Page:Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh (1903).djvu/93

Rh bounced up and down in their sates, they shouted and got purple in the face. But every argyment brought out another nearly as good and twict as loud.

Through all this time the follyers of the King sat upon their perches or lay upon the table motionless, like little wooden images with painted green cloaks and brown caps.

Darby, looking from one to the other of them for help to undherstand the thraymendous argyment that was goin’ on, felt his brain growin’ numb. At last it balked like Shamus Free’s donkey, and urge as he would, the divil a foot his mind’d stir afther the two hayros. It turned at last and galloped back to Mrs. Morrisey’s wake.

Now, thin, the thought that came into Darby’s head as he sat there ferninst Father Cassidy an’ the King was this:

“The two wisest persons in Ireland are this min- ute shouting and disputing before me own turf fire. If I ax them those questions, I’ll be wiser than Maur- teen Cavanaugh, the schoolmaster, an’ twict as wise as any other man in this parish. I’ll do it,” he says to himself.

He raised the tongs and struck them so loud and Rh