“Arrah, sure it’s a way I’ve got wid me, honey,” said he with a wink. Still, I could see he was pleased with my remark all the same, from the smile of contentment that overspread his face as he added: “Bless ye though, me darlint, sure an’ it’s ownly blarney arter all!”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Faix, ya moost go owver to old Oireland to larn, me bhoy,” he answered with a laugh. “Wait till ye kiss the blarney stone, an’ thin ye’ll know!”
“I suppose it’s what father calls the suaviter in modo,” said I, laughing also, he put on such a droll look. “And I think, Mr Rooney, you possess the fortiter in re, too, from the way you can speak sometimes.”
“Bedad, I don’t ondercumstubble,” he replied, taking off his cap and scratching his head reflectively, rather taken aback by my Latin quotation; “though if that haythen lingo manes soft sawder, by the powers I’ve got lashins av it! Howsomedevers, youngster, we naydn’t argify the p’int; but if the foorst mate were ownly aboord, d’ye know what I’d loike to do?”
“What?” I inquired.
“Why, trate them dock loompers to grog all round. They’ve worruked loike blue nayghurs; specially that l’adin’ man av theirs, that chap there, see him, wid the big nose on his face? I’d loike to pipe all hands down in the cabin to splice the main-brace, if ownly the foorst mate were aboord,” he repeated in a regretful tone. Adding, however, the next moment more briskly: “An’, by the blissid piper that played before Moses, there he is!”