Christy. Florry! Florry! mind you would not fall between two stools, and nobody to pity you.
Enter BIDDY.
Miss G. Well, what is it?
Biddy. The bed. I was seeing was the room empty, that I might make it; for it’s only turned up it is, when I was called off to send in dinner. So I believe I’d best make it now, for the room will be wanting for the tea-drinking, and what not.
Miss G. Ay, make the bed do, sure it’s asy, and no more about it;—you’ve talked enough about it to make twinty beds, one harder nor the other,—if talk would do. (BIDDY goes to make the bed.) And I’m sure there’s not a girl in the parish does less in the day, for all the talk you keep. Now I’ll just tell all you didn’t do, that you ought this day, Biddy.
{While Miss GALLAGHER is speaking to BIDDY, Mr. GALLAGHER opens a press, pours out, and swallows a dram.
Christy. Oh, that would be too long telling, Florry, and that’ll keep cool. Lave her now, and you may take your scould out another time. I want to spake to you. What’s this I wanted to say? My memory’s confusing itself. Oh, this was it—I didn’t till you how I got this promise of the inn: I did it nately—I got it for a song.
Miss G. You’re joking,—and I believe, sir, you’re not over and above sober. There’s a terrible strong smell of the whiskey.
Christy. No, the whiskey’s not strong, dear, at-all-at-all!—You may keep smelling what way you plase, but I’m as sober as a judge, still,—and, drunk or sober, always knows and knewed on which side my bread was buttered:—got it for a song, I tell you—a bit of a complimentary, adulatory scroll, that the young lady fancied—and she, slap-dash, Lord love her, and keep her always so! writes at the bottom, granted the poet’s petition.
Miss G. And where on earth, then, did you get that song?