"He has the honor, according to his own story, of being me dad."
"Why, he's father's caretaker. I remember he told me some time ago that he had a boy seventeen years old that he had sent word to in Ireland to come over and join him. And you are he! Why, I'm so glad I should like to shake hands with you again."
"I'm nothing loath, but I say that hat ye threw away is more of the fashion in this part of the wurruld than in Tipperary, and if ye have no objections I'll make a trade."
And the Irish lad walked to where the headgear lay, picked it up and pulled it on his crown.
"It's a parfect fit—as the tramp said when he bounced around the kind leddy's yard—don't I look swaat in the same?"
Alvin could not help laughing outright, for the hat was at least a size too small for the proud new owner, and perched on his crown made his appearance more comical than it had been formed by nature.
"I knew ye would be plased, as me uncle said when the docther towld him he would be able to handle his shillaleh inside of a waak and meet his engagement with Dennis O'Shaugnessey at Donnybrook fair. Me dad tached me always to be honest."
To prove which Mike laid down his battered straw hat beside the road, where the seeker of the better headgear would have no trouble in finding it. "And if it's all the same, Alvin, we'll adjourn to our home, for I'm so hungry I could ate me own grandmither."
"How did you know my name?" asked the surprised Alvin.
"Arrah, now, hasn't me dad and mither been writing me since they moved into this part of the wurruld and spaking of yersilf? It was yer telling me that me dad was your dad's caretaker that towld the rist. Ef I had known it was yersilf I would have hit that spalpeen harder."