“Yes, but who said you could take it?” said Benedict.
“Oh, I bought it this morning. Mr. Sibthorp and I found out the owner and he was willing to sell it for a song.”
“But how did you get it here on that wagon?”
“Oh, we didn’t. We had this—er—Bert’s horses—but an Irishman of the name of Casey loaned us his hay wagon and he felt insulted when I offered to pay him for the use of it. He really became violently abusive, don’t you know, and used highly colored language, but we could see that he meant well. Really I thought him something of a character. Didn’t you think him a character, Mr. Sibthorp?”
“He certainly was,” said Sibthorp. “He had no opinion at all of Bert’s horses. Said he had an—ould—ould—”
“Ould scut,” I suggested.
“That’s it. Said he had an ould scut of a horse that would walk right away from Bert’s pair, and that any time we wanted to take the young ladies out for a ride to come and take him right out of the stall, whether he was there or not. His language was ornamented with picturesque oaths that wouldn’t sound well here, but they were awfully funny.”
“I guess he said nothing that he wouldn’t say before anyone,” said Ethel.
Sibthorp gave her a whimsical look. “Excuse me,” said he, “but I guess that when you’ve heard him talk he has repressed his vocabulary.”
“Why,” said Ethel, “you know he came with berries the morning after you came.”