I. There's a spot by that lake, sirs, Where echoes were born, Where one Paddy Blake, sirs, Was walking one morn With a great curiosity big in his mind! Says he, "Mrs. Blake Doesn't trate me of late In the fashion she did When I first call'd her Kate: She's crusty and surly,— My cabin's the dhiaoul, My pigs and my poultry Are all cheek by jowl; But what is the cause, from the Acho I'll find."
(Spoken.)
So up he goes bouldly to the Acho, and says, "The top o' the mornin' t'ye, Misther or Missus Acho, for divil a know I know whether ye wear petticoats or breeches."
"Neither," says the Acho in Irish.
"Now, that being the case," says Paddy, turnin' sharp 'pon the Acho, d'ye see, "ye can tell me the stark-naked truth."
"'Troth, an' ye may say that, with yir own purty mouth," says the Acho.
"Well, thin," says Paddy agin, "what the divil's come over Mrs. Blake of late?"
"Potcheen!" says the Acho.
"Oh! (shouting) by the pow'rs of Moll Kelly," says Paddy, "I thought as mich:—
"It wasn't for nothin' the taypot was hid, Though I guess'd what was in it, by smelling the lid!"