_Teag._ That’s what I did, but he reads a paternoster out of his prayer book, wherein all our names are written; so much for a stop-hold to my gun, to bucklers, to a pair of comical harn-hose, with leather buttons from top to toe; and worst of all, he would have no less than a penny a week, to a doctor; arra, said I, I never had a sore finger, nor yet a sick toe, all the days of my life, then what have I to do with the doctor, or the doctor to do with me. _Tom._ And did he make you pay all these things? _Teag._ Ay, ay, pay and better pay: he took me before his captain, who made me pay all was in his book. Arra, master captain, said I, you are a comical sort of a fellow now, you might as well make me pay for my coffin before I be dead, as to pay for a doctor before I be sick; to which he answered in a passion, sir, said he, I have seen many a better man buried without a coffin; sir, said I, then I’ll have a coffin, die when I will, if there be as much wood in all the world, or I shall not be buried at all. Then he called for the sergeant, saying, you sir, go and buy that man’s coffin, and put it in the store till he die, and stop sixpence a week of his pay for it: No, no, sir, said I, I’ll rather die without a coffin, and seek none when I’m dead, but if you are for clipping another sixpence off my pay, keep it all to yourself, and I’ll swear all your oaths of agreement we had back again, and then seek soldiers where you will. _Tom._ O then Paddy, how did you end the matter? _Teag._ Arra, dear shoy, by the nights of shaint Patrick and help of my brogues, I both ended it, and mended it, for the next night before that, I gave them leg bail for my fidelity, and went about the country a fortune-teller, dumb and deaf as I was not. _Tom._ How old was you Paddy when you was a soldier last? _Teag._ Arra, dear honey, I was three dozen all but two, and it is only two years since, so I want only four years of three dozen yet, and when I live six dozen more, I’ll be older than I am, I’ll warrant you. _Tom._ O but Paddy, by your account, you are three dozen of years old already. _Teag._ O what for a big fool are you now Tom, when you count the years I lay sick; which time I count no time at all. A NEW CATECHISM, &c. _Tom._ Of all the opinions professed in religion tell me now, Paddy, of what profession art thou? _Teag._ Arra, dear shoy, my religion was too weighty a matter to carry out of mine own country: I was afraid that you English Presbyterians should pluck it away from me. _Tom._ What, Paddy, was your religion such a load that you could not carry it along with you? _Teag._ Yes, that it was, but I carried it always about with me when at home my sweet cross upon my dear breast, bound to my dear button hole. _Tom._ And what manner of worship did you perform by that? _Teag._ Why I adored the cross, the pope, and the priest, cursed Oliver as black as crow, and swears myself a cut throat against all Protestants and church of Englandmen.