"If you went to a ditch for your wife——!" said I.
He pursed up his lips at me.
"I think," said I, "that you need not mind the neighbours so very much for no one can spy on you but yourself. If your mind was in a glass case instead of in a head it would be different; and no one can really rule and regulate you but yourself, and that's well worth doing."
"Different people," said he shortly, "are made differently."
"Maybe," said I, "your wife would be a good wife to some other husband, and your brother might be decent enough if he had a different brother."
He wrinkled up his eyes and looked at me very steadily—
"I'll be saying good-bye to you, young man," said he, and he raised his hammer again and began to beat solemnly on the stones.
I stood by him for a few minutes, but as he neither spoke nor looked at me again I turned to my own path intending to strike Dublin by the Paps of Dana and the long slopes beyond them.
II
One day he chucked his job, put up his tools, told the boss he could do this and that, called hurroo to the boys, and sauntered out of the place with a great deal of dignity and one week's wages in cash.