“And why do you not play at cards?”
“Did I not tell you that the thief, my uncle Phelim, stole away the pack? If we had the pack, my brother Denis and the gossoons would be ready enough to get up from their sleep before the fire, and play cards with me for ha’pence, or eggs, or nothing at all; but the pack is gone—bad luck to the thief who took it!”
“And why don’t you buy another?”
“Is it of buying you are speaking? And where am I to get the money?”
“Ah! that’s another thing!”
“Faith it is, honey!—And now the Christmas holidays is coming, when I shall be at home by day as well as night, and then what am I to do? Since I have been a saggarting, I have been good for nothing at all—neither for work nor Greek—only to play cards! Faith, it’s going mad I will be!”
“I say, Murtagh!”
“Yes, Shorsha dear!”
“I have a pack of cards.”
“You don’t say so, Shorsha ma vourneen?—you don’t say that you have cards fifty-two?”