Tom Slavin was a youngish fellow, and Joe's enquiry caused him to look redder than the hot-plate.
"He bought penny ribbons and brass bracelets for Ganger Farley's daughter," put in Red Billy, who had quickly regained his good humour; "but in the end the jade went and married a carpenter from Glasgow."
Red Billy chuckled in his beard. He was twice a widower, grass and clay, and he was a very cynical old man. I did not take much heed to the conversation; I was listening to the scuffle outside.
"What did I always say about women!" said Moleskin, launching into the subject of the fair sex. "Once get into the hands of a woman and she'll drive you to hell and leave you with the devil when she gets you there. How many fools can a woman put through her hands? Eh! How much water can run through a sieve? No matter how many lovers a woman has, she has always room for one more. It's a well-filled barn that doesn't give room for the threshin' of one extra sheaf. Comin' back to that sliver of a Slavin's wenchin', who is the worst off now, the carpenter or Tom? I'll go bail that one is jealous of the other; that one's damned because he did and the other's damned because he didn't."
"There's a sort of woman, Gourock Ellen they call her," interrupted Red Billy with a chuckle, "and she nearly led you to hell in Glasgow three years ago, Mister Moleskin."
"And what about the old heifer you made love to in Clydebank, Moleskin?" asked James Clancy, a man with a broken nose and great fame as a singer, who had not spoken before.
"Oh! that Glasgow woman," said Moleskin, taking no heed of the second question. "I didn't think very much of her."
"What was wrong with her?" asked Billy.
"She was a woman; isn't that enough?"