on't know then. Sittin' there you are,
sure enough, but what the mischief are you after, might I politefully
ax? or what you mane _by_ it at all at all?"

"I'm sittin' here," said Tom again, "and starvin' I am; and sittin' and
starvin' I'll be morebetoken till the ind of me ould life. Sure what
else 'ud I be doin', and meself to thank for it, wid niver a sowl left
belongin' me in the mortal world, nor a place to be goin' to?"

"Well tub-be sure," said Mrs. M'Gurk, "if that talk doesn't bate all
that iver I heard! And himself after trapesin' off as permisc-yis as an
ould hin that won't sit on her eggs, and lavin' his own flesh and blood
behind him as if they were the dust on the road. And then he ups and
gives chat about niver a sowl bein' left him."

"'Twas Tishy--bad cess to her," said Tom. "Och, but it's the
mischievious ould divil-skins is Tishy M'Crum, and it's herself stirred
up Martha, that wouldn't be too bad altogether if she'd be let alone,
till the two of them had me torminted wid tellin' me th' ould man had
pots of money he'd niver spend as long as he had us to be livin' on; and
that we'd all do a dale better if some of us slipped away aisy widout
risin' a row, and left him for a bit, while we'd be sellin' Martha's
things, and seein' about gettin' into a dacint little place, instid of
the whole of us to be starvin' alive up at Lisconnel, that's nothin'
more than a bog bewitched; and he after lettin' us be sold up, they
said, and all the while ownin' mints of money, so that we'd no call to
be overly partic'lar about lavin' him to make a shift along wid the
child, if 'twas a convanience; on'y he'd be risin' a quare whillabaloo,
if he knew we were goin' off anywheres. Troth, I couldn't tell you all
the gabbin' they had day and night--and showin' me the place he kep' his
bag hidden in, and this way and that way. Och bedad themselves 'ud
persuade the hair on your head it grew wrong side out, if they'd a mind
to it."

"They might so," said Ody, "supposin' I was great gomeral enough to be
mindin' a word they'd say, or the likes of them." In his subsequent
reports of the interview, Ody always alleged that he had replied: "Aye,
very belike, supposin' it grew on the head of an ass," which was
certainly neater. But Ody Rafferty's repartees, like those of other
people, are occasionally belated in this way.

"So the ind of it was," Tom went on, "nothin' else 'ud suit them except
gettin' all readied up for us to be sl