heep's feet."

"It's a pity you didn't say so, master. Hand me out one pound thirteen
and fourpence if you don't like me to finish my job."

"Divil do you good with your one pound thirteen and four-pence!"

"It's better pray than curse, master. Maybe you're sorry for your
bargain?"

"And to be sure I am--not yet, anyway."

The next night the master was going to a wedding; and says he to Jack,
before he set out: "I'll leave at midnight, and I wish you to come
and be with me home, for fear I might be overtaken with the drink. If
you're there before, you may throw a sheep's eye at me, and I'll be
sure to see that they'll give you something for yourself."

About eleven o'clock, while the master was in great spirits, he felt
something clammy hit him on the cheek. It fell beside his tumbler,
and when he looked at it, what was it but the eye of a sheep. Well,
he couldn't imagine who threw it at him, or why it was thrown at him.
After a little he got a blow on the other cheek, and still it was by
another sheep's eye. Well, he was much vexed, but he thought better
to say nothing. In two minutes more, when he was opening his mouth to
take a sup, another sheep's eye was slapped into it. He sputtered it
out, and cried, "Man o' the house, isn't it a great shame for you to
have any one in the room that would do such a nasty thing?"

"Master," says Jack, "don't blame the honest man. Sure it's only
myself that was throwin' them sheep's eyes at you, to remind you I was
here, and that I wanted to drink the bride and bridegroom's health.
You know yourself bade me."

"I know that you are a great rascal; and where did you get the eyes?"

"An' where would I get 'em but in the heads of your own sheep? Would
you have me meddle with the bastes of any neighbor, who might put me
in the Stone Jug for it?"

"Sorrow on me that ever I had the bad luck to meet with you."

"You're all witness," said Jack, "that my master says he is sorry for
having met with me. My time is up. Master, hand me over double wages,
and come into the next room, and lay yourself out like a man that has
some decency in him, till I take a strip of skin an inch broad from
your shoulder to your hip."

Every one shouted out against that; but, says Jack, "You didn't hinder
him when he took the same strips from the backs of my two brothers,
and sent them home in that state, and penniless, to their poor
mother."

When the company heard the rights of the business, they