"I seen him!" cried Norah Brannigan. "I seen him shtandin' on the dock a-talkin' to this blissed child jist as we was castin' off—after the plank was in—and then he took a handspring, he did, over the rail."
"Philip!"
"Mama!... mama!... I didn't say anything—only—only—" It ended in a burst of weeping.
"Only what, Philip?" She was wild with anxiety. "Tell mama what you said."
"Only that—that—mama!... I thes told him—I—wasn't—any—girl-l!"
"Oh, Philip! Philip!"
While mother and son were thus reckoning their accounts Norah Brannigan had on her thinking cap, and this article on the head of an Irish girl often covers quick wits.
"You are dead sure, mem, that this man will get the child once we reach the 'Soo'?"
"Oh, yes, yes! I am perfectly certain of it now."
"Well," said Norah Brannigan, with an encouraging wink of her left eye, "what's the matter wid givin' him the shlip?"