"Troth an' I don't, Mr. Kelly. You're a knowledgeable man an land, but I'm afeared it's a bad bargain you'd be at say."
"And what wor you talking about me and your boat for?"
"Why, you see, sir, it was in the regard of a little bit o' business, an' if you'd come wid me and take a turn in the praty-field, I'll be behouldin' to you, and maybe you'll hear somethin' that won't be displazin' to you."
"An' welkim, Barny," said Peter Kelly.
When Barny and Peter were in the "praty-field," Barny opened the trenches (I don't mean the potato trenches), but, in military parlance, he opened the trenches and laid siege to Peter Kelly, setting forth the extensive profits that had been realized at various "specs" that had been made by his neighbors in exporting potatoes. "And sure," said Barny, "why shouldn't you do the same, and they are ready to your hand? as much as to say, why don't you profit by me, Peter Kelly? And the boat is below there in the harbor, and, I'll say this much, the divil a betther boat is betune this and herself."
"Indeed, I b'lieve so, Barny," said Peter, "for considhering where we stand, at this present, there's no boat at all at all betune us." And Peter laughed with infinite pleasure at his own hit.
"O, well, you know what I mane, anyhow, an', as I said before, the boat is a darlint boat, and as for him that commands her—I b'lieve I need say nothin' about that." And Barny gave a toss of his head and a sweep of his open hand, more than doubling the laudatory nature of his comment on himself.
But, as the Irish saying is, "to make a long story short," Barny prevailed on Peter Kelly to make an export; but in the nature of the venture they did not agree. Barny had proposed potatoes; Peter said there were enough of them already where he was going; and Barny rejoined that, "praties were so good in themselves there never could be too much o' thim anywhere." But Peter being a knowledgeable man, and up to all the "saycrets o' the airth, and understanding the the-o-ry and the che-mis-thery," overruled Barny's proposition, and determined upon a cargo of scalpeens (which name they gave to pickled mackerel), as a preferable merchandise, quite forgetting that Dublin Bay herrings were a much better and as cheap a commodity, at the command of the Fingalians. But in many similar mistakes the ingenious Mr. Kelly has been paralleled by other speculators. But that is neither here nor there, and it was all one to Barny whether his boat was freighted with potatoes or scalpeens, so long as he had the honor and glory of becoming a navigator, and being as good as O'Sullivan.
Accordingly the boat was laden and all got in readiness for putting to sea, and nothing was now wanting but Barny's orders to haul up the gaff and shake out the jib of his hooker.
But this order Barny refrained to give, and for the first time in his life exhibited a disinclination to leave the shore. One of his fellow-boatmen, at last, said to him, "Why thin, Barny O'Reirdon, what the divil is come over you, at all at all? What's the maynin' of your loitherin' about here, and the boat ready and a lovely fine breeze aff o' the land?"