'And has your mother nothing better than that?' said I, pointing to the miserable plate of fish.
'Whisht, I tell you, and don't be putting the like in her head: sometimes she hears as well as you or me.' Here he dropped his voice to a whisper. 'Herrins is so cheap that we always make her believe it's Lent—this is nine years now she's fasting.' Here a fit of laughing at the success of this innocent ruse again broke from Corny, in which, as before, his mother joined.
'Then what am I to do,' asked I, 'if I can get nothing to eat here? Is there no other house in the village?'
'No, devil a one.'
'How far is it to Loughrea?'
'Fourteen miles and a bit.'
'I can get a car, I suppose?'
'Ay, if Mary Doolan's boy is not gone back.'
The old woman, whose eyes were impatiently fixed upon me during this colloquy, but who heard not a word of what was going forward, now broke in—
'Why doesn't he pay the bill and go away? Devil a farthing I'll take off it. Sure, av ye were a raal gentleman ye'd be givin' a fippenny-bit to the gossoon there, that sarved you. Never mind, Corny dear, I'll buy a bag of marbles for you at Banagher.'