“I think, Mave, there’s a discrepancy between the goose and the shoulder of mutton.  The fact is, that if it be a disputation between them, as to which will be roasted first, I pronounce that the goose will have it.  It’s now, let me see, half past four o’clock, and, in my opinion, it will take a full half hour to bring up the mutton.  So Mave, if you’ll be guided by your priest, advance the mutton towards the fire about two inches, and keep the little girsha basting steadily, and then you’ll be sure to have it rich and juicy.”

“Docthor, wid submission, I was wantin’ to know what a good parish might be—­”

“Mike Lawdher, if I don’t mistake, you ought to have good grazing down in your meadows at Ballinard.  What will you be charging for a month or two’s grass for this colt I’ve bought from my dacent friend, Denis O’Shaughnessy, here?  And, Mike, be rasonable upon a poor man, for we’re all poor, being only tolerated by the state we live under, and ought not, of course, to be hard upon one another.”

“An’ what did he cost you, Docthor?” replied Mike, answering one question by another; “what did you get for him, Denis?” he continued, referring for information to Denis, to whom, on reflection, he thought it more decorous to put the question.

Denis, however, felt the peculiar delicacy of his situation, and looked at the priest, whilst the latter, under a momentary embarrassment, looked significantly at Denis.  His Reverence, however, was seldom at a loss.

“What would you take him to be worth, Mike?” he asked; “remember he’s but badly trained, and I’m sure it will cost me both money and trouble to make anything dacent out of him.”

“If you got him somewhere between five and twenty and thirty guineas, I would say you have good value for your money, plase your Reverence.  What do you say, Denis—­am I near it?”

“Why, Mike, you know as much about a horse as you do about the Pentateuch or Paralipomenon.  Five and twenty guineas, indeed!  I hope you won’t set your grass as you would sell your horses.”

“Why, thin, if your Reverence ped ready money for him, I maintain he was as well worth twenty guineas as a thief’s worth the gallows; an’ you know, sir, I’d be long sorry to differ wid you.  Am I near it now, Docthor?”

“Denis got for the horse more than that,” said his Reverence, “and he may speak for himself.”

“Thrue for you, sir,” replied Denis; “I surely got above twenty guineas for him, an’ I’m well satisfied wid the bargain.”

“You hear that now, Mike—­you hear what he says.”

“There’s no goin’ beyant it,” returned Mike; “the proof o’ the puddin’ is in the atin,’ as we’ll soon know, Mave—­eh, Docthor?”

“I never knew Mave to make a bad one,” said the priest, “except upon the day Friar Hennessy dined with me here—­my curate was sick, and I had to call in the Friar to assist me at confession; however, to do Mave justice, it was not her fault, for the Friar drowned the pudding, which was originally a good one, with a deluge of strong whiskey.”