Sarah groaned: "He talks for all the world like an Irishman."
"Murther will out," Barney proclaimed, with pride.
Evelyn turned on the owner of Dunshinnanon. "Are you Irish?"
"It's the best excuse my parents could make for me," admitted Scarlett.
"I am more than half inclined to take him on trial," Evelyn stated. "But first," she again consulted Barney, "officer, can you give the young man a character?"
"A character? Faith, but that's phwat he does be needing some ginerously minded person to bestow on him, for niver a wan av his own has he to show at all, at all!" cried Barney, mindful of his chief's earlier injunctions to depict him in unflattered lights. "Glory be! If I was to begin to tell yez phwat I don't know about the lad he'd be afther breaking my skull for me, an' not for the first toime."
"Nor the last, either, you idiot!" growled Scarlett.
"That's rather vague," commented Evelyn. "Tell me, is he honest?"
"Gosh! th' Irish is no thieves," Barney answered handsomely for his race, "though now and thin maybe wan might snap at something in your hand. It takes a dhirty Hollander to do the stealin'!"
"Oh! And—is he sober?"