Page:Comical sayings of Paddy from Cork (6).pdf/19

19 noster out of his prayer book, wherein all our names are written; so much for a stop-hold to my gun, to bucklers, to a pair of comical bare-hose, with leather buttons from top to toe; and worst of all, he would have no less than a penny a week, to a doc- tor; arra, said I, I never had a sore finger, nor yet sick toe, all the days of my life, then what have I to do with the doctor or the doctor to do with me.

Tom. And did he make you pay all these things?

Teag. Ay, ay, pay and better pay; he took me before his captain, who made me pay all was in his book. Arra, master captain, said I, you are a comical sort of a fellow now, you might as well make me pay for my coffin before I be dead, is to pay for doctor before I be sick; to which he answered in a passion, sirra, said he I have seen many a better man buried without a coffin; sir, said I, then I'll have a coffin, die when I will, if there be as much wood in all the world, or I shall not be buried at all. Then he all'd for the sergeant, saying, you sir, go and buy hat man's coffin, and put it in the store till he die, and stop sixpence a week of his pay for it: No, no, ir, said I, I'll rather die without a coffin, and seek one when I am dead, but if you are for clipping another sixpence on my poor pay, keep it all to yourself, and I'll swear all your oaths of agreement we had back again, and then seek soldiers where you will.

Tom. O then Paddy how did you end the matter?

Teag. Arra, dear shoy, by the nights of shaint. Patrick and help of my brogues, I both ended it, and mended it, for the next night before that I gave them leg-ball for my fidelity, and went about the country a fortune-teller, dumb and deaf as I was not.

Tom How old was you Paddy: when you was soldier last?

Teag. Arra, dear houey, I was three dozen all but wo, and it is only two years since, so I want only our years of three dozen yet, and when I live six dozen more, I'll be older than I am, I'll warrand you,