“Andy, sure!”
“Andy!” replied his mother, in amazement. “Andy, indeed!—out o' place, and without a bawbee to bless himself with!—stayin' out all night, the blackguard!”
“By this and that, I don't think you know a word about it,” cried the friend, whose turn it was for wonder now.
“Don't I, indeed?” said Mrs. Rooney, huffed at having her word doubted, as she thought. “I tell you he never was at home last night, and maybe it's yourself was helping him, Micky Lavery, to keep his bad coorses—the slingein' dirty blackguard that he is.”
Micky Lavery set up a shout of laughter, which increased the ire of Mrs. Rooney, who would have passed on in dignified silence but that Micky held her fast, and when he recovered breath enough to speak, he proceeded to tell her about Andy's marriage, but in such a disjointed way, that it was some time before Mrs. Rooney could comprehend him—for his interjectional laughter at the capital joke it was, that she should be the last to know it, and that he should have the luck to tell it, sometimes broke the thread of his story—and then his collateral observations so disfigured the tale, that its incomprehensibility became very much increased, until at last Mrs. Rooney was driven to push him by direct questions.
“For the tendher mercy, Micky Lavery, make me sinsible, and don't disthract me—is the boy married?”
“Yis, I tell you.”
“To Jack Dwyer's daughter?”
“Yis.”
“And gev him a fort'n'?”