'E'then, the knowledge o' the price is all you'll have for it,' says the first. 'Here, my lad, is a golden piece for your cup.'
'That cup shall never hold drink or diet in your house, please Heaven,' says the second; 'here's two gold pieces for the cup, lad.'
'Why then, see this now—if I was forced to fill it to the rim with gold before I could call it mine, you shall never hold that cup between your fingers. Here, boy, do you mind me, give me that, once for all, and here's ten gold pieces for it, and say no more.'
'Ten gold pieces for a china cup!' said a great lord of the court, who just rode up at that minute, 'it must surely be a valuable article. Here, boy, here are twenty pieces for it, and give it to my servant.'
'Give it to mine,' cried another lord of the party, 'and here's my purse, where you will find ten more. And if any man offers another fraction for it to outbid that, I'll spit him on my sword like a snipe.'
'I outbid him,' said a fair young lady in a veil, by his side, flinging twenty golden pieces more on the ground.
There was no voice to outbid the lady, and young Owney, kneeling, gave the cup into her hands.
'Fifty gold pieces for a china cup,' said Owney to himself, as he plodded on home, 'that was not worth two! Ah! mother, you knew that vanity had an open hand.'
But as he drew near home he determined to hide his money somewhere, knowing, as he well did, that his cousin would not leave him a single cross to bless himself with. So he dug a little pit, and buried all but two pieces, which he brought to the house. His cousin, knowing the business on which he had gone, laughed heartily when he saw him enter, and asked him what luck he had got with his punch-bowl.
'Not so bad, neither,' says Owney. 'Two pieces of gold is not a bad price for an article of old china.'