“I'm not sayin' against that, Larry. He is a good-nathur'd boy: but I tell you, Larry Toole, that my daughter's his fill of a wife any day. An' I'll put this to the back o' that—she's a hard-workin' girl, that ates no idle bread.”
“Very right,” said Sam Appleton. “Phelim's a hairo, an' she's a beauty. Dang me, but they wor made for one another. Phelim, abouchal, why don't you—oh, I see you are. Why, I was goin' to bid you make up to her.”
“Give no gosther, Sam,” replied Phelim, “but sind round the bottle, an' don't forget to let it come this way. I hardly tasted a dhrop to-night.”
“Oh, Phelim!” exclaimed Peggy.
“Whisht!” said Phelim, “there's no use in lettin' the ould fellows be committin' sin. Why, they're hearty (* Tipsy) as it is, the sinners.”
“Come, nabors,” said Burn, “I'm the boy that's for close work. How does the match stand? You're both my friends, an' may this be poison to me, but I'll spake like an honest man, for the one as well as for the other.
“Well, then,” said Donovan, “how is Phelim to support my daughther, Larry? Sure that's a fair questin', any way.”
“Wiry, Paddy,” replied Larry, “when Phelim gets her, he'll have a patch of his own, as well as another. There's that 'half-acre,' and a betther piece o' land isn't in Europe!”
“Well, but what plenishin' are they to have, Larry? A bare half acre's but a poor look up.”
“I'd as soon you'd not make little of it, in the mane time,” replied Larry, rather warmly. “As good a couple as ever they wor lived on that half acre; along wid what they earned by hard work otherwise.”