“That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!” chanted Mrs. Coolahan. “Such a mee-aw! Such a thing to happen to me—the pure, decent woman! G’wout!” This, the imperative of the verb to retire, was hurtled at the tell-tale, who, presuming on her services, had incautiously left the covert of the counter, and had laid a sticky hand on her mother’s skirts.
“Only that some was praying for me,” pursued Mrs. Coolahan, “it might as well be the Inspector that came in the office, asking for the pin, an’ if that was the way we might all go under the sod! Sich a mee-aw!”
“Musha! Musha!” breathed, prayerfully, one of the shawled women.
At this juncture I mounted on an up-ended barrel to investigate a promising lair above my head, and from this altitude was unexpectedly presented with a bird’s-eye view of a hat with a silver band inside the railed and curtained “snug”. I descended swiftly, not without an impression of black bottles on the snug table, and Katty Ann here slid in from the search in the cow-house.
MUSHA! MUSHA!
“’Twasn’t in it,” she whined, “nor I didn’t put it in it.”
“For a pinny I’d give ye a slap in the jaw!” said Mr. Coolahan with sudden and startling ferocity.
“That the Lord Almighty might take me to Himself!” reiterated Mrs. Coolahan, while the search spread upwards through the house.