“I’m glad it wasn’t Miss Betty he sent for; we could not spare her just yet, though no doubt she will be going from us some of these days, too, and it will be a lucky man that takes her. Get out of that, Joey,” to Foxy Joe; “what are ye waitin’ for? why don’t ye take them ribs up to the Glebe when ye know they dine at two o’clock.”
“I was just waiting on Miss Redmond to give her joy! You will not forget poor Joey, miss—will ye?” And he eyed her with an expression of latent cunning.
Belle glanced at him scornfully, and made no reply.
“You will remember the hand I had in it, won’t ye, miss?” he repeated in a louder key.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” returned Belle, haughtily, now preparing to leave the shop, which was filling fast with respectable customers.
Foxy Joe, who, I am sorry to say, had already been at Nolan’s, partaking of an early glass, and had imbibed what is generally known as the “cross drop,” was not to be thus set aside.
“Sure, I am talking of all the love letters I carried for you, miss,” he answered in an angry scream, “when he was at home. Begorra, ye were a terrible young lady with the pen! as many as four to his wan, and I was always to wait for an answer; bedad, he was not in the same hurry! And ye never give me a copper, not a hate but an old neck-tie, and promises—Faix!—ye must make it up to me now.”
Here a violent clout from Mrs. Maccabe’s ox tail reduced him to a whimpering silence, and then he roared out:
“And can’t ye let me alone, and what harm am I doing ye—Bridgey Maccabe?”
“How dar ye spake to your betters like that, ye dirty little tell-tale whelp?” she demanded furiously. “I’ll have to get shut of ye, I’m thinking—body—sleeves—and trimmings.”