We made the Battery at New York in a few hours over thirty days.
I got leave to go on shore with the third mate, a mighty dacint young man; and whin I tould him I wanted him to take me to my cousin, by my mother’s sister’s side, whose name was O’Gorman, with the small-pox, a squint, and a foxey head, I thought he’d taken a seven years’ lase of a laugh, and would—unless he split his sides—never do anything else but that same for the rest of his born days.
To cut the matter short, he tould me the skipper had sould me as chape as a speckled orange! So I gave up all hopes of finding my cousin and my fortune; saw as much as I could of the beautiful city; bought a trifle or two to take home; and, after another splendid run, was landed, safe and sound, onct more on the dear ould Cove of Cork.
“Then you saw no ghost in that ship?” says Bostock.
“Faith, I did!”
“But you have told us nothing about it!” says I.
Wait till a while ago. I tuck my wages, and started for the public, where I knew I should find my cousin—and right glad he was to see me; but I couldn’t help feeling as if something was wrong by the way he looked and answered me, whin I asked afther the ould people and little Norah and Patsey.
“Take a tumbler of punch, now!” says he; “and we’ll talk of that afterward.”
“Not at all,” says I. “The news, whether good or bad, will go better with the punch; so we’ll have them together. How is my darlint mother?”
“Well!” says he.