“ ‘I’m carrying on,’ said I, ‘but you’re a long way from Ireland,’ I said, or thought I did.

“ ‘Ye’ve a lot o’ friends there,’ he answered. ‘An’ where the heart rests the feet are swift to follow. Not that I’m sayin’ I’d like to live here, Larry,’ said he.

“ ‘I know where my heart is now,’ I told him. ‘It rests on a girl with golden eyes and the hair and swan-white breast of Eilidh the Fair⁠—but me feet don’t seem to get me to her,’ I said.”

The brogue thickened.

“An’ the little man in green nodded his head an’ whirled his shillalah.