"
"An' my son," said Larry, "is husband enough for a betther girl nor ever
called you father--not makin' little, at the same time, of either you or
her."
"Paddy," said Burn, "there's no use in spakin' that way. I agree wid
Antony, that you ought to throw in the 'slip.'"
"Is it what I have to pay my next gale o' rint wid? No, no! If he won't
marry her widout it, she'll get as good that will."
"Saize the 'slip," said Phelim, "the darlin' herself here is all the
slip I want."
"But I'm not so," said Larry, "the 'slip' must go in, or it's a brake
off. Phelim can get girls that has money enough to buy us all out o'
root. Did you hear that, Paddy Donovan?"
"I hear it," said Paddy, "but I'll b'lieve as much of it as I like."
Phelim apprehended that as his father got warm with the liquor, he
might, in vindicating the truth of his own assertion, divulge the affair
of the old housekeeper.
"Ould man," said he "have sinse, an' pass that over, if you have any
regard for Phelim."
"I'd not be brow-bate into anything," observed Donovan.
"Sowl, you would not," said Phelim; "for my part, Paddy, I'm ready to
marry your daughther (a squeeze to Peggy) widout a ha'p'orth at all,
barrin' herself. It's the girl I want, an' not the slip."
"Thin, be the book, you'll get both, Phelim, for your dacency," said
Donovan; "but, you see I wouldn't be bullied into' puttin' one foot past
the other, for the best man that ever stepped on black leather.
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