“‘Ah,’ said Harry, screwin’ his mouth wid a kind of a dry smile, ‘The sun has a hard twist o’ the colic; but never mind that, I tell you, you’ll have a merrier weddin’ than you think, that’s all’; and havin’ said this, he put on his hat and left the house.
“Now, Harry’s answer relieved them very much, and so, afther callin’ to him to be back for dinner, Jack sat down to take a shough o’ the pipe, and the wife lost no time in tying up the pudden, and puttin’ it in the pot to be boiled.
“In this way things went on well enough for a while, Jack smokin’ away an’ the wife cookin’ an’ dressin’ at the rate of a hunt. At last, Jack, while sittin’, I said, contently at the fire, thought he could persave an odd dancin’ kind of motion in the pot that puzzled him a good deal.
“‘Katty,’ says he, ‘what in the dickens is in this pot on the fire?’
“‘Nerra a thing but the big pudden. Why do you ax?’ says she.
“‘Why,’ says he, ‘if ever a pot tuk it into its head to dance a jig, this did. Thunder and sparbles, look at it!’
“Begad, and it was thrue enough; there was the pot bobbin’ up an’ down, and from side to side, jiggin’ it away as merry as a grig; an’ it was quite aisy to see that it wasn’t the pot itself, but what was inside it, that brought about the hornpipe.
“‘Be the hole o’ my coat,’ shouted Jack, ‘there’s somethin’ alive in it, or it would niver cut sich capers!’
“‘Begorra, there is, Jack; something sthrange entirely has got into it. Wirra, man alive, what’s to be done?’