Page:English as we speak it in Ireland - Joyce.djvu/34

CH. III.] not much to boast of.' Lever has this in a song:—'You think the Blakes are no great shakes.' But I think it is also used in England.

A consequential man who carries his head rather higher than he ought:—'He thinks no small beer of himself.'

Mrs. Slattery gets a harmless fall off the form she is sitting on, and is so frightened that she asks of the person who helps her up, 'Am I killed?' To which he replies ironically—'Oh there's great fear of you.' ('Knocknagow.')

[Alice Ryan is a very purty girl] 'and she doesn't want to be reminded of that same either.' ('Knocknagow.')

A man has got a heavy cold from a wetting and says: 'That wetting did me no good,' meaning 'it did me great harm.'

'There's a man outside wants to see you, sir,' says Charlie, our office attendant, a typical southern Irishman. 'What kind is he Charlie? does he look like a fellow wanting money?' Instead of a direct affirmative, Charlie answers, 'Why then sir I don't think he'll give you much anyway.'

'Are people buried there now?' I asked of a man regarding an old graveyard near Blessington in Wicklow. Instead of answering 'very few,' he replied: 'Why then not too many sir.'

When the roads are dirty—deep in mire—'there's fine walking overhead.'

In the Irish Life of St. Brigit we are told of a certain chief:—'It was not his will to sell the bondmaid,' by which is meant, it was his will not to sell her.