But one evening, Mickey stayed out very late. When he came in, he sat down opposite Peetcheen, and pushed back his old hat, and says he, blowing a big sigh out of him:
“It’s well for you, to be sitting there and nothing to torment you! And you looking as if you had the world in your pocket!”
Peetcheen took a while to think this over, and then he said, “It appears middling snug here! Plenty to eat and drink, and a good way of lying down at night. And what more can a man want?”
“I want more, anyway!” answered Heffernan; “there’s a woman wanting here, to have an eye over the place, and not let it be getting all through-other the way it is....”
“Won’t the sister you were telling me of be back from Dublin...?”
Then Mickey looked at Peetcheen with a very pitiful eye.
“She will, in troth!” he said.
He took a few draws of his pipe, and then, “I may’s well tell you the whole business!” he went on. At the same time, he did not; nor had the smallest intention of telling it. But who ever does tell their whole mind?
“The way of it is this,” said Mickey; “I’m wishing this length of time to get a wife in here, and am looking about for some one that would be suitable. But it’s tedious, and very severe work on a man like me. There’s a power to be considered. There’s Julia, now; she that’s my sister; her and whatever girl I’d take might not get on well together. In fact, she would be dead against my bringing any one in on this floor, as long as she’s on it herself. I was turning over in me own mind, could I make up a match for herself ... that would settle it ... but, sure, I tried that over and over ... at least, she did....”
“Hard to be plased, maybe?” said Peetcheen, lifting the pot off the hooks.