“By-and-by—not now; but help yourselves.”
“When did you see Miss Kathleen, Masther Hycy,” asked Kate.
“You mean Miss Kathleen the Proud?” he replied—“my Lady Dignity—I have a crow to pluck with her.”
“What crow have you to pluck wid her?” asked Kate, fiercely. “You'll pluck no crow wid her, or, if you do, I'll find a bag to hould the fedhers—mind that.”
“No, no,” said Philip; “whatever's to be done, she must come to no harm.”
“Why, the crow I have to pluck with her, Mrs. Hogan, is—let me see—why—to—to marry her—to bind her in the bands of holy wedlock; and you know, when I do, I'm to give you all a house and place free gratis for nothing during your lives—that's what I pledge myself to do, and not a rope to hang yourselves, worthy gentlemen, as Finigan would say. I pass over the fact,” he proceeded, laughing, “of the peculiar intimacy which, on a certain occasion, was established between Jemmy, the gentleman's old oak drawers, and your wrenching-irons; however, that is not the matter at present, and I am somewhat in a hurry.”
“You heard,” said Bat, “that Bryan M'Mahon has lost his mother?”
“I did,” said the other; “poor orphan lad, I pity him.”
“We know you do,” said Bat, with a vindictive but approving sneer.
“I assure you,” continued Hycy, “I wish the young man well.”