You watch your cattle the summer day, Sup on potatoes, sleep in the hay; How would you like to roll in your carriage, Look for a duchess's daughter in marriage? Seize the Shoemaker--then you may! "Big boots a-hunting, Sandals in the hall, White for a wedding-feast, Pink for a ball. This way, that way, So we make a shoe; Getting rich every stitch, Tick-tack-too!" Nine-and-ninety treasure-crocks This keen miser-fairy hath, Hid in mountains, woods, and rocks, Ruin and round-tow'r, cave and rath, And where the cormorants build; From times of old Guarded by him; Each of them fill'd Full to the brim With gold! III. I caught him at work one day, myself, In the castle-ditch, where foxglove grows,-- A wrinkled, wizen'd, and bearded Elf, Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose, Silver buckles to his hose, Leather apron--shoe in his lap-- "Rip-rap, tip-tap, Tick-tack-too! (A grasshopper on my cap! Away the moth flew!) Buskins for a fairy prince, Brogues for his son,-- Pay me well, pay me well, When the job is done!" The rogue was mine, beyond a doubt. I stared at him; he stared at me; "Servant, Sir!" "Humph!" says he, And pull'd a snuff-box out. He took a long pinch, look'd better pleased, The queer little Lepracaun; Offer'd the box with a whimsical grace,-- Pouf! he flung the dust in my face, And, while I sneezed, Was gone! [Footnote 11: "Yellow bird," the yellow-bunting, or _yorlin_.] MASTER AND MAN. T. CROFTON CROKER. Billy Mac Daniel was once as likely a young man as ever shook his brogue at a patron,[12] emptied a quart, or handled a shillelagh; fearing for nothing but the want of drink; caring for nothing but who should pay for it; and thinking of nothing but how to make fun over it; drunk or sober, a word and a blow was ever the way with Billy Mac Daniel; and a mighty easy way it is of either getting into or of ending a dispute. More is the pity that, through the means of his thinking, and fearing, and caring for nothing, this same Billy Mac Daniel fell into bad company; for surely the good people are the worst of all company any one could come across. It so happened that Billy was going home one clear frosty night not long after Christmas; the moon was round and bright; but although it was as fine a night as heart could wish for, he felt pinched with cold. "By my word," chattered Billy, "a drop of good liquor would be no bad thing to keep a man's soul from freezing in him; and I wish I had a full measure of the best."