“'Maybe not,' says I, 'they say it's a wise man that does. Are you one o' them?'”
“'I'm one o' them, did you ever hear of ould Kid Flaherty?'”
“'Well, no; but I did of Buck Flaherty, that always went in boots and buckskin breeches, and wore two watches and a silver-mounted whip.'”
“'Well, you must know that Kid was a son'—and here he pointed his thumb over his left shoulder wid a knowin' grin upon him—'was a son of the ould Buck's. The ould Buck's wife was a Murtagh; now she again had a cousin named M'Shaughran, who was married upon a man by name M'Faddle. M'Faddle had but one sisther, and she was cousin to Frank M'Fud, that suffered for—but no matther—the M'Swiggins and the M'Fuds were cleaveens to the third cousins of Kid Flaherty's first wife's sister-in-law, and she again was married in upon the M'Brides of Newton Nowhere—so that you see you and I are thirty-second cousins at all events.'”
“'Well, anyway he made out some relationship between us, or at least I thought he did—and maybe that was as good—and faith may be a great deal better, for if ever a man had the look of a schemer about him the same customer had. At any rate we had some drink together, and went on very well till we got befuddled, which, it seems, is his besetting sin. It was clearly his intention, I could see, to make me tipsy, and I dare say he might a done so, only for a slight mistake he made in first getting tipsy himself.”
“Well, but I'm not much the wiser of this,” observed Norton. “What are you at?”
“Neither am I,” replied Morty; “and as to what I'm at—I dunna what the devil I'm at. That's just what I want to know.”
“Go on,” said the other, “we must have patience. Who did this fellow turn out to be?”
“He insisted he was a relation of my own, as I tould you.”
“Who the devil cares whether he was or not! What was he, then?”