"You marry a wench and set up a beggarly house," said Joe, without taking any heed of the interruption. "You work fourteen or fifteen hours a day for every day of the year. If you find the company of another woman pleasant you have your old crow to jaw at you from the chimney corner. You'll bring up a breed of children that will leave you when you need them most. Your wife will get old, her teeth will fall out, and her hair will get thin, until she becomes as bald as the sole of your foot. She'll get uglier until you loathe the sight of her, and find one day that you cannot kiss her for the love of God. But all the time you'll have to stay with her, growl at her, and nothin' before both of you but the grave or the workhouse. If you are as clever a cadger as me why do you suffer all this?"
"Because I'm a decent man," said the plougher.
Joe straightened up as if seriously insulted. "Well, I'm damned!" he muttered and continued on his journey. "It's the first time ever I got the worst of an argument, Flynn," he said after we had gone out of the sight of the ploughman, and he kept repeating this phrase for the rest of the day. For myself, I thought that Joe got the best of the argument, and I pointed out the merits of his sarcastic remarks and proved to him that if his opponent had not been a brainless man, he would be aware of defeat after the first exchange of sallies.
"But that about the decent man was one up for him," Joe interrupted.
"It was the only remark which the man was able to make," I said. "The pig has its grunt, the bull its bellow, the cock its crow, and the plougher his boasted decency. To each his crow, grunt, boast, or bellow, and to all their ignorance. It is impossible to argue against ignorance, Moleskin. It is proof against sarcasm and satire and is blind to its own failings and the merits of clever men like you."
Joe brightened perceptibly, and he walked along with elated stride.
"You're very clever, Flynn," he said. "And you think I won?"
"You certainly did. The last shot thrown at you struck the man who threw it full in the face. He admitted that he suffered because of his decency."
Joe was now quite pleased with himself, and the rest of the day passed without any further adventure.