"Well, Oi niver!" Then going to the door she fished out with her fingers a dead mouse and threw it out, remarking placidly, "Oi've wondered whayer the little divil wuz. Oi ain't sane him this two wakes, an' me a-thinkin' it wuz Tom ate him. May Oi be furgiven the onjustice av it. Consarn them flies! That cover niver did fit." And again her finger was employed, this time to scrape off an incrustation of unhappy flies that had died, like Clarence, in their favourite beverage.
"Thayer, Yan, now ate hearty, all av it, an' welcome. It does me good to see ye ate—thayer's lots more whayer that come from," though it was obvious that she had put her all upon the table.
[214] Poor Yan was in trouble. He felt instinctively that the good old soul was wrecking her week's resources in this lavish hospitality, but he also felt that she would be deeply hurt if he did not appear to enjoy everything. The one possibly clean thing was the bread. He devoted himself to that; it was of poorest quality; one or two hairs looping in his teeth had been discouraging, but when he bit at a piece of linen rag with a button on it he was fairly upset. He managed to hide the rag, but could not conceal his sudden loss of appetite.
"Hev some more av this an' this," and in spite of himself his plate was piled up with things for him to eat, including a lot of beautifully boiled potatoes, but unfortunately the hostess carried them from the pot on the stove in a corner of her ancient and somber apron, and served him with her skinny paw.
Yan's appetite was wholly gone now, to the grief of his kind entertainer, "Shure an' she'd fix him up something to stringthen him," and Yan had hard work to beg off.
"Would ye like an aig," ventured Biddy.
"Why, yes! oh, yes, please," exclaimed Yan, with almost too much enthusiasm. He thought, "Well, hens are pure-minded creatures, anyway. An egg's sure to be clean."
Biddy waddled away to the 'barrun' and soon reappeared with three eggs.
"B'iled or fried?"