“They gave me the name up at Mulhuldad there, for bating one M'Clancy with a flail.”
“A very good reason. So you got the name because you beat a certain M'Clancy with a flail?”
“I didn't say that; I only said they gave me the name because they said I bate him.”
“Were you ever called 'Fire-the-Haggard'?”
“I was, often.”
“For no reason, of course?”
“Divil a may son. The boys said it in sport, just as they talk of yer honor out there in the hall.”
“How do you mean,—talk of me?”
“Sure I heard them say myself, as I was coming in, that you wor a clever man and a 'cute lawyer. They do be always humbugging that way.”
A titter ran round the benches of the barristers at this speech, which was delivered with a naïve simplicity that would deceive many.