Then, directly, he would proceed to take a little walk before his breakfast, calling at every house of entertainment and referring distantly to the fact that Bartle Donohoe had a shake in his hand this morning. "A shame for him, and he an only son and all!"
And thus did he spend the days of his latter end, pacing the sidewalks of Garradrimna, entering blindly into pubs and discussing the habits of every one save himself.
He was great in the field of reminiscence.
"Be the Holy Farmer!" he would say, "but there's no drinking nowadays tost what used to be longo. There's no decent fellows, and that's a fact. Ah, they were the decent fellows longo. You couldn't go driving them a place but they'd all come home mad. And sure I often didn't know where I'd be driving them, I'd be that bloody drunk. Aye, decent fellows! Sure they're all dead now through the power and the passion of drink."
So this was the one whom John Brennan now encountered amid the green beauty of the woodland places. To him Padna Padna was one of the immortals. Succeeding holiday after succeeding holiday had he met the ancient man, fading surely but never wholly declining or disappearing. The impulse which had prompted him to speak to Marse Prendergast a few days previously now made him say: "How are you, old man?" to Padna Padna.
The venerable drunkard, by way of immediate reply, tapped upon his lips with his fingers and then blew upon his fingers and whistled in cogitation. It was with his ears that he saw, and he possessed an amazing faculty for distinguishing between the different voices of different people.
"John Brennan!" he at length exclaimed, in his high, thin voice. "Is that John Brennan?"
"It is, the very one."
"And how are ye, John?"
"Very well, indeed, Padna. How are you?"