Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/122

CH. VIII.] You say to a man who is suffering under some continued hardship:—'This distress is only temporary: have patience and things will come round soon again.' 'O yes indeed; Live horse till you get grass.'

A person in your employment is not giving satisfaction; and yet you are loth to part with him for another: 'Better is the devil you know than the devil you don't know.'

'Least said, soonest mended.'

'You spoke too late,' as the fool said when he swallowed a bad egg, and heard the chicken chirp going down his throat.

'Good soles bad uppers.' Applied to a person raised from a low to a high station, who did well enough while low, but in his present position is overbearing and offensive.

I have done a person some service: and now he ill-naturedly refuses some reasonable request. I say: ‘Oh wait: apples will grow again.’ He answers—‘Yes if the trees baint cut’—a defiant and ungrateful answer, as much as to say—you may not have the opportunity to serve me, or I may not want it.

Turf or peat was scarce in Kilmallock (Co. Limerick): whence the proverb, ‘A Kilmallock fire—two sods and a kyraun’ (a bit broken off of a sod).

People are often punished even in this world for their misdeeds: ‘God Almighty often pays debts without money.’ (Wicklow.)

I advise you not to do so without the master's permission:—‘Leave is light.’ A very general saying.