“There would be just the same shame as if I was to bring you along with me when I was asked out to dinner!”
“You might do worse,” was the dry reply.
“I 'm curious to hear how.”
“Troth, you might; and easy too,” said Joe, sententiously.
These slight passages did not seem to invite conversation, and so, for above a mile or two, nothing was spoken on either side. At last Mr. O'Shea said,—
“I think that gray horse has picked up a stone; he goes tenderly near side.”
“He does not; he goes as well as you do,” was Joe's answer.
“You're as blind as a bat, or you'd see he goes lame,” said O'Shea, drawing up.
“There, he's thrown it now; it was only a bit of a pebble,” said Joe, as though the victory was still on his side.
“Upon my life, I wonder why I keep you at all,” burst out O'Shea, angrily.