"No mistake!" cried Doyle; "and divil pity O'Grady, for he's a blustering, swaggering, overbearing, ill-tempered——"
"Hillo, hillo, Bill!" interrupted Murphy, "you are too hard on the adjectives; besides, you'll spoil your appetite if you ruffle your temper, and that would fret me, for I intend you to dine with me to-day."
"Faith an' I'll do that same, Murtough, my boy, and glad to be asked, as the old maid said."
"I'll tell you what it is," said Murphy; "boys, you must all dine with me to-day, and drink long life to me, since I'm not killed."
"There are seventeen of us," said Durfy; "the little parlour won't hold us all."
"But isn't there a big room at the inn, Tom?" returned Murphy, "and not better drink in Ireland than Mrs. Fay's. What do you say, lads—one and all—will you dine with me?"
"Will a duck swim?" chuckled out Jack Horan, an oily veteran, who seldom opened his mouth but to put something into it, and spared his words as if they were of value; and to make them appear so, he spoke in apophthegms.
"What say you, James Reddy?" said Murtough.
"Ready, sure enough, and willing too!" answered James, who was a small wit, and made the aforesaid play upon his name at least three hundred and sixty-five times every year.
"Oh, we'll all come," was uttered right and left.