rence at Mass--goodness
forgive me for sayin' so. Sometimes we've been hardset to tell what he's
drivin' at. But that's the way it is wid thim words that has a power of
manin' in thim. They're apt to bother you a bit when you're used to
spakin plain."

"Belike it's the fever in his head sets him talkin' oddly," said young
Barney Corcoran. "I mind me brother Joe when he was bad wid it would be
ravin' wild. Sorra the sinsible word there was out of him for the best
part of a week."

This way of accounting for his guest's fine language rather affronted
Felix, and he consequently said, "Musha now, was there not? And how long
might yourself be under that descripshin of fever?"

"Ah sure, what 'ud we do at all if poor Barney was took that way?" said
Peter Keogh, "and nobody able to tell was it ravin' he was, or settin'
up to be talkin' raisonable for any differ they could see."

Barney cleared his throat disconcertedly, and the old man, recalling his
responsibilities as a host, and perhaps not admiring his sarcasm thus
elaborated, said conciliatingly, "Och, he'll do right enough if he niver
raves any worse than Mr. Polymathers. All that ails him is that we want
to git a bit used to his manner of spakin'."

"Polymathers?" said Peter.

"To be sure, Polymathers. Did you say it any better than I?"

"Well, I nivir heard tell of anybody called that way before. It's a
quare she-he soundin' sort of name," said Peter.

"Faix, then, there may be plinty quarer in it, we niver heard tell of,
if that was all," said Felix. "Anyhow, it's his name, and his people's
afore him. Himself tould me his father was the ouldest of all the
Polymatherses there was in the counthry he came out of--somewheres down
south, I think he said--and the head of the whole of thim forby."

"Ay, he did so," said Dan. "Sez you to him, there was a dale of water
run down hill since the time there was O'Beirnes blacksmiths in this
part of the counthry; and your father was a one, sez you. And sez he to
you, he couldn't be any manner of manes purtind to be the aquil to what
_his_ father was. And sez you to him, what was he? And sez he, it was
one of the Polymatherses he was, and well known for his larnin' through
the len'th and breadth of the county Sligo. And a name it was, he sez,
any man might be proud of ownin'."

"Be jabers, himself has the great consait of it, at all ivents," said
Peter. "But he might find people could be tellin' him there's Keoghs as
goo