This impressive opening immediately attracted an audience from the shop, and the doorway filled with grinning faces as Slipper advanced farther into the room.

‘Why weren’t ye at the races, Mr. Flurry?’ he went on, his roving eye taking a grip of us all at the same time; ‘sure the Miss Bennetts and all the ladies was asking where were ye.’

‘It’d take some time to tell them that,’ said Flurry, with his mouth full; ‘but what about the races, Slipper? Had you good sport?’

‘Sport is it? Divil so pleasant an afternoon ever you seen,’ replied Slipper. He leaned against a side table, and all the glasses on it jingled. ‘Does your honour know O’Driscoll?’ he went on irrelevantly. ‘Sure you do. He was in your honour’s stable. It’s what we were all sayin’; it was a great pity your honour was not there, for the likin’ you had to Driscoll.’

‘That’s thrue,’ said a voice at the door.

‘There wasn’t one in the Barony but was gethered in it, through and fro,’ continued Slipper, with a quelling glance at the interrupter; ‘and there was tints for sellin’ porther, and whisky as pliable as new milk, and boys goin’ round the tints outside, feeling for heads with the big ends of their blackthorns, and all kinds of recreations, and the Sons of Liberty’s piffler and dhrum band from Skebawn; though faith! there was more of thim runnin’ to look at the races than what was playin’ in it; not to mintion different occasions that the bandmasther was atin’ his lunch within in the whisky tint.’

‘But what about Driscoll?’ said Flurry.

‘Sure it’s about him I’m tellin’ ye,’ replied Slipper, with the practised orator’s watchful eye on his growing audience. ‘’Twas within in the same whisky tint meself was, with the bandmasther and a few of the lads, an’ we buyin’ a ha’porth o’ crackers, when I seen me brave Driscoll landin’ into the tint, and a pair o’ thim long boots on him; him that hadn’t a shoe nor a stocking to his foot when your honour had him picking grass out o’ the stones behind in your yard. “Well,” says I to meself, “we’ll knock some spoort out of Driscoll!”

“‘Come here to me, acushla!” says I to him; “I suppose it’s some way wake in the legs y’are,” says I, “an’ the docthor put them on ye the way the people wouldn’t thrample ye!”

“‘May the divil choke ye!” says he, pleasant enough, but I knew by the blush he had he was vexed.

“‘Then I suppose ’tis a left-tenant colonel y’are,” says I; “yer mother must be proud out o’ ye!” says I, “an’ maybe ye’ll lend her a loan o’ thim waders when she’s rinsin’ yer bauneen in the river!” says I.

“‘There’ll be work out o’ this!” says he, lookin’ at me both sour and bitther.

“‘Well indeed, I was thinkin’ you were blue moulded for want of a batin’,” says I. He was for fightin’ us then, but afther we had him pacificated with about a quarther of a naggin o’ sperrits, he told us he was goin’ ridin’ in a race.

“‘An’ what’ll ye ride?” says I.

“‘Owld Bocock’s mare,” says he.

“‘Knipes!’ says I, sayin’ a great curse; “is it that little staggeen from the mountains; sure she’s somethin’ about the one age with meself,” says I. “Many’s the time Jamesy Geoghegan and meself used to be dhrivin’ her to Macroom with pigs an’ all soorts,” says I; “an’ is it leppin’ stone walls ye want her to go now?”

“‘Faith, there’s walls and every vari’ty of obstackle in it,” says he.