“A knight arriant, woman.”
“What’s that?” says she.
“A knight arriant is a rale gintleman,” says he; “going round the world for sport, with a soord by his side, takin’ whatever he plazes for himself; and that’s a knight arriant,” says he.
Well, sure enough he wint about among his neighbours the next day, and he got an owld kittle from one, and a saucepan from another, and he took them to the tailor, and he sewed him up a shuit o’ tin clothes like any knight arriant, and he borrowed a pot lid, and that he was very particular about, bekase it was his shield, and he went to a friend o’ his, a painter and glazier, and made him paint an his shield in big letthers:—
“I’M THE MAN OF ALL MIN,
THAT KILL’D THREE SCORE AND TIN
AT A BLOW.”
“When the people sees that,” says the waiver to himself, “the sorra one will dar for to come near me.”
And with that he towld the wife to scour out the small iron pot for him, “for,” says he, “it will make an illegent helmet;” and when it was done, he put it an his head, and his wife said, “Oh, murther, Thady, jewel; is it puttin’ a great, heavy, iron pot an your head you are, by way iv a hat?”
“Sartinly,” says he, “for a knight arriant should always have a weight on his brain.”
“But, Thady, dear,” says the wife, “there’s a hole in it, and it can’t keep out the weather.”
“It will be the cooler,” says he, puttin’ it an him; “besides, if I don’t like it, it is aisy to stop it with a wisp o’ sthraw, or the like o’ that.”