ut the pot,--d'ye mind me, you tief of the world, tell him that his
dinner waits upon him."--"I'll be after doing that same, moder;"
and forth from the ground floor of a mean looking house in
Buckeridge-street, sprang an urchin without hat, shoe or stocking, and
the scanty tattered habiliment he wore, fluttering in ~105~~various
hues, like pennants in the wind, with such heedless velocity, urged no
doubt by the anticipated delicacies of the dinner-pot, that he came in
furious, unexpected, and irresistible contact with Squire Tallyho, who
borne forward by the shock, was precipitated into a stagnant collection
of mud and water, to the total disfigurement of his Boots, which had
that morning received the "matchlessly brilliant polish of Warren's
inestimable Jet blacking." Not like many others in London, who will
run you down and leave you to your fate, the heir of his fader's
whimsicalities stopped short in the inauspicious set-out of his rapid
career; and "dirty end," he exclaimed, "to the scavenger that didn't
think of the gentleman's boots!" And at the same time the mother of this
hopeful representative of the Mac Dermott family, made her appearance
with the genuine warmth of Irish hospitality; and inviting the two
strangers to walk in, consoled the bespattered Squire with the prospect
of speedy and effectual reparation, for "fait and troth, (said she) his
dinner is all of a heap in the pot there, praaties, salt-herrings, and
apple-dumplings,{1} and that is my husband Thady Mac Dermott, who is
neither more nor less than a bricklayer's laborer, is after amusing
himself and obliging his neighbours, at a small outlay, of a Sunday
morning, by claning their boots and shoes; so it is an ill wind that
blows nobody good, they say." The accommodating hostess then producing
a bottle of blacking, with the requisite brushing implements, applied
herself assiduously to the operation of claning the Squire's boots,
and restored them, in a few minutes, to the splendour of their pristine
brilliancy.

Scarcely had this important operation been performed, when entered Thady
Mac Dermott and his son, the origin of the accident. "The devil burn
your trampers, you imp of the Mac Dermotts," cried the father: "couldn't
you run against the gentleman without dirtying his boots? Never mind it
at all at all; I'll be after giving you a walloping for it, any how."

1 The fastidious delicacy of English cookery, when
contrasted with that of I