In holding
this dialogue, however, the men were only thinking aloud, and giving
utterance to the wishes which every inhuman knave of their kind feels.
In compliance, however, with the objections which maybe brought against
the probability of the above dialogue, we will now give the one which
did actually occur, and then appeal to our readers whether the first is
not much more in keeping with the character of the speakers--which ought
always to be a writer's great object--than the second. Now, the reader
already knows that each of these men had three or four large arks of
meal laid past until the arrival of a failure in the crops and a season
of famine, and that Murray had three large stacks of hay in the hope of
a similar failure in the meadow crop.
"Good-morrow, Jemmy."
"Good-morrow kindly, Cooney; isn't this a fine saison, the Lord be
praised!"
"A glorious saison, blessed be His name! I don't think ever I remimber a
finer promise of the craps."
"Throth, nor I, the meadows is a miracle to look at."
"Divil a thing else--but the white, an' oats, an' early potatoes, beat
anything ever was seen."
"Throth, the poor will have them for a song, Jemmy."
"Ay, or for less, Cooney; they'll be paid for takin' them."
"It's enough to raise one's heart, Jemmy, just to think of it."
"Why then it is that, an', for the same raison, come up to the house
above, and we'll have a sup on the head of it; sure, it's no harm to
drink success to the craps, and may God prevent a failure, any how.
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