“Allowance! what do you mean by allowance?”

“I mane,” he replied, “that there’s not such a crew of barefaced liars on the airth as you English travellers, as they call you.  What do you think, but one of them had the imperance to tell me that he was allowed a guinea a-day to live on!  Troth, I crossed mysolf, and bid him go about his business, an’ that I didn’t think the house or place was safe while he was in it—­for it’s I that has the mortal hatred of a liar.”

“What liquor have you got in the house?”

“No—­if there’s one thing on airth that I hate worse than another, it’s a man that shuffles—­that won’t tell the truth, or give you a straight answer.  We have plenty o’ liquor in the house—­more than you’ll use, at any rate.”

“But what descriptions?  How many kinds? for instance—­”

“Kinds enough, for that matther—­all sorts and sizes of liquor.”

“Have you any wine?”

“Wine!  Well, now, let me speak to you as a friend; sure, ’t is n’t wine you’d be thinking of?”

“But, if I pay for it?”

“Pay for it—­ay, and break yourself—­go beyant your manes, as I said.  No, no—­I’ll give you no wine—­it would be only aidin’ you in extravagance, an’ I wouldn’t have the sin of it to answer for.  We have all enough, and too much to answer for, God knows.”

The last observation was made sotto voce, and with the serious manner of a man who uttered it under a deep sense of religious truth.

“Well,” replied the stranger, “since you won’t allow me wine, have you no cheaper liquor?  I am not in the habit of dining without something stronger than water.”

“So much the worse for yourself.  We have good porther.”

“Bring me a bottle of it, then.”

“It’s beautiful on draught.”

“But I prefer it in bottle.”

“I don’t doubt it.  Lord help us! how few is it that knows what’s good for them!  Will you give up your own will for wanst, and be guided by a wiser man? for health—­an’ sure health’s before everything—­for health, ever and always prefer draught porther.”

“Well, then, since it must be draught, I shall prefer draught ale.”

“Rank poison.  Troth, somehow I feel a liking for you, an’ for that very reason, devil a drop of draught ale I’ll allow to cross your lips.  Jist be guided by me, an’ you’ll find that your health an’ pocket will both be the betther for it.  Troth, it’s fat and rosy I’ll have you in no time, all out, if you stop with us.  Now ait your good dinner, and I’ll bring you the porther immediately.”

“What’s your name.” asked the stranger, “before you go.”

“I’ll tell you when I come back—­wait till I bring you the portlier, first.”

In the course of about fifteen mortal, minutes, he returned with a quart of porter in his hand, exclaiming—­

“Bad luck to them for pigs, they got into the garden, and I had to drive them out, and cut a lump of a bush to stop the gap wid; however, I think they won’t go back that way again.  My name you want?  Why, then, my name is Paudeen Gair—­that is, Sharpe, sir; but, in troth, it is n’t Sharpe by name and Sharpe by nature wid me, although you’d get them that ’ud say otherwise.”