The doctor, who sat close beside the Irishman, caused him to pull in his paddle and submit his head for inspection.
“Ah! then, don’t operate on me, doctor dear! I’ve a mortial fear o’ operations iver since me owld grandmother’s pig got its foreleg took off at the hip-jint.”
“Hold your tongue, Paddy. Now the bump lies here—just under—eh! why, you haven’t got so much as—what!”
“Plaize, I think it’s lost in fat, sur,” remarked Briant, in a plaintive tone, as if he expected to be reprimanded for not having brought his bump of combativeness along with him.
“Well,” resumed the doctor, passing his fingers through Briant’s matted locks, “I suppose you’re not so combative as we had fancied—”
“Thrue for you,” interrupted Phil.
“But, strange enough, I find your organ of veneration is very large, very large indeed; singularly so for a man of your character; but I cannot feel it easily, you have such a quantity of hair.”
“Which is it, doctor dear?” inquired Phil.
“This one I am pressing now.”
“Arrah! don’t press so hard, plaze, it’s hurtin’ me ye are. Shure that’s the place where I run me head slap up agin the spanker-boom four days ago. Av that’s me bump o’ vineration, it wos three times as big an’ twice as hard yisterday—it wos, indade.”