Before long I got into talk with the old man next me, and as soon as I did so the women and girls stopped their talk and leaned out to hear what we were saying.

He asked first if I belonged to Dingle, and I told him I did not.

‘Well,’ he said, ’you speak like a Kerry man, and you’re dressed like a Kerry man, so you belong to Kerry, surely.’

I told him I was born and bred in Dublin, and that I had travelled in many places in Ireland and beyond it.

‘That’s easy said,’ he answered, ’but I’d take an oath you were never beyond Kerry to this day.’

Then he asked sharply:  ‘What do you do?’

I answered something about my wanderings in Europe, and suddenly he sat up, as if a new thought had come to him.

‘Maybe you’re a wealthy man?’ he said.  I smiled complacently.

‘And about thirty-five?’

I nodded.

‘And not married?’

‘No.’

‘Well then,’ he said, ’you’re a damn lucky fellow to be travelling the world with no one to impede you.’

Then he went on to discuss the expenses of travelling.

‘You’ll likely be paying twenty pounds for this trip,’ he said, ’ with getting your lodging and buying your tickets, till you’re back in the city of Dublin?’

I told him my expenses were not so heavy.

‘Maybe you don’t drink so,’ said his wife, who was near us, ’and that way your living wouldn’t be so costly at all.’

An interruption was made by a stop at a small station and the entrance of a ragged ballad-singer, who sang a long ballad about the sorrows of mothers who see all their children going away from them to America.

Further on, when the carriage was much emptier, a middle-aged man got in, and we began discussing the fishing season, Aran fishing, hookers, nobbies, and mackerel.  I could see, while we were talking, that he, in his turn, was examining me with curiosity.  At last he seemed satisfied.

‘Begob,’ he said, ‘I see what you are; you’re a fish-dealer.’

It turned out that he was the skipper of a trawler, and we had a long talk, the two of us and a local man who was going to Dingle also.

‘There was one time a Frenchman below,’ said the skipper, ’who got married here and settled down and worked with the rest of us.  One day we were outside in the trawler, and there was a French boat anchored a bit of a way off.  “Come on,” says Charley—­that was his name—­” and see can we get some brandy from that boat beyond.”  “How would we get brandy,” says I, “when we’ve no fish, or meat, or cabbages or a thing at all to offer them?” He went down below then to see what he could get.  At that time there were four men only working the trawler, and in the heavy season there were eight.  Well, up he comes again and eight plates under his arm.  “There are eight plates,” says he, “and four will do us; so we’ll take out the other four and make a swap with them for brandy.”  With that he set the eight plates on the deck and began walking up and down and looking on them.