“He's an intarasted party,” replied the pedlar; “and I'll no constitute him arbitrator.”
“Well, well, then,—I'll tell you what we'll do;—don't let's quarrel;—to settle everything amicably, I'll trate you to a herring a-piece.—You won't? Did you ever see the likes of him?—I'm sure we'll quarrel: I'm sure we'll have a fight at last; though I wouldn't for five farthings,—and that's money you'll own;—but Jove himself couldn't stand this.”
“The ballad-singer speaks fair, in my mind, pedlar,” quoth the tinker.
“Hech! now, nane o' your havers! I'm no sic a puir daft body as to be gulled o' my guids, by birds o' your feather; rad harrings dinna swim into a mon's wallet, wi' whistling; you must bait your fingers wi' siller to catch them in these pairts,—and groats dinna grow upon bushes noo-a-days.”
“Well, that's true enough,” said the tinker; “give him his fishes, and we'll buy one a-piece of him.”
“Let's know what he'll take, though, before we part wi' them,” said the Irishman; “may be we'd quarrel about the price after.”
“Right,—very right,” replied the tinker.
“Sirs,” quoth the pedlar, “business is bad; the girls dinna pairt with their hair noo, as they used, for a bauble or so,—a mon must hae guid guids for them. I'd be free, and invite ye to share wi' me,—but prudence wouldna tolerate it in ane like me, that has eleven bairns.”
“Now that's what I call nature!” exclaimed the tinker with considerable emphasis.
“An arithmetical excuse for being stingy,” quoth Doherty; “Eleven children! and I've one at home,—which is a bag at his mother's back,—that would eat as much as any seven of them. I'd another, once, but the blackguard gipsies coaxed her away from the side of us, when we was singing, 'Rogues around you,' at Weyhill. They did it by ginger-bread, or something like it, I think;—bad luck to them!”