"I dunno. I've never axed them."
This brought the subject to a cul-de-sac and brick wall.
And if you will examine Moriarty's answers you will find that he had constructed an impregnable position, a glacis across which no child would get a "why?"
Miss French ruminated on this for a moment, while Moriarty, having finished his operations on the stick, tapped the dottle out of his pipe, refilled it, and lit it.
Then, leaning on his elbow, he lay watching the ships going to Limerick, and thinking about stable matters and Garryowen, the latest addition to Mr. French's stable, in particular.
Moriarty had spotted Garryowen. It was by his advice that Mr. French had bought the colt, and it was in his hands that the colt was turning into one of the fleetest that ever put hoof to turf. Miss French watched her companion, and they sat like this for a long, long time, while the wind blew, and the sea boomed, and the gulls passed overhead, honey-coloured where the sunlight pierced the snow of their wings.
"Moriarty," said the child at last, "how would you like to have a governess?"
This question brought Moriarty back from his reverie, and he rose to his feet.
"Come along," said he, taking the donkey's reins, "it's moidhered you'll be gettin' with the sun on your head and you without a hat."
"I'm going to have a governess," said the child; "she's coming this day week, and she's forty years old. What'll she be like, do you think, Moriarty?"