thought she was going to marry young Master
Lawless

SIR PEARCE. What! That--that--that bosthoon!

MRS O'FLAHERTY [hilariously]. Let your honor alone for finding the right
word! A big bosthoon he is indeed, your honor. Oh, to think of the times
and times I have said that Miss Agnes would be my lady as her mother was
before her! Didn't I, Dinny?

SIR PEARCE. And now, Mrs. O'Flaherty, I daresay you have a great deal to
say to Dennis that doesn't concern me. I'll just go in and order tea.

MRS O'FLAHERTY. Oh, why would your honor disturb yourself? Sure I can
take the boy into the yard.

SIR PEARCE. Not at all. It won't disturb me in the least. And he's too
big a boy to be taken into the yard now. He has made a front seat for
himself. Eh? [He goes into the house.]

MRS O'FLAHERTY. Sure he has that, your honor. God bless your honor! [The
General being now out of hearing, she turns threateningly to her
son with one of those sudden Irish changes of manner which amaze and
scandalize less flexible nations, and exclaims.] And what do you mean,
you lying young scald, by telling me you were going to fight agen the
English? Did you take me for a fool that couldn't find out, and the
papers all full of you shaking hands with the English king at Buckingham
Palace?

O'FLAHERTY. I didn't shake hands with him: he shook hands with me. Could
I turn on the man in his own house, before his own wife, with his money
in my pocket and in yours, and throw his civility back in his face?

MRS O'FLAHERTY. You would take the hand of a tyrant red with the blood
of Ireland--

O'FLAHERTY. Arra hold your nonsense, mother: he's not half the tyrant
you are, God help him. His hand was cleaner than mine that had the blood
of his own relations on it, maybe.

MRS O'FLAHERTY [threateningly]. Is that a way to speak to your mother,
you young spalpeen?

O'FLAHERTY [stoutly]. It is so, if you won't talk sense to me. It's a
nice thing for a poor boy to be made much of by kings and queens, and
shook hands with by the heighth of his country's nobility in the capital
cities of the world, and then to come home and be scolded and insulted
by his own mother. I'll fight for who I like; and I'll shake hands with
what kings I like; and if your own son is not good enough for you, you
can go and look for another. Do you mind me now?

MRS O'FLAHERTY. And was it the Belgians learned you such brazen
impudence?

O'FLAHERTY. The Belgians is good men; and the French