“I dunno,” replied Patsy, grinning and scratching his head; “but I dhrimt there was burglars in the house last night, and, thinks I to meself just now, if you was to stick a ca’tridge in wan of thim guns you might have fine sport some night soon, and Paddy Murphy’s back buttons might be blown through his wistcoat same as he blew old Mullins’.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” asked Mr Fanshawe. “Who is Paddy Murphy—here, stick those trousers on the chair with the coat—and who is old Mullins?”
“I dunno,” replied Patsy, placing the trousers on the coat; “it’s me dhrames that do be addlin’ me. But if me dhrames come true it’s fine shootin’ you’ll be havin’ some night wid all thim guns, and it’s I that’ll be givin’ you the word whin to be loadin’ thim.”
“Here, get along!” said Mr Fanshawe, opening a hunting kit-bag. “Put these shirts in that top drawer, and don’t be talking nonsense; put these waistcoats in with the shirts.”
“The hounds meet to-morra at Castle Knock. I s’pose you’ll be afther followin’ thim, sir,” said Patsy, as he placed the waistcoats in the drawer.
“I will,” replied Mr Fanshawe. “What time’s the meet?”
“Nine o’clock, sir; and there’s a big baste of a fox in the Galtee woods where they’re goin’ to draw, wid a white tip to his tail, as ’ill go like clock-work, for I set me eyes on him on’y a wake ago whin I was settin’ snares the day before they stuck me in buttons and made a page-boy of me.”
“How do you like being page-boy?” asked Mr Fanshawe, who was working at the unpacking of his things in his shirt sleeves and, despite James’s warning, with a cigarette in his mouth.
“Faith,” said Patsy, “if it wasn’t for the childer it’s back to the woods I’d be to-morrow, for it’s nothing but ‘Patsy’ here and ‘Patsy’ there, and ‘Patsy, ye divil, what are you standin’ idle for?’ if I stops to rest me bones for the quather of a minit. Sure, it’s twelve pair of hands on the ends of me arms I’d want to plaze Mrs Kinsella; but as for the childer, faith, anything plazes thim.”
“So you’re acting as nursery governess as well as page-boy,” said Mr Fanshawe, who was beginning to perceive that Patsy was a person of an original disposition, and not at all a page-boy of the ordinary type.