Alvin rose from his chair and stepping to the kitchen door, gently closed it. Mrs. Murphy looked up through her spectacles.
"I don't wonder that ye wants to shet out the noise Mike makes whin aiting, fur the same is scand'lous."
"It isn't that, but I don't wish him to hear what I say to you."
"Shall I tell him to hold a finger of aich hand in his ears while he's aiting?" asked the mother without a smile.
"He might find that inconvenient. Mike told you the truth when he said he was in a fight to-night."
"I don't doubt the same, but I demands to know why he 'lowed himself to git licked?" said the father, with no little heat.
"He wasn't licked: it was the other fellow who got the worst of it."
"Why, thin, did the spalpeen say it was himself that was bested?"
"Begging your pardon, Pat, he did not. He stated a general truth, which no one can deny, to the effect that a fellow like him takes a chance of being defeated now and then. Listen to my story."
Thereupon Alvin related the incidents with which you are familiar, adding: