“Well, well,” replied the father, “in the name o' Goodness make up to her. Faith it ud' be somethin' to have a jauntin' car in the family!”
“Ay, but what the sorra will I do for a suit o' clo'es?” observed Phelim. “I could never go near her in these breeches. My elbows, too, are out o' this ould coat, bad luck to it! An' as for a waistcoat, why, I dunna but it's a sin to call what I'm wearin' a waistcoat at all. Thin agin—why, blood alive, sure I can't go to her barefooted, an' I dunna but it 'ud be dacenter to do that same, than to step out in sich excuses for brogues as these. An' in regard o' the stockins', why, I've pulled them down, strivin' to look dacent, till one 'ud think the balls o' my legs is at my heels.”
“The sorra word's in that but thruth, any how,” observed the father; “but what's to be done? For we have no way of gettin' them.”
“Faith, I don't know that,” said Phelim. “What if we'd borry? I could get the loan of a pair of breeches from Dudley Dwire, an' a coat from Sam Appleton. We might thry Billy Brady for a waistcoat, an' a pair of stockings. Barny Buckram-back, the pinsioner, 'ud lend me his pumps; an' we want nothing now but a hat.”
“Nothin' under a Caroline 'ud do, goin' there,” observed the father.
“I think Father O'Hara 'ud oblige me wid the loan o' one for a day or two;” said Phelim; “he has two or three o' them, all as good as ever.”
“But, Phelim,” said the father, “before we go to all this trouble, are you sure you could put your comedher on Miss Pattherson?”
“None o' your nonsense,” said Phelim, “don't you know I could? I hate a man to be puttin' questions to me, when he knows them himself. It's a fashion you have got, an' you ought to dhrop it.”
“Well thin,” said the father, “let us set about it to-morrow. If we can borry the clo'es, thry your luck.”
Phelim and the father, the next morning, set out each in a different direction, to see how far they could succeed on the borrowing system. The father was to make a descent on Dudley Dwire for the breeches, and appeal to the generosity of Sam Appleton for the coat. Phelim himself was to lay his case before the priest, and to assail Buckram-back, the pensioner, on his way home, for the brogues.