This was evidently appreciated by the tinker, for his face was an odd mixture of grotesque solemnity and keen enjoyment. Patsy was altogether too flustered to diagnose his expression, but it added considerably to the temperature of the O'Connell temper. In view of the civilized surroundings and her state of dignity Patsy had taken to King's English with barely a hint of her native brogue. "If you are the tinker--and I presume you are--I should very much appreciate an explanation. Would you mind telling me how you happened to be hanging onto that stump, in rags, and looking half-witted when I--when I came by?" "Why--just because I was a tinker," he laughed. "Then what are you now?" "Once a tinker, always a tinker. I'm just a good-for-nothing; good to mend other people's broken pots, and little else; knowing more about birds than human beings, and poor company for any one saving the very generous-hearted." Patsy stamped her foot. "Why can't you play fair? Isn't it only decent to tell who you are and what you were doing on the road when I found you?" "You know as well as I what I was doing--hanging onto the stump and trying to gather my wits. And don't you think it would be nicer if you talked Irish? It doesn't make a lad feel half as comfortable or as much at home when he is addressed in such perfect English." Patsy snorted. "In a minute I'll not be addressing you at all. Do you think, if I had known you were what you are, I would ever have been so--so brazen as to ask for your company and tramp along with you for--_two_ days--or be here, now? Oh!" she finished, with a groan and a fierce clenching of her fists. "No, I don't think so. That's why I didn't hurry about gathering up the wits; it seemed more sociable without them. I wouldn't have bothered with them now, only I couldn't stay in those rags any longer; it wouldn't have been kind to the furniture or the people who own it. These togs were the only things that came anywhere near to fitting me; and, somehow, a three-days' beard didn't match them. Lucky for me, Heaven blessed the house with a good razor, and, presto! when the beard and the rags were gone the wits came back. I'm awfully sorry if you don't like them--the wits, I mean." "Sure, ye must be!" Unconsciously Patsy had stepped back onto her native sod and her tongue fairly dripped with irony. "So ye thought ye'd have a morsel o' fun at the expense of a strange lass, while ye laughed up your sleeve at how clever ye were." "See here! don't be too hard, please! That foolishness was real enough; I had just been knocked over the head by the kind gentleman from whom I borrowed the rags. I paid him a tidy sum for the use of them, and evidently he thought it was a shame to leave me burdened with the balance of my money. Arguing wouldn't have done any good, so he took the simplest way--just sandbagged me and--" "Was it much money?" "Mercy, no! Just a few dollars, hardly worth the anaesthesia." "And ye were--half-witted, then?"