“No—nor stealing—nor, by the same token, have I murdered any one to get the dinner from him.” There was fine sarcasm in her voice as she returned the tinker’s searching look.
“Then where did it come from? I’ll not eat a mouthful until I get an honest answer.” The tinker put the plate down beside him and folded his arms.
Patsy snorted with exasperation. “Was I ever saying ye could play the king’s son? Faith! ye’ll never play anything but the fool—first and last.” Her voice suddenly took on a more coaxing tone; she was thinking of that good dinner growing cold—spoiled by the man’s ridiculous curiosity. “I’ll tell ye what—if ye’ll agree to begin eating, I’ll agree to begin telling ye about it—and we’ll both agree not to stop till we get to the end. But Holy Saint Martin! who ever heard of a man before letting his conscience in ahead of his hunger!”
The bargain was made; and while the tinker devoured one plateful after another with a ravenous haste that almost discredited his previous restraint, Patsy spun a fanciful tale of having found a cluricaun under a quicken-tree. With great elaboration and seeming regard for the truth, she explained his magical qualities, and how—if you were clever enough to possess yourself of his cap—you could get almost anything from him.
“I held his cap firmly with the one hand and him by the scruff of the neck with the other; and says I to him, ‘Little man, ye’ll not be getting this back till ye’ve fetched me a dinner fit for a tinker.’ ‘Well, and good,’ says he, ‘but ye can’t find that this side of the King’s Hotel, Dublin; and that will take time.’ ‘Take the time,’ says I, ‘but get the dinner.’ And from that minute till the present I’ve been waiting under that quicken-tree for him to make the trip there and back.”
Patsy finished, and the two of them smiled at each other with rare good humor out under the June stars. Only the tinker’s smile was skeptical.
“So—ye are not believing me—” Patsy shammed a solemn, grieved look. “Well—I’ll forgive ye this time if ye’ll agree that the dinner was good, for I’d hate like the devil to be giving the wee man back his cap for anything but the best.”
With laggard grace the tinker stretched his hands over the now empty basket and gripped Patsy’s. “Lass, lass—what are you thinking of me? Faith! my manners are more ragged than my clothes—and I’m not fit to be a—tinker. The dinner was the best I ever ate, and—bless ye and the cluricaun!”
Patsy cooked for three days at Quality House, that the tinker might feast night and morning to his heart’s content while his ankle slowly mended. But he still persisted questioning concerning his food—where and how Patsy had come by it; she still maintained as persistent a silence.
“I’ve come by it honestly, and ’tis no charity fare,” was the most she would say, adding by way of flavor: “For a sorry tinker ye are the proudest I ever saw. Did ye ever know another, now, who wanted a written certificate of moral character along with every morsel he ate?”