Phil. But here’s my hand for you, Honor. They call me a beau and a buck, a slasher and dasher, and flourishing Phil. All that I am, may be; but there’s one thing I am not, and will never be—and that’s a bad brother to you. So you have my honour, and here’s my oath to the back of it. By all the pride of man and all the consate of woman—where will you find a bigger oath?—happen what will, this day, I’ll not lift my hand against Randal Rooney!
Honor. Oh, thanks! warm from the heart. But here’s my father—and where’s breakfast?
Phil. Oh! I must be at him for a horse: you, Honor, mind and back me.
Enter Old McBRIDE.
Old McB. Late I am this fair day all along with my beard, that was thicker than a hedgehog’s. Breakfast, where?
Honor. Here, father dear—all ready.
Old McB. There’s a jewel! always supple o’ foot. Phil, call to them to bring out the horse bastes, while I swallow my breakfast—and a good one, too.
Phil. Your horse is all ready standing, sir. But that’s what I wanted to ax you, father—will you be kind enough, sir, to shell out for me the price of a daacent horse, fit to mount a man like me?
Old McB. What ails the baste you have under you always?
Phil. Fit only for the hounds:—not to follow, but to feed ‘em.