Patsy did as he was bid. He found a tin bucket in the yard and carefully filled it at the water-tap by the stable door. When the bucket was full he seized it by the handle and was just about to carry it back to the kitchen, when who should come into the yard, with a goose swung over his shoulder, but Micky Finnegan, son of Mrs Finnegan, the woman who had the green-grocer’s shop at Castle Knock.
Micky was an old enemy of Patsy’s. He was a long-legged boy—in fact he looked all legs and arms—a huge mouth and a squint were the next most noticeable things about him. He was not good to look at, in fact he was good for nothing except bullying boys smaller than himself, and sometimes going on an errand for his mother.
The newcomer when he beheld Patsy in his new attire stood stockstill, stared, and then burst into a wild yell of laughter.
Patsy’s red hair bristled up like the spines of a hedgehog, as it always did when he was angry, but he said nothing.
“Hurroo!” shouted Mrs Finnegan’s boy, when he had recovered from his simulated fit of laughter; “here’s Patsy Rooney burst out in buttons; here’s Patsy Rooney drawing water for the maids. Where’s your broom, Patsy? Where’s your dustpan and brush? Have yiz emptied the slops, Patsy, and made the beds and turned down the quilts?”
“And what’s brought you out to-day?” replied Patsy. “You’re afther your time; this isn’t the fifth of Novimber, this isn’t Guy Fawkes Day. Go back to your lumber-room, you stuffed straw imige, and wait till they takes you out and rides you on a rail.”
“Carrots!” yelled the other, who was not gifted greatly with the art of repartee; “who’ll buy carrots?”
“It’s ashamed of yourself you ought to be,” replied Patsy, in a tone of virtuous disgust.
“And why is it ashamed of myself I ought to be?” queried the unsuspecting Micky.
“For going about the country with your ould gran’mother slung over your shoulder,” replied Patsy. “You weren’t so fond of her when she was alive, seein’ you let her die of starvation and ould age, by the look of her.”