"Oh, fie!" said the mother of the young lady.
"What did you do then, James?" inquired the Doctor.
"I took the white tie off me, and I tied it to the bush that was next me, for a token, and 'twas that way I got them again the next morning, thanks be to God."
Having concluded his story, James started on a perfunctory tour of the table with the wine card. He stopped to pull the turf fire together, and, with a furtive eye at the glass over the chimney-piece, he rearranged the long lock of hair that draped his bald pate. It was dyed, of that peculiar shade of chestnut that disdains subterfuge, and the fact and its suggestions were distressing where an old servant was concerned; so also was the manner in which he hobbled on his heels.
"His walk's full of corns," said the young doctor, eyeing him not without sympathy. "He's a great old character. I believe they keep him here to talk to the tourists."
It is a melancholy fact that in Ireland, in these later days, "characters" have become aware of their position, and palpably live up to their reputation. But James was in a class of his own.
I said didactically, even combatively, that "characters" were free and easy, but that James was easy without being free.
"I'll bet he's not easy in his feet, anyhow!" said the Doctor brutally. "Have you any more soup there, James?"
The mother of the young lady, who had hitherto preserved a silence, broken only by the audible assimilation of her soup, here laid down her spoon and said in cryptic disparagement:
"Tin!"