“'Wasn't I in the shark's belly all the time?' says he.—'Didn't he gobble me up with a salmon, that tried to take refuge in the place where meeself and a few friends laid tin days before?—A lobsther lived in Jim's pocket for a month; and he and all his family used to go out three days a week to pull Jim's nose, for fishing up two of their cousins once,—so they did.—I'd thank ye for a pinch of snuff.'
“'And welcome, sir,' says I, houlding over the snisheen; 'meeself likes to hear news of my friends, sir,' says I; 'would your honour plaze to take a shaugh o' the doothien too?' And politeness, you know, made me offer him the pipe.
“'Mick,' says he; 'is it meeself, or the likes o' me, that smokes?—I never took a goll o' the peepa in all my life:—and over and above that, Mick, I'd feel mightily obliged to you, if you'd blow your smoke higher, or be just ginteel and agreeable enough to sit the other side o' me: if you don't, you're a dirty blackguard, and bad luck to you, sir,' says he; 'for I've no chimney to my house.' With that, I just knocked out the backy from the pipe, and tould him, I didn't mind meeself, and I'd put away smoking at once.
“'Mick,' says he, 'you'd nothing but ashes in your doothien; so the divil's thanks to you!'
“'Sir,' says I, not noticing what he said,' that's a mighty nate little house you have of your own; I'd like to know who built it.' “'Faith! thin I did meeself, Mick,' says he; 'but I'd like your big finger the better, if it was outside my door.'
“'Sir,' says I, 'if I'd such a nate little cabin, I'd marry Molly Malony at once. Doesn't your honour ever think of getting a wife?—or, may be, you're a widower?'
“'Mick,' says he, 'oysthers don't marry.'
“'Ye live mighty like a hermit, in your cell there,' says I.
“'Mighty like,' says he.
“'I suppose, you have your beads too, and you count them,' says I.