“No one's goin' to blame you,” said Slanty, “an' the devil's own pity it is that that blasted Drywig of a brother of his keeps him in leadin' strings the way he does.”
“The way I'll do is this: I'll ask him up to look at the pattern of my new waistcoat, an' wanst I get him in, all I have to do is to lay it on thick.”
“I doubt that,” said another, who had joined them; “when he came here first, and for a long time afther, soapin' him might do; but I tell you his eye's open—it's no go—he's wide awake now.”
“Shut your orifice,” said Harte; “lave the thing to me; 'twas I did it before, although he doesn't think so, an' it's I that will do it again, although he doesn't think so. Haven't I been for the last mortal month guardin' him aginst yez, you villains?”
“To-morrow evenin'?”
“Ay, to-morrow evenin'; an' if we don't give him a gauliogue that'll make him dance the circumbendibus widout music—never believe that my name's any thing else than Tom Thin, that got thick upon spring wather. Hello! there's the bell, boys, so mind what I tould yez; we'll give him a farewell benefit, if it was only for the sake of poor Drywig. Ah, poor Drywig! how will he live widout him? Ochone, ochone! ha, ha, ha!”
Without at all suspecting the trap that had been set for him, Art attended his business as usual, till towards evening, when Harte took an opportunity, when he got him for a few minutes by himself, of speaking to him apparently in a careless and indifferent way.
“Art, that's a nate patthern in your waistcoat; but any how, I dunna how it is that you contrive to have every thing about you dacenter an' jinteeler than another.” This, by the way, was true, both of him and his brother.
“Tut, it's but middlin',” said Art; “it's now but a has-been:—when it was at itself it wasn't so bad.”
“Begad, it was lovely wanst; now; how do you account, Art, for bein' supairior to us in all in—in every thing, I may say; ay, begad, in every thing, and in all things, for that's a point every one allows.”