“‘No, nor silver; nor as much as sixpence, either.’
“‘Didn’t ye hear that all day yesterday when the people was coming in with their notes, the chaps there were heating the guineas in a frying-pan, pretending that they were making them as fast as they could; and sure, when they had a batch red-hot they spread them out to cool; and what betune the hating and the cooling, and the burning the fingers counting them, they kept the bank open to three o’clock, and then they ran away.’
“‘Is it truth yer telling?’ says my father.
“‘Sorra word o’ lie in it! Myself had two-and-fourpence of their notes.’
“‘And so they’re broke,’ says my father, ‘and nothing left?’
“‘Not a brass farden.’
“‘And what am I staying here for, I wonder, if there’s nothing to guard?’
“‘Faix, if it isn’t for the pride of the thing—’
“‘Oh, sorra taste!’
“‘Well, may be for divarsion.’