(A shoulder of veal! and a brace of fowls! when they were starving!—no bad things.)—Or, perhaps, as it might happen, Dennis would say, “Faith! Masther, I havn’t a toothful in the place, barrin’ the rashions.”
“Well, Dennis, get what you can. Try, can you buy any thing about the country?”
(Buy, indeed! and not a sixpence in the whole division!)
Morris and his friends would come to dinner at the usual hour, perfectly confident that Dennis had done his duty; and, perhaps, a good pair of fowls, or a piece of pickled pork, or a sucking pig, would welcome their longing appetites.
“Where did you buy these things, Dennis?” Quill would ask.
“O! plase your honour, up there above—over the hill—down there, at a farm-house yondther.”
“You’re sure you bought them, Dennis?”
“O yes; I ped for ’em, Sir—that is, I offered the money to the farmer; but he said, ‘Never mind, Dennis,’ says he, ‘it will do another time.’ So I mane to pay the next time I go.”
“Very well, very well, Dennis; so as you paid for the provision, it’s all well; but take care the Provost doesn’t give you your change one of these days.”
“Oh, never mind that, Sir; the Portuguese hereabouts all knows me very well, and wouldn’t mind if I never ped them a vintin.”