“And thin ye tell me to pay my debts, do yer? Find the debt of Pat Maloney’s that’s unpaid, and he’ll pay it double, yer unprincipled ould calumniator. If ’ warrent for yer eighty yares, I’d larrup yer on the spot.”
“I claim no privilege of age, you cowardly tailor. That’s a dodge of yours that won’t serve. Come on, you ninth part of a man, if you have even that much of a man left in you. Come on, or I’ll pound your head against the wall.”
“Ye’d knock the house down, bedad, if ye tried it. I’d like no better sport nor to polish ye off wid these two fists of mine, yer aggrawatin’ superannuated ould haythen.”
“You shall find what my eighty years can do, you ranting Paddy. Since you won’t go quietly out of the house, I’ll put you out.”
And Pompilard began pulling up his sleeves, as if for action. Maloney was not behind him in his pugilistic demonstrations.
“If ye want to have the wind knocked out of yer,” said he, “jist try it, yer quarrelsome ould bully,—gittin’ up a disturbance like this at your time of life!”
Here Angelica, who had been listening at the door, burst into the room, and interposed between the disputants. By the aid of some mysterious signs and winks addressed to Maloney, she succeeded in pacifying him so far that he took up his hat, and shaking his head indignantly at Pompilard, followed her out of the room. The front door was heard to open and close. Then there was a slight creaking on the basement stairs, followed by a coughing from Angelica, and a minute afterwards she re-entered the parlor.
She found her father with his fists doubled, and his breast thrown back, knocking down an imaginary Irishman in dumb show.
“Has that brute left the house?” he asked.
“Yes, father. What did he want?”