Con, having fixed the spurs, stood up.
“Now,” said Mr Murphy, putting the pistol in the breast of his coat and clutching the whip in one hand, “turn your back to me.”
“Is it me brains you’re going to blow out?” asked the trembling Con, who, for all Paddy’s seemingly amiable mood, knew that something unpleasant was in store for him.
“Turn your back,” replied the other. “Sure, it’s a schollar of Thrinity one would think you were to-day with all your talk about brains. Turn your back.”
Con did as he was bidden, and the next moment Mr Murphy was on his back.
“Now you know where I keeps me dunkey,” said Mr Murphy, who had mounted pick-a-back. “Now you know why I put on me spurs. Jay up round the oak till I thries your paces—jay up.” He struck with his spurs, the rowels of which entered Con’s thighs, and backwards with his whip, the butt of which struck Con’s western extremity. Con shouted with the pain.
“Don’t start brayin’ too soon,” said Mr Murphy, “for it’s your wind you’ll be wantin’ before I’ve done with you—you dhirty houn’. Thank the Vargin it’s a dunkey I’ve made of you and not a corpse. Jay up.”
Con jayed up. Round the oak he went at a trot and round again.
The genius of Mr Murphy had unconsciously struck a vein of pure gold.
Con was an exceedingly powerful man, but nearly all his strength lay in his legs. Like a certain English writer of comic verse, now dead, he had “thighs like a grasshopper’s.”