The motor wormed its way along. When the crowd grew less congested, O’Neill ventured to increase the speed. Just as he did so, a small child, escaping from its mother, who was driving a wordy bargain over a matter of geese, toddled into the road in pursuit of a fat puppy; and having caught it, sat down suddenly, right in the path of the motor.
A girl shrieked, and O’Neill wrenched the car to a standstill, the bonnet not two yards from the baby. Jim was out in the road in a flash, and picked up the urchin, who showed considerable annoyance at the escape of the puppy, but was otherwise quite unmoved, and accepted a penny with a composure worthy of a duke. The crowd collected anew with unbelievable swiftness, and O’Neill groaned.
“ ’Tis Maggie O’Hare’s baby. Woman, dear, where are ye? an’ he after being nearly kilt on ye?”
“Did ye see his honour pull up? An ass wouldn’t have done it, an’ he dhrawin’ a cart!”
“I seen him sit down in the road, in-under the mothor, an’ I knew he was dead, only I’d not time to let a bawl out of me!”
“Is it dead? Sure, look at him, an’ the big gentleman carryin’ him, no less!”
“Grinning he is, the way you’d say he was the best boy in Ireland. Ah, that’s the dotey wee thing!”
“Sure, that one has no fear at all. He’ll be the boy for the trenches!”
At this point Maggie O’Hare arrived breathlessly, having just become aware of her son’s peril—with some difficulty, owing to six of her friends having excitedly explained the matter together. To an unprejudiced onlooker, it would have seemed that her principal maternal emotion was horror at finding her offspring perched on Jim’s shoulder.
“Come down out of that, Micky—have behaviour, now, an’ don’t be throublin’ the gentleman! Put him down, sir—I’d not have you annoyed with him.” She received Micky with much apparent wrath, but her arms were tight round the little body. “Isn’t it the rascal he is!—an’ I but lettin’ him out of me hand that minute, the way I’d be feedin’ the goose!”