"High feeding! Come, come, Bill, you know you didn't taste a morsel these four-and-twenty hours." "You know that's a bounce, Nick. I eat a breakfast this morning that would put a stone of flesh on you, if you only smelt at it." "No matter; this is not to the purpose. What's that you were muttering to yourself awhile ago? If you want to come to the brunt, here I'm for you." "Nick," said Bill, "you're complate; you want nothing barring a pair of Brian O'Lynn's breeches." Bill, in fact, was bent on making his companion open the bargain, because he had often heard that, in that case, with proper care on his own part, he might defeat him in the long run. The other, however, was his match. "What was the nature of Brian's garment," inquired Nick. "Why, you know the song," said Bill-- "'Brian O'Lynn had no breeches to wear, So he got a sheep's skin for to make him a pair; With the fleshy side out and the woolly side in, They'll be pleasant and _cool_, says Brian O'Lynn.' "A _cool_ pare would sarve you, Nick." "You're mighty waggish to-day, Misther Dawson." "And good right I have," said Bill; "I'm a man snug and well to do in the world; have lots of money, plenty of good eating and drinking, and what more need a man wish for?" "True," said the other; "in the meantime it's rather odd that so respectable a man should not have six inches of unbroken cloth in his apparel. You are as naked a tatterdemalion as I ever laid my eyes on; in full dress for a party of scare-crows, William." "That's my own fancy, Nick; I don't work at my trade like a gentleman. This is my forge dress, you know." "Well, but what did you summon me here for?" said the other; "you may as well speak out, I tell you; for, my good friend, unless _you_ do, _I_ shan't. Smell that." "I smell more than that," said Bill; "and by the way, I'll thank you to give me the windy side of you--curse all sulphur, I say. There, that's what I call an improvement in my condition. But as you _are_ so stiff," says Bill, "why, the short and long of it is--that--hem--you see I'm--tut--sure you know I have a thriving trade of my own, and that if I like I needn't be at a loss; but in the meantime I'm rather in a kind of a so--so--don't you _take_?" And Bill winked knowingly, hoping to trick him into the first proposal. "You must speak above-board, my friend," says the other. "I'm a man of few words, blunt and honest. If you have anything to say, be plain. Don't think I can be losing my time with such a pitiful rascal as you are." "Well," says Bill, "I want money, then, and am ready to come into terms. What have you to say to that, Nick?" "Let me see--let me look at you," says his companion, turning him about. "Now, Bill, in the first place, are you not as finished a scare-crow as ever stood upon two legs?" "I play second fiddle to you there again," says Bill. "There you stand, with the blackguards' coat of arms quartered under your eye, and----"