Ah! Ow! Don’t be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click.
And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred scrolls of law and with him his lady wife, a dame of peerless lineage, fairest of her race.
Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney’s snug, squeezed up with the laughing, and who was sitting up there in the corner that I hadn’t seen snoring drunk, blind to the world, only Bob Doran. I didn’t know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the door. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen in his bath slippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman trotting like a poodle. I thought Alf would split.
―Look at him, says he. Breen. He’s traipsing all round Dublin with a postcard someone sent him with u. p. : up on it to take a li …
And he doubled up.
―Take a what? says I.
―Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds.
―O hell! says I.
The bloody mongrel began to growl that’d put the fear of God in you seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs.
― Bi i dho husht, says he.
―Who? says Joe.