"Well, Denny, what do you think of this dreadful corrobberie?" exclaimed Jessie to the Irish boy as they rode home about midnight.
"Phwat div Oi think iv it, Miss Jassie? Whoi, it's been a lovely foight, shure. Och, they're the very divils ontoirely! Nivir seen sich a bit of divarsion since Oi left owld Oireland, bedad! Begorrah, it'd ta-ake owld Tipperary itself to bate it."
"Do you know what I've been thinking of, Denny?" continued the mischievous girl.
"Nawthin' but lovely thoughts, Miss Jassie."
"You of course are the best judge, Denny, being an Irishman. What I was thinking was this: scratch an aboriginal, and you have an Irishman."
"Och, dear-a-dear, Miss Jassie, to maline me poor counthrymen loike that! Troth, then," cried the lad, with a serio-comic air and the suspicion of a wink, "there's one thing indade which Irishmen have in common wid these poor naggurs."
"What is that, Denny?"
"We both suffer at the hands of Saxon landlords."
And Jessie had no answer.
CHAPTER XXV