AY the Holy Vargin an' all the blissid saints purtect us! Here's yer father comin' up the coort as dhrunk as a pig. Get along inter hidin' wid yer, childer!" So saying, Mrs. Ryan, who had been standing with her baby in the doorway of her wretched home, gossiping with the neighbours, stepped into her kitchen, and awaited the arrival of her drunken husband with trepidation. "Maybe he'll tumble upsthairs an' slape off his dhrops, bad cess to him for a nasthy silfish brute," she muttered.
But no, Donovan Ryan staggered into the kitchen, and greeted his wife with an inane smile, which in no wise deceived her, taught by many an experience, how more than likely it was that the next moment his tipsy amiability might be exchanged for the utmost fury.
"An' what will I be gettin' for yer tay? Shure ye're home airly the night," she tremblingly said.
"It's yersilf that's mighty oblagin' intoirely, an' hasn't Donovan Ryan, at yer service, ma'am,"—making a low bow which nearly lost him his unsteady balance,—"a right to kem to his own home whiniver it may plaze him, widout askin' yer lave, ye miserable, dirthy, scoldin' broth uv a wumman?"
Donovan had raised his voice from low, mocking accents to stentorian tones, which shook the little room.
Poor Mrs. Ryan shrank further and further away.
"Shure, Donovan, I meant no harm at all, at all. Be aisy now; an' I'll git ye a cup uv tay in a jiffy," she said, coaxingly.
But, according to his ideas, Donovan had received a grievous insult, and there was only one way in which the said insult could be avenged; and, being made of that stern, courageous stuff of which some few of our British workmen are composed, he proceeded to teach Mrs. Ryan, in a very practical manner, that she really must not venture to offend the perfectly justifiable ideas which he held of his own importance and dignity. In all wifely submission, as in duty bound, and according to long-established custom, she made no demur to the very ordinary proceeding which occupied Donovan's attention for the next few minutes.
"See what ye'll git for venturin' to interfare wid yer husban'," he said, as he paused for want of breath.