goin'
after," said his great-aunt, half to herself.

"Well, whatever way you look at it," said the strange old man, "I've a
notion I've a right to be gettin' somethin' more out of it be now than
boys' wages. Ay, it's time I was. Boys' wages; the lyin' spalpeen."

"If you axed me, sir," said old O'Beirne, "I'd say 'twas time somebody
else would be gettin' the wages. Isn't there any childer to be earnin'
for you? Haven't you e'er a son, that you need be thrampin' the counthry
that fashion, let alone talkin' about all the world, wild like?"

"I've a son, troth have I, if that was all," said the old man, turning
away, angrily.

"Then it's that much better off than me you are. The only one I had, he
took and died on me, himself, and his poor wife a couple of days after
him--God be good to them--when the lad there wasn't scarce the height of
that stool, and a less size on his brother, that's away now in the
States gettin' all manner of a fine edication. Very dacint poor childer
they always was, too; but it was a bad job."

"He might ha' done worse agin you than that," said Christie Dermody, "be
the powers he might." He had retreated as far as the door, but now he
faced round, and stood on the edge of the thin snow, leaning his right
shoulder against the post, and looking in at the other old man by the
fire. "He might ha' fooled you for years and years, and made a
laughin'-stock of you wid everybody about the place--and me wid ne'er a
thought of any such a thing--he might so, and bad luck to him....
'Foostherin' about and consaitin' to be doin' a fair day's work, when
he's the creep of a snail on him, and the stren'th of a rat.' That's
what I heard Tim Reilly sayin' and I goin' home on the Saturday night.
But if I come creepin' after him, the young baste, he'd maybe ha' raison
to remimber it.... And himself and the wife lettin' on there was nothin'
like me; and he callin' me to come into his room--I heard him plain
enough all the while, no fear, but I wudn't be lettin' on. There's
ne'er a hap'orth ailin' him. Troth he may call till he's choked afore
iver I'll come next or nigh him. And sendin' the little girl slutherin'
to say her daddy wanted me. I tould her want might be his master. Sure
they're all the one pack, and the widest width there is in this world
I'll be keepin' between them and me. Shut of them I'll be for good and
all--and I'll make me fortin' yet, and no thanks to him. What talk have
they of ould men? Boys