‘Impossible,’ said O’Flaherty.  ’There now, was Tommy Shycock, of Ballybaisly, that larned himself to balance a fiddle-stick on his chin; and the young leedies, and especially Miss Kitty Mahony, used to be all around him in the ball-room at Thralee, lookin’, wondhrin’, and laughin’; and I that had twiste his brains, could not come round it, though I got up every morning for a month at four o’clock, and was obleeged to give over be rason of a soart iv a squint I was gettin’ be looking continually at the fiddle-stick.  I began with a double bass, the way he did—­it’s it that was the powerful fateaguin’ exercise, I can tell you.  Two blessed hours a-day, regular practice, besides an odd half-hour, now and agin, for three mortial years, it took him to larn it, and dhrilled a dimple in his chin you could put a marrow-fat pay in.’

‘Practice,’ resumed Puddock, I need not spell his lisp, ’study—­time to devote—­industry in great things as in small—­there’s the secret. Nature, to be sure—­’

’Ay, Nature, to be sure—­we must sustain Nature, dear Puddock, so pass the bottle,’ said Devereux, who liked his glass.

‘Be the powers, Mr. Puddock, if I had half your janius for play-acting,’ persisted O’Flaherty, ’nothing i’d keep me from the boards iv Smock-alley play-house—­incog., I mean, of course.  There’s that wonderful little Mr. Garrick—­why he’s the talk of the three kingdoms as long as I can remember—­an’ making his thousand pounds a week—­coining, be gannies—­an’ he can’t be much taller than you, for he’s contimptably small.’

‘I’m the taller man of the two,’ said little Puddock, haughtily, who had made enquiries, and claimed half an inch over Rocius, honestly, let us hope.  ’But this is building castles in the air; joking apart, however, I do confess I should dearly love—­just for a maggot—­to play two parts—­Richard the Third and Tamerlane.’

’Was not that the part you spoke that sympathetic speech out of for me before dinner?’

‘No, that was Justice Greedy,’ said Devereux.

‘Ay, so it was—­was it?—­that smothered his wife.’

‘With a pudding clout,’ persisted Devereux.

‘No.  With a—­pooh!—­a—­you know—­and stabbed himself,’ continued O’Flaherty.

‘With a larding-pin—­’tis written in good Italian.’

’Augh, not at all—­it isn’t Italian, but English, I’m thinking of—­a pilla, Puddock, you know—­the black rascal.’

‘Well, English or Italian—­tragedy or comedy,’ said Devereux, who liked Puddock, and would not annoy him, and saw he was hurt by Othello’s borrowing his properties from the kitchen; ’I venture to say you were well entertained:  and for my part, Sir, there are some characters’—­(in farce Puddock was really highly diverting)—­’in which I prefer Puddock to any player I every saw.’

‘Oh—­ho—­ho!’ laughed poor little Puddock, with a most gratified derisiveness, for he cherished in secret a great admiration for Devereux.