Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/298

Rh hundhred years or so.” Darby glared, scornful, at the King.

“Vo! Vo! Vo!” wailed the head, “but you’re like her. If it wasn’t for yer bunchy red hair, an’ for the big brown wen that was on her forehead, ye’d be as like as two pase.”

“Arrah,” says Darby, brustlin’, “I’m ashamed to see a man of yer sinse an’ station,” he says, “an’ high dictation⸺”

“Lave off!” broke in the King, pulling Darby be the sleeve. “Come inside! Whatever else you do, rayspect the sintimintalities—there all we have to live for, ghost or mortial,” says he.

So, grumbling, Darby took a place within the coach beside his friend. He filled his poipe, an’ was borrying a bit of fire from that of the King, whin looking up he saw just back of the dhriver’s seat, and opening into the carriage, a square hole of about the height an’ the width of yer two hands. An’ set agin the hole, starin’ affectionate down at him, was the head, an’ it smiling langwidging.

“Be this an’ be that,” Darby growled low to the King, “if he don’t take his face out of that windy, ghost or no ghost, I’ll take a poke at him!” Rh