“‘Good-evening, Mickey,’ says one. ‘Fine sport ye have all to yourself, with your long feather in your cap.’
“‘Arrah, look how proud he is,’ says another, ‘with his head up as if he didn’t see a body.’
“‘Shoulder, hoo!’ cried a drunken chap, with a shovel in his hand. Then they all began laughing away at my father.
“‘Let the dacent man alone,’ said an ould fellow in a wig. ‘Isn’t he guarding the bank, wid all the money in it?’
“‘Faix, he isn’t,’ says another; ‘for there’s none left.’
“‘What’s that you’re saying?’ says my father.
“‘Just that the bank’s broke; devil a more!’ says he.
“‘And there’s no goold in it?’ says my father.
‘“Divil a guinea.’
“‘Nor silver?’