“Only a hundred?”
“Well, if he took the pound-wall kindly, ye might lay on thirty more. Did he gwe you a dacent luck-penny?”
“Not a farthing,” I replied.
“Well, after all, the Spaniards are shabby divils in horse-dealing.”
“Mr. O’Toole,” I said gravely,—“without allusions to luck-pennies, pound-walls, splints or spavins,—what is this horse worth?”
Mark Antony scratched his head, an invariable remedy resorted to by an Irishman in a puzzle. “If he’s all right—feeds well—”
“Come, come—take all for granted.”
“Well,” said Mark Antony, “hee’s value for a hundred and fifty, or he’s the biggest thief on earth. But I know there’s not a wink on Mr. Diez, and he laid it on pretty heavy.”
“Which, light or heavy, you ingrate, will be yours,” and I repeated the terms of the bargain.
The fosterer was confused.