so many of these here durn hobos and railway men and Irish and other low characters——"
"Th' nerve of yez!" snorted Mr. Quilty. "And the name iv yez 'McHale!'—as Irish, be hivins, as Con iv th' Hundred Battles!"
McHale chuckled to himself, having succeeded in his purpose of getting Mr. Quilty going.
"Irish? Not on your life!" he denied gravely. "What put that notion in your head? The McHales is high-grade Scotch. Always was. They come from Loch Lomond or Commarashindhu or them parts. Annie Laurie married a McHale. Of course we're Scotch. You can tell by the Mac. The only McHale that ever was in Ireland went there to civilize it."
"To civ'lize Ireland!" Mr. Quilty cried in derision. "Hear till him! And Ireland the owldest civ'lization in the wurruld, barrin' none, and the best! Faix, we was givin' lessons in it to all mankind whin th' dom raggety-britched tattherdemalions iv Scotchmen hadn't th' dacincy to wear kilts, even, but wint about bare to th' four winds iv hivin, a barbarious race lower nor a Digger Injun, a scandal to God, man, and faymales black and white."
"Well, maybe you're right about them old times, Corney," admitted McHale, with an innocent face. "I meant a little later than that. This here McHale was with William the Conqueror at the Battle of the Boyne——"
Mr. Quilty spat at the mention of this historic event.
"Bad scran till him, then!" he exclaimed. "Yez do be a high-grade liar, and ign'rant as well. Willyum th' Conq'ror was Irish on his mother's side, an' he bate th' heads off iv th' bloody Sassenach, an' soaked their king wan in th' eye wid a bow 'n' arry at a fight I disremimber th' name of, back a thousand years before Willyum th' Dutchman—may his sowl get its needin's!—come out iv his swamps. I tell yez th' McHales come from Galway. In th' good owld days they hanged thim be th' dozen to th' glor iv God an' th' greater safety iv all live stock. An th' pity is they didn't make a cleaner job iv ut."