"What is the reason, you drunken old fool?"
"The business were an to be sure! you wouldn't be after axing a sinner like Brian O'Reily to ixpose himself to sich a temptation widout taking a dhrop, and may be your haner would do that same for all your spaking aginst it so intirely."
"And what may the nature of the temptation be of which you speak?"
"And is it Brian you're after axin? O begorra, but that's runnin away wid the story intirely, so it is; sure it's me should be axin your haner after that same!"
"None of your subterfuges, sir! I am determined to know your ideas of this dreadful temptation."
"By my purty an is it Brian's idaas you're axin after, divil a miny o' them he's got any way, barrin a small bit of a smotherin about the heart whenever I think of the business we're on, and the gintleman we're goin to see, savin your prisence and the beauty o' the world by your side."
"What gentleman—speak out and I will forgive your drunkenness, provided you give me up that bottle I see peeping from the pouch of your jerkin."
"An is'nt it the man widout the shadow you're after making a tay party wid?"
"And who is the man without a shadow, Brian?" inquired Virginia, willing to forget her own misgivings in the more ludicrous superstition of the son of the Emerald Isle, whose countrymen, it may be remarked, formed no inconsiderable part of the inferior population of the city at that day.
"Oh bad cess to me, but I'm as glad to see you as two tin pinnies, you beauty o' the world; but it bates all the love I had for you and ever had these ten years past to see where you'r going."