“An’ can he walk?”
“Yes, and run too.”
“Worra, worra, did yez iver hear the loikes o’ that?” cried the Irishman, throwing up his hands in astonishment. “Would ye have the nateness to allow me to sthep in for a whist, while I obsarve the construction of the conthrivance? I can philosophize, and so forth, but be the smoke o’ Kate Kelly’s pipe (be the same token, it was a rale black dudeen), this bates me philosophy, it do.”
“Who are you?” asked Frank.
“Patrick McSpalten’s my name. Will yez allow me in?”
“I suppose so,” said Frank, and into the wood-shed walked the Irishman.
He was a good-natured looking man of about thirty, pleasant-faced, well-dressed, and full of blarney.
“Arrah, it’s a jaynus ye are,” he said as he looked at Frank’s invention. “An’ do ye mane to tell me that you constructed that conthrivance all out of yer own head, me gossoon?”
“Oh, no,” grinned Frank. “I use quite a quantity of steel, iron and copper.”
“Oh, I didn’t mane that,” hastily said Patrick McSpalten. “I want to know if ye conthrived the masheen all alone?”