Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/129

 114 A man of property gets into hopeless debt and difficulty by neglecting his business, and his creditors sell him out. 'Well, how did he get out of it?' asks a neighbour. 'Oh, he got out of it just by a break-up, as Katty got out of the pot.' This is how Katty got out of the pot. One day at dinner in the kitchen Katty Murphy the servant girl sat down on a big pot (as I often saw women do)—for seats were scarce; and in the middle of the dinner, through some incautious movement, down she went. She struggled to get up, but failed. Then the others came to help her, and tugged and pulled and tried in every way, but had to give it up; till at last one of them brought a heavy hammer, and with one blow made smithereens of the pot.

'Putting a thing on the long finger' means postponing it.

On the evil of procrastination:—'Time enough lost the ducks.' The ducks should have been secured at once as it was known that a fox was prowling about. But they were not, and——

'Will you was never a good fellow.' The bad fellow says 'Will you have some lunch?' (while there is as yet nothing on the table), on the chance that the visitor will say 'No, thank you.' The good hospitable man asks no questions, but has the food brought up and placed before the guest.

'Cut the gad next the throat': that is to say, attend to the most urgent need first. You find a man hanging by a gad (withe), and you cut him down to save him. Cutting the gad next the throat explains itself.

When a work must be done slowly:—'I will do