“Now, there's many that would have run away, and broke their necks down the rock, at hearing the crature call them by their names, and say this; but I'm one that never feared Banshee Lepreghaun, or any one of the little people, good, bad, or indifferent;--why should I?--So I pulled off my hat, and making a leg to him,--'Sir,' says I, 'if I'd known as much, I'd have come before.' “'Thank you kindly, Mick Maguire,' says he. 'No thanks to me thin, at all at all,' thinks I, 'if you knew what I know:' for I was determined to devour him, if he was ateable. 'And it's by my own name you call me, sir,' says I, 'is it?' “'To be sure it is,' says he; you wouldn't have me call you out of your name,--would you?'--And thin he fell laughing, as though his little face would have tumbled to pieces: and, faith! of all the faces I ever set eyes on, I never saw the likes of his for a roguish look.--'You wouldn't have me call you out of your name, would you, Mick?' says he again. “'Why, thin, no I wouldn't, and that's truth,' says I; 'but what's your own name? I'd like to know, so I would,' says L “'I dare say you would,' says he. “'And after that,' says I, 'I'd be glad if you'd tell me a small trifle about yourself, and how you live in your little house there, whin you shut down the roof of it; and thin--' “'Bad manners to you Mick,' says he; 'don't be prying into a person's domestic arrangements.'--Them were his words. 'Mind your own business,' says he; 'and ax me no questions about mee-self; for, may be, I won't answer them.' “'But, sir,' says I, thinking to get all I could out of him, before I ate him; 'sir,' says I, 'it isn't every day one sees, betuxt a pair of oysther-shells--' “'Oh! Mick!' says he, 'there's more out o' the way things than meeself, in the sea.' “'I shouldn't wonder, sir,' says I. “'There is, Mick,' says he; 'take my word for it.' “'I'm sure of it, sir,' says I; 'and yet people says there's no mermaids even: now meeself saw one once, and she'd a fish's tail, and big fins below; and above she was as like a man, as one brogue is like another. Now, sir, I'd like to know your opinion.' “'Mick,' says he; 'was it in the bay yourself saw the mermaid?' “'Faith! and it was,' says I. “'Just four years ago,' says he, 'Mick?'