"As how, sir, might I ax?"
"How long is it since you saw me before?"
"Don't mention it," cried Terry, with an abashed look, "a weary life-time a'most has passed since then."
"And what a life-time," observed the leprechaun, reproachfully.
"Indeed, an' you may say that," replied the other. "There's no one knows betther nor I do how sinfully that life was wasted, how useless it has been to me an' to every one else, how foolishly I flung away the means that might have comforted those who looked up to me, among heartless, conscienceless vagabones, who laughed at me while I fed their brutish appetites, and fled from me as though I were infectious when ill-health and poverty fell upon my head."
"Then the fairy gift did not bring you happiness?"
"Happiness!" replied Terry, with a groan, "it changed me from a man into a beast, it brought distress and misery upon those nearest and dearest to me, it made my whole worldly existence one continued reproach, and God help me, I'm afeared it has shut the gates of heaven against my sowl hereafter."
"Then I suppose you have the grace to be sorry this time that you didn't behave more generously in my case," said the fairy.
"True darlin'; if I wasn't, I wouldn't be here now," replied Terry. "It was to thry and find you out that I took this journey, an' a sore one it is to a man wid the weight of years that's on my back."
"Oh, I forgot that you were such an ould creather intirely," said the little fellow, with a merry whistle, "but what the mischief makes you bend your back into an apperciand, and hide your ears on your showlders, as if the cowld was bitin' them."