“Three sons, sir.”
“How many daughters?”
“One, sir—but she's only a girsha” (a little girl).
“I suppose your sons are very good children to you?”
“Betther never broke bread, sir—all but the youngest.”
“What age is he?”
“About nineteen, sir, or goin' an twenty; but he's a, heart-scald to me and the family—although he's his mother's pet; the divil can't stand him for dress—and, moreover, he's given to liquor and card-playin', and is altogether goin' to the bad. Widin the last two or three days he has bought himself a new hat, a new pair o' brogues, and a pair o' span-new breeches—and, upon my conscience, it wasn't from me or mine he got the money to buy them.”
The conjurer looked solemnly into his book for some minutes, and then raising his head, fastened his cold, glassy, glittering eyes on the farmer with a glance that filled him with awe.
“I have found it out,” said he; “there are two parties to the theft—your wife and your youngest son. Go to the hucksters of the town, and ask them if they will buy any more butter like the last of yours that they bought, and, depend on it, you will find out the truth.”
“Then you think, sir, it was my wife and son between them that stole the butter?”