TIM MALONEY'S PIG.
CH, thin, mate, an' yer don't appair to be takin' kindly to yer wark the morn! Shure, an' I'm rale 'shamed uv ye, afther yer day's plasurin'," remarked Tim Maloney, a broad-shouldered, good-tempered looking Irishman, to his fellow-workman, who, with sundry grunts and ejaculations expressive of discontent with the world in general, and his own hard-working existence in particular, had just lazily emptied his hod of bricks at the feet of Tim, who was briskly disposing of them, with many dexterous pats and turns of his trowel, as he laid them, one by one, upon the wall he was engaged in building. It was early in the morning of the day following a public holiday; and, of all the workmen employed upon the block of houses in course of erection, only Tim Maloney and John Jarvis had made their appearance, the latter of whom seemed none the better for the previous day's cessation from toil.
He answered gloomily:
"All very well for the likes of you, Tim Maloney, to be chaffin' a feller; but I'd like to know if you'd feel fit to kill yerself with work if you'd been draggin' about the day afore with the missis a scoldin', and half a dozen brats at yer heels as gave yer no peace, a spendin' of yer hard-earned money, and seein' nought for it."
Tim picked up a brick, and placed it tenderly in the mortar bed he had just prepared, then said:
"An' isn't it bacomin' that the wife uv yer bossum and the childer should share yer holiday, an' hilp yer to spind yer money, me bhoy?"