“Art Maguire,” Toal proceeded, “you were ever and always a man out o' the common coorse.”
“Now, Toal, you're beginnin',” said Art; “ha, ha, ha—well, any way, how is that!”
“Bekaise the divil a taste o' fear or terror ever was in your constitution. When Art, boys, was at school—sure he an' I wor schoolfellows—if he tuck a thing into his head, no matter what, jist out of a whim, he'd do it, if the divil was at the back door, or the whole world goin' to stop him.”
“Throth, Toal, I must say there's a great deal o' thruth in that. Divil a one livin' knows me betther than Toal Finigan, sure enough, boys.”
“Arra, Art, do you remember the day you crossed the weir, below Tom Booth's,” pursued Toal, “when the river was up, and the wather jist intherin' your mouth?”
“That was the day Peggy Booth fainted, when she thought I was gone; begad, an' I was near it.”
“The very day.”
“That may be all thrue enough,” observed Tom Whiskey; “still I think I know Art this many a year, and I can't say I ever seen any of these great doing's. I jist seen him as aisy put from a thing, and as much afeard of the tongues of the nabors, or of the world, as another.”
“He never cared a damn for either o' them, for all that,” returned Toal; “that is, mind, if he tuck a thing into his head; ay, an' I'll go farther—divil a rap ever he cared for them, one way or other. No, the man has no fear of any kind in him.”
“Why, Toal,” said Mooney, “whether he cares for them or not, I think is aisily decided; and whether he's the great man you make him. Let us hear what he says himself upon it, and then we'll know.”