"'Tis the custom in my part of Ireland," answered Paddy.
"I understand," said I. "But over here 'tis only very low people who fall upon their meat from a window above."
"I am not in the way of understanding your honour," said he. "But any how a man may be respectable and yet have a good hunger on him."
CHAPTER XIV
t had been said that the unexpected often happens, although I do not know what learned man of the time succeeded in thus succinctly expressing a great law and any how it matters little, for I have since discovered that these learned men make one headful of brains go a long way by dint of poaching on each other's knowledge. But the unexpected happened in this case, all true enough whatever.
I was giving my man a bit of a warning.
"Paddy," said I, "you are big, and you are red, and you are Irish; but by the same token you are not the great Fingal, son of lightning. I would strongly give you the word. When you see that old woman you start for the open moors."