“Masther!” exclaimed the pedlar, bitterly—“oh, thin, it's he that's the divil's masther, by all accounts, an' the divil's landlord, too. Be me sowl, he'll get a warm corner down here;” and as he uttered the words, he very significantly stamped with his heel, to intimate the geographical position of the place alluded to.
“It would be only manners to wait till your opinion is axed of him,” replied Jemmy; “so mind your pack, you poor sprissaun, or when you do spake, endeavor to know something of what you're discoorsin' about. Masther, indeed! Divil take your impidence!”
“He's a scourge to the counthry,” continued the pedlar; “a worse landlord never faced the sun.”
“That's what we call in this part of the counthry—a lie,” replied Jemmy. “Do you understand what that manes?”
“No one knows what an' outrageous ould blackguard he is betther than yourself,” proceeded the pedlar; “an' how he harrishes the poor.”
“That's ditto repated,” responded Jemmy; “you're improvrn'—but tell me now do you know any one that he harrished?”
This was indeed a hazardous question on the part of Jemmy; who, by the way, put it solely upon the presumption of the peddlar's ignorance of Dick's proceedings as a landlord, in consequence of his (the pedlar) being a stranger.
“Who did you ever know that he harrished, i' you please?”
“Look at the Daltons,” replied the other; “what do you call his conduct to them?”
Jemmy, who, whenever he felt himself deficient in truth, always made up for the want of it by warmth of temper, now turned shortly upon his antagonist, and replied, in a spirit very wide of the argument—