“Will you show me a treasure?” says she.
“I’d have you to know,” he replies, “that the pot of gold I could convey you in sight of is guarded by the appearance of a very strange frog.”
“What do I care for the creeping beasts of the world,” says she. “Worse nor a frog wouldn’t scare me at all.”
“You’re a terrible fine woman, mistress dear,” says the leprachaun. “I’ve travelled a power of the earth and I never came in with your equal.”
“Go on with your old-fashioned chat,” she replies, but she was middling well pleased all the same.
“I’m a small little fellow,” says he, “and I couldn’t keep up with yourself. But it’s light in the body I am, the way I’d be never a burden at all and I sitting up on the handle of the basket.”
“Up with you,” she answers, “for I’ll soon put you down to walk by my side if you are not speaking the truth.”
But she didn’t find the least burden more on the basket when himself was on the handle.
He was a great warrant to flatter, and he had her in humour that day all the while he was watching out for a chance to escape, but she kept a hold of his ear.
What did he do only put his two wee hands down into the basket and he began for to bail out the eggs. She fetched him a terrible clout, but the harder she beat him the faster he threw out the eggs.