“That was thrue—but you should not have towld her so. Make a woman think you're betther than her, and she'll like you.”
“And sure, when I endayvoured to make myself agreeable to her——”
“Endayvoured!” repeated the old woman contemptuously. “Endayvoured, indeed! Why didn't you make yourself agreeable at once, you poor dirty goose?—no, but you went sneaking about it—I know as well as if I was looking at you—you went sneakin' and snivelin' until the girl took a disgust to you; for there's nothing a woman despises so much as shilly-shallying.”
“Sure, you won't hear my defince,” said Andy.
“Oh, indeed you're betther at defince than attack,” said his mother.
“Sure, the first little civil'ty I wanted to pay to her, she took up the three-legged stool to me.”
“The divil mend you! And what civil'ty did you offer her?”
“I made a grab at her cap, and I thought she'd have brained me.”
Oonah set up such a shout of laughter at Andy's notion of civility to a girl, that the conversation was stopped for some time, and her aunt remonstrated with her at her want of common sense; or, as she said, hadn't she “more decency than to laugh at the poor fool's nonsense?”
“What could I do agen the three-legged stool?” said Andy.