_Christy._ It don’t signify, Florry; I’ve granted myself a gineral sarch-warrant; dear, for the kay; and, by the blessing, I’ll go clane to the bottom o’ this chist. (_Miss GALLAGHER writhes in agony._) Why, what makes you stand twisting there like an eel or an ape, child?--What, in the name of the ould one, is it you’re afeard on?--Was the chist full now of love-letter scrawls from the grand signior or the pope himself, you could not be more tinder of them. _Miss G._ Tinder, sir!--to be sure, when it’s my best bonnet I’m thinking on, which you are mashing entirely. _Christy._ Never fear, dear! I won’t mash an atom of the bonnet, provided always, you’ll mash these apples for me, jewel. (_He takes apples out of the chest._) And wasn’t I lucky to find them in it? Oh, I knew I’d not sarch this chist for nothing. See how they’ll make an iligant apple-pie for Mr. Gilbert now, who loves an iligant apple-pie above all things--your iligant self always excipted, dear. [_Miss GALLAGHER makes a slight curtsy, but motions the apples from her._ _Miss G._ Give the apples then to the girl, sir, and she’ll make you the pie, for I suppose she knows how. _Christy._ And don’t you, then, Florry? _Miss G._ And how should I, sir?--You didn’t send me to the dancing-school of Ferrinafad to larn me to make apple-pies, I conclude. _Christy._ Troth, Florry, ‘twas not I sint you there, sorrow foot but your mother; only she’s in her grave, and it’s bad to be talking ill of the dead any way. But be that how it will, Mr. Gilbert must get the apple-pie, for rasons of my own that need not be mintioned. So, Biddy! Biddy, girl! Biddy Doyle! _Enter BIDDY, running, with a ladle in her hand._ _Christy._ Drop whatever you have in your hand, and come here, and be hanged to you! And had you no ears to your head, Biddy? _Biddy._ Sure I have, sir--ears enough. Only they are bothering me so without, that pig and the dog fighting, that I could not hear ye calling at-all-at-all. What is it?--For I’m skimming the pot, and can’t lave it. [_Miss GALLAGHER goes on dressing_ _Christy._ It’s only these apples, see!--You’ll make me an apple-pie, Biddy, smart. _Biddy._ Save us, sir!--And how will I ever get time, when I’ve the hash to make for them Scotch yet? Nor can I tell, for the life of me, what it was I did with the onions and scallions neither, barring by great luck they’d be in and under the press here--(_running to look under the press_)--which they are, praised be God! in the far corner. [_BIDDY stretches her arm under the press._ _Christy._ There’s a nice girl, and a ‘cute cliver girl, worth a dozen of your Ferrinafads. [_BIDDY throws the onions out from under the press, while he speaks._ _Miss G._ Then she’s as idle a girl as treads the earth, in or out of shoe-leather, for there’s my bed that she has not made yet, and the stairs with a month’s dust always; and never ready by any chance to do a pin’s worth for one, when one’s dressing.